Untitled Sermon — E.A. Johnston

The Man-Centered “Only-Believed” Gospel

Instead of a God-centered gospel, we have a man-centered gospel today, friends, and it's called the only-believed gospel. When you preach a only-believed gospel, then you start out with holes in your theology, and therefore, you're forced to build straw men to try to prop it up, because the only-believed gospel is a false gospel that has deceived millions and damned hundreds of millions of people since it first was hatched out of the smoking pit.

First, allow me to explain what the only-believed gospel states, then I'll show you the biblical examples of why it's heresy. A minister preaching the only-believed gospel gives a gospel invitation, usually in the following way.

He'll say, God loves you, friend, and this love is demonstrated by the following words. Then he quotes John 3 .16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And that's true, friends. The only-believed gospel has some truth in it, but the error lies in all its omissions of what they don't tell you. The real gospel, they don't tell you what the real gospel is, and they don't tell you what true conversion is either.

Emotional Appeals and False Assurance

The only-believed gospel preacher will say, God has done his part, sending his Son to die on a cross for you. Now it's up to you, friend, to do your part and to respond to that free gift. And then the next phase of their presentation becomes an appeal to your emotions based on a man-centered gospel and a man-centered methodology that you'll feel just only raise your hand and accept Jesus, or you'll make it public by walking an aisle or repeating the sinner's prayer.

Then I can assure you, you are now saved. The trouble is, none of these man-centered methodologies are even found in my Bible. They are in exact antithesis to true conversion, or they'll steal the passage from Revelation, which in expository interpretation is a picture of the risen Christ shut out of His church by lukewarm Laodicean people.

But they'll transpose that passage into a gospel appeal and say, look, Jesus is standing at the door of your heart, friend. They'll paint Jesus as a helpless, impotent Jesus standing at the door of your heart like an insurance salesman with his hat in his hand.

He's knocking and knocking. Won't you have pity on Him and let Him in? This approach takes salvation out of the hands of God and places it in the hands of men. You save yourself. God is not active in the process because He's already done His part.

Now it's up to you, and it's entirely up to you to do your part, and you can do it whenever you're good and ready. I've heard pastors say, just open your heart and receive Jesus. The truth is, only God can open the heart.

You can't pry it open with a crowbar, friend, or a pastor will say, you're saved by just believing the verse, John 3, 16. I heard a Baptist pastor tell his entire congregation all they had to do to be saved was just to believe John 3, 16.

I fear many have believed Jesus died on a cross for them without ever believing on the Christ who died. Now, from a theological and biblical standpoint, the modern only-believed gospel is a cobweb full of holes and just as flimsy.

A Low View of God and the Necessity of Repentance

To preach it, you have to maintain a low view of God, which is the exact opposite of the God found in the Bible. Isaiah gets a vision of God up in heaven, high and lifted up, and he says, woe is me, I'm a man of unclean lips.

So the first thing you have to do is to shrink God, put him on man's level if you wanna preach a only-believed gospel. The next thing you have to do is to hide the doctrine of repentance. Don't mention it, only say believe.

Don't tell folks they have to repent. Do not talk about man's duty of repentance. 76 years ago, a certain systematic theology was published and it became popular because it maintained the view that repentance was not a necessary element of salvation and man loved that.

Wicked man just loved that. That's because you can carve out for yourself a God who won't get in the way of your daily living. All you got to do is believe. But they failed to tell you that the Bible says, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish, and that means unsafe theology professors as well.

John the Baptist preached repentance, Jesus preached repentance, and the last word to his church was repent. All his apostles, disciples, went about preaching repentance. The apostle Paul preached repentance, repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

But the only-believed gospel crowd has taken a razor blade to their Bibles. They've cut out every single mention of God's requirement for men to repent. So the only-believed gospel omits man's duty of repentance or they'll quickly mention it and gloss over it without explaining it.

Sin, Hell, and the Justice of God

Next, there'll be a noticeable absence of the following doctrines. There'll be little emphasis on preaching against sin. There's no need to preach hard against sin because there's no need for repentance.

Therefore, why risk getting the good deacons mad at you? Therefore, they'll seldom preach a message on hell and the dangers of damnation. They don't need to go there because you don't need to repent anyhow.

God loves you anyway. He loves you the way you are, and you can come to him and stay that way, and he'll still let you into his heaven, even though God will not allow any rebels in his heaven and God will not run up the white flag of salvation on any soul who's still pointing a shotgun at him.

But it's primarily a message about love. God's a big love God. He's a big Santa Claus God. It's as if they blended the 1960s hippie love message, brought it into the church, and just made God this big love guru.

God loves you, friend. God's only a God of love. But they fail to mention he's not a God. They fail to mention that he's also a God of justice who won't punish sin. But they say he's a God who would never send anyone to hell because if you go to hell, it's because you sent yourself there.

I've heard many pastors say the very same thing, but Jesus said the opposite. Jesus said, "'And fear not them which kill the body "'and are not able to kill the soul, "'but rather fear him which is able "'to destroy both soul and body in hell.'".

I don't know anybody who's gonna jump in that lake of fire on their own accord. In fact, the Bible says, "'Whosoever was not found written in the book of life "'was cast into the lake of fire.'". And they go kicking and screaming as well.

Church Growth, Consumerism, and Spiritual Compromise

But the only belief crowd will not preach the God of the Bible and say God is a God who must punish sin. They don't wanna preach any offended messages and drive off some of their best givers. I believe the main reason for the spread of the only believed gospel was the mad church building rush that took over the American church.

The idea that unless you had a mega church, you weren't a success in ministry because success in ministry is measured by brick and mortar and the physical size of your church campus. And success is measured, particularly among Baptists, numerically.

It all comes down to counting nickels and noses. That's why when you read the requirements posted by a pastor search committee for a new pastor of a mega church, it reads like the requirements for a corporate CEO who can successfully run a big corporation.

They'll say, is the man a leader? Has he proven himself with leadership skills? Does he possess the skills to run a big organization and still grow it? There is no mention if the new prospective pastor is a man full of the Holy Ghost and anointed by the Spirit.

They don't give a hoot about that. They only care if he can grow a church. They don't care about anything spiritual. They just care about paying the campus debt and growing the thing bigger. So you need a people-friendly gospel for that, one that won't drive people away with hard, offensive doctrines and frightening talks about sin and hell and judgment, only talk about God's acceptance of everyone, and there's no need to change once you join the church because God is now a politically correct being who's more tolerant today towards sin.

Just come as you are and stay as you are and have a cappuccino, sit in a comfortable sanctuary, listen to a freak rock concert and get happy and laugh along with the funny stories and amusing jokes told by the pastor slash stand-up comedian because the only reason you come to church today is to be entertained.

Returning to the Whole Gospel

That's the end result, friends, of the only-believed gospel that keeps damning, misleading, and deluding multitudes in these last days of an apostate church where the Spirit of Antichrist is already in the land and the modern church is doing its part to pave the way for Antichrist to come and be embraced.

We must get back to preaching a God-centered gospel that glorifies God, that shuts men and women and boys and girls up to God for salvation. We must preach the great doctrines of the gospel which are ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration.

We must preach up the lordship of Christ and tell folks about the duties of the cross in the life of a believer. We must warn of a future judgment that awaits all mankind where every mother's son will be held up to the strictness and severity of God's unbending law as George Whitefield, the great British evangelist, used to say, before you can bring a sinner to Mount Zion, he first has to be brought to Mount Sinai.

Whitefield and Wesley both preached the law before grace. We must do the same, friends, and maybe, just maybe, we'll start seeing some of the same results that they saw. I guess it boils down to this.

Are men saved as a result of a decision they make or as the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit? I'm an old man and I've watched this spiritual decline in the church take place and I've seen this false gospel emerge and take over and I've spent my entire ministry crying out against it, calling the church back to God with an unpopular message that few wanna hear and when I preach lately, I feel like I'm only preaching to the walls and I'm not even making a dent in anything.

Jeremiah’s Rejection and the Cry for Revival

I weep over the church. I pray for revival to come. I pray for revival, friends, but I can sure relate to the prophet Jeremiah who also had a tough ministry of rejection for his message to a religious lost crowd in his day is very much like the one we have today.

His message was, thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths. Where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk therein.

Oh, great God, help us in these last desperate days. Oh God, I pray in your wrath, remember mercy.