Deceived Church in a Degenerate Land — E.A. Johnston

I wasn't preaching this Easter Sunday, so I took my teenage daughter and we visited the fastest growing church in a southern city. They had three services that morning, and they were packed to the walls.

Entertainment-Driven Worship and the Loss of Reverence

As we entered the building, we passed a coffee bar in the lobby where people were getting their lattes and bringing them into the church sanctuary to drink during the service. I hesitate to call what I saw a sanctuary.

It was more of a nightclub than a church sanctuary. The stage was painted black, and there were neon blue light decorations all around the platform. The worship band began, and I soon realized I was at a rock concert.

A smoke machine was next to the drummer, and smoke filled the platform of blue-jean-dressed musicians and singers. A strobe light flashed behind them. The music was so loud my ears were still hurting two hours after the service.

The worship minister yelled out between songs, You don't have to wait for the invitation to be saved. Just put your faith in Jesus right now and get it settled so you can sing along as a believer. Just do it now.

And then the music pounded in my ears so loudly I could barely stand it. The woman in front of me had on a backless dress, and her back was covered with tattoos. In her one hand she held a coffee in a styrofoam cup, and her other hand was raised over her head, and she waved it, and she shook her rear end to the music's pounding beat.

And I looked around that auditorium, and every seat was full, and everybody there was gyrating like that woman in front of me. And my daughter and I just sat there and suffered through it. Then the pastor got up on stage in his casual clothes, and he told a story based on his perception of what Easter was to him.

He was funny, and the audience laughed and laughed while they drank their coffee during this Easter service. And as I sat there, I was sick to my stomach, I was literally nauseated as I tried to make sense of what was going on in that place called a church.

I sensed a presence there. It was a prominent presence, but it was not God's presence. It was a demonic presence. A spirit of deception pervaded the atmosphere of that room. From the pastor to the music minister to the people in the seats, they all worshipped this presence and mistook that evil demonic presence for good.

And as I sat there, I was baffled at how so many people could be so deceived and believe they were serving God and worshipping God when it was so evident to me that this was an oppressive evil presence there.

Finally, my daughter tapped me on the shoulder and she said, Daddy, can we leave? I can't take this anymore. We got up and left in the middle of the pastor telling another story. As we walked out into the sunshine of the pretty Eastern morning, my daughter turned to me and said, I'm glad we left.

That was horrible. I turned to her and said, baby girl, that is not what church is supposed to be. But I'm afraid that's what church has become in America today. And on the drive back, she showed me pictures she took of the woman's bathroom, how elaborate it was.

Flat screen TVs were all along the wall. Ivory sinks had stress relieving soap dispensers. Soft couches were all along the wall of this huge looking spa, which was the woman's restroom. My daughter said she thought it was gaudy to be in a church like that.

Consumer Comfort versus a House of Prayer

I agreed with her, but that's the norm in America today. The church is centered around the creature comforts of man. My daughter asked me what the church was like when I was a boy. I said it was common back then to walk into a church sanctuary and find a prayer meeting going on where men and women and boys and girls were on their faces at the altar crying out to God because the presence of the Almighty was there and that the carpet in the sanctuary was wet from the tears of broken hearted people weeping over the sins of the land and praying for the lost in their community to come to Christ.

That the church back in America in those days was a house of prayer, not a house of entertainment like it is today. Then she asked me how the church got to be the way it is today. This is what I told her.

I said that somewhere back a few decades ago, the church in America started to change the gospel message to be a less offensive message. It became a only believe gospel and preachers quit preaching on sin and omitted the need for man to repent to come to God.

They quit preaching the Lordship of Jesus Christ and holiness in the life of the believer. The gospel became a watered down version of the original. Then the American church got on a mad rush of empire building that made them expand their bulging campuses to try to become the biggest church in their city.

Pastors could not wait to read the hottest new book on church growth and adopt that mentality to their program. Pastors in former days read books on being anointed with the Holy Spirit and living a holy life.

But the pastors of today in the recent past just want to grow their church to be as big as it can be. And they had to make it attractive to the masses. So they had to change the way they did worship. So they tossed out the God-centered hymns and brought in man-centered entertainments.

Then they did away with the weekly prayer meeting because they did not want to wait upon God any longer when they could get the job done with money and manpower a lot quicker anyhow. And the bottom line was they walked God to the back of the church and pushed him out the back door and opened the front door of the church and let the world in.

They wanted to add something new and different to attract the modern crowd because they felt the old ways couldn't get the job done anymore. And anytime there is a mixture of something, it is no longer pure.

A little poison will pollute an entire stream. One fly in the ointment is all you need, friends. And when the American church mixed a little religion with a lot of the world, it became an impure church, a worldly apostate church that is greatly deceived.

And I stressed to my daughter that there are still a few good churches in the land, and I knew the pastors of many of them, and they didn't do church like what we saw that Easter Sunday. But she said most of the churches were like the one we visited.

And I said, yes, that's true. The majority of the churches in this country are deceived. And that's the title of my message this evening. A deceived church in a degenerate land that the land is degenerate is a stark fact today when good is called evil and evil good.

Moral Degeneration and the Church's Compromise

And God is nothing more than a cuss word in this nation today. It's a degenerate land. And as we drove in the car, my daughter informed me what Easter fell on this year. It was 4 -20, 4 -20 day, the 20th of April.

4 -20 day is a day of national celebration for marijuana use. It began with a group of California students years ago who used to sneak outside the school at 4 -20 in the afternoon to smoke weed. And now on April 20th each year in this country, on every social page on the Internet are posted photos of people holding up their weed and smoking it in celebration of it.

And this happened to fall on Easter Sunday this year. So each city in America on Easter Sunday was having a 4 -20 festival in some part of their city to celebrate a narcotic drug and summon their noses in the face of God.

So we have a nation of people who are high on drugs, drugs that are quickly becoming legal in many states. And we have a nation of people who are drunk on alcohol. And a nation of people who are intoxicated with sensuality and sex and go their own way against the ways of God.

We can't blame the media for they just give the people what they want. It's all supply and demand. And Americans want sex and sexuality as their entertainment. And they want alcohol and narcotics to numb the pain of the emptiness that grips their heart.

The nation of America lies in a stupor of degeneration and perversion. And it is in a downward spiral out of control. And where is the church in all of this? The church at large is deceived by a spirit of deception.

And it busies herself with growing her campus and convincing herself she's doing it in the name of God and religion. This evening I will elaborate on how the church in America got in this sad condition.

Three Causes of the American Church's Decline

Number one, there is an unconverted ministry. Number two, there is a perverted gospel. And number three, there is an unregenerate church body. Our passage this evening is taken from the Old Testament from the book of Hosea.

You may turn in your Bibles there now. Listen friends, I have no funny stories to tell you this evening to make you laugh. I didn't come here to entertain you. My ministry is to the slumbering church in America to try and awaken her out of her spiritual stupor.

I'm not a popular preacher. And I've preached myself just about out of most churches I've been in. Nobody wants my message today. It's an unpopular message. I like to preach that when Adam fell in the garden, he just didn't trip and skin his knee a little.

Rather, he fell on his head and died spiritually. That mankind comes into this world with an utterly roomed nature. And all of Adam's children are born with a bent toward sin. Man drinks iniquity like it's water.

And man lacks the moral ability to turn to God and serve him. If you get saved, it's because God gave you the grace to be saved. It is he who gives saving faith so we can turn to him in repentance and faith.

And I preach that man has a duty to repent toward God. And if you do not repent, you will surely die in your sins and drop into a place of eternal misery called hell. That hell is hot. Hell is a place of intense torment and suffering, and it is endless for all eternity.

Repentance, Regeneration, and the Lordship of Christ

I preach the necessity of regeneration that man must be born again by the spirit of God. God's word declares that it is he who takes away the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh. I preach up the lordship of Jesus Christ that if you want him savingly, you must bow to him as Lord.

You must throw down your shotgun of rebellion and submit to the claims and rights that the gospel has on a follower of Christ Jesus. And you must take up your cross and deny yourself and follow a crucified savior.

I preach Christ and him crucified and a bloody cross because of sin. I preach on the sinfulness of sin. And if you claim to be a Christian, then you must pursue a life of holiness for without no one will see the Lord.

Now, most folks don't like that message, but it's the only message I know. I will preach it until I die and go to glory. I preach a God-centered gospel, and I preach about a risen Lord who sits on the right hand of the father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.

Hosea's Warning to a Spiritually Decayed People

And I will not stand idly by while the church in my country falls into gross error and deception and becomes a church that Jesus wants to spew out of his mouth because it makes him sick. Now, we will be in chapter 7 in the book of Hosea.

Chapter 7 is a reproof of the manifold sins of the people of God. The Jews were completely unaware of their spiritual condition and the spiritual decay which was upon them. Listen, friends, to how this passage so accurately describes the church in America today.

I repeat, there are some still faithful churches in the land with godly shepherds in the pulpits. I know of them, but they are few. Listen to the word of God, and I pray it stirs our hearts this evening and awakens us to our great danger.

When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they commit falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.

And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness, now their own doings have beset them about, they are before my face. They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raisin after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine, he stretched out his hand with scorners, for they have made ready their heart like an oven, whilst they lie and wait, their baker sleepeth all the night, in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges, all their kings are fallen, there is none among them that calleth unto me. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people, Ephraim is a cake, not turned, strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not, yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not.

I will stop there. In this striking passage of the word of God, we see a people decayed spiritually, they have replaced the God of their fathers with false gods, they have mixed their worship with idols, and they bow down to them, they have no spiritual power, no influence upon the pagan nations that surround them, they are so deluded and deceived, that they are completely unaware of their great spiritual declension and rotten condition, they are like a cake, half baked, done on one side, but raw on the other, a mixture no good to anybody, they have grey hairs on them, and knoweth not, so sad is their spiritual decay, that they believe themselves to be right in the sight of God, and they make excuses for their sinful behavior, such is the church in America today, but how did we get here?

Unconverted Leaders, a Perverted Gospel, and an Unregenerate Membership

I can explain it the best way I know how, because I have observed it for the last 40 years. First, there is an unconverted ministry today, many stand in pulpits across this country, and they are blind leaders, who are unregenerate individuals with seminary degrees, they know their Bibles, they know their theology, but they do not know the God of the Bible, they have not the Spirit of God in them, nor the sanctified work of the Holy Spirit upon them, they are unconverted, ordained ministers, and they have no spiritual power, thus, they are easily deceived by their father the devil, they worship a false spirit, and preach a false gospel, and that is my second point, friends, the gospel of our modern day is a perverted gospel, it is a perversion of the New Testament original, the gospel of our hour is so watered down to make it more palatable to sinful man, that it has no saving power whatsoever, it is a feel-good message, preached with the intent to not offend anybody, sin is omitted, the blood is omitted, repentance is omitted, the cross and the life of the believer is omitted, when my daughter and I left that church, she turned to me and said, Daddy, how can anybody in that church get saved by that message?

I answered and said, They cannot, honey, but that's the mainstream gospel of your day and mine, and that, friends, leads me to my third point of an unregenerate church body, at this church, I listened to a church member give her testimony while she was being baptized, she said that she was driven away from church as a youth because of its strictness, but when she found out about this church and how accepting they were of everybody, she knew it was the place for her, so that is why she joined it, and now she wanted to make it public and tell people she was a Christian and a member there, and she was proud of it, that was her testimony.

We have in our churches today a vast majority of its members who lie in an unconverted state, they made a decision to become a Christian based on some reason, or they based it on a text, they believed John 3 .16 to be true, so they became a Christian, and the church let them in and baptized them, but listen, friends, there was a time in our country years ago when you cannot become a member of a church unless you demonstrated credible evidence of regeneration, but the majority of church members today have never been awakened to their lost condition, never been convicted of sin, and have never been regenerated by the spirit of God through the new birth, but that is okay with the American church today because of her empire building mentality, she will let you join quickly and make it easy for you to join because she needs your money to expand her already bulging campus, the pastor won't warn you of your danger of dying in your sins and the necessity of regeneration to be truly saved because he more than likely has never been the subject of regeneration himself, so this is how we arrived here with a deceived church in a degenerate land, the blind lead the blind because of an unconverted ministry, false prophets abound, the perverted gospel is the main one you will hear on Sunday morning and the church is in the land, it can't save a flea, much less a hell-bound sinner who loves his sins, and we make it easy to be a church member so we have a large percentage of our church membership who are unregenerate, baptized heathen, and society looks at the church in America today and laughs along with her for she is indeed laughable, when the ministers of a nation cease to be like salt and act as a preservative against sin, then evil will abound in the land and corruption will spread and set in like a great plague, we got here when the church quit calling sin sin, when the church quit calling men to their duty of repentance, when the church quit preaching on holiness and discipleship, when the church let the world in, the world went to hell, few are saved today and many are deceived, this is the sad condition of this once great nation called America, only a God-sent revival will save this nation from certain destruction, heaven help us, let me pray, great God almighty, oh ancient of days, your very name is holy, you dwell in a high and lofty place, but we oh Lord are poor, blind and naked, we are poor spiritually, we have no power, we are blind to our wretched condition, and we are naked and exposed to your divine judgments upon us, we have forsaken thee, the God of the Bible, and replaced thee with idols of our own making, a false spirit lies heavy upon us as we sleep the sleep of death, awaken us great king to our grave danger, forgive us great God, have mercy upon us I pray, in your wrath remember mercy, send us oh Lord the grace of repentance to forsake our wicked ways and to turn back to thee with all our hearts, shower us with revival blessings and not your outpoured wrath, have mercy I pray great God.