In my email this morning, I discovered that my alma mater, Dartmouth College, has instituted a program of "gender-neutral" housing on campus. I have selected one of the most telling quotes from the article below:

TheDartmouth.com | Gender-neutral housing deemed success by ORL: “We can’t force anyone to make these rooms mixed gender, that would defeat the whole purpose of gender-neutral housing,” Hopper said. “Eventually, gender-neutral housing should be so widely available that anyone looking to live in this type of environment could get a room.”

What this means is:

1. For the sake of a tiny minority of transgendered students, all students are being given the option to have men or women as roommates.


2. Advocates of this program eventually want this to become the norm. Consider the following quote from a "Gender-neutral" housing advocate at the University of Chicago:
   
   Chicago Maroon » IHC survey gauges thoughts on gender-neutral housing:
   "[Queers and Associates (Q&A)] proposes a slightly more drastic plan. Shannon said the group would like to see gender-neutral housing eventually become the default housing option, causing students to be specifically required to designate that they want a same-sex roommate on their housing applications. Under this system, students would not be forced to disclose their sexuality to their parents. However, Shannon said single-gender rooms and floors should remain available."


3. No one should assume that a program like this will be restricted to students identifying themselves as transgendered. Dartmouth already has had some straight students living in the program in its first year. And it is openly a goal for the program to "benefit" students who desire to cohabit:
   
   "The system could also benefit students who simply want to live with a friend or partner of the opposite sex." (from the Chicago article above)

So now, as the sexual revolution marches on, the battleground has moved from co-ed dorms to co-ed bathrooms to co-ed bedrooms. Universities are now openly condoning cohabitation among students.

I have no delusions that my classmates at Dartmouth were particularly chaste. I lived in a fraternity for a year, after all. And I'm quite aware that cohabitation among students has taken place unofficially for years - doubtless since the earliest years of the sexual revolution, co-ed dorms or not. But providing official sanction and tacit blessing for this behavior is a new level of sexual anarchy in the university world.

How much further can we go? A freshman moving on campus today is immediately given access to a deluge of every kind of perversion via unfiltered and uncensored Internet access. In many cases, they are thrown into co-ed dormitories with co-ed bathrooms and surrounded by students who are sexually promiscuous in ways that were uncommon even a generation ago - "hookups" have become so common that for many students "sexual relationship" is almost an oxymoron. Universities officially sponsor "sex weeks" and invite porn stars to come to campus to give lectures. Students and staff are given "sensitivity training" (or whatever the euphemism-of-the-week for indoctrination is) on the necessity of accepting any and every form of sexual behavior.

For now, we draw the line at "consenting adults." But can it stay there? On the authority of scripture, I believe that it can not. There will come a day when our sexual anarchy has reached the point that gang rape of strangers is considered normal. (Genesis 19)

Ultimately, I am beyond hand-wringing over these issues. The worldview statistics indicate that the "culture war" is already lost. The battles taking place in court and in Congress over gay rights are just playing out the philosophy that our society has embraced for the past 40 years. All we're getting in gay marriage and "gender-neutral" housing is what we, as a society, mostly seem to want. The religious right has been saying for years that there is a "silent majority" (a Moral Majority, perhaps?) that are offended by all of this stuff, but will be boiled like the proverbial frog-in-the-pot by the slow slide of our culture.

Well, it's been 27 years. For 19 of those years, we've had a "Christian Right" president. And yet ground has been lost on gay marriage, on abortion, on public obscenity, on "family values..."

Perhaps it's time we shut our mouths and get on our knees. We never had any real hope apart from the God who raises the dead anyway.

2 Chronicles 7:14
if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves...

... and pray and seek My face...

... and turn from their wicked ways...

THEN I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

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I actually don't know Matt Hartke, but judging by his blog, I like him.

He pointed out recently that RTS (Reformed Theological Seminary) has put a large number of their courses online for free. These include courses by J.I. Packer and D.A. Carson, and these are full courses - semester long - not just individual classes.

So, for anyone reading this who feels like doing a "deep dive" into Puritan theology with J.I. Packer or listening to D.A. Carson's "New Perspective on Paul", go check out itunes.rts.edu!


I hope this makes you as excited as it makes me! « While it is day

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"'Speak the truth in love' does not mean 'speak the truth.' It means that you build relationships, you demonstrate love for people, and then you can speak the truth to them." – A Christian worker in the Middle East

Two prophetic words that were spoken to me at IHOP bracket who God has made me and what God wants to do with me.

Near the end of my time at IHOP, in the prophecy room, someone gave me the word that I was "an officer of truth." I am a dispenser of the truth; the Lord has wired me to love truth and care deeply about people thinking rightly about God.

At the very beginning of my internship, however – in fact, before he had met me – my core leader received a prophetic word that the Lord was calling me to be a "Barnabas," a "Son of Encouragement" (Acts 4:36). I've recently been reminded that these two things are not in disagreement with each other.

The problem with loving the truth is that for a fallen man, loving the truth can very easily turn into loving to be right. Or loving to look intelligent. There is a day-and-night difference between speaking the truth because it is the truth and speaking the truth because of how it makes me look or feel. Literally "day and night" because the one originates in the heart of the One who is Truth and Love, and the other originates with the father of lies, who loves to misuse truth to bring destruction.

One of the most challenging exercises we had to do in our Sermon on the Mount class at IHOP was to make a list of people that we had problems with (for whatever reason – they annoyed us, they made us angry, they had hurt us, etc.) and then:

1. Forgive them for any ways they've wronged us
   
2. Make a list of ten budding virtues we can see in them
   
3. Commit to praying for them on a daily basis
   

I went through that exercise, but I didn't keep it up after my internship. I think I need to pick it up again. And I need to take it a step farther, and take some of those budding virtues and translate them into words of encouragement.

I'd really like to be a Barnabas, actually. If the Lord has said it, then, to the extent that I yield to the Holy Spirit living in me, one day it will be true.

Philippians 1:6
…being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

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For no particularly important reason, I looked back at some of the email that I had saved from college today. I came across this story, a real event that happened to me just about 9 years ago. I'm posting it here because it really happened, because my strange visitor said some really good things, and because I believe we will see more and more "strange visitors" in years to come.

 

>Date: 10 Nov 98 22:51:49 EST
>Subject: wow.

As Ravi put it, "Now I've seen everything."

Ravi and Jake and I were sitting on the second floor of Collis doing a fraternity accountability meeting. We were going to pray for a while to close, and after I prayed, there was a pause for a while, and then suddenly,

"You guys talking about God?"

This kind of unkempt looking guy was sitting on the floor next to us. I was a little taken aback, but responded.

"Umm.. yeah, we were."

"That's good. There are all kinds of things you guys could be talking about: women, or sports, or TV, or whatever. But you're talking about God. That's good."

Pause.

Me: "Hi, I'm Jeff."

Him: "I'm Kevin, peace to you."

Me: "Nice to meet you", etc... Ravi and Jake introduce themselves.

Pause.

Me: "So what are you... " Pause.

Kevin: "What am I what?"

Me: "What do you believe?" (Ok, random, but he had mentioned God...)

Kevin: "I believe in God, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I believe I'm not God, and I didn't create the Universe." (he said some more, but that part stood out)

Pause.

Me: (trying to generate some kind of normal conversation) "Are you a student?"

Kevin: "I'm always studying."

Pause.

Me: "Are you from around here?"

Kevin: Says he came from California someplace, has travelled all over the place (like Berkeley, San Jose, San Diego, etc... Ireland, Israel, etc, etc...) Goes wherever the Holy Spirit tells him to go, and does whatever the Spirit tells him to.

Me: "What do you do?"

Kevin: "I praise God. I praise Jesus. I praise the Holy Spirit, and I try to praise Him every minute of every day. Some lady in California asked me what I wanted, and I said, I want to go to Heaven. And she said, what are you going to do there? And I said, 'Praise God." And she said, and then what? And I said 'Praise God more.'"

Me: "So... what are you doing here? Or do I need to ask that?"

Kevin: "The Holy Spirit led me in here, and I came in to talk to you, because you guys are talking about God. Like I said, there's a plethora of things you could be talking about, but you're talking about God."

Pause.

Me: "Well, we're meeting because we're all in fraternity houses, and we wanted to try to encourage each other in our faith in our houses."

Kevin: "So are you in a whole house full of God-fearing men or are you the scattered lambs of the Father?"

Me, Jake, and Ravi in stereo: "The latter."

Kevin: "Well, I'm proud of you. And God is very pleased with you." (and he said some more that I can't remember)

Me: "Well, we try, but it's hard to hold on to the faith in our houses, or at least to stay out of sin."

Kevin: "Let me tell you something. Wherever you go in the world, whether it's in your house, or in your job, or in school, or with your wife or your fiancée, there will always be gossiping and hating going on. There will always be righteous people and hateful people."

"You know, you only have so much time. Every time you wake up in the morning, you need to thank God for that chance to do good, and do good every moment all the time. People talk about what they're going to do next week, or in 2 years, or in 10 years -- ridiculous. All you have is the next moment. God gives you your next breath of fresh air, and your heart keeps pumping, so you have that moment."

"People don't realize how little time they have. That's why I'm not afraid to talk about Heaven and Hell. Sometimes people don't like talking about Heaven and Hell. But that's too bad, because someday they're going to have to face it. They're going to have to face Heaven and Hell and a final judgment. So I tell people, look at the stars, look at the trees, look at the oceans, look at all the other animals and creatures living on earth. You know there's two kinds of water, fresh and salty, and mountains and sky. Are you God? Did you create the earth? Did you create the elephant?"

"So do good in the moment you have. In making eye contact with somebody, in a handshake, in bringing a flower to a girl who's having a bad day. You don't even have to say anything. Just one single flower can do something. You don't know what that person's doing. They could have just been raped, they could have just been molested, they could just have had the most devastating experience of their lives, and you could do good to them."

Pause.

Kevin: "That's all, gentlemen. My work is done. Peace to you."

And he got up and left and walked down the stairs of Collis.


This is true. It's very paraphrased, since I only wrote out the parts that struck me so I remembered them.

I have no idea who this guy was. We didn't really get into his doctrine, so he could have really been a Christian, or he could have been a Mormon, or just a straight up crackpot. But wherever he was coming from, what he said was absolutely true.

He was definitely odd. But then, if I had met Jesus while He was on earth, would I have thought He was just a regular guy?

And I guess, since I don't believe in coincidence, Kevin really was sent from God.

wow.


Jeff

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I will simply second Matt Hartke's comment on this: Watch this!




For the text of these sermons and who is speaking in each, see this page.


NOTE: This is long (35 minutes). If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, make sure you hear Paris Reidhead's quotes from "Ten Shekels and a Shirt" starting at about 14:30.

Time for me to go repent...

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I've recently finished the book Rees Howells: Intercessor, and it's been rocking my world. The sensation I felt reading the book was very similar to what I felt when I watched this interview with Leonard Ravenhill while I was at IHOP. Ravenhill out-IHOPs IHOP, if I can put it that way. You think you're radical? You think you're on-fire for God? When was the last time you prayed with someone for 5 hours in order to get them born again?

But my point isn't to quench the spirits of people who want to be radical for Jesus. My point is to ask – and to wonder myself – is this for real? These guys who came out of the Welsh revival and the Keswick convention in England… if you read their books today, and compare them to what we call church, it's like they're coming from another planet. Does the Holy Spirit still do this kind of thing? Does this kind of repentance and holiness of life exist in the church now? Do people still have the kind of faith that Rees Howells (and George Mueller and Hudson Taylor) had – to count the promises of God of equal value as money in the bank?

Rees Howells bought an estate for £5800 in 1924 (probably several hundred thousand dollars in current money) without a penny in the bank. And he never told a single other human being about the financial need. He just prayed, and the Lord provided! This was not an isolated incident – he lived his whole life this way.

As examples of the sort of things this book talks about, here is Rees Howells' definition of an "intercessor" (page 97):

A prayer warrior can pray for a thing to be done without necessarily being willing for the answer to come through himself; and he is not even bound to continue in the prayer until it is answered. But an intercessor is responsible to gain his objective, and he can never be free till he has gained it. He will go to any lengths for the prayer to be answered through himself. But once a position of intercession has been gained, tested, and proved, the intercessor can claim all the blessings on that grade, whenever it is God's will for him to do so.

So am I an intercessor? Not according to this definition! Rees Howells also prayed through his assignments until he felt an assurance in his spirit that the Lord had answered him. And once that "victory" was gained, he stopped praying and started praising – regardless of whether or not the answer was visible. Any further prayer for the issue would then be a "prayer of doubt." I have no experience of this kind of hearing from God, or this kind of assurance of answered prayer.

Lest anyone write this off as simply a man's own enthusiasm and delusions, look at the list of "gained intercessions" that Rees Howells experienced in his life:

1. Salvation of numerous acquaintances in a neighboring village
   
2. Salvation of an unrepentant woman drunk who Rees never even talked to
   
3. Salvation of the nephew of a friend living in a foreign country who he never met
   
4. Healing of tuberculosis on at least two occasions
   
5. Healing of his invalid uncle who had been unable to walk for 26 years
   
6. Continuous – and often spectacular - financial miracles
   
7. 10,000 souls saved in Africa in an outpouring of the Holy Spirit
   
8. Specific intercession for divine interventions in World War II. Several of these, such as the Battle of Britain, were specifically acknowledged as divine intervention by the military commanders involved.
   

The secret to Rees Howells' intercession was nothing particularly obscure – it was "merely" that he actually lived out the teaching of the indwelling Holy Spirit that stares us in the face when we open the New Testament.

At a conference earlier this year, I heard James Goll describe an interview he had with Rees Howells' son, Samuel. Goll repeatedly pressed the question of how Rees Howells received the insights and information for his intercession. Samuel Howells finally responded, "You must understand, the servant of the Lord was a man possessed by God."

Goll's conclusion was an altar call in which we all prayed for God to possess us in a kind of emotional flurry. But while the description "possessed by God" is a very accurate rendition of Rees Howells' account of his experience with the Holy Spirit, the conditions of the event were anything but an emotional flurry. Here are some excerpts from chapter 5, "the Holy Spirit takes possession" (page 33):

"As he [Rev. Evan Hopkins] spoke," Rees said, "the Holy Ghost appeared to me and I knew him to be the One who had spoken to me the day before and shown me that place of splendor and glory into which natural eyes can never look. It never dawned on me before that the Holy Ghost was a Person exactly like the Savior, and that He must come and dwell in flesh and blood. In fact, the Church knows more about the Savior, who was only on the earth thirty-three years, than about the Holy ghost who has been here two thousand years. I had only thought of Him as an Influence coming on meetings, and that was what most of us in the Revival thought. I had never seen that He must live in bodies, as the Savior lived in His on earth."

The meeting with the Holy Ghost was just as real to Rees Howells as his meeting with the Savior those years before. "I saw Him as a Person apart from flesh and blood, and He said to me, 'As the Savior had a body, so I dwell in the cleansed temple of the believer. I am a Person. I am God, and I am come to ask you to give your body to me that I may work through it. I need a body for My temple (1 Cor 6:19), but it must belong to Me without reserve, for two persons with different wills can never live in the same body. Will you give Me yours? (Rom 12:1). But if I come in, I come as god, and you must go out (Col 3:2,3). I shall not mix Myself with your self.'

"He made it very plain that He would never share my life. I saw the honor He gave me in offering to indwell me, but there were many things very dear to me, and I knew He wouldn't keep one of them. The change He would make was very clear. It meant every bit of my fallen nature was to go to the cross, and he would bring in His own life and His own nature."

It was unconditional surrender. From the meeting Rees went out into a field where he cried his heart out because, as he said, "I had received a sentence of death, as really as a prisoner in the dock. I had lived in my body for twenty-six years, and could I easily give it up? Who could give his life up to another in an hour? Why does a man struggle when death comes, if it is easy to die? I knew that the only place fit for the old nature was on the cross. Paul makes that very plain in Romans 6. But once this is done in reality, it is done for ever. I could not run into this.

"I intended to do it, but oh, the cost! I wept for days. I lost seven pounds in weight, just because I saw what He was offering me. How I wished I had never seen it! One thing He reminded of was that He had only come to take what I had already promised the Savior, not in part, but the whole."

….

It took five days to make the decision, days which were spent alone with God. "Like Isaiah, I saw the holiness of God," he said, "and seeing Him, I saw my own corrupt nature. It wasn't sins that I saw, but nature touched by the Fall. I was corrupt to the core. I knew I had to be cleansed; I saw there was as much difference between the Holy Ghost and myself as between light and darkness.

"Nothing is more real to me than the process I went through for that whole week," he continued. "the Holy Spirit went on dealing with me, exposing the root of my nature which was self, and you can only get out of a thing what is in its root. Sin was canceled, and it wasn't sin He was dealing with; it was self – that thing which came from the Fall.

"He was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put His finger on each part of my self-life, and I had to decide in cold blood. He could never take a thing away until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some purging took place (Isaiah 6:5-7), and I could never touch that thing again. It was not saying I was purged and the thing still having a hold on me; no it was a breaking, and the Holy Ghost taking control. Day by day the dealing went on. He was coming in as God, and I had lived as a man, and 'what is permissible to an ordinary man,' He told me, 'will not be permissible to you.'"

The specific issues that the book mentions the Holy Spirit removing from him in this purging process included:

• Love of money
  
• Choosing his own wife
  
• Ambition: He would be required to always take second place whenever there was any competition for position.
  
• Reputation: The Lord could make him look as crazy as John the Baptist, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Nazirites, or any other Biblical character.
  

It should be noted that the "purging" described above was not once-for-all instant sanctification, but a commitment which the Lord called him to live out over time.

So here's my question. Where are the modern Rees Howells's? Can I be one of them? Do I even want to?

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From the serious to the ridiculous...


And I haven't even played a game in at least a year...


(If you don't understand this post, then never mind. You're just not as l33t as I am...)

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It occurs to me that by talking about Genesis 1:26 in my post a few days ago and using the word "dominion" repeatedly, I may end up attracting those who are interested in ferreting out "Christian Fascists" who believe in dominionism. The Wikipedia article is reasonably balanced, though whenever I read an account of Dominionism by someone like Chris Hedges, I get extremely frustrated.

In a ridiculously over-generalizing article warning of the "impending fascist threat", Chris Hedges writes that Francis Schaeffer is a Dominionist for saying that secular humanism is a threat to Christianity. He implies that anyone who believes in creationism is a Dominionist. He implies that anyone who wants to end abortion is a Dominionist.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one who can see that these are non-sequiturs. The Wikipedia article quotes Stanley Kurtz saying everything I might have wanted to say about Hedges:

Journalist Stanley Kurtz labeled it "conspiratorial nonsense," "political paranoia," and "guilt by association," and decried Hedges' "vague characterizations" that allow him to "paint a highly questionable picture of a virtually faceless and nameless 'Dominionist' Christian mass." Kurtz also complained about a perceived link between average Christian evangelicals and extremism such as Christian Reconstructionism:

The notion that conservative Christians want to reinstitute slavery and rule by genocide is not just crazy, it's downright dangerous. The most disturbing part of the Harper's cover story (the one by Chris Hedges) was the attempt to link Christian conservatives with Hitler and fascism. Once we acknowledge the similarity between conservative Christians and fascists, Hedges appears to suggest, we can confront Christian evil by setting aside 'the old polite rules of democracy.' So wild conspiracy theories and visions of genocide are really excuses for the Left to disregard the rules of democracy and defeat conservative Christians — by any means necessary.

But the reason I'm posting on this is not to bash Chris Hedges. The point that I want make is this: eschatology matters. There is (more or less) something called Dominionism, though it's pretty fuzzy, but there is definitely something called Reconstructionism, and both of them are errors based on a particular stream of eschatology. The issue is the topic of the Millennium – the thousand year reign of Jesus on the earth, as described in Revelation 20.

I won't summarize the various views here, as that's been done plenty of times and I have nothing new to add to the definitions. (For those who aren't familiar with the terms, I recommend Mike Bickle's talk "Apostolic Pre-millennialism" – the outline for it is on the IHOP website)

The point I want to make is about the Post-Millennial view (the idea that the Millennium will in some sense happen through the Church in this age, and Jesus will come back after the 1000 years are over). It seems to me that Post-Millennialism keeps on bearing poisonous fruit among those who carry it through to its logical conclusion.

Apparently, if you believe that Jesus can't come back until the world has already been Christianized, then it's not too long a step to take to say that Christians could use violence to "prepare the way of the Lord." This is more or less the Reconstructionist view. Jesus isn't coming back until the Church has taken over the world. And the Church is called to take over the world by means of political power, passing Christian laws to enforce the Old Testament law of Moses, and ultimately (it's inevitable) waging war to conquer those governments and people groups who will not accept the Church's government.

So we end up with the Church being called to behave in ways that flatly contradict the Sermon on the Mount, in order to further an eschatological agenda.

In terms of what it would look like if actually put into practice, what the Reconstructionists (such as Rushdoony) call for would be difficult to distinguish from the worst chapters of Church history – the Inquisition and the Crusades. In fact, the Crusades make a lot of sense in a Post-Millennial framework – Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem, and He is not coming back until the Church rules the world. But what if Jerusalem is in the hands of unbelievers? Clearly it is then the responsibility of "Christendom" to recapture the Holy Land for the Lord…

One of the things that makes the Reconstructionist view so dangerous is that those who put it forward are also cessationists (who believe that miracles and the supernatural working of the Spirit do not occur in the church today). So the only resources on which the Church can rely in this program of Christianizing the world are natural resources – politics, finances, argument, legislation, military strategy, etc. The result is a telling reversal of what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:4 – "For the weapons of our warfare are not mighty in God, but are carnal…"

Charismatics are not immune from the negative consequences of bad eschatology, however. One of the most popular accusations against IHOP* is that they are promoting the "Manifest Sons of God" teaching (the name comes from Romans 8:19, KJV). What this teaching amounts to is that the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out so powerfully on the Church – or, usually, on the faithful within the Church – that they will take over the earth by the supernatural power of the Spirit and rule for 1,000 years before Jesus returns.

Ultimately, what is wrong with both of these streams of theology is that they end up exalting humanity. The Church ends up "helping God out" either through our astute political maneuvering or through our faith and moving in the anointing of the Spirit. Jesus comes back to an earth that has finally gotten it together, to a victorious Church that really doesn't need Him anymore, even though they love Him.

The Biblical reality is that Jesus is going to come back to a world that has completely fallen apart. It will be Genesis 1 again – the earth will be "formless and void," because the judgments of God have made it that way. (Isaiah 24:1) I do believe that the Church is going to be in full partnership with the Holy Spirit when He returns, and we will be participating in His judgments through prayer and preaching the Gospel with power to the very ends of the earth, but we are not going to be running the world. "We shall reign on the earth" (Revelation 5:10) is for the next age, not this one. In this age, the destiny of the Church (and it is a glorious one) is Revelation 12:11 – "And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death."

* IHOP has a Beliefs and Controversies page which specifically addresses this accusation, in addition to several others that come up repeatedly.

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This song ministered to me today…

 

The Hidden Face of God
Michael Card

Once there was a soul so full of shadows
That hopelessness was all that he could see
So in the storm of suffering he cried out
And clung to the God he still believed

The compassion of his friends had all forsaken
The passion of his wife had disappeared
All the looks on their faces had failed him
Now the only visage left him was the Face that he most feared

All he ever wanted, all he could ever need
All his questions answered so he could still believe
To pierce the holiest shadow and look behind the facade
To see the wordless answer of the hidden face of God

On and on the struggle raged between them
So that neither one would let the other go
The pleas of his praise and the prayers of his rage
Had bound him in a battle with a God he didn't know

Finally at last he was exhausted
Though beaten up and bloody he was glad
He saw the only hope that he had left was
The only hope that he had ever had

All he ever wanted, all he could ever need
All his questions answered so he could still believe
To pierce the holiest shadow and look behind the facade
To see the wordless answer of the hidden face of God

As he remembered all the pain of all that he had lost
Of all his honors, hopeless and weak
He whimpered that before his ears had heard but
Now at last his eyes could really see

All I ever wanted, all I could ever need
Not a single question answered so now I can believe
He pierced the holiest shadow, stepped from behind the facade
Now I know the only answer is the hidden face of God

The hidden face of God
The hidden face of God

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…in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began… (Titus 1:2)

A few months ago, a friend at IHOP posed the question – "What is the first mention of the Gospel in the Bible?"

The first candidate that comes to mind is Genesis 3:15:

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent:
" Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel."

Immediately after the fall of man, God promised that there would be a Seed of the woman who would bruise the head of the serpent, while the serpent bruised His heel. So the virgin-born Son of Man was prophesied, who would, through His death on the cross, "destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil." (Hebrews 2:14)

But another, earlier, verse was also suggested as the first mention of the Gospel – the Gospel in the form of a parable:

Genesis 2:18-24
18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23 And Adam said:
      "This is now bone of my bones
      And flesh of my flesh;
      She shall be called Woman,
      Because she was taken out of Man."

 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Here, even before the fall of man, God caused the first man to enact a parable of the Marriage of the King's Son which was the plan in the heart of the Trinity. Just as God looked at Adam and said "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him," perhaps the Father looked at the Son in eternity past and declared "It is not good that the Man should be alone; I will make Him a bride suitable for Him." And so, on a Roman cross, God the Father caused the sleep of death to fall on His only begotten Son, and struck His side with a Roman spear so that blood and water flowed. And from the side of the crucified Son of God was born the Bride – a Church that will be equally yoked to the Son of God in love for eternity to come.

Both of these are beautiful pictures of the Gospel displayed in the first few chapters of Genesis. As I was reading Titus 1:2 (above) this morning, however, it struck me that there is actually an even earlier proclamation of the Gospel in the Bible:

Genesis 1:26
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

God said, "Let Us make man in Our image." God said "let them have dominion." In those declarations, God, who cannot lie, who "declares the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10), reveals the end of the story. On several occasions, I have heard preachers say things like "It was only God's mercy that kept Him from simply starting over when Adam and Eve fell into sin." But this is absolutely not true. Certainly it was God's mercy that He did not destroy Adam and Eve when they sinned. But it was not only His mercy. It was also His faithfulness to His word. Here is just a small part of what God says about His word:

Proverbs 30:5-6
       5 Every word of God is pure;
      He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.
       6 Do not add to His words,
      Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.

Psalm 119:160
 160 The entirety of Your word is truth,
         And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

Isaiah 46:9-10
9 Remember the former things of old,
      For I am God, and there is no other;
      I am God, and there is none like Me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
      And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
      Saying, 'My counsel shall stand,
      And I will do all My pleasure,'

God had declared that man would be in the likeness of God. He had declared that man would have dominion on the earth. Could He go back on His word when humanity sinned? No. There is a reason why God said "Let Us make man in our image…" From the very moment these words were spoken in the Godhead, in addition to declaring that He would create humanity, God was declaring that the Son would redeem humanity by His death, and that the Holy Spirit would indwell, sanctify, and ultimately glorify the men and women who would fulfill the word of Genesis 1:26. There would be humans who would live in the likeness of God and have dominion on the earth under the Son of Man.

Jesus is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). His counsel will stand, and He will do all His pleasure. There will be a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation who are redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb, who are kings and priests to God, and who will reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:9-10)

This is reality. You can bet your life on it. In fact, you'd better.

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