Well after a very prolonged gap in posting, I would I would welcome everyone back with a look at a thoughtful and confronting book by one of the most prolific (and doctrinally sound) authors on Christian reading lists, John MacArthur.
(I've told myself I have to stop buying MacArthur books, as this one brought my collection tally to three books, which is more than any other author I can recall off the top of my head).
MacArthur writes in the face of increasing haziness over the "evangelical" (now a term of uncertain usage itself) church about the most basic of issues, from salvation to sanctification. All of these aspects of Christian life centre around the gospel - God's clear communication to the fallen (hu)man on receiving His grace through Jesus Christ instead of His everlasting wrath, which is each person's due reward.
It is precisely the clearness of this message given to us gradually in the Old Testament prophets and explicitly after the Resurrection of Christ through the proclamation of His teachings, which has been eroded by spiritual deception in recent times. This is the very thing I believe MacArthur is getting at in composing this book.
He demonstrates that just as God paid a great price to give us salvation and the gospel, through the sacrifice of His beloved and only begotten Son, so too is there a cost paid by everyone who accepts the Great Message. Indeed, as MacArthur puts it the "high cost" is offset by the "infinite value" of the result.
I bought this book because I was very confronted - as I have been on different occasions - by the "strait gate and narrow way" of Matthew's gospel and the need for us as disciples to be producing fruit if we are truly abiding in the Spirit and the True Vine of God.
If you are having struggles in some areas of your faith, are concerned with the modern methods of "disciple-making" in churches or have put your faith in a gospel that requires nothing of you but road-trip in cruise-control, you need to go back to Scripture and even look through the ages to see what the truth is in the matter.
I think MacArthur has done a good job in pointing us in this direction.
