Strangers to Converting Grace — E.A. Johnston

A country church hosted a cowboy evangelist for the young people in the church, and he wore his cowboy hat to the evangelistic meeting and brought his pony onto the platform with him. He began his message by asking the pony the following question, "'How many disciples were there?'.

And the pony began to tap his hoof on the wooden platform twelve times. He then asked, "'How many commandments are there?'. The pony then began to tap his hoof on the floor ten times to the amazement of the children there.

And before the cowboy evangelist could ask another question, a smart aleck teenager on the front row hollered to the pony, "'How many hypocrites are in this church?'. Just then the pony broke into a little dance.

The Hypocrite as a Religious Person Without Conversion

Well, I used to think that a hypocrite was a phony who wanted you to think he was a Christian, that he already knew he wasn't a Christian, but he pretended to be one at church. But I was wrong in my definition of a hypocrite back then, because I believe a true hypocrite is a person who is a sincere member of a church.

They serve at church faithfully. They give to the church. They enjoy attending church and will not hesitate to inform you that you need to be at church as well. They are a sincere religious person who has joined the church, but who is not converted.

They have a hope of heaven based on their beliefs and their good opinion of themselves. But a Bible verse that really disturbs me, friends, is about the hypocrite, and it disturbs me because it's so true.

Job 8 .13 declares, "'And the hypocrite's hope shall perish.'". The sad fact is that folks join a church believing that church membership is salvation, or they believe John 3 .16 to be true, and they think that's salvation.

Religious Profession Versus Converting Grace

Or they do what the pastor tells them to do, and they believe that's salvation. But they are strangers to converting grace. And that's the best definition of a hypocrite that I can come up with. A hypocrite is a stranger to converting grace.

They merely walked an aisle, or repeated a prayer, or said yes to Jesus, like they'd cast a vote for a politician. They joined the church and were baptized, and they were put on the church membership roll, but they've never experienced the work of grace upon the heart performed by the Spirit of God in the supernatural work of regeneration.

They are unconverted religious church members on the way to hell because their hope of heaven is that of the hypocrite. And God says in His Word that the hypocrite's hope shall perish. And that means to miss Christ, you miss heaven, and to be cast into outer darkness and perish in a burning hell of torment and misery forever and ever and ever.

The False Assurance of Church Members

A hypocrite is a nice religious church person who will hear Jesus say one day, I never knew you. Depart from me, you worker of iniquity. Now this is a very serious matter, friends, because we live in a day where it's difficult to be converted.

Apostasy and an Unconverted Ministry

We live in a day of the withdrawn presence of God in our churches, and we live in a day of great apostasy in our denominations. It's a time of falling away like the apostle Paul spoke of before the rise of Antichrist.

It used to be years ago that if you could just get a lost friend of yours to church on Sunday, he had a good opportunity to be saved. But not anymore, because we don't preach the gospel anymore. You'll just hear a man's opinion about it, what he thinks salvation is, and the chances are he is a religious hypocrite himself and a stranger to converting grace.

We live in a day of an unconverted ministry. Now that's a sad reality. Our seminaries turn out men with letters after their name, but their name's not in the Lamb's Book of Life. They are strangers to converting grace.

Examining Personal Conversion and the New Birth

Your average religious church member has a hope of heaven, but, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. Or you say, friend, have you ever been lost? How do you know you were saved? If you've never been lost, never awakened to your lost condition, never brought under conviction of sin, never experienced the work of grace upon the heart through the new birth, are you just a hypocrite who is a stranger to converting grace?

Even if you're a deacon or an elder or a pastor or a seminary professor, are you born again? Have you been washed in the blood and born from above? Or did someone just tell you that you were saved because you did what they said to do?

Christ Alone as the Way to the Father

Eternity waits while you live upon a false foundation created by an empty religious profession. In a day of deep spiritual declension in the church where few are truly converted, Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Get to Christ, friend. Salvation is Christ. Let us pray.