Mocking Calvary — E.A. Johnston

Preaching the Full Counsel of God

I believe in being honest with the souls of men, and preaching the full counsel of God. It's cost me plenty through the years, if you want to support a ministry that is too disturbing and makes you feel uncomfortable, folks would rather hear a preacher tell them smooth things and entertain them with amusing stories.

Some say doctrines divide a church, well maybe some churches need dividing, dividing the sheep from the goats. Of the doctrines I have preached in churches, none is more hated than the doctrine of repentance.

The Doctrines People Willingly Accept

If I tell men that God is sovereign in election, that you are saved because God gave you saving faith, men are able to swallow that. If I tell men about redemption, that Christ died for sinners on a bloody cross and was buried and rose again, they are able to swallow that.

If I tell men about their ruin, that they enter this world with a poison in their blood and a bent toward sin, they will not argue with me. If I tell men about their need for regeneration, that you must be born again, they will nod their heads in agreement.

Repentance and the False Gospel

But if I tell men that they must repent or go on to hell, then I have a fight on my hands. If I preach up man's duty of repentance, why, I have the good deacons come get me. I've had deacons confront me with hatred in their eyes and threats on their lips.

For if you start preaching a different gospel than the one they grew up with, they will hate you for it. Because if you do, then you're not only taking a stand against what they've been taught, but you're taking a stand against their beloved pastor who told them all you have to do to be saved is to believe.

And that's all they've done, believed. They've never come under conviction for sin. Never been awakened to their lost condition. Never have they turned from their filthy rotten sins in repentance toward God.

The Unrepentant Sinner as God’s Enemy

But a sinner who has not repented is but an enemy of God. All my Bible is stacked up against the unrepentant sinner, and all of God's threats bear down upon him. For my Bible declares, God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such as one as goeth on still in his trespasses.

The unrepentant sinner makes a mockery of Calvary, insults the suffering and death of Christ, tramples his very blood, and scorns the grace of the Father, the church member, who sits each Sunday in the sanctuary and sings the hymns and gives his money and prays his prayers, yet stays in his sins, is only mocking Calvary.

Calvary Reveals God’s Justice Against Sin

God is a God who must punish sin. If you believe in a Godfriend who won't punish sin, then you believe in a fake, a fraud, a counterfeit, a counterfeit God who exists apart from the pages of the Bible.

If your God won't send anybody to hell, then your God won't help you to stay out of hell either. You misunderstand your Bible. You swallow the false gospel, for unless you repent, you will surely go down to hell when you die and suffer, therefore, your crimes and treason against the sovereign.

God demands repentance. You must repent or go on to hell. God is a God who must punish sin. Calvary is a demonstration of God's hatred of sin. Calvary is a demonstration of God's justice against sin. For God is a God who must punish sin.

Every stroke of the Roman soldier's hammer was an explanation point that God must punish sin. God must punish sin. God must punish sin. I'm afraid many in our church today have gotten out their pocket knives and have whittled out for themselves a God who won't get in the way of their daily living.

Forsaking Sin and Finding Mercy

Listen, friend, you better get rid of that little God you serve. He's not the living God of the Bible. You must repent and forsake your sins, for God's word is plain that they only that confess sin, forsake their sin, shall find mercy without repentance.

You try to climb your way up to heaven by climbing over the back of Jesus, by trampling all over his blood, and in the process you are mocking Calvary and the one who hung there and bore the curse and died for sinners to save them from their sins.

The Final Call to Repentance

Jesus rose from the grave and ascended back into heaven, and he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross. You must repent immediately if you continue on in your natural condition.

You will certainly die in your sins and be dragged down to the hell you deserve when you die. Repent before it's too late.