Famine of True Preaching — E.A. Johnston

Amos’s Prophecy of a Famine of Hearing God’s Word

I want to begin this message this evening, friends, with the passage of Scripture, which I feel is a solemn warning to us in our day. It's a solemn warning because of its reality in our day. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Amos.

We are still in our study of the minor prophets. Amos was a fiery prophet who wasn't afraid of man, but he sure feared the Almighty. He faithfully proclaimed God's Word to his generation without fear of the consequences.

Many evangelists today won't preach a convicted message on sin because they feel it will hurt their love offering, so they preach nice little messages that make their hearers laugh and clap and have a good time, so they dip into their wallets and give generously to the man who just entertained them.

But Amos wasn't too concerned about taking up a love offering when he preached because he loved his audience too much to lie to them. We will be in chapter 8 in Amos and in verses 11 through 12. Let me read this solemn passage to us now, friends.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor of a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east.

They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. I have people contact me from all over the country and tell me they cannot find good preaching in their town. They search and search and come away empty.

And our text speaks of a famine that is a national famine. It's affecting the entire nation, that I will send a famine in the land. This is not a localized event, but a national crisis. Listen friends, if we were to have a nuclear war, the soil would be polluted, the water supply tainted with nuclear waste.

It would result in a terrible famine in the land where people would starve to death. But let me tell you something, there are a good many today who are starving spiritually speaking for want of good preaching in this country.

The Need for Spirit-Anointed Preachers

There's a shortage of qualified men in our pulpits. There's no shortage of seminary trained men with academic degrees with a string of letters after their name. We've got plenty of them. I have six academic letters after my name because I have two earned doctorates.

But that alone does not qualify me to be a preacher. What we lack today in our churches are men anointed with the spirit of God who unflinchingly preach the whole counsel of God, not fearing men nor deacons, but fearing only the Almighty.

I've been around a long time. I've had my share of unfit medical doctors who misdiagnosed me and made me worse off from visiting them. And I've known some shady lawyers who were more concerned about getting my money than they were giving me solid legal representation.

And I've sat under a wide array of preachers over the last several decades who, many of them, had no clue how to point someone savingly to heaven because they were ignorant men regarding what true salvation was.

Oh, they had enough academic degrees and a winning personality, but they were quite inept at pointing sinners to Christ to save them. So let me ask you a question, friend. Would you go to a deficient doctor or a lousy lawyer?

I doubt that you would. Then why sit under a powerless preaching ministry? What we need today in our pulpits are God-called men who walk closely with God and who are anointed by the spirit of God, faithful shepherds who preach with plainness and power the full counsel of God and warn men and women and boys and girls of their duty to repentance and their great danger of dying in their sins and dropping into a burning hell for all eternity.

The Danger of Easy Decisions and False Conversions

I'll never forget the preacher who had the knack to get people to walk an aisle at the end of his sermon. Every time this old boy preached, he'd have them coming down the aisle to accept Jesus. That pastor made it awful easy to walk that aisle and come to Jesus.

And he was a regular potpiper with a winning personality. And every single time, there was always somebody coming down front to come to Jesus. But the trouble was, he filled up his church with unconverted church members who mistakenly believed themselves to be saved individuals.

They were just greatly deceived. They mentally joined a church and made a decision to become a Christian based on his easy-to-believe gospel invitation and a very easy walk down an aisle to get to heaven.

So they walked down that aisle. Some of them laughed when they came down there. Some talked. Some were still chewing on their gum, and they accepted his little Jesus like they would accept a stick of chewing gum.

And they joined a church and were baptized. But they were merely baptized pagans who were still in their sins. Although this pastor was a popular preacher, he didn't have a clue how to sanely point a sinner to Christ to really get them saved.

His converts were his own converts who were never awakened to their lost condition, never convicted of sin, and never experienced the work of grace upon the heart through the supernatural act of regeneration.

And I say this sadly, friends. That pastor influenced many young seminary boys to emulate him and preach that same easy-to-believe gospel, which is a no-gospel. There's a dearth in our land of true preachers who preach the full counsel of God, proclaiming the great doctrines of ruin, repentance, redemption, and regeneration.

Pleasant Sermons and Itching Ears

I'll never forget the pastor who preached nice little messages each week to his swelling congregation. His messages were mainly of the encouraging word variety. They were sweet messages, but they had no spiritual depth to them.

But his congregation just loved that pastor, and they gave him more money to build a bigger sanctuary so he could reach more people with his pleasant sermons. I always wondered why this pastor never preached the true gospel to his people and warned them of the great danger of dying in their sins instead of giving them a false peace to continue to live in their sins.

Then one day I found out why. He had his mentor come and preach at his church one day. He always talked about his mentor who got him into the ministry, a former pastor from another state. Well, he had this older man come and preach one Sunday morning, and I sat there in that congregation to hear this visiting preacher who was this man's spiritual mentor and hero.

This older pastor preached the biggest bunch of nonsense I ever heard in a sermon in my entire life. It was all fluff with no substance whatsoever. And then I realized that this younger pastor had made this man his role model.

He wanted to become just like him. So his ceiling in ministry was this other preacher. And when he hit that ceiling, he felt he had arrived as a pastor. He got what he wanted, a bigger church and a people who loved him, and they got what they deserved, a pastor who scratched their itching ears but never challenged them spiritually.

And there's too many churches like that today, friends. About a year ago, I was being interviewed on the radio, something I normally do not do. I turn down most invitations that draw attention to myself.

But this lady radio host was pleasant and persuasive, and eventually she got me to agree to come on her radio show and talk about the Christian life. And while I was being interviewed, she said something I'll never forget as long as I live.

She said that about 20 years ago, she had a job where she was paid to contact pastors all over the country, and she got to talk to over 1 ,000 pastors. She would ask them each the following question, why did you become a pastor?

And they would answer, well, I like people, so I became a pastor to be around people and to help them. Or one would answer, I like to be in front of an audience, so I became a pastor for that reason. And they each gave their reasons for choosing the pastoral ministry as a profession.

And this lady radio host made the comment that out of those 1 ,000 pastors, there was only one man, a black man from the South, who said he became a pastor because he felt he was called of God. And as I heard her say that, it got me to thinking, and it explained a lot of things to me in regard to the famine we are experiencing today in our churches, friends.

The Famine of God-Called Ministry

We've gotten ourselves a group of polished men, professionals to fill our pulpits, but many of them were never called of God into the ministry. And if they are not God-called men, then they have no message from the heart of God to their people.

What they do on Sunday morning is a performance. They have church, and they repeat that performance every Sunday, week after week. The people come in one way, and they leave the same way, unchanged, because they did not hear from God but man.

I'm telling you, friends, there is a famine in the land today, not a famine of bread, not a famine of water, but of hearing the word of God. And there are a few people today in this country really getting saved.

False Assurance and Self-Righteous Religion

I wouldn't be surprised to learn at the judgment that most folks who are members of churches today are still in their sins and unconverted. They sit upon a false foundation of carnal security. They rest their hope of heaven on a good opinion of themselves and their long track record of good works.

But a good opinion of yourself will only send you to hell, friend. Good people don't go to heaven. Only forgiven people get to go there. And you cannot work your way into heaven either through serving in your church.

That won't cut the mustard when you die. You will die in your sins. I believe there is a Bible verse that best describes the spiritual condition of most church members today. It's found in the book of Proverbs in chapter 30 and verse 12.

Let me read it to you now, friends. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness. And I believe I know the reason why this condition is so prevalent in our day because there is a famine in the land, a famine in the land, a famine of hearing the true gospel proclaimed, the gospel of the Son of God that shuts a sinner up to God, to God alone for salvation.

We today have taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of man. We make ourselves Christians today. God's got nothing to do with it. But our churches have a lot of naked people in there.

I don't mean half-dressed, which many of them are. No, I mean they are spiritually naked because they lack the robe of righteousness. They are exposed to danger of dying in their sins because they are not washed from their filthiness by the blood.

They made a decision with their lips to become a Christian. But Christ has never possessed their heart. They are stony ground hearers who have no deep root of a true conversion experience. They serve in their church in various capacities and are proud of their position to service.

They sing in the choir. They sit on deacon committees. Some serve as staff ministers. They've been robbed of hearing the true gospel of the Son of God, and consequently, they know not the Son of God. They have a religion, but not a relationship.

They sit and rule on the throne of their heart. God is a convenient God who is here to serve them. They've never heard of the bloody Jesus who died on a cross to save them. The gospel they bought into was a bloodless gospel.

Repentance, the Cross, and the True Gospel

The preacher who told them what the gospel was first got out his mop bucket and washed up all the blood and gore around Calvary to make it more presentable to sinful man. Then he told them they could become Christians without having to exercise repentance toward God and turn from their wicked ways.

He fed them a only-believe gospel, which is a no-gospel. It's a hell-sending gospel, not a hell-saving gospel. We have a famine in the land today, friends, and it's a deadly famine. It's sending folks to hell every minute of the day.

If I sound upset tonight, friends, it's because I am upset. I'm fed up with the junk that is preached from our pulpits in this country. I'm fed up with our evangelism methods today. We've removed all the teeth out of the gospel message.

We've diluted it so much that it's hardly a gospel at all. We diluted it to make it more palatable to sinful man, but we ruined them in the process. I long for the day when a man will once again stand in a pulpit in this country and thunder the law about the ears of his hearers until they see Sinai altogether on a smoke.

I long for the day when preachers preach with conviction to such a degree that men are convicted of their sins. I long for the day when there is a God-consciousness in our sanctuaries once again, where the people are bowed under the awful solemnity of a holy God, and they cry out in desperation, What must I do to be saved?

I long for the day where a man will stand up with the authority of God and cry out against the sins in the land and preach the Word of God with the power of the Spirit of God. We need God-called men to do God-sized work.

We can only do so much with money and manpower. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor of thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

That day is come, friends, and it's a sad day indeed. Let us pray.