I Don'T Want a Lord — E.A. Johnston

Salvation Requires Repentance and Submission to God

I believe it's dangerous to go against the plain teachings of the Bible as to what salvation is. And I believe it's also dangerous to argue points of theology in days of spiritual declension where very few are really walking close to God in lives of surrender to His rule and authority in their life by living holiness unto the Lord.

True Salvation Cannot Be Defined by Seminary Credentials

And I believe seminary professors can be right or wrong when it comes to knowing what true salvation is. And just because you founded a seminary doesn't make you an expert on salvation either, as there are seminary founders and professors who believed a lie and who died in their sins because they never exercised repentance toward God.

Heresy and Apostasy in the Institutional Church

I don't care how many systematic theologies they wrote. Heresy is still heresy in a day of proliferation of false prophets and a day of apostasy in the institutional church. And that's the day we are living in right now, friends.

You would be hard-pressed to find a church in this country whose pastor would be true to your soul because this is the day of the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a day when church members say with their lips that they love Jesus, but demonstrate with their lives that they are the ones who sit on the throne of their lives and rule there as they gather in a big rowdy crowd and holler at the top of their lungs, I don't want a Lord.

“I Don't Want a Lord”

And that's the title of my message today, friends. I don't want a Lord. I believe we have forgotten what true salvation is in the country of pagan America. We quit preaching the gospel in this country 60 years ago.

The Easy-Believed Gospel and Unconverted Church Members

Instead, we let a popular evangelist tell us what salvation was because we saw it got results and we wanted to follow in Billy's steps and get the same results. And we sure got them as we loaded our church rolls with the unconverted.

And we let a popular seminary tell us what salvation was as they produced on a mass scale the easy-believed gospel that is found prominent in our churches today. Through all of this spiritual declension, our religious conscience was seared and deadened to such degree that we condemn the souls of men and call it Christianity.

Well, you can keep that brand of Christianity to yourselves because I don't want to have anything to do with it. As a God-called preacher, I believe I have a responsibility found in Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 8, which declares, When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die.

If thou does not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. That's the duty of every preacher and I will be able to easily recognize all the men in ministry who believe the lie and who preached a different gospel than the one found in my Bible as they line up at the judgment and stand there with their bloody hands for damning the souls of men rather than being true to the souls of men.

The Spiritual Crisis of a Sin-Loving Society

This is the most crucial issue of this hour, friends, as we live in a sin-loving society and a godless nation and fewer being saved today. I believe when God brings the curtain down on this old world and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, returns in all his rule and authority that this present generation will be revealed as one of the sparsest ones in history for conversions.

It's hard to get saved when heresy is the rule and doctrine of the churches and it's even harder to get saved when God has removed himself from amongst us and very few men are willing to preach the truth and be true to the souls of men so the Holy Spirit can come around and attend those truths and make it a reality in the heart of some poor sinner.

Repentance and the Death of the Love of Sin

No, friends, we should all put a padlock on our church doors and throw in the towel of what we call preaching today and instead spend that time on our knees before God in repentance, humility, and prayer, begging God to forgive us for so perverting the gospel of his dear son by teaching a hardened sinner can find forgiveness for sin without true repentance and utter committal to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, God Almighty demands as a condition of salvation on the part of the sinner, repentance toward God and that repentance toward God means that the love of sin must die.

He must renounce it and repudiate it and forsake it and turn from it and cry to God for its deliverance from its power and the other condition that Almighty God requires of sinful man is absolute saving faith and that saving faith means surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and trust in his atoning work as Savior.

Total Submission to the Lordship of Christ

God requires total submission to Jesus as Lord and he will accept nobody who tries to muscle their way into his kingdom and denies the Lordship of Jesus Christ in his life. Jesus must reign, but this is the day when heaven hangs her head in shame over the church today that has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.

This generation of unconverted church members cry, we will not have this man to reign over us. I want a Savior, but I don't want a Lord. As a preacher of God's gospel, I've been shut out of my own denomination.

Faithfulness Despite Denominational Rejection

Pulpits have been closed to me, conference invitations quit coming years ago when I changed my message from a popular one to an unpopular one that presents a sovereign Lord of absolute authority. For when I preach, I warn men of the utter strictness of God's law that requires an utter committal to Christ as Lord.

Encouragement from the Book of Revelation

I feel like I'm a dinosaur right before the ice age shouting warnings to my fellow man of the impending danger around the door. And in my isolation, I get so downcast and so discouraged that the only thing that keeps me going is that I know over in the book of Revelation, there is encouragement there for I'll go to that book and see that God is going to gather people redeemed out of every tongue and nation.

Preaching the Gospel with Clean Hands

And I dip my hands into the blood of my Lord and I put it on my heart and dab it on my lips and put it over my worn out and tired body. And then I tell the devil to go back to hell because as long as I have breath in me, I'm going to preach the real gospel and be true to the souls of men by warning them.

I'll go to my grave with my hands clean of their blood. Now, I don't know about you brother preacher, but I do know we will all have to stand before the one who has eyes of fire and give answer to him and be accountable to him for how we preached him.