This sermon emphasizes the dangers of the gospel of accommodation, which adapts and adjusts the message of the Gospel to suit the desires and weaknesses of sinful men. It warns against the propagation of a convenient gospel that avoids confronting sin and the true message of the cross, focusing on pleasing people rather than God. The speaker highlights the importance of preaching the full Gospel, including repentance, self-denial, and the offense of the cross, without compromising to attract a larger audience or for personal gain.

But whether they want to hear it or not, the Lord always sends forth watchmen to warn. He always does. He never does anything until he warns. The gospel of accommodation. Now to accommodate means to adapt. It means to make suitable or acceptable. It also means to adjust, to make something very convenient. It means to yield to the desires of others, to placate them. Now you put that together and I'm talking about a gospel that's been invented in hell and is now being propagated all over the United States. It's a suitable, acceptable, convenient gospel that has yielded to the desires and the weakness of sinful men. I call it the gospel of accommodation because it's adapting and adjusting the gospel to appease and attract sinners. This gospel of accommodation is primarily an American cultural invention to ease our lifestyle. It appeals primarily to white America, rich and prosperous. It was invented out of hell itself. This new gospel is sweeping the America and the nation. It's influencing ministers of every denomination. It's giving birth to megachurches. Some of the largest churches in the United States are involved in this gospel. It's a non-confronting, convenient gospel adapted. It is spoon-fed to the congregation by skits, humorous skits and drama, short, non-abrasive twenty-minute messages, and it's all called seeker-friendly, the seeker-friendly churches. One of these days there may be somebody move into the city and try to bring one of these churches right into New York City. They are springing up now overnight, and suddenly thousands attend. This new gospel is being propagated by bright, young, intelligent, talented ministers. It came upon a formula by which you can go into any city, in any town, and almost overnight build a megachurch. As I understand this formula, you begin by going into the community with your workers and you poll the community to find out what the sinner found offensive about attending church. Why don't you attend church, and what was offensive about it? What would we have to do to bring you back into the church? What would make you comfortable? What would you like to see? You don't like choirs? We'll do away with choirs. You don't like suits in church? Why don't you come the way you choose? Just tell us what you want. They survey the community and then sit in there with their computers and in their conference rooms and they design a program that will make it comfortable for the sinner and make it friendly. Rather than call it sinner-friendly, they would call it seeker-friendly, and try to attract them to come into the house of God. It's becoming the most prosperous, most flourishing of all religious movements in the history of America. The churches are run like corporations. The pastor is the CEO, chief executive officer, and it's big business. And this formula has now been cleverly packaged, and it is now being pushed in seminars all over the United States. It sounds good. What they say sounds very good. It sounds spiritual in its goals. It sounds like Jesus is the central theme. And, folks, I'm not going to name any names because I'm not talking about the character of these men. I'm talking about the gospel that they preach. I am here to remind you that Paul, the apostle, warned of the coming of another gospel which we have not preached. He said there is coming another gospel that's going to preach another Jesus. You'll hear his name. It'll sound sweet, but it's not the Jesus that I preach, Paul said. It's not the true Jesus. Paul goes on, or Paul was amazed, he said that you were so removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel. Folks, listen to me. There is in the land right now with thousands of people sitting under it another gospel, another Jesus being preached by ministers who have lost the touch of God and been transformed into angels of light to calm and to deceive, if possible, even the elect of God. Paul goes to warn the church, it's really not another gospel, but it's a perversion of the gospel of Christ, which is really not another, Paul said, but there'll be some that trouble you and pervert or change the gospel of Christ. He said they're going to change it. They're going to accommodate the sinner. They're going to accommodate their pleasures. They're going to accommodate all of their needs, and they're going to design a gospel with their own Christ, with their own doctrine. Then this awful warning from Paul, but though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, but that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed. Folks, I didn't say that, the apostle Paul said it. If anybody preached another gospel, what you've heard, if anyone preached anything but the crucified Christ, if anyone preached anything that appeases man in his sin, that's not the gospel you heard from me, Paul said, and anyone preaches another, let him be accursed. And he said it's going to be dangerous because it's going to come from seemingly pious, sincere ministers. That's what made the doctrine called antinomianism so dangerous, because it was in the hands of some very fine, good-living men like Dr. Christ, who was one of the founders of that anti-law movement back during the Puritan age, anti-law. They cast aside the burden of the law, and the reason it was so accepted, because the men who preached it seemed to be so pious. I tremble when I hear Paul warn us that Satan's going to come right into the church, disguised as an angel of light. He's going to infiltrate into the church with his own ministers. They'll come angel-like, he said, preaching a false gospel of righteousness. For such are false prophets, false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it's no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness. Whose ends will be according to their works. Paul said they're going to come, and they're going to glory in the flesh. They're going to glory in their might, their money. They're going to glory in their bigness, their numbers. And they're going to glory in the fact that they are so contemporary. They're going to glory in their acceptance by the world. Jesus warned, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing. They become like gentle sheep, sincere, intelligent, bright, but said in word, they're ravening wolves. And folks, Jesus gave that in the context of his message. He said, because straight is the gate, narrow is the way, which leadeth to life, and few there be that find it. And the very next verse, he says, beware of false prophets. You're going to come in sheep's clothing, but they're ravening wolves. It's Christ himself warning us. False prophets, false pastors, false evangelists, posing as submissive sheep, going to come saying the way is not that narrow, the way is not that straight, and they're going to accommodate. They're going to change the gospel to suit the needs of the people. Jesus puts his finger on the molders behind them, ambition. The word ravening here, ravening wolves in the Greek means starve for recognition and gratification. Men are going to rise, starve to make it. You see it in the business world, you see it on your job. People trying to climb the ladder and get recognition quickly, and folks, it's now in the ministry, full blown. Young man, so ambitious to be one of the big boys, to have the biggest church, the biggest numbers, the biggest crowds. He said they're ravening wolves, and Jesus left no doubt about what he meant, and this is simply what he meant. They're going to be struggling pastors in the land, and they're going to look out and see all of the striving and competition for numbers and recognition, and there's going to be a growing pressure to expand and be successful. They see the measuring of success now by how big the buildings are, and how many people attend the church on Sunday morning, and this struggling pastor who's been faithful up to now, he sees bright young men come down the street nearby, and suddenly overnight he's pastoring thousands of people in a seeker-friendly church. A young man less experienced, a young man who's not paid his dues as far as this man is concerned, he's still preaching an old-fashioned faithful gospel of the cross and its claims, and he's struggling, because not many people want to hear the cross. Jesus said, few there are going to be that find it, wide is the road leading to destruction, narrow is the way, Jesus said, straight and narrow, and Jesus is warning, he's saying to the pastor's brother, man of God, watch out, the moment you look out on the competition, the moment that seed gets in your heart, the devil's going to put one of these wolves in sheep's clothing right at your path, he's going to seduce you into an ungodly ambition to compete and to be one of these big boys, and he's going to tempt you for church growth at any cost, and it'll cost the soul of the pastor. I read Paul's warning in 2 Corinthians 11 chapter about ministers being transformed into angels of light who believe they're preaching righteousness, but they've been changed somehow into a tool of Satan, and I say, God, can that be possible? Lord, is that really reasonable, that a man who starts right can change and become a tool of the devil in a pulpit? Am I to conclude that a man of God can start right, be a true shepherd for a season, preach a true gospel, but something of hell lays hold of his heart and his spirit, something demonic, and he changes and he becomes a minister of Satan? Folks, it's happening every day. It's happening right here in New York City. When men become dissatisfied with preaching a simple gospel, and they get bored in that they're not praying, and they're not seeking God, and they get their eyes on people and numbers and they want to be judged like everybody else, I want to be a success. And so it comes out, and I hear it everywhere I go, I hear a pastor say, I saw it on television watching in the apartment we were renting on a vacation, and it was a Sunday morning and he listened to these pastors, we have 2,500 this year, my goal next year is 4,500, and any cost, any way to reach that goal, it's not wrong to pray for growth, but if it's only to feed human ambition, it'll change the man into a devil. Listen, if you find the right formula that says you can make success in any field of endeavor possible, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Some young men have come up with a formula how to build a church, a formula. This formula-based accommodating gospel is contrary to everything in the Scripture. I read in Acts 13 of a gathering of godly men in Antioch, they were going to send out some young ministers to establish churches and preach the gospel to a darkened world. How does God go about building churches? How does the Holy Ghost work? Scripture said they gathered and they ministered to the Lord and fasted. This was their planning session, worship, fasting, waiting on the Lord for direction till the Holy Ghost comes and tells them exactly what to do. Number two, they prayed, no strategizing, no networking, no one made a step until the Holy Ghost said, this is the way, walk in it. And then when the Holy Ghost spoke, they laid hands on it and sent them out, the Bible says, under the power and the anointing of the Holy Ghost. You see, Paul had lived his whole religious life under religious formulas. He saw, he'd lived with these man-made schemes, he had seen teachings that accommodated the weaknesses and the sinfulness of backslidden Jews, he'd had his stomach full of it. He said, I have nothing to do with that. It attracts the multitudes, yes, but he said, one day Jesus came and revealed himself in me. Paul put all of the formulas aside as dung, as garbage. Paul by his own confession said, I'm determined to go forth to fully preach the gospel of Christ in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. And unless the gospel is preached in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost, it's not the gospel. It's not the gospel. And sadly, multitudes in America don't even know what the gospel is because they haven't heard it. Paul boasted unashamedly, we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. Paul said, now, brethren, the Jews and the Greeks are trying to make us accommodate our message now. The Jews want us to give them signs and the Greeks want wisdom. They want miracles over here and over here. They just want 10 steps on how to cope. They want wisdom. But Paul said there will be no accommodating. Let them call our preaching foolishness. Let them say it's out of date, that it's not contemporary. He said, I've determined to preach nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. This other gospel accommodates the sinner in many ways, but there are three areas of accommodation that the Holy Ghost grieves over. And this, I felt the grief of God on these three areas of accommodation where people, where ministers are changing the gospel to suit the crowd. Number one, the accommodation of man's love for pleasure. Know this also that in the last days, perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The Greek word for pleasure is sensuality, lust, voluptuousness. In other words, exciting, gratifying, sensual pleasures. And all folks, here's the danger. Those who are established, these seeker friendly churches, they're prepared to accommodate the crowd. The Bible says they're going to have to not preach. It's very, very clear they cannot preach against sensuality because the apostle says they're going to be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. They're going to love their sports. They're going to love their X-rated movies. They're gonna love their videos. They're going to love their computer sex. They're going to love these sensuous things. The Bible says they're going to love these things. They're going to come into the house of God and if you're going to accommodate them, you're not going to touch one of their lust. You're not going to say one word about it. They're going to have to be prepared to stand in their pulpit and we could sin? Paul said of these men, these resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, counterfeit regarding the faith. Counterfeits. You know, I watched in disbelief at a televised main service of one of these secret fronting churches, one of the large secret fronting churches, and the pastor starts the service saying, we're here to have fun tonight because tonight is David Letterman night. The pastor said, brazenly after service, we're here not to offend, but to make it comfortable. How long do you think that crowd was staying in that church and the pastor was shaken by the Holy ghost, convicted of entertaining people into hell and he stood up one Sunday night and he said, be sure your sins will find you out. Let me tell you what happened to that church. Those thousands who sit there, those who are hungry for God and didn't know any better, they would weep and break before God in a moment and everyone else would head for the doors and never come back. Oh, they're going to be pastors on judgment day. Hear these awful words, son of man, I made thee a watchman. You were to hear the word at my mouth and give them warnings from me. You were to tell the wicked, thou shalt surely die, and you gave them no warning nor spake to warn the wicked from the wicked ways to save their lives. These same wicked men will die. These same wicked men did die in their sins, but now their blood I require from your hands. Accommodation number two, the accommodation of modern man's aversion to self-denial. Number three, the accommodating of men's offense of the cross. Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense. Paul spoke of the offense of the cross. And we're coming now to the heart of why God hates this new doctrine, this new movement in America. This is why God hates it, rejects it outright, and why he's cursed it, and why God will put anathema on any preacher who embraces it. God demands more than coming to the cross. He demands going through the cross, and that's the offense that it takes everything a man has and owns and trusts in. You see, the sinner is most willing to come to the cross and kneel before it. He's willing to take the claims by a single confession of faith and just say, yes, Lord, I believe. He wants all of the benefits of the cross. He wants to believe that Christ has sacrificed, yes, and covered all his sins. Now, folks, that's being preached. The cross, though all the phraseology is there, it's sweetly talked about the cross, come to the cross of Jesus and be forgiven. There's not one word about saying, going on with Christ into the tomb and to die. There's not a word about going down into the grave and coming out resurrected in newness of life. It's coming to the cross, kneel, say a prayer, and go back to your sins. Go back and no one say a word. You take it by faith. You are now the righteousness of Christ. No dying to sin, no being resurrected in newness of life. Now, that's the offense of the cross, that you go all the way when you come. He demands full obedience. He demands everything we have. And I'm afraid a majority of people who claim to be Christians and saved in these last days have been to the cross, but they've never been through the cross. They've never been buried with Christ. Paul said, I died with Christ. I was raised with Christ. I was crucified with Christ. I not only came to his cross, I picked up my cross, I went through with him. We have another gospel now that tells man what the cross did for him, but not what it wants to take him to. The gospel, folks, is not just forgiveness, it's not simply believe and get heaven some day. It's not only the saving of the soul, it's the saving of the body, this flesh. God says, I want your flesh, I want your body as a living sacrifice, and that's the preaching of the cross. Folks, I don't care if somebody could gather a crowd of 100,000 people in a stadium and they could turn to me and say, Pastor Dave, you're wrong. Look, 100,000 people that have come through my secret friendly church and here they are, they're all believers now. Folks, I wonder you know something, if those 100,000 people have not been given the full gospel of Jesus Christ, have not been preached fully, if the claims of the cross have not been laid there, and if they've been coddled and comforted, then their sins, that 100,000 have been made twice a child of hell than ever before, and worse shape, because the Bible says they can come now and hear the words of the curse even, and bless himself and his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart and add drunkenness to thirst. Because a false peace has been given to them that they can live in their sins, never be rebuked, never be reproved, never see the claims of the cross, that in only he died to deliver man from the heart of sin and the idea of sin, but the dominion of sin in his own life. If the preaching of grace doesn't have as its goal righteousness, it's another gospel. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we shall live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. I saw a televised interview of people that had joined one of America's most renowned secret family churches, and this man testified, words, I'm as close, I believe, as the way I heard it. He said, I come here because I'm never made to feel uncomfortable about my life. I can bring my Jewish friends, my business associates, they'd never be embarrassed. I don't have to be a fanatic, and the preaching and the skits are really enjoyable and uplifting, and best of all, the church only lasts one hour. Contrast that with Paul's preaching, for godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, for you hold this self-same thing that you sorrowed after godly sort. What carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourself, indignation, fear, yea, what vehement desire, and zeal, what revenge, and all things you have proved yourself to be clear in this matter, and Paul warns that if there's not that kind of preaching, many will walk of whom I've told you often, and I'll tell you even weeping. They are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. I came to New York City when AIDS was plaguing Broadway. People were dying left and right. Black Muslims in Times Square spewing out hate. Young blacks and young Puerto Ricans feeling the world has left them behind and angry. Intellectuals cursing Christ, liberal minds who say there's no hope, and you tell me I'm going to come in with a 15-minute step, and I'm going to have a cute little worship team giving little ditty-bop songs to a dying world. God help our blindness. Folks, we started down on Crack Alley on 41st Street in that ragtag theater, and from the first time I stood in the pulpit, I preached repentance. I preached the cross. I said, we are not here to comfort you in your sins. We're here to confront you in your sins, and to believe that there's a Savior who'll deliver you. And the experts tell us that won't work. People don't want that. I talked to a man the other day who was visiting one of these churches, and they decided they're going to break their church up in little groups with prayer meetings, and he went to one of the prayer meetings. And this is a seeker-friendly type church, and you know what the prayer meeting consisted of? Hot chocolate and donuts, and then they brought all the games out, the board games and played games the rest of the evening. And they're those people that are dying in their sins, and they're playing Ouija boards in all of this garbage. Do you think for one moment that we would ever stand with a carter, myself, or any of our men, any of our teachers would stand in this pulpit where drug-crazed people come to visit? People half-dead, people crying and yearning for just one word of hope, do you think for one minute I'm going to give a 20-minute sermonette to ease their mind? No. I am so glad he laid hold of my heart one day. I'm so glad he revealed his heart to me, and I can say with Paul the Apostle, he revealed his, Christ revealed himself in me, not to me, but in me. Hallelujah. And as long, I know as long as this man is in this church, as long as I'm in this pulpit, there will never, ever be from this pulpit an accommodating gospel, ever an accommodating gospel.