HE CAME, HE WENT, HE WAS GONE
Tracts come in various sizes, some look cheap--cheap paper, cheesy graphics, and cheap printing, any one of which can be turn-offs to the reader. Others are well done, high tech, slick, in the good sense of the word. Such was the tract that came into my hands the other day while I was having a pleasant chat with a few folks. We were standing around engaging in conversation when a man walked up, put a slick-looking booklet in my hand, saying, "My wife wanted me to give you this." I didn't know him or his wife, but being polite, I said, "Thank you," and he was gone. Poof!
THE CARTOON MAN
I put the tract in my pocket and didn't give it another thought until I had time to take a look at it. On the cover I saw a large oval shape which hit almost the top and almost the bottom of the cover. Inside the oval were the words, "THE EMPTY SPOT," designed to look like someone printed them on the cover by hand. It was appealing to the eye.
On each of its 14 pages there's one and only sentence with a cartoon above it which depicts the content of the sentence. Each sentence describes an empty spot. The first sentence says, "Everyone who is born into the world has an empty spot on the inside." There's a color cartoon drawing of a man with a hole in his chest where his heart should be and an arrow to the side naming the hole as "EMPTY SPOT."
I thought about Augustine's famous quote, "Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee." (Augustine lived from 354-430 A.D.) The next page shows a man standing over the sentence, "Sometimes this empty spot makes you feel lonely." He has a hole in his chest with "ES" inside the circle.
The next pages have a single sentence describing the empty spot in the chest which people try to fill with marriages, food, money, work, travel, or drugs.
ENTER A HAPPY LOOKING PERSON WITH A BIBLE
Then, near the end of the tract, the one with the empty spot meets "a happy looking person" who hands him a Bible and says, "Please read this." On the next page, we see the man with the empty spot is reading, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him." (Rev. 3:20) We note that the speaker who's standing at the door and knocking is not identified.
THE CLIMAX
The next cartoon is climactic: the man with the hole in his chest is on his knees, saying, "Oh, Jesus, now I understand!! I open the door to my empty spot, please come in and fill it up with your spirit." (Some how, although not specified in the tract, the man has connected the Man knocking and speaking with Jesus.)
The next to the last page shows the man who now has the Holy Spirit in the empty spot and is now smiling, holding the Bible standing over the words, "This person will never be empty again. The beginning of eternal life not THE End."
On the last page, the reader finds printed the words of Romans 10:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Romans 6:23.
And that's the end of the second worst tract in the English language.
WHAT'S SO BAD?
Why is this tract so bad? Because all the elements of the gospel that a person must know and understand aren't there. From the Bible, we know that a person must know and understand that Jesus is God and true humanity. Romans 10:9-10 identifies Jesus as God, but there is no mention of His humanity in the tract.
Why is this tract so bad? Because the death of Christ for our sins is nowhere found in the tract. The reader, going by the tract, has no knowledge of, nor understanding of, the fact that Christ died for his sins. The tract never mentions sin, only it only talks about loneliness. The cross and the interpretation of what happened there are nowhere to be found in the tract. The tract has told the cartoon man that God raised Jesus from the dead when it included Romans 10:10, but the man doesn't know why He died and what that death accomplished.The tract has substituted loneliness as man's problem instead of sin.
Why is this tract so bad? Because the man wants someone to solve his loneliness, not his sin problem, being lonely isn't a sin. Instead of confronting the man with his real problem and pointing him to trusting Christ's substitutionary atonement, the tract tells him to open the door to his empty spot and invite Jesus to fill it with His spirit.
LET'S GO TO THE BIBLE
Where in the world do we find such an evangelistic invitation in John's gospel or in the book of Acts? We don't find such an invitation in either one of those books because nowhere do the Apostles tell people to ask Jesus to come into their empty spot and fill it with His spirit. The Revelation text quoted is addressed to a church of people who are already saved, so it's not a statement telling us how to have eternal life; it's a verse dealing with fellowship with the Savior.
Unfortunately many believers will read the tract and read into it the five elements of the correct gospel presentation (Jesus is God, Jesus is true humanity, Jesus died for our sins, Jesus rose from the dead, and salvation is by faith in Christ and Christ alone) by assumption, but they all aren't there. The only conclusion we can come to is that this "gospel" is a gospel that has never and will never save anyone.
Why is this tract the second worst gospel tract in the English language? Because, although I don't know what the first worst one is, it must exist.
This tract is an outgrowth of the religious movement that has a skewed focus of almost total emphasis on the Holy Spirit. Because it is so focused on the Spirit rather than Jesus, being filled with the Spirit has become their main purpose rather than salvation from sin. They see we are not whole until we are filled with the Spirit. This is the perfect example of how humanity, in our fallen/flawed state, does not process all aspects of God's work in us properly. Humanity is really pretty simple minded. In an attempt to be sensationalistic, these people have so skewed the whole process of salvation that Jesus has gotten lost in the process. We must constantly watch out for improper emphasis in our churches we attend. When we discuss election, filling of the Spirit, serving others and good works, the color of the table cloth on the offering plate table, promoting programs, whether we are in the last days or not, or whatever is the current focus of people in your church, it is our individual reaponsibility, at the end of a discussion, to bring people's focus back on Jesus and His irreplaceable work on the cross. Each believer can do this in whatever church they are attending. If we do not all take on the responsibility to keep the emphasis of a church on Jesus, any kind of bunny trail can lead to Him being lost in the emotional heat of other issues.
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