{"id":33361,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/gravy-train-gospel\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"gravy-train-gospel","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/gravy-train-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gravy Train Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18769.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Historian Will Durant said, &#8220;There is no humorist like\nhistory.&#8221; Recently I picked up a copy of the <em>Washington Post<\/em> and\nread an article pointing to the irony of today&#8217;s events. It was entitled\n&#8220;The Revolution Surrenders: From Freedom Train to Gravy Train,&#8221;\nwritten by Charles Krauthammer. He was commenting on the fact that Bobby\nSealeone of the radicals of the sixtieshas now released a cookbook and a\nvideo entitled <em>Barbequeing with Bobby<\/em>. He has become the Jane Fonda of\nthe Weber Grill. There have been other transformations. Jerry Rubin is now\nrunning a brokerage house. Dick Gregory, the antiwar civil rights activist, is\nconducting nutritional weight loss and business opportunity seminars. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Krauthammer pointed out, however, that at the same time the\nyippies of the sixties were becoming members of the new establishment, the old\nestablishment was going the other way. He pointed out that Bob McNamara, former\nsecretary of defense, McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser, architects\nof the Vietnam War, are now leaders in the new peace movement. The former\npinstriped boardroom types who represented all that the radicals of the sixties\nwere revolting against are now themselves becoming radicals in the\neighties. Then Krauthammer says the\nprime example of the trend is Charles Colson, who &#8220;follows the trail of\nspirituality from Nixon to prison to religion.&#8221; Krauthammer concluded by\nsaying he could understand how yesterday&#8217;s yippies could become today&#8217;s\nyuppies, and yesterday&#8217;s reactionaries today&#8217;s radicals, but he confessed\n&#8220;I can&#8217;t figure Colson out at all.&#8221; Apparently my transformation was\njust too radical. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s an amazing commentary upon our culture that we can\nunderstand a shift in values from radicals to establishmentarians, but we can&#8217;t\nunderstand a conversion to Jesus Christ. I should be the simplest of all people\nto understand. I am what I am because of what Jesus Christ has done in my life.\nBut I suppose if one doesn&#8217;t believe in a Converter, one can hardly believe in\na conversion. But one part of the label I will gladly  word <em>radical.<\/em>\nWe have lost that word. We&#8217;ve lost its meaning. The word derives from the Greek\nword <em>radix<\/em>, meaning the root. A radical is one who goes to the root of\nthe matter. And the root of the matter in this or any other generation is the\nrevelation of God himself through the person of Jesus Christ. I will take the\nlabel &#8220;radical.&#8221; Nonetheless\nI share Krauthammer&#8217;s sense of the irony. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Durant is right, there&#8217;s no humorist like history. A decade or so\nago had I stood on this platform, I would have been the epitome of the\nestablishment giving a graduation address to graduating radicals. Today you&#8217;re\npart of the new yuppy establishment, and I stand here today as a radical. It&#8217;s\nsomething of that dramatic role reversal and conflict in values that I want to\nspeak to today. Yuppies, as most of you\nknow, are simply aging hippies transformed by $20 haircuts and upper middle\nclass values. This baby boomer generation has assumed such significance in\nAmerican life that <em>Newsweek<\/em> put on the cover &#8220;The Year of the\nYuppy.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let&#8217;s take a look at the values Yuppies embrace. They are\nthoroughly convinced money is the root of all  much so, the editor of <em>Money<\/em>\nmagazine wrote that money has become the  obsession of Americans,\n&#8220;the new sex.&#8221; (There goes any future baby boom.) One frank young\nyuppie quoted in <em>Newsweek<\/em> said she could be comfortable with $200,000 a\nyear. <em>Newsweek<\/em> said yuppies have acquired a new plane of consciousness:\n&#8220;transcendental acquisition.&#8221; One student who was going to be a\nsocial worker upon graduating said, &#8220;I realized that I would have to make\na commitment to being poor to be a social worker, so eventually I was able to\nshed the notion that to prove to everybody that I was a good person I had to\nparade around as a social worker.&#8221; The honesty would be admirable if it\nweren&#8217;t so appalling. <em>Newsweek<\/em> had a picture of one college graduate\nfondling a bottle of Perrier Jouet and saying &#8220;This is our substitute for\nchildren.&#8221; It all defines a mentality of a people who define themselves by\nwhat they own. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I had a firsthand look at this phenomenon recently when I went\nto rent a compact car. I was three deep in line behind a man who was insisting\nhe had to rent a black Lincoln Continental. I don&#8217;t think he was going to a\nfuneral. The woman at the counter was being very accommodating. She found a\ndark gray one and a dark blue one. He said, &#8220;No, I must have a black car.\nI&#8217;m going to a party tonight where everybody will be driving black cars. I must\nhave a black Lincoln Continental.&#8221; My impatience was growing, but I\nrestrained myself, and he found out there was no black car anywhere to be\nfound, and he finally took a dark blue one after we&#8217;d waited ten minutes. As he\nturned around, his T put the whole event in context. It said: &#8220;The\none who dies with the most toys wins.&#8221; What a tragic commentary on life.\nIs that the object of life? <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The pursuit of material happiness has even dampened the sexual\nrevolution. Brooke Shields explained that she is remaining a virgin because\n&#8220;Like me, there are plenty of college girls who do not want to be bogged\ndown in demanding involvement. We are more concerned about getting ahead.&#8221;\nThe yuppies made up an unusual amalgam in American politics last year. Their\npolitical profile melds economic conservatism with social libertarianism. One\nyoung lawyer, in a chilling comment for anyone who weeps for the clinical\nmurder of unborn children, said, &#8220;The social program that Reagan is\ntalking about is really scary because abortion is part of our lives.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There does seem to be some continuing interest in war and peace,\nbut the slogans of the eighties have taken a new twist. The T today say\n&#8220;Nuclear war? What about my career?&#8221; What are we to make of all this? On one hand, it&#8217;s good that young\nAmericans are rediscovering the values of hard work and have abandoned the\nsocial utopianism that fueled the 1960s. But on the other hand, there&#8217;s the\ngrotesque . The result is a lie, a promise of meaning to life\nwhich it simply cannot provide. I know.\nI grew up in the Depression years, the grandson of immigrants. I can remember\nthinking, <em>If I could ever get to college, that would be my security.<\/em> I\ndreamed of the day that I could get my degree. No one in my family had ever\ndone it, and I thought that would surely bring me security. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then I went on to the Marine Corps and the Korean War, and I\nremember when those bars were pinned on, and I thought, <em>That will be my\nsecurity: a lieutenant in the Marines.<\/em> Then I worked for a doctorate of law\nat night and went through law school and started a law firm. I thought, <em>That\nwill be my security, my meaning, my purpose in life. <\/em>And then on to a\nsuccessful law firm and to money and prestige and then to the office next to\nthe President of the United States as the special counsel. <em>Surely I&#8217;ll find\nsecurity in those things.<\/em> But when I left the White House in 1972, I never\nfelt less secure, emptier, in my entire life. You see I discovered the great paradox of life. Jesus said, &#8220;He who\nwould lose his life for my sake will find it,&#8221; and that&#8217;s a great truth\nbecause it wasn&#8217;t until those things of the world that I thought would give me\nsecurity were gone, and I was in a prison cell with all of that behind me, that\nI discovered the only security and meaning and identity that one ever knows,\nand that&#8217;s in a relationship to the living God through Jesus Christ. There is\nno other security. It&#8217;s all bankrupt, empty. All mirrors and illusion. The\nworld is telling us that we can find fulfillment in things. And it&#8217;s a\nfraud. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The great paradox also is that every time I walk into a prison\nand see the faces of men or women who have been transformed by the power of the\nliving God, I realize that the thing God has chosen to use in my life,\nparadoxical though this will seem, is none of the successes, achievements,\ndegrees, awards, honors, cases I won before the Supreme Courtthat&#8217;s not what\nGod&#8217;s using in my life. What God is using in my life to touch the lives of\nliterally thousands of other people is the fact that I was a convict and went\nto prison. My great defeat. The only thing in my life I didn&#8217;t succeed in. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The kingdom of God is the kingdom of paradox. God does not demand our achievement; he\ndemands our obedience. He does not demand our success; he demands us, the whole\nof our lives, because what really matters is what a sovereign God chooses to do\nthrough you, not so much what you do. Oh yes, work hard, excel. Do the very\nbest you can in life. Do everything to the honor and glory of God in excellence\nbecause the Bible commands it. But don&#8217;t believe that&#8217;s the measure of your\nlife. The measure is your obedience to Jesus Christ and how he then works\nthrough you. American culture, which believes success is all that matters,\nsimply cannot comprehend this great truth. This is where the true radical, Jesus Christ, confronts the American\nestablishment today. If those of us who follow Christ are called radical\nbecause we confront the obsessive materialism and bankrupt idealism of American\nlife today, glory in the title of radical. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now I know many of you are sitting here thinking, <em>This is\nEastern Nazarene College. This is a Christian institution. What in the world is\nColson doing preaching to the choir? <\/em>You all know yuppyism is bankrupt.\nSure. But just because you&#8217;re Christian, don&#8217;t think you are immune from the\nblandishments of power, success, prominence, money, materialism. You&#8217;re not.\nYou turn on a Christian television station today, and you will see the\nyuppyized gospel telling you that all you have to do is worship God and he&#8217;ll\ngive you everything you want in a material way. How many times do you turn on a\nChristian television program and hear a message about repentance, conviction of\nsin, and the desire to serve God out of gratitude for what he&#8217;s done in our\nlives, not for what he can do for us? All too seldom. CBS, at a National\nReligious Broadcasters convention this year, interviewed a man who said about\nChristian television, &#8220;Well the main thing is just to create an image.\nYou&#8217;ve got to present a product that&#8217;s a little bit more appealing than the\nothers.&#8221; He was speaking of preaching the gospel. Don&#8217;t tell me Christians\nare not in danger of transforming the gospel into a what&#8217;\nmessage. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Don&#8217;t\nbuy into the values of our culture.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What must we do? Four things. First, use the minds that God has given you to be discerning. Challenge\nall the presuppositions of American culture. Don&#8217;t buy them. Think about them\nand say, &#8220;Maybe they&#8217;re so and maybe they&#8217;re not so,&#8221; and do the same with all\nthe comfortable cliches you hear passed around in the Christian world. Stop and\nthink: Are they the whole gospel of God as presented in the Bible, or is it\njust something that we Christians have used? Check those prepackaged simple\nsolutions, the political and economic agendas labeled by their zealous\npromoters as Christian. Maybe they are. Maybe they&#8217;re just a prop for\nsomebody&#8217;s vested interest. Then let&#8217;s be honest with ourselves. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">C.S. Lewis was once asked, &#8220;Which of the world&#8217;s great\nreligions would bring the greatest happiness to its followers?&#8221; C.S. Lewis\nreplied without hesitation: &#8220;While it lasts, the religion of worshiping\noneself is the best. I have an elderly acquaintance who has lived the life of\nunbroken selfishness and  from the earliest years and he is more\nor less, I regret to say, one of the happiest men I know. I haven&#8217;t always been\na Christian. I didn&#8217;t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle\nof port would do that. If you want religion to make you really comfortable, I\ncertainly do not recommend Christianity.&#8221; What refreshing honesty! Can you\nimagine if we put that on television today&#8221;Don&#8217;t come be a Christian\nbecause it&#8217;s going to make you feel good. Come be a Christian because it&#8217;s\ntruth, and it may convict you, and it may turn your life upside down, and it\nmay be very uncomfortable.&#8221; My gracious, you could hear television sets\nturning off all over America. But that&#8217;s true. Be discerning. Nothing is more radical than to go to the root, to the\nWord of God, for the solutions for the problems that beset modern man. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Allow\nGod&#8217;s Word to radicalize your life.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">When I first became a Christian, I took this Book, and as a\nlawyer I decided to see if it were true. I read this Book cover to cover three\ntimes. I was looking for that one verse of Scripture, the only verse I could\nquote from memory: &#8220;God helps those who help themselves.&#8221; I went\nthrough three times. I tried two translations. Amazingly, I couldn&#8217;t find it.\nAs a matter of fact, I found exactly the reverse. &#8221; &#8216;Is not that what it\nmeans to know me,&#8217; declares the Lord. &#8216;To do justice and righteousness to plead\nthe cause of the afflicted and the needy.&#8217; &#8221; But I made a study of this Book because I was really concerned.\nCould this Book really be the Word of God? I started to read everything I could\nget my hands on. I don&#8217;t have time today to take you through it, but I believe\ntoday, as a result of reading everything I could and listening to all the\nscholars I could, I came to the conclusion, intellectually and by faith, that\nthis book is the inerrant, inspired Word of God, and you can live and trust\nyour life under its authority and nothing else. Be careful. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I was speaking recently before a state legislature in a western\nstate where they&#8217;re very conservative. Someone said afterwards, &#8220;Chuck\nColson? He was that Nixon Republican, that conservative. He certainly has\nbecome a radical. Prison must have radicalized him.&#8221; They love to say\nprison radicalized me. The secular world can understand that. I say, &#8220;No!\nPrison didn&#8217;t radicalize me. I walked out of that prison; I wanted to put it\nbehind me. I never wanted to see the inside of a prison again. What radicalized\nme was reading this Book. And I believed it.&#8221; This Book will radicalize\nyour life. I dare you. Try it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Live a\nlife of true holiness.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The central tenet of the Christian faith is this: God, a holy\nGod, says &#8220;You shall be holy because I am holy.&#8221; So we must go out of\nour homes and our businesses, wherever we are, and live in this world as a holy\npeople. Every time I mention holiness, people start getting uncomfortable. They\nsay, &#8220;You&#8217;re not preaching, Colson, you&#8217;re meddling. That&#8217;s smoking and\ndrinking and all those things.&#8221; Well that&#8217;s part of it. That&#8217;s piety. I&#8217;m\nnot talking about rules. Holiness is, as Mother Teresa puts it,\n&#8220;conforming to the character of God.&#8221; Accepting the will of God. If\nour God is a God who demands justice, we&#8217;re a people who demand justice. If our\nGod cares for the poor and the needy and the downtrodden and the suffering, we\ncare for them. A nation that will sell the poor for a pair of shoes stands in\njudgment by God, and we are a people who take that message into a\nmaterialistic, yuppyized world. Yes that&#8217;s radical. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re called\nto. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">John Wesley, one of the great models for my life, once said\nthere is no holiness but social holiness. To turn Christianity into a solitary\nreligion is to destroy it. It was Wesley&#8217;s understanding of this great truth of\nthe Christian faith that led him to begin the campaign against slavery. One of\nhis disciples, William Wilberforce, a young member of Parliament, went off and\nled the campaign against the culture of the day for 20 years to abolish\nslavery. They went out and abolished the most barbaric practice man has known\nin modern times. It means we go into\nthis culture in which we live. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In Prison Fellowship, we see daily the witness of holy people\nmaking a difference in the lives of others. We take inmates out of prison. We\nwork them into the community. They live in the homes of volunteers. Recently in\nWashington, D.C., we went into a city block with a group of inmates, every day\ncoming down to study their Bibles in the morning and every day rebuilding a\nhome of a poor family. Four blocks away, you could see the Capitol, where they\nwere debating all the laws to help the poor, but in the shadow of the Capitol\nthese poor people were living with no one caring about them as individuals. And\nso a group of convicts came up and restored their home, and it sits today like\na gleaming jewel on that street, and the neighbors are beginning to fix up\ntheir homes. Why? Because it&#8217;s brought back a sense of community, because God&#8217;s\npeople are sharing of themselves to help others in need. That&#8217;s holiness.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jefferson City, Missouri: state capital and also the place where\nthe penitentiary is. For years 6,500 inmates were there, and when their\nfamilies used to come to visit, they had no place to stay. Most of them would\ndrive from Kansas City or St. Louis, and they would sleep in their cars or\nunder park benches. Our volunteers saw that and got together and bought an old\n$46,000. They raised the money from twelve churches. Volunteers fixed up\nthe house, opened it four years ago, and named it Agape House. Ten thousand\nwomen have stayed there for $3 a night. They get a Bible, a place to stay, a\nclean bed, a  center for their children so they can visit their\nhusbands in prison. And one of the neatest things is it&#8217;s run by a former\nSouthern Baptist missionary and a Catholic sister. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A woman was sitting in the house one night feeling despondent.\nSherry lived on the underside of life. Had been in prison herself. Was there\nvisiting her husband. Never been in church. You&#8217;re not going to get the Sherrys\nof this world in our churches, but they would come and stay in Agape House. One\nnight Sherry was sitting there tapping on the Bible she had been given, and she\nsaid, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if there is a God, but if there is, he must be\nsomething like the two women who run this house.&#8221; That&#8217;s the witness of a\nholy people. It isn&#8217;t enough to go sit in sanctuaries and listen to wonderful\nsermons and to lift your hands to praise God on Sunday morning. Get your hands\ndirty helping those around you, and you will make the invisible kingdom of God\nmanifest in our midst. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re called to. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Live a\nchanged life out of thankfulness to God.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Christians are called not only to believe but to repent, to be a\ndifferent people. In gratitude to God for his grace in our lives, we are to be\nchanged, to do what God commands. I could give you some wonderful quotes out of\nthe history of the church, but maybe the best illustration I know is a recent\none.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A housewife from New Hampshire, Cathleen Webb, accepted Christ\ninto her life, and she walked into her pastor&#8217;s office one day and said,\n&#8220;I feel wonderful that I&#8217;m a Christian. God has blessed me with a\nwonderful husband and two children, but I have a sin I&#8217;ve never\nconfessed.&#8221; She had falsely accused Gary Dotson of rape. The pastor said,\n&#8220;The only thing you can do to repent is to want to be changed, to confess,\nand to make right what you have done wrong.&#8221; In today&#8217;s yuppyized gospel, all God has to do is come into our\nlives. We don&#8217;t have to do anything. Cathy Webb knew better. She knew she had\nto confess. The world has not understood her. The judge said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t\nknow why Cathy Webb came in and gave the testimony she did.&#8221; The governor\nof Illinois said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t believe her, but I&#8217;m going to set Gary Dotson\nfree anyway&#8221; (which has to win some award for sophistry in modern times).\nThe whole world disbelieves. Every place I&#8217;ve been with Christians lately I&#8217;ve\nsaid, &#8220;Do you believe Cathy Webb?&#8221; And they&#8217;ve said, &#8220;We&#8217;ll have\nto wait and see.&#8221; We&#8217;re so used to seeing the prosperity gospel, the\ngospel of ease and comfort, that when we see the real thing, we can&#8217;t recognize\nit.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s the real thing: I&#8217;m not going to take the grace of God in\nmy life for granted. Out of gratitude to God, I&#8217;m going to change, go out and\nlive it. Cathy Webb had a beautiful statement on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;Nightline&#8221; when asked why\nshe did it: &#8220;Because the Lord would not let me alone.&#8221; I could boil\nmy whole message down to one simple phrase. I pray for your life that the Lord\nwill not &#8220;let you alone.&#8221; That he will force you to be a different\npeople. That he will make you instruments of holiness, yes, in this yuppyized\nculture. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">My final warning: If you are committed to radical Christianity\nin direct opposition to a culture consumed with self, your course is not\nwithout peril. We&#8217;ve just commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the\nHolocaust, vividly reminding us of the horror that man can inflict upon his\nfellow man. To me, it was sad that no mention was made that there were some\nGermans, particularly the German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who refused to go\nalong with the spirit of the times. He said no to Hitler, and he paid with his\nlife. To be radical in a yuppyized\nculture may not cost you your life. Maybe it&#8217;ll cost you your job. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A judge in Indiana, who refused to send a man back to prison who\nhad already done his prison time, said, &#8220;If I have to choose between God\nand man, I must choose God.&#8221; But I will tell you one thing, if your\nChristian commitment does not put you in direct opposition of the values of\nthis culture, if you don&#8217;t have to make those kind of choices between God and\nman, if you do not feel that this culture is making you make some hard choices,\ncheck your Christian commitment, because it&#8217;s inevitable in the value system of\nthis culture, that your Christian commitment is going to put you on a collision\ncourse. If it doesn&#8217;t, you better wonder if God&#8217;s really at work in your\nlife. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">May you leave today not just as men and women who have had some\ndo&#8217;s and don&#8217;tsmostly don&#8217;tsdrummed into their heads, but as men and women\ncommitted to obedient Christian living. Take your stand on the holy Word of\nGod, and in whatever vocation you enter, pursue it with excellence to the glory\nof God to make a difference for him in an age which glories in what Scripture\ncalls sin. &#8220;Gird your mind. Keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely\non the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As\nobedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in\nignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourself in all of\nyour behavior because it is written, &#8216;You shall be holy, for I am holy.&#8217; &#8221;\n<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Charles Colson is the president and founder of Prison Fellowship\nMinistries. <\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> is also an active speaker and prolific\nbook author. <\/span>\n      <\/em>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n      <\/span>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Charles Colson<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Preaching Today Tape\n# 26<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of Christianity Today International<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[1084],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[4154],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33361","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-charles-colson","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-holiness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Gravy Train Gospel - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/gravy-train-gospel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Gravy Train Gospel - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Historian Will Durant said, &#8220;There is no humorist like history.&#8221; Recently I picked up a copy of the Washington Post and read an article pointing to the irony of today&#8217;s events. 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