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Sound of Liberty
7286 Hwy 53 West Dawsonville,
GA
30534
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Having
the Right Slant on the Gospel
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Message Transcribed and
Edited
From Audio Tape #883
Preached on June 16, 2002
By Brother Ben Howard
Dawsonville, GA
First of all I’d like to say, “Happy Father’s Day,”
to all the fathers. I thank God for all the good
fathers. We just had a Mother’s Day, now we have a
Father’s Day. Those are days to honor our parents,
and it’s good. Like I said not to long ago in a
message; the father is the head of the house, but the
mother is the heart of the house. It takes both. You
can have a good head, but you need a good heart. God
looked at Adam and said that it wasn’t good for man to
be alone, so He made him a helpmeet. It’s the same
with Christ. He is the head of the Church; but we are
to have the feelings of the Church - to edify one
another. We’re the wife of Christ, the heart of the
Church. Therefore, Jesus said, “By this shall all men
know that you’re my disciples…, because you love one
another.”
The Word of God talks about edifying one another,
lifting one another up; the body having the same care
one member for another. It also makes good and clear
who the head of the Church is. Christ is the head of
all things which pertaineth to the Church; and so is
it in a home. A father can have a good head on him
and know how to make a living, but if a splinter gets
into a little ones finger, the mother is the one the
child runs to, because she is the heart of the house.
Having said that, I would like to take a thought and
title it, “Having the Right Slant on the Gospel.” I
looked up the word “slant.” It’s an amazing little
word, even in Webster’s Dictionary. You can use that
word in a lot of different conversations. You can use
it as being bias. When you look up the word bias, it
points you to slant. Sometimes you have to be a
little bit “bias” in this world, don’t you? I believe
Jesus was. I believe Paul was, as well as the other
true Saints of God were. They had the right slant on
the Word. This thought came to me this week.
When looking at what the apostle Paul taught, I
believe he had a specific goal in mind; the things
that he said pointed you in a certain direction. We
can read in the Word of God and we can find in there
about how the flood came, how Enoch walked with God,
how Moses delivered the Children of Israel, and all
these different things - everything in there is true
and is good; but when we come to the gospel, Paul
said, “The gospel of YOUR Salvation.” (Ephesians one)
We find out that when the gospel went to Israel there
were twelve apostles, but when it came to the Gentiles
there was one that was a little different from the
rest, and the other apostles didn’t associate much
with him. He was one born out of due season. Well,
he had a certain slant on the gospel which made it
just right for the Gentiles. In other words, he
didn’t get up and just quote scripture; he wasn’t
neutral. He pointed us in a certain direction; as you
will learn as you read this book.
You can read the Bible and be a neutral person as
to which way you’re going. There’s hardly anyone
today that won’t say they believe the Bible. If
you’d ask them if they believe the Bible they would
say, “Yes.” And most of the people would say, “Yes”
if you’d ask them if they believe that Jesus Christ
was born the Savior and walked around here in the
flesh. Now the point to this is that most everybody
says they believe the Bible. If you asked if they
believe that Jesus had twelve apostles, they’d say,
“Yes.” If you would ask if they believe there was a
man named John the Baptist; they would say, “Yes.”
But there is no certain slant to it. There is no
certain direction to it. They believe it in a neutral
sense. Now Paul had a gospel that got him in trouble;
because it challenged people. You could say that Paul
was “bias.” Well, I believe he was when it came to
the Gentiles, because he was the apostle to the
Gentiles. Even Peter and the others didn’t want a
whole lot to do with Paul. He was bias on the Word of
God as far as what Jesus came to do, what God did
through Jesus Christ, and what God was doing then. He
wasn’t happy just going along with the status quo.
They thought, “Paul is bias. He’s slanting it another
way.” Paul had to slant the gospel toward the
Gentiles with a revelation of grace for them, and in
doing so, his gospel angered the Jews. Now that being
said; then it is true that Paul was bias, and I’m so
glad he was.
Well, I want to preach this in relationship to a
dream that I had recently. You know how we were
talking about Father’s Day earlier, and I brought in
the point that the man is the head of the house, and
the woman is the heart. It kind of works together to
make it like the two wings of an eagle; it’ll fly.
Fly little eagle fly. You’ve got to have it all put
together for it to work right. The masculine part of
the body (the ministry) and the feminine part of the
body has to come together by revelation…, just like
Christ and the Bride - each doing their part…, the
head and the heart coming together.
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