How to teach God’s good news
in EasyEnglish
A guide for church leaders
Last part: Christians have a duty to declare the gospel
The world is a very beautiful place. But everyone realises that there is something very wrong about our world. Cruelty, evil acts and murders are common. Wicked people have great authority, and it seems impossible to escape from their power. And even the best people struggle to control the bad thoughts that sometimes fill their minds.
The Bible has an explanation of these facts. It says that God created a perfect world (Genesis 1:3-31; Proverbs 8:22-31). And he intended that people should be perfect, too (Ecclesiastes 7:29). But people chose not to be loyal to God (Genesis 3:1-19).
The result is that a state of war now exists between all people and God. People have made themselves God’s enemies.
Paul describes this terrible situation in Romans 3:10-18. He does not use his own words there. Instead, he repeats a series of passages from the Books of Psalms, Isaiah and Ecclesiastes. He does not need to explain those passages because they are very clear. Nobody is completely good. Everybody is guilty when God is the judge. All people do things that oppose God.
God created you and he is your judge. It is a terrible thing to be his enemy. We hope to escape from our enemies but nobody can escape from God (Psalm 139:7-8; Revelation 20:12-13). We hope that our enemies will be too weak to punish us. But God’s power is absolute (Revelation 19:1). When we think about these things, John 3:16 astonishes us. It tells us that God loves the people in this world. He does not want them to suffer as his enemies. He very much wants to save them. And he has provided the way by which that can happen. God can save people because of the death of Christ. God does it when people invite him into their lives.
We much prefer to speak about God’s love than to speak about people’s evil behaviour. But we desire to mend the broken relationship between people and God. A doctor must first understand the illness before he can cure it. And we must understand clearly how people have become God’s enemies.
Firstly, it is clear that people are God’s enemies because of their evil behaviour. It is not only their actions that are wrong. Their words (Matthew 5:22) and even their thoughts (Matthew 5:28; Romans 1:21) are also evil. Their own conscience tells them that these things are wrong (Romans 1:18-20). And the fact is even clearer for people who know God’s law (Romans 2:12).
God has declared his standards in the Ten Commandments, that is, the commands in Exodus 20:1-17. Jesus taught that people must obey every one of those commands completely (Matthew 5:19). James taught that people must not neglect even one of God’s commands. A person who does not obey one command has offended against them all (James 2:10-11).
When we think about these Bible passages, we realise a very important fact. All people are guilty in front of God, and not just the worst people. Nobody can ever prove that they have completely obeyed all of God’s laws. Even if someone’s actions were perfect, that person’s words or thoughts would prove him guilty. God’s standards are too high for anyone to achieve. See Romans 3:9-23.
Clearly, God considers that something is very wrong with people. It is not just their actions that are wrong. Jesus said that evil actions were just the result of something deep inside a person (Mark 7:20-23). In other words, the nature of people is wrong. There is something in our nature that opposes God. And that is why our behaviour, attitudes, desires, thoughts and actions are so often evil.
So, secondly, people are God’s enemies because of the evil nature that is in them. Of course God did not originally create people to have an evil nature. He wanted people to love him and to serve him gladly. So he allowed the first people to choose whether to be loyal to him or not.
They decided not to obey him. The Bible records how this decision changed completely both their nature and the nature of the world round them (Genesis chapter 3). Before it they were God’s friends, afterwards, they were his enemies. Before it, they could not die, afterwards, they were certain to die.
And the first people did not just make that decision for themselves. They made it on behalf of everyone born after them (Romans 5:12). It affects everyone, even from birth (Psalm 51:5).
Without Christ, there would be no hope for anyone.
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This article comes from the book: ‘How to teach God’s good news in EasyEnglish’ by Keith Simons, available as a free download below:
© 2013, Keith Simons.