by Dennis R. Smith

 

“What the world needs now is not a NEW GOSPEL but a return to the old.”  These were the lead-in words of Brother C. E. McGaughey’s famous sermon by this same title.  He was  one of the most successful brotherhood evangelists of the mid years of the last century.  I had the privilege of hearing this wonderful sermon which, no doubt, led many people to Jesus Christ as he delivered these powerful words across the land.  It was sermons like this which resulted in one of the fastest growing periods of the Lord’s church in modern times.  The main emphasis of the sermon was the need to return to God’s Word for all that we believe and practice.  Now, since Jesus is the “same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8) and since He promised that “heaven and earth may pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt.24:35), doesn’t it stand to reason that what has worked so successfully in one period of time would work in another?   The bible has been given to man by the inspiration of God (2nd Tim. 3:16) and its purpose was to supply mankind “unto all good works.”  Here again, it was not just limited to those of the first century or the forties, fifties, and sixties of the last century - but for all time. What better time than this to fulfill  the needs of our own age but to “return to the old gospel.”  It still has the “power to save” (Rom. 1:16).