Old Time Religion Got the Job Done — E.A. Johnston

The Failure of Modern Man-Centered Religion

I'm not much of a fan of this newfangled religion that entertains more than it alarms and sues but fails to search. It flatters men with a false sense of security instead of flattening them with the claims of Christ Jesus.

Old-Time Religion and the Conversion of Sinners

We have filled our churches today with namby-pamby religious folks who like to sing hymns but they don't know him. But the old time religion got the job done of convicting and converting the most hardened sinners.

Christianity’s Moral Influence on Society

The old time religion was a time when Christianity changed the world instead of the world changing Christianity. Old time religion gave society a moral compass and a healthy fear of God and the land. Old time religion had old time preachers who weren't ashamed to preach that sin was black and hell was hot and a future judgment awaited all mankind.

The Cross, Sin, and the Savior

That old time religion got down deep into your bones and made you walk a straighter line than we cut today. The old time religion centered around a cross on Calvary on which the Prince of Glory died. It pointed out your sins and then pointed you to a bloodstained savior from sin.

Conviction Under the Law and the Substitute for Sin

Old time religion brought you to the foot of Sinai by the preaching of the law and first showed you your need of a remedy for sin until you saw your guilt of a broken law and then it brought you, brokenhearted and humbled, to the nail-pierced feet of that substitute for sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Regeneration Through a God-Centered Gospel

Old time religion preached a God-centered gospel that had power to save because the old time religion could arrest the hearts of the most foul sinners in town. And the old time religion so changed you by regeneration that you actually lived for God after that wondrous change took place.

The Shift from God’s Glory to Human Happiness

Old time religion reformed communities, made evil slink back into the shadows and put down all loudmouth atheists because God held the majority in the nation back then. But somehow we lost our way and started preaching a more acceptable gospel that produced a newer man-centered religion that centered around the happiness of man and had no constraints upon him.

It taught you you could have Jesus and as much the world as you wanted because you were the center of your world, whereas the old time religion had at its center the glory of God. In Jeremiah we read about the old and the new.

The Old Paths of Jeremiah 6:16

In Jeremiah 6 .16 we read, Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein. And ye shall find rest for your souls. But what do the people really want?

Rejecting the Way That Leads to Rest

Well let's look and see. But they said, we will not walk therein. And therein lies the problem, friends. In our churches, we gave folks what they wanted instead of what they needed, and you see where that's gotten us.

Returning to Scripture and the Salvation of Souls

I believe it's time, friends, to retrace our Bible and get familiar with the God of the Bible and give back the old time religion that made a nation God-conscious and that got the job done in the salvation of souls.

Let us pray.