Is Jesus the flu shot or chemotherapy?

I wrote this article about 2 years ago and originally posted it 02/28/2011 on one of my first blog, ETVFC.blogspot.com, which is no longer active.  I reposted it on a later blog, KeepAmericaFromHell.blogspot.com before I had a couple guys from my church design the ETVFC.org website.

When I blog I tend to just write an article beginning to end and at times it seems I am beating a dead horse or just rehashing things over and over.  A lot of my articles I see God unfolding truth and layers over time and I can see depth and progress over time.  I may get an idea during my bible reading or when witnessing or during normal day to day living or working.  Then I start writing it out.  Then I will get another article with a different angle on my heart.  When these truths and ideas all come out, I may sort through them all and end up with another tract or maybe a pamphlet.  In the flu shot series, I first started observing the way us pharmacists were promoting the flu shot thing.  Then I preached it at our New Years Eve service and at a prison revival. Then I wrote the articles.  There I started chasing the rabbit trails it exposed, and wrote articles like “Don’t recruit with the fatted calf.”  Next it will be a tract and maybe a chapter or two in an evangelism book.

All I am saying is sometimes my articles may produce a “Hey I already read that!” observation.  You likely did in one form or another.  I forget the circumstances, but after I wrote the flu shot articles I started to dwell on how vaccinations actually work.  Then it was like God opened my eyes and I got a clear picture of the problem with the gospel today.  I had read an article about Easy Prayerism by David Cloud and he mentioned how today’s false repentance-less gospel produces false converts INOCULATED to the real gospel.  But as I started meditating on vaccinations I saw clearly why that is so.

A vaccine is intended to be a weakened or false version of the real thing.  And when you are vaccinated against the real agent, your body will immediately attack the real thing and fight it off.  That is what happens in evangelism today.  A person is led in a prayer and given false assurance and then someone tells them that if to be truly born again, God will change their desires and they will turn from a sinful lifestyle and turn to Jesus Christ.  They fight you off as they already have the false vaccine and it fights off the real thing.   This happens over and over and today you have straight fornicators and married sodomites and both have no desire for the real gospel.   Both will tell you to their death beds they are saved. My sister in law prayed a prayer when she was 3 because she didn’t want to go to hell.  She is a stripper and prostitutes herself but she “knows she is saved.”  She fights off any rebukes or any attempts to correct her thinking with anger and threats.  She has not one single biblical reason to suspect she is saved but she received Jesus like the flu shot illustration and has no desire for the real thing.  I fear that until she wakes up in hell, she will never come to the knowledge of the truth.
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Blog post — Is Jesus a Flu Shot  — or chemotherapy?

God showed me something very clear this morning. The problem with the majority of Christianity today is that Jesus Christ is sold, shown, prescribed and dispensed as a flu shot. The Lord Jesus Christ has been repackaged and sold as a one-time thing you do, and there are millions of people today inoculated to the real gospel because they have put their trust in such an empty “event”.

But as many as received him (Jesus Christ), to them gave he power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (John 1:12) says the Bible but how we receive him is now open for debate when you don’t carefully study the Bible.

This flu-shot comes in many flavors. Bottom line is that truly receiving Jesus Christ is not at all like receiving the flu shot! Some are trusting a flimsy prayer they prayed, some are trusting “THE SINNER’S PRAYER”, some are trusting an experience (ex: I got healed of chicken pox in 2007 and now I’m saved), some are trusting their baptism infant or otherwise, or receiving “Jesus” in communion, and some are trusting their church membership.

The bottom line is salvation is a PERSON, not a prayer or performance. The Bible says in 1st John 5:13, He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. You either have Jesus or you don’t. You are either saved or you are not.

If Jesus is only to you a flu-shot event that you did one time and you have no desire to live for God now, you don’t have a natural desire to want to please God, and you don’t naturally love his Word, you don’t have the Jesus of the Bible!!!!
Jesus says about the saved, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my father’s hand. (John 10:27-28) and Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (John 15:14).

To the lost, he says, He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. (John 8:47) and ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. (John 5:35).  Many of today’s professing “saved” folks merely received a temporary spiritual flu shot.

The reality is Jesus is chemotherapy in the sense Jesus is not a forgotten event but a life-changing reality that doesn’t stop with the decision to begin “treatment”.   Sin is a disease that will send us straight to Hell and Jesus is the only cure for that disease. Ezekiel 18:4 says the soul that sinneth, it shall die.  In Revelation, the Bible says Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

In Jesus we have eternal life and escape the eternal death of our soul in hell forever after the dying of our physical bodies. You don’t need the fire escape insurance of the false Jesus the flu shot. You need the permanent cure of Jesus “the chemotherapy”.

The difference is huge.

It will make or break a convert. It will separate the sheep from the wolves, the wheat from the tares, the sheep from the goats, and will turn pigs into sheep. The biggest waste of energy today I heard with ministry in general is we are pouring our money, time, efforts, and energy to make goats act like sheep.

A flu shot is a one time, been there, done that, paid the copay type of thing. I am a pharmacist. If I see someone with asthma, per say, I might generically say, “Sir, you have asthma. You might want to get a flu shot. The flu can be serious for someone with your condition.” He is not super motivated to get the flu because he has things to do. Yet, he thinks, I might as well. It is covered by my insurance, for a $0 copay. There is no line today and it will be over and done in 15 minutes. I can get the shot, not worry about getting the flu, and go on with my day.

The man likes the convenience, and it is a “just in case” thinking. He is not convinced this is that big a deal. While the flu really isn’t normally a life threatening condition, because he doesn’t have to pay anything he might as well get all his insurance offers. It is sold by the ease of the cure.

Contrast that with chemo. The man going for chemotherapy personally had a face to face encounter with a disease that will destroy him soon. Chemo is not a simple shot but begins a long term-commitment once a “one-time decision to undergo treatment is made”and it is something that will demand his life be totally changed.

Hours will be consumed sitting under an IV. Health will be destroyed by a med trying to kill the disease before it kills the man. Money will be exhausted by high deductibles, hospital stays, high brand co pays, and multiple blood work. Side effects will be noticeable. A man who goes through that has counted the cost. His life is more valuable than all the inconveniences and challenges he must face.

It all began after being convinced of the disease.

Salvation is a gift of God, but it is conditional. Gifts can be conditional, such as “once you get your driver’s license son, I will buy you a car!” It is not “whosoever shall pray a prayer one time and go on unchanged” shall be saved. The condition if you read the Bible as a whole is FAITH plus REPENTANCE!

One’s interpretation of Romans 10:13’s “Whosover shall call”  can’t overlap Matthew 7’s “not everyone that saith to me Lord Lord shall enter the kingdom of Heaven“.  Works have nothing to do with it, but it is not a flu-shot. It is not something you defensively say, “I already did that” when someone asks if you are saved. Salvation changes your desires, direction, and destiny. There are good benefits and strong side effects. You can’t enjoy your sin ever again. You become a target of the devil and get side effects now of temptation, tribulation, and persecution.

Your life is never the same!  If it is, you only have the Flu Shot Jesus. Let’s stop pushing the cure, Jesus Christ, on a world who thinks they are healthy! IT is time to go back to convincing of the disease to the point the world cries out, What must I do to be saved?