Half Baked Church Flipped Gospel — E.A. Johnston

The Hard Ministry of God's Prophets

Listen, friends, it's a hard road being God's prophet. The prophet Jeremiah preached to a hard-headed generation that not only rejected his message, but they kept throwing him into prison for it. Daniel got thrown into a lion's den.

Jonah got swallowed by a whale. The prophet Isaiah was sawn in half. Ezekiel was ordered not to mourn the death of his wife, and the prophet Hosea was called to marry a harlot. Hosea had a hard ministry because during most of Hosea's lifetime, the people of God were enjoying a period of material prosperity under King Jeroboam II of Israel.

Hosea and Israel's Spiritual Adultery

But at the same time, they were spiritually bankrupt. The Jews were committing harlotry against the Lord with divided hearts by trying to serve God with a half-hearted religion that was mixed with idol worship.

Hosea's marriage to Gomer exemplified this spiritual adultery. God best sums up their sad spiritual condition in idolatry by comparing them to a cake not turned. In Hosea 7 -8, we read, Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people.

Ephraim is a cake not turned, meaning he is half-baked. It looks good on the outside, but inside it's indigestible. That's how the Jews were in the time of Hosea, and that's how the modern church is right now.

The Worldly Influence on the Modern Church

The modern church made an alliance with the world by trying to reach the world by letting the world into the church. So instead of Christianity changing the world like it used to, we let the world change Christianity.

The Half-Baked Church and Flipped Gospel

And what we have today is a half-baked church with a flipped gospel, and that's the title of my message, friends. When the people of God are backslidden and in sad spiritual declension, they make improper decisions that are regrettable.

Replacing the God-Centered Gospel

One of those decisions was the watering down of the old gospel message to make it more palatable to sinful man. Us modern evangelists have flipped the gospel upside down. We turned it from a God-centered gospel to a man-centered gospel.

And in the process, what we have today is a weak, inferior version. In former times, a sinner surrendered to Christ and you lived for him in a life of discipleship. But today, we merely accept Jesus on our terms and we live for ourselves.

Repentance, Salvation, and the New Birth

In former times, we warned men of their duty of repentance, but now we tell men that repentance is not necessary to salvation because all you have to do to be saved is to only believe. The old gospel was God-centered and it magnified God and decreased man.

And now, we elevate man and we've shrunken God down to our size. The old gospel spoke of God dropping his plumb line of his unbending law alongside a man to prove all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And therefore, men need pardon from sin. The new gospel just apologizes for sin. The new gospel says man is saved by a decision he makes. The old gospel declared man is saved by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

The old gospel declares he must be born again. And this was done by God performing a work of grace upon the heart. The new gospel says all that's required is a mental flip for Jesus and the heart is untouched.

Revival and the Restoration of the Church

And finally, the old gospel had power to save. The new gospel can't save a flea, much less a person hardened by sin. What the church needs today, friend, is revival. When the people of God turn back to God, then they'll start living for God in eternity.

Until then, we will just have a half-baked church and a flip gospel. Until God sends revival, we'll just continue on with the status quo. And that means business as usual.