How do people get a false security from gospel clichés?
People gain false security when they repeat familiar gospel clichés—such as “take Jesus as personal Savior” or “take Jesus into your heart”—without the full truth of the cross. Unless they understand that Christ, the Son of God, became flesh, died, was buried, and rose again, the cliché is empty.
Les explains that people are led into a false security by simply taking clichés without knowing the full truth of the matter. He points to phrases like “take Jesus as your Lord and personal Savior,” “just believe in Jesus,” and “take Jesus into your heart.” There is no verse that says, “if you will take Jesus as your Lord and personal Savior, thou shalt be saved”; the expression has been coined. Such wording is not automatically wrong if the whole body of truth is put into it: that the very Son of God became flesh, went to the cross, shed His blood, was buried, and rose from the dead. But many cannot do that. Likewise, “believe in Jesus” raises the question of which Jesus—the Jesus of the three years ministering to Israel, or the Jesus who went to the cross and rose from the dead. “Take Jesus into your heart” is only valid if the person understands that the only reason Christ can be in the heart is because of what He did on that cross; otherwise it is all for nothing. Les says this worries and scares him because people are being led into a false security by clichés apart from the full truth. He then connects salvation to the power of God from the preaching of the cross in verse 19.