Vindicating His Word — E.A. Johnston

The Scarcity of True Preachers

God is no longer vindicating his preached word in America for several reasons, friends. There is a sparsity of preachers. We have a multitude of teachers, but a scarcity of real preachers, and there lies the difference between them that teaching informs and fills the head with more knowledge, but preaching transforms the man and gives him a different character.

Salvation Taken from God's Hands

Secondly, God is not vindicating his word today because we have taken salvation out of his hands and placed it in the hands of men. We don't need God to do a thing for us when we can do it a lot quicker ourselves.

The Shift from a God-Centered Gospel to a Man-Centered Formula

When we distilled the old-time, God-centered gospel and changed it to a man-centered formula, we eliminated the need for Holy Ghost conviction of sin, so we ceased to preach against sin. We dropped the demand of repentance from the gospel, so we only need decisions today from folks who merely give a mental assent to whatever we tell them the gospel is.

For we live in a day of great ignorance to what the gospel really is. Ministers can't explain it. Neither can their unsaved congregations explain a thing they know nothing about experientially. If you were to stop your average church member on the street today and ask them to present the gospel to you, they'd scratch their head.

Biblical Ignorance and the Loss of Experiential Salvation

Those who could make an attempt would just ask you to accept Jesus and maybe recite John 3 .16 if they could remember it. We live in a day of ignorance to our Bibles and ignorance to what salvation is.

Crusade Evangelism and the Manufacture of Decisions

God will not vindicate his word if it is not faithfully preached. The darkest day in the history of evangelism in America was the acceptance of crusade evangelism born out of football stadiums with a little sprinkling of Hollywood entertainment and light Bible teaching that merely asked people who were strangers to grace to walk and now to accept Jesus they knew nothing about.

God will not vindicate the flesh of man but only the things of his spirit. We reduced salvation to a four-step process that if you followed each step that the minister said to do and complete it by reciting a prayer manufactured by man to produce numerical results.

False Assurance and the Judgment of a Perverted Gospel

We then filled our churches with the unconverted and double-damned them by giving them a false sense of security. Thrice holy God will not vindicate a perverted gospel that is a no gospel. Rather, he will withdraw himself and leave us to ourselves.

That's where we've been in this country for the last 60 years but God used to vindicate his truth back when men were not afraid to preach hard against sin, warn sinners of a future judgment and a hot hell and preach God's demand of repentance in salvation and man's utter necessity of regeneration in a work of grace upon the heart.

The Old Gospel and the Transformation of Lives

The old gospel changed lives. The new gospel changed the church into a business and made America ripe for judgment. Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Are we calling men today who have a depraved nature sinners?

Are we calling them to repentance or are we merely broadening the way of salvation in ways Jesus never did so we can grow our churches and then pat ourselves on the back for our successes? We must ask ourselves two burning questions.

Regeneration by the Holy Spirit Rather Than Human Decision

Are men saved as a result of a decision they make or as the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit? God will not vindicate his word unless his word is preached. Listen friends, listen to this statement.

Defending God's Holy Name Through Revival or Judgment

If the church will not defend his holy name, then the almighty must. God will either pour out his blessings in revival to defend his holy name or he will pour out his wrath upon mankind to avenge his holy name.

It will either be a defending or an avenging to show forth his glory and remind mankind that he is the sovereign ruler of all.