Zombies Staggering to Hell — E.A. Johnston

Great God, I come before you by the blood of thy dear son, Jesus. I ask for your spirit to attend the preaching of your word. I ask you to manifest yourself, to manifest your pungent presence in our midst and come and disturb folks out of their false assurance.

Come, workin' hearts tonight and lead some poor sinner here this evening to the very brink of eternity. Lift the lid off that bottomless pit and open their ears so they can hear the cries of the damned.

The Peril of False Assurance

If they are heading to hell, then flash hellfire on their souls and show them where they are going. Open someone's eyes, I pray, and reveal to them a bleeding and dying Christ on Calvary. Show them Christ's reception of sinners.

Awaken an alarm and save some here tonight. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. How you respond, friends, to the following message will determine your eternal state. I'm gonna prove to you this evening, friends, that this generation is standing on the very precipice to hell.

This generation of biblically illiterate individuals are on the very verge of falling into that bottomless pit that that much of mankind has some kind of religion. But most of mankind are hopelessly lost, even if they are religious.

The Hindu, the Buddhist, the Mormon, the Jew, the Islamist, the Catholic are all very fervent about their religion. They pray, they fast, they chant, they deny themselves for their religion. But this generation that populates this present planet will one day die and leave this world for another world.

And many will close their eyes in this world and open their eyes in hell. I will present evidence to you this evening, friends, and I'll back it up with my Bible. And the evidence I present will confirm the fact that this generation of mankind are but zombies staggering to hell.

Adam's Fall and Mankind's Inherited Sin

And that's the title of my message this evening, friends, Zombies Staggering to Hell. God created man in the Garden of Eden and gave him a helpmate in Eve. But man disobeyed God through sin and fell. And when Adam fell, he just didn't slip a little and skin his knee, but rather he fell headlong in a resounding crash that is echoed and reverberated down through the ages.

For every man living is born guilty of Adam's sin and is under a curse. God said in Genesis chapter 3, Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. All the days of thy life.

It breaks me up to say to you, friends, but Adam was the head of mankind and all mankind are members of that head. Adam, because of sin, became the poison root of all mankind. And every mother's son enters this world tainted with the same poison principles.

Man has a rune nature and bent towards sin. In fact, man can't get enough of sin. Job speaks of man's runed estate. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drank of iniquity like water. Man drinks sin like water.

He can't get enough of it. As soon as he laps it up, he is thirsty for more. Man is not satisfied looking at one picture of a naked woman on the Internet. He has to drool over a thousand. Every man is born stark dead in sin.

Spiritual Death and the Walking Dead

Paul speaks this in Ephesians 2, 1, when he says,. And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Mankind is but the walking dead. Mankind are zombies who stagger this way and that way, pushing all out of the way to get their own selfish self-gratification.

Man is born empty of every inward principle of life. He is a stranger to grace. He is but an animated corpse held bent on his own pleasure, but a dead man nonetheless. In Exodus 12, 30, God's Word declares that there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house wherein there was not one found dead.

Chicago is full of the walking dead. New York is full of the walking dead. St. Louis is full of the walking dead. New Orleans is crammed with the walking dead. Los Angeles is crawling with the walking dead.

Every city, every hamlet, whether urban or rural, is teeming with zombies right now. Right now! A dead man has no fear. A dead man has no principle of life in him. He cannot be alarmed by fire. He cannot feel pain because he is a corpse.

He feels no physical threatenings because he is stark blind and raving mad. He is oblivious to God and dead to spiritual things. He has no appetite for God or the Bible. He can hear the voice of man and look in his direction as he slowly staggers toward him, but he cannot hear the voice of God.

He cannot turn to God on his own. He is the walking dead, a zombie staggering to hell. It is laughable to think that a man can open his heart to God or decide to become a Christian on his own. A dead man has no principle of life in him.

False Religion and Unregenerate Church Members

Modern evangelism only deceives multitudes and fills hell by the hour with baptized, unregenerate church members. The lost religious person travels down the broad way of life and lives in gross ignorance to a saving knowledge of Christ.

His head has been filled with lies from false teachers who wear wolves in sheep's clothing. His heart is still unregenerate even though he dresses nice for church on Sunday. He mistakenly believes that his position in the church validates his place in heaven.

But there are many in hell right now screaming that they were the chairman of the deacons. A dead man cannot stir. Lazarus lay in his dark tomb, rotten, while Jesus delayed. But when Christ stood before that tomb in his almighty power, there became a rustling going on inside it.

And when Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! A principle of life was implanted in Lazarus to animate him and breathe life in him. You cannot be saved, friend, from only hearing this poor preacher's voice as I speak to you now.

But you can be saved if you ever hear his voice as it comes to you in all its power, majesty, and authority. The Father performs the great work of election. The Son, the great work of redemption. The Holy Spirit works his work of grace upon the heart in regeneration through the application of the Word of God.

Salvation by Divine Initiative

Salvation is in the hands of God and not men. If you are saved, friend, it's because God gave you saving faith. It's ludicrous and dangerous to think you can respond on your own to an emotional appeal and accept Jesus as your personal Savior in your own power.

Jesus said that type of evangelism is nothing but hogwash. Jesus declared in John 6, 44, No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. A zombie has no ability to come to Christ.

There is no principle in that zombie, that walking dead corpse, that can animate him to come to Jesus and believe on him. There first has to be a work of grace performed on the heart by the regenerating work of the Spirit of God.

Ezekiel 36, 26 declares, A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. Fallen man is but a zombie staggering to hell, stopping long enough to sin here and to sin there, as he slowly makes his way to that smoke and bottomless pit of darkness and misery.

The Need for Regeneration and Conversion

Modern evangelists will tell you to open your heart and decide for Jesus, but Jesus never spoke that heresy. He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me except it was given unto him of my Father.

I can't save you, friend, but I can disrobe the heresy of modern evangelism and do my best to hammer away on your false foundation of an empty religious profession. Only God's voice can raise the dead.

You may have lived your entire life as a religious zombie on your way to hell. You have to get shut up to God and God alone for salvation. You must become a seeker of him, a beggar for mercy. You must get your sins washed in Christ's blood for pardon of sin.

You must be born again. It is my prayer that you are awakened to your lost condition and that you become aware of your perilous position outside of Christ's blood. You've been a zombie long enough, friend, who was dead in sin.

You must repent and believe. Repentance is a grace given. On a hill far away hung a Savior for sin. Oh, look, that man on the cross, friend. Look at that bloodstained Savior from sin hanging there, crucified there, with his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him and believe on him.

Christ's Invitation to the Thirsty

Listen, hear him as he cries. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Friend, do you see your need of a bleeding and dying Christ?

Hear him now. And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.