Something that has concerned me is when I listen to messages, preached by the foreigners at the youth meetings. When I say 'foreigner' am referring to any other North American or white person who comes here. I have heard only a few foreigners actually preach but their messages seem to all have the same pattern and the same list of instructions: and all you have to do is accept Jesus as your savior and you can have a relationship with God and go to Heaven. As true as I think those instructions are, I think they are only half of the truth. I think to only preach about claiming Jesus as your saviour to become right with God, is to preach only half of the gospel.
Let's think about John the Baptist. John the Baptist preached the gospel to the multitudes, telling them to 'repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.' John performed a baptism of repentance, which was the for the people who were sorry for their sins and recognized that a savior would come and wipe away their sins forever. This savior would baptize them with the Holy Spirit. In Luke 3:8, John urges the people to 'bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance'. He told the people to give to one another, to stop stealing and to stop making false accusations about one another. These actions were evidence of a repentant heart. When Jesus began His ministry, John's disciples became the disciples of Jesus. They were sorry for their sins and wanted to be a student of Jesus, living righteously for God. The kingdom of God was now in the midst of them. First they repented, and then they followed Jesus. All through-out Jesus' ministry, He told people to repent and turn from their wicked ways. He told them to have faith in God, and He forgave people for their sins.
Now, let's look at a sermon from a student of Jesus.in Acts 2, the believers become filled with the Holy Spirit and Peter preaches his first sermon to the people who have gathered. Peter tells the people that the man who they crucified, was Jesus Christ, sent from the Lord to be their savior. The people's hearts are pierced by Peter's words, and they ask him what they should do.
Peter says,"Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit".
To repent means to turn from our sins. To repent is to have regret for what we have done wrong, accompanied by a true change of heart, and a desire to do what is right. A repentant person looks on their past and feels regret for the wrongs they have committed, resulting in a wiser view of the past and future. To repent is to want to flee from wickedness and draw near to God and His holiness.
Today, we have taken the emphasis off of 'repentance' and we have focused our messages and evangelistic efforts on preaching 'the free ticket to Heaven gospel'. This cheap, half-gospel ensures people that they can pray for Jesus to come into their hearts and then 'it's all good', they can continue living however they like. This gospel guarantees that they have the stamp of approval from God; what they have done in the past doesn't matter and what they do in the future doesn't matter because God just overlooks all their sins. There is a huge problem with this poor, one-sided message and the results can be seen in North America today. Christians and non-Christians look the same. You cannot tell the difference between the majority of believers and non-believers, because they act the same way and do the same terrible things. Christians can have the same poor regard for sin as unbelievers, but because they said a prayer at one time, they can do as they like and God will just keep over-looking all their wrong doings.
This may not be the terrible message that we are trying to convey, but if we preach only about praying for Jesus to be our savior, then we are preaching only half the gospel. We are not preaching the consequences of sin and of a heart that doesn't trust in Jesus. We feel it is wrong to preach about Hell, which is what Jesus spent most of His time preaching about. We are not preaching repentance; turning from sin and walking in God's holiness. We are preaching a 'free ticket to Heaven' and we are counting raised hands. Therefore, there is no regret or turning from sins, and people continue along the same road as the wicked, claiming that it's alright with God. It's no secret that the North American church is in bad shape. We should not take the half-gospel that the North American church is preaching, and preach the same weak, wrong message in other countries, producing the same worldly 'Christians'.
Let's stop copying the message of other preachers, and let's begin preaching the very message that Jesus preached: repentance, forgiveness and grace.

"If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified."
-Leonard Ravenhill