A Bloodstained Jesus Will Get You Mad — E.A. Johnston

The Diluted Gospel and the Helpless Jesus

The modern day gospel of our day wouldn't upset anybody. It is a calm, appealing, free ticket to heaven that anybody can casually accept and not worry about changing their lifestyle or giving up their sins.

In fact, most preachers today will tell you how easy it is to be saved and they will broaden the way of salvation to make it as easy as possible for you to come and get your free ticket to paradise. They will present to you a impotent Jesus who stands helplessly at the door of your heart knocking and knocking.

Won't you let him in? He's like a insurance salesman with his hat in his hand begging you to let him in on your terms and when you are good and ready. But the only problem is that's not the gospel of my Bible and that modern day gospel has no saving power.

It can't even save a flea, much less a sin-hardened rebel who hates all things holy. But if you preach the full counsel of God, if you preach the offense of the cross, if you preach up a bloodstained Jesus who has rights and claims on a person's life, then you're gonna get folks fighting mad while the good deacons will come after you and wring your neck.

David Brainerd’s Struggle with Repentance and Submission

When David Brainerd saw the requirements of a bloodstained Jesus, he got fighting mad. Listen to his words taken from Brainerd's journal. I scarcely slept at all for I thought it would be a great wonder if I should be out of hell in the morning.

The many disappointments, great distresses, and perplexity I met with put me into a most horrible frame of contesting with the Almighty, with an inward vehemence and virulence, finding fault with his ways of dealing with mankind.

I found great fault with the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, and my wicked heart often wished for some other way of salvation than by Jesus Christ. Now listen, friends, to what David Brainerd says next.

He gets plumb fighting mad. My soul was in a tumult and my heart rose against God as dealing hardly with me. When David Brainerd came face to face with a bloodstained Jesus who demanded repentance and faith and an utter submission to his lordship, it made Brainerd wish there was no God at all.

I'm telling you, friends, this little puny gospel of our day, it's had all the teeth taken out of it. It won't upset a sleeping baby. But when a sin-loving rebel comes face to face with a bloodstained Jesus on a cross, he will get fighting mad.

Azahel Nettleton’s Hatred of the Gospel’s Claims

Listen to what happened to Azahel Nettleton when he was confronted with all the rights and claims that the gospel has on a person. Listen to his words as he relates his own conversion experience. I determined to seek an interest in Christ.

I concluded something must be done to appease God's anger. Soon I began to murmur and repine and accused God of the greatest injustice in requiring me to return to him. And while I was striving with all my might as I supposed he appeared not to regard me, I considered God obligated to love me because I had done so much for him.

And finding no relief, I wished that he might not be and began to really doubt the truth of his holy word and to disbelieve his existence. For if there was a God, I perfectly hated him. Azahel Nettleton got fighting mad at God, friends, when he beheld that cross and looked up and saw that bloodstained Jesus who demanded repentance and submission to his lordship.

Nettleton absolutely hated him. But had David Brainerd and Azahel Nettleton lived in our day, they would have been presented with a lovely gospel story, all cleaned up, a pristine cross that had no demands or rights on a person's life.

The gospel of this hour would not have upset these two young men at all. Why would it? Does it upset you? The title of my message this evening, friends, is A Bloodstained Jesus Will Get You Mad. And my text can be found in the book of Acts.

Paul’s Message to the Ephesian Elders

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in Acts chapter 20 and in verses 17 through 28. Listen to how the apostle Paul relates the gospel to these Ephesian elders. And from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church.

And when they were come to him, he said unto them, you know from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations, which befell me by the line and weight of the Jews and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Repentance and the Lordship of Christ

Let me pause here, friends, before I proceed. The two doctrines Paul holds up in the gospel of the grace of God are these, repentance and the Lordship of Christ, that if you want to be saved, you must repent and exercise repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that Christ is a sovereign Lord who demands full submission to him, that if you want Christ, you must be willing to throw down your shotgun or rebellion at the foot of a sovereign king, where self is dethroned and another is enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s Perseverance in Preaching the Gospel

Now, let me pick up Paul's farewell discourse to these Ephesian elders as we find it in verse 22. And now behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bounds and afflictions abide me, but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy in the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

And now behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more, wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. Let me pause here again, friends.

Notice Paul says he's free from the blood of all men. Listen to me, brother preacher, if you don't preach the full counsel of God, if you don't warn men and women and boys and girls to repent of their sins and surrender their all to the Lordship of Jesus Christ through saving faith, then you stand with blood of souls on your hands.

Go on, go look at your bloody hands. Now listen to what old Paul says next. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Christ’s Blood and the Believer’s Total Surrender

Did you hear that, friends? If you are saved individual, it is because Jesus purchased you with his own blood. A bloodstained Jesus hung on a cruel cross and he went to the marketplace of sin and he bought you with his own blood.

If you are saved individual, it is because you've been washed in his blood and born from above. A follower of the Lord Jesus Christ has surrendered to all the rights and claims that the gospel has on a person.

You no longer have any rights. Your life is not your own. Your body is not your own. Your money is not your own. Your time is not your own. Jesus must be a complete master. Now you go out and preach that and folks will get fighting mad.

The Rejected King and the Watered-Down Gospel

A bloodstained Jesus who demands repentance and submission to his rule in your life will get sin-loving people red-hot mad and they will grit their teeth and cry out at the top of their lungs, like those in my Bible, we will not have this man reign over us.

If you preach that, brother pastor, while the chairman of the deacons will skin you alive, that's because our watered-down, perverted gospel of this hour has been so diluted to make it easier to swallow, while all you have to do is take a gulp and you'll be saved.

That's what they tell folks. Just accept this little harmless Jesus and you can go to heaven and still hug your sins. Sure, this modern gospel won't upset a baby, but the gospel of the grace of God that the apostle Paul preached will upset the biggest 200-pound baby sitting in the sanctuary.

He will stand up and throw his pacifier at you if you preach that, brother. We have to go back to where God was moving in this once great country of ours and study the sermons and the gospel which was preached in former times.

Sam Jones and the Necessity of Repentance

Sam Jones, the evangelist, shook the city of Nashville for God and 10 ,000 people were saved. Sam Jones preached hard on repentance. Listen to his words. Repentance is quitting your meanness. Repentance is the first conscious movement of the soul from sin toward God.

Conversion isn't worth a thing unless it's a double conversion. A man must be converted from something to something. The Christian who will do things in New York, that he would not do at home, is a very poor Christian.

The back door of the church ought to be open once a year and give all who have not lived up to its rules an opportunity to pass out. Sam Jones would preach a bloodstained Jesus and folks would get fighting mad.

One day, a man with a cane approached Sam Jones and asked him if he was the famous evangelist. When Sam Jones replied, Sam Jones is my given name, the man took his cane and began to violently beat Sam Jones about the face with it but God used Sam Jones to shake entire towns with the gospel of the son of God and people get fighting mad.

Mordecai Ham’s Courage Under Persecution

The same thing occurred under the mighty preaching ministry of Mordecai Ham. In 1912, Ham preached in Jackson, Tennessee and one fourth of the population came to Christ. Mordecai Ham preached a double-fisted gospel of repentance and the utter lordship of Jesus Christ and folks would grow angry at Ham and attack him.

One time, he was pistol whipped. Another time, he was attacked in the lobby of a hotel by a man with a chain. Another time, a band of men kidnapped Ham from a gospel meeting and dragged him down the street to the end of that Texas town and in their hands was a bucket of tar, a bag of feathers and a rope to hang Ham from a tree.

The mayor had a call in the Calvary to rescue Mordecai Ham and while the soldiers held the rifles on an angry mob that had gathered at the train station, they tried to run the evangelist out of town but that same message of the full counsel of God was used to save a young Billy Graham under Mordecai's Ham's preaching and if you read Billy Graham's biography, he mentions in it that when he first heard Mordecai Ham preach, he got fighting mad.

He hated him for the gospel he was preaching. Did you hear that, friends? Bloodstained Jesus will get you mad but do you know what else? That bloodstained Jesus can get you saved as well but you have to submit to all his rights and claims on your life through repentance and faith.

A Call for Revival and Uncompromising Preachers

It is my prayer that this sin-loving nation of ours will finally hear the true gospel as it emerges on street corners and in tents and in our churches throughout this land as young evangelists take up the Bible and preach again the old-time religion, the gospel of the Apostle Paul, the gospel of former evangelists that God used to shake entire towns, call the lost sinners to repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us go now to a time of prayer and pray that God in his mercy will raise up a new generation of preacher boys who don't fear man, who only fear the Almighty, a band of fiery preachers so filled with the Holy Ghost that they preach that hell is hot and sin is black and a future judgment awaits all mankind and they preach up man's duty of repentance and the utter lordship of Jesus Christ.

Oh, how we need some prophets like that in our day, friends. They could shake this entire nation for God. Let us go to God and pray that he'll raise up such men as these.