4 Things You Won'T Hear in Church This Sunday — E.A. Johnston

Holy Living and Evangelistic Witness in a Sleeping Church

If you are a church member today, and if you're trying to live for God and a life of holiness unto the Lord, you'll be viewed as an oddball friend. They'll call you a holy roller. And if you are a church member today, and if you share your faith on a regular basis, others will label you a fanatic or an overzealous nut.

And when you're around others, if you talk about Jesus all the time and things of eternal worth, you'll be labeled a crackpot. And other church folks will avoid you when they see you coming down the hall.

When the Chinese evangelist, John Sung, got saved in the dorm room of his liberal seminary in New York City, the other students and professors thought he had lost his mind. And the president of that seminary had John Sung incarcerated in a mental hospital for 193 days.

That's what will happen, friends, if you live on the out-and-out for Christ in a time when the church is sound asleep on pillows of conformity and compromise. But do you know what happened to John Sung when he was in that mental hospital for 193 days?

He read through his Bible 44 times, and he was given a key word in every chapter in every book that linked the Word of God together in themes which he later used in his preaching ministry, which shook China for God in a mighty revival.

Listen, friends, if you start walking around with the Bible in your shirt pocket and witness all the time, you'll be viewed as an oddball in the church of today. Most Christians are materialistic and self-sufficient, and they live in a numbed passivity to spiritual things.

They live in a world of dreams and eternity. They mainly go to church on Sunday to see their friends and to be entertained. Most of them live like hell during the week and sing about Jesus on Sunday morning.

And during the preaching time, their thoughts are consumed with where they're going to have their lunch after the service is over. They tip their hat to God on Sundays and live for this world during the week.

So if you try to live in a way that goes against what is called Sunday morning Christianity in this country, you'll be viewed as an enthusiast or an oddball. But the church in former times didn't act like we do today.

You see, friends, the early church was countercultural to the pagan society in which it existed. The church back then went in one direction and the world in the other. And when they met, there was a clash.

The Early Church Turned the World Upside Down

In the Book of Acts, we read of this. We read of the early Christians in Acts 17 .6. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.

Listen, friends. Christians used to turn the world upside down with their holy lives and testimony for Christ. Now we just conform to the world and blend in. But it didn't used to be that way. Why has everything become so watered down in the church of our hour?

I believe the main problem that feeds this kind of atmosphere of spiritual declension in the churches today arises from the neglect of good preaching. There are many faithful God-called pastors in this country, and I know some of them.

But the majority of our pulpits in this land are deficient in good preaching, preaching that brings conviction of sin and conversions of the lost. I want to list some things this evening that you won't hear in church on Sunday.

And that's the title of my message this evening, friends. Four things you won't hear in church this Sunday. I want to list these and then elaborate on each head as we proceed. Chances are you won't hear the following in church this Sunday, and these four are the four R's.

The Four Neglected Foundations of the Gospel

Number one, you won't hear the foundational fact of the gospel of the rune by the fall. And number two, you won't hear the foundational fact of redemption by the blood. Number three, you won't hear the foundational fact of repentance from sin.

And number four, you won't hear the foundational fact of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. I challenge you to take a pen and pad to church with you next Sunday and jot down every time each of these four doctrines are mentioned from the pulpit.

Do it, friend. See for yourself. Let me address each of these one by one. I remember preachers who used to preach hard against sin and told you that you had to repent of sin to go to heaven. But let me address our first point, our first aspect of what you won't hear in church this coming Sunday.

Ruin by the Fall and Human Depravity

Number one, rune by the fall. I remember preachers who dwelt long and hard on the rune of man. One of the main reasons God used the preaching ministry of Mordecai Ham was the fact that he carefully preached the doctrine of rune by the fall.

It was said of Mordecai Ham that his preaching would strip the bark off his hearers because he preached so hard on the wickedness of the human heart because of man's rune by the fall. In fact, there's an existing recording of Ham's preaching.

It's about 13 minutes long, and you can download it from the Internet site on some of the preaching sermon sites that are out there. And the title of Ham's message is, What Do You Offer God? And in that brief sermon extract, he's preaching hard on the doctrine of the rune by the fall and using Cain and Abel as his illustration.

Listen to that message for yourself, friends, and you will hear a God called man preach the full counsel of God in its purity and proper order by beginning his message with the foundational truth of the gospel, which is rune by the fall.

And in that message, Mordecai Ham preaches that man is born under a curse and there's nothing in man that is acceptable to God. He cannot bring God any offering that would be accepted by God. No good works, nor good character will save him.

He then moves on to how man needs a blood atonement for sin. You just listen to that message and see how old-time preachers preach the full counsel of God, something very few do today. I'll never forget a sermon I heard called Poison in the Blood, and I heard it by an old preacher who gave this message, and he spent over an hour preaching hard on the doctrine of man's rune by the fall.

That man had a poison in his blood, and he was under a curse and alienated from God because of sin. And because man is born with a poison in his blood, he only had a bent toward sin and rebellion toward God, and that man drank iniquity like its water.

And by the time that old Baptist preacher got through with his message, he'd covered the Bible from Genesis to Revelation on the doctrine of rune by the fall. He went through the whole Bible, showing you how corrupt the human heart was.

A God-Centered Gospel Versus Man-Centered Religion

Not like today, where we pamper man with our preaching on Sunday morning. Listen, friends, our trouble today is we preach a man-centered gospel, which is focused and centered on the happiness of man.

Let's be honest and admit it. And our man-centered gospel spills out into a man-centered methodology and evangelism. And this all leads to spiritual apathy in the church and spiritual lethargy in the home.

Most church folks would rather watch their favorite reality TV show in their leisure time rather than be in their study on their knees and in their Bibles. But we should be preaching a God-centered gospel, which centers on the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

We should be preaching up holy living and evangelism for every member. But we don't. We just dialogue. We tell funny stories, show Hollywood movies. We occupy our congregations with smooth messages that build up man and his ego rather than strip the bark off of them, strip them of all his self-reliance to where God can go to work in an individual's life.

Redemption by the Blood of Christ

Let me go to our next topic, which you won't hear in church this Sunday. And that is number two, redemption by the blood. You see, friends, your typical pastor has gotten out his mop bucket and he's cleaned up all the blood and gore around Calvary.

We just made the foot of the cross so clean and pristine that you can sit and have your lunch there. But listen, friends, that cross had Christ's blood all over it. It was blood red because of sin. My sins, your sins, our filthy, rotten sins.

And if we do not view ourselves in the proper light of Scripture and see ourselves as sinners, that we won't desire holy living during the week because we just accepted Jesus casually because he was casually offered to us by an evangelist.

But you cannot preach a bloodless gospel and call it Christ's gospel. My Bible declares in Romans 5, 9, much more than being now justified by his blood. We should be saved from wrath through him. Jesus declared, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

Listen, friends, my gospel has Christ's blood all over it. You can't be saved unless you get under the blood. In 1 John, it reads, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. And in Revelation, the word of God declares unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

But many preachers today don't want to be controversial about preaching hard doctrines, and you won't hear much on redemption by the blood. But you will hear much preaching on easy believism, which says all you have to do to be saved is to come forward during the invitation and accept Jesus, and you go to heaven, you save yourself, you decide, you vote for Jesus like you vote in the presidential elections.

There's no mention of a bloody cross or a risen Lord who reigns with all authority. Listen, friends, Jesus is a king, and he sits at the right hand of the Father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.

It had his precious blood all over it. And if you want to be saved, you must get your sins under the blood. You must be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Walking an aisle won't save you. Repeating the sinner's prayer won't save you either.

You must get under the blood. Only Christ's blood can wash your sins away. In the book of Acts, we read, The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. This doctrine, redemption by the blood, runs through my Bible.

Peter declares, for as much as you know, that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

But I'm sorry to say, friend, you won't hear much about the blood in church come Sunday morning. We don't even sing about the blood anymore. We used to sing hymns like, There's power in the blood, and hymns like, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

But in churches in former days, we began by singing about the blood. We preached up the blood. And then we told sinners their only hope of heaven was to get their sins washed in the blood. We preached a bloodstained cross and a bloody Savior.

Repentance from Sin and the Judgment to Come

The third foundational truth of the gospel, you won't hear this coming Sunday, is number three, repentance from sin. You see, friends, a big Baptist seminary did away with that doctrine about 60 years ago.

They killed it off. You don't need to repent anymore to be saved. Jesus was wrong when he said, except you repent, he shall all likewise perish. That's the message they give out in many pulpits today.

No need to repent from your sins. Only believe. And the only-believed gospel has damned its millions through the last several decades. When preachers began to preach a feel-good gospel, they had to dilute it of all its controversy.

They had to pull the teeth out of it and quit preaching its terrors. So the pulpits quit preaching against sin. And when they did that, there was no need to preach on man's duty of repentance because God wouldn't send anybody to hell anyway.

You send yourself there by rejecting Jesus. That's what they've told us through the years. But it isn't so, friend. God is a God who must punish sin. God sends folks to hell. He sent folks there who never repented from their sins.

Now I have a fight on my hands with that one. The good deacons will come after me for that one. Listen, friend. I believe Jesus when he said, You will go to hell if you don't repent. I believe Jesus over some egg-headed seminary professor who wrote a bunch of hogwash and called it systematic theology.

Don't listen to a seminary professor who tells you that repentance is not a necessary condition for salvation. That man is lying to you, friend. He's a devil in a suit. You must repent if you want a hope of heaven.

That's the gospel. Jesus' first sermon was on repentance and his last words to the church in Revelation was to repent. And throughout the New Testament, it is a call to repent from John the Baptist to the apostle Paul who preached everywhere that all men should come to repentance.

But if you take a pen and pad with you to church this coming Sunday and you write down all the times the pastor mentions the need for repentance, chances are your paper will be blank from the omission of this important foundational truth of the gospel of the Son of God.

Repent, friend, before it's too late. And lastly, the fourth thing you probably won't hear in church this coming Sunday is that you need regeneration by the Holy Spirit. The whole doctrine of regeneration by the Spirit has fallen to the wayside in today's modern church.

Regeneration by the Holy Spirit and the New Birth

I believe the main fault is that most churches have taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men. You decide to make yourself a Christian. You do it when you're good and ready.

But Jesus declared, Marvel, not at this. Ye must be born again. George Whitefield, the great British evangelist who shook two continents for God and revival, had one theme which he continually preached, and that was, ye must be born again.

One time, Whitefield was preaching in Boston, and a minister asked him, Mr. Whitefield, since you've been among us, all you preach is one theme. Ye must be born again. When, sir, will you preach us a different sermon?

To which the great Whitefield replied, When ye are born again. But most folks today listen to a man-centered gospel that's only a perversion of the gospel, and they end up joining the church and calling themselves Christians because they've done nothing more than be a textual decisionist.

They became a Christian based on believing a text or a Bible verse. Some evangelists told them to believe John 3, 16, and they did it. And then he told them, You are now a Christian. But a fear, many have joined the church who've believed the fact of the death of Christ, but they've never believed on the Christ who died.

Listen, friend, you must be born again. God must perform a work of grace upon your heart, and only he can do it. God takes away the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh through the supernatural act of regeneration.

Preaching the Four R’s in Their Proper Order

So let us sum up what we've learned this evening. Let us review the four things you won't hear in church this coming Sunday, and they are, number one, ruined by the fall. Number two, redemption by the blood.

Number three, repentance from sin. Number four, regeneration by the spirit. Let us pray, friends, that the pulpits in our land will once again preach the full counsel of God in its purity and proper order.

Listen, friend, how can you be saved with a bloodless gospel? How can you be saved if you do not repent from your sins? Your sins must be washed in the blood, and you must be born from above. Let us pray.