From a Feast to a Fire — E.A. Johnston

The Unconverted Church Member and False Assurance

I preach this message with a broken heart, friends, over the condition of the church and this country today, and there is a passage in my Bible which I feel best represents the church in our day, which is comprised largely of unconverted church members.

They attend Sunday service and enjoy the fellowship and the music, and at times they may even enjoy the message brought by the pastor. Their hope of heaven is based on a time in their past when they did something and made a decision for Jesus.

They responded to an altar call, perhaps, and walked an aisle while music was playing I Surrender All, and once there they took somebody's hand and said they were accepting Jesus, and then they were asked to repeat the sinner's prayer, and then somebody shook their hand and told them they were now a Christian.

The Difference Between Church Membership and Salvation

The trouble with all this methodology is it's not found in my Bible, and their testimony of salvation rests on the fact that they did something back yonder, and they joined the church, and since that time, they've been living under the cover of a false profession while they enjoy the fellowship and fun and the atmosphere at church with friends, and they haven't a clue what salvation is because they mistook it for church membership.

They made the mistake of believing the easy-to-believe gospel of our day, but they've never been awakened to their lost condition, never have come under Holy Spirit conviction, and therefore have never taken their place as a lost sinner at the feet of a nail-pierced Savior.

They have missed both repentance and faith. They have never been born again from above by the Holy Spirit in the transformation of every generation whereby God takes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh, but they are convinced they will one day go to heaven when they die or when Jesus comes again, and they will grow angry at you if you challenge their testimony of salvation.

The Easy-Believe Gospel and the Danger of Hell

The main source of all this false foundation is the modern gospel of our day, which places all the emphasis on a person doing something, only believing you will be saved. Make it public and walk this aisle, friend, and then you are a Christian.

Accept Jesus as your personal Savior, friend, and you can be assured you will go to heaven. Multitudes for the last sixty or seventy years in this country have swallowed the watered-down easy-to-believe gospel, and they joined the church and served there faithfully in some capacity for years, and a day came when they died, and their pastor stood over their casket and said, Mary has now left us, or Joe has left us, but they are now joyful because they are in the presence of Jesus.

But if that pastor would be quiet long enough, and if you could be escorted over to the brink of eternity and lift the lid off that bottomless pit, all you'd hear would be the screams of that dearly departed church member who was now locked up in the fiery prison of hell.

The Need for Preaching Repentance and Regeneration

Now, I'm going to be honest with you folks, because where you end up in eternity hangs in the balance of you examining yourself in the light of this message. Preachers today, for the most part, are protective of their reputations within their denomination, and they will avoid saying anything from the pulpit to risk upsetting someone.

Their livelihood is tied to the security of their congregations, and heaven help the pastor who tells his deacons that they must repent or go to hell. You could wander into a thousand churches, friends, across this land and sit there until the service was over, and you'd be hard-pressed to hear a message that preached hard against sin, warned against hell, warned you of your duty of repentance, and informed you that your only hope of heaven is to experience a supernatural act of regeneration by the Spirit of God, which is the new birth.

That being a Christian means that the gospel has rights and claims on your life, that you must take up your cross, and deny yourself, and pursue a life of holiness unto God, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, for without holiness, no man, no woman, will ever see the Lord.

The Wedding Feast in Matthew 22

Now that's the introduction to my message this evening, friends, and it's entitled, From a Feast to a Fire, and my text can be found in the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 22. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends.

We will be in verses 1 through 14. If you will lend me your ears, and listen to this message with an open mind, and with a sincere desire to know if you are truly saved, you may benefit from it. If you weren't really saved, friend, wouldn't you want to discover that now, so you can seek God for salvation?

Would you rather rest all your weight on a faulty bottom that will one day break beneath you as you plunge headlong into hell? I have a story about a wedding guest sitting at a banquet feast, and he's having the time of his life enjoying himself, at least up until when the king shows up and calls him out as a fraud and a fake, and has this man dragged out of that feast kicking and screaming on his way to the fires of hell, listening intently to this message I have for you, friends, called From a Feast to a Fire.

And if you find yourself in the story tonight, friend, I pray that God gets your attention. Here now is the Word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His Holy Word and bring conviction to the heart.

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come.

Refusing the King’s Invitation

Let me pause here, friends. This present generation has no interest in God or in the Word of God. Our young people today, many of whom who were raised in the church, are consumed with self-indulgence and are either high on drugs or drunk on booze or both, and are having the time of their life as sexually active individuals who could care less about the gospel, and to get them to listen, you'd have to hogtie them and force them to hear it, like the people in our story who were invited to a wedding feast, but our text says they would not come.

I believe, friends, that hot persecution is on its way to the American church, and that's the only thing that will wake her from her sleep of death on pillows of compromise and conformity. Again we see the pleas of this king to attend the wedding supper of his son.

Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden. Behold, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. Come on to the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways.

The Worldly Preoccupations of Unconverted Churchgoers

One to his farm, another to his merchandise. Let me pause here again, friends. People today have no interest in the gospel. You hand them a gospel tract, and they curiously look at it and throw it away.

And unconverted church folk are too busy enjoying their farms and their horses and their entertainments to give a hoot about eternity. They are consumed with the accumulation of money and the things money can buy, and they don't have time to hear a poor preacher with the true gospel.

If you are invited to preach for them and warn them of their duty of repentance, the good deacons will escort you out the door. Instead of a love offering, you'll receive looks of hate and eyes full of anger.

Some of the most wrathful individuals I've ever had to face were deacons in Baptist churches who became enraged by the demands of repentance. They looked at me like they wanted to kill me. We see something of this hatred in verse 6 in our text.

And the remnant took his servants and treated them spitefully and slew them. But I want to draw your attention, friends, to the fellow who is the main protagonist in our story tonight. He's a guest who gladly comes to the wedding feast, and he feels right at home there, and he's having the time of his life and joined the food and fellowship offered to him under these circumstances.

This man represents the average church member who was baptized and made a decision for Jesus under the easy-believed gospel. He's right at home in church and enjoys being there. He even has a bumper sticker that says, I love my church.

The Guest Without a Wedding Garment

And it's true. Well, let's look at this fellow now as we close in on him and on his dinner companions while he is enjoying a feast. Look at verse 11. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there was a man which had not on a wedding garment.

Let me pause here, friend. Here is where the rubber meets the road. Here is the great divide of the dragnet at the end time, where angels separate the good fish from the evil. He did not have on a wedding garment, and he's sitting there in his own self-righteousness.

He rests his hope in heaven on a physical act he did in the past when he walked an aisle and joined the church. He is comfortable among the other guests, and he's having the time of his life, at least until the king comes in and stares him down.

Then the blood in his face suddenly drains out as he hears the words, friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. This man looked around the banquet table and realized he was naked.

He was sitting there in his own merits and resting on a good opinion of himself until the king came in. When Jesus Christ, who is the searcher of hearts, comes in judgment to test one's life against his holy strict and severe law, there will be a time of great disturbance for that church member who stands there in his own merits and fails that test.

Those wearing the robe of righteousness are those guilty sinners who realize their need of a substitute for sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. They stand not on their merits, but in the blood-washed merits of another.

Outer Darkness and the Judgment of the False Professor

This man is speechless as his mouth is stopped because he is guilty. He's a guest at a feast who is suddenly and violently turned out. Look at verse 13. Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness.

There should be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Listen friends to this terrible description of the reality of hell. It's outer darkness. I've heard preachers make the following foolish remark. They'll say, God doesn't send you to hell.

You send yourself there. Okay. You died in your sins now. Take a walk to hell. No friend, if you go to hell, you will go there kicking and screaming. You will have to be hogtied and thrown in there against your will.

Jesus said those cast into hell will weep and gnash their teeth. Weeping speaks of anguish and great loss. Gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret. Here was a man, a man who felt at home in church among his friends.

He lives his life there as he dutifully serves his church in his best capacity, knows how, and he gives generously to it. He firmly believes he's going to heaven one day, but a reckoning day awaits him.

Where he will be silenced under self-condemnation as a holy Christ reveals to him his unsound heart. It will be a time of final separation, outer darkness, remorse, and gnashing of teeth. His body will lie in the cemetery beneath a headstone with a Bible verse, but his soul rages in a boiling sea of fire as he experiences death and is abruptly taken from an earthly feast to an eternal fire.

The Call to Repentance and Seeking the Lord

Don't let that happen to you, friend. Don't let that happen to you. You must repent of your sins and get under the blood and be born from above to be accepted of God beneath your robe of righteousness.

If you found yourself in this story, then become a seeker of God right now. In Isaiah we read, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Fleeing to Christ as the Only Way of Salvation

Are you a guilty sinner, friend? Do you need pardon from sin? Then flee to Christ, for he is the only remedy for sin. Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

Don't rest your hope of heaven on anything else. Don't be deceived and sit laughing and joking at church and join a feast when you soon will be cast into a fire. Flee to Christ, friend. You must get to Christ.

If you miss Christ, you miss heaven. Let us pray.