Can I Get Saved in Church Today — E.A. Johnston

The Eternal Danger of False Religious Assurance

I read about a man who went to bed drunk and lit a cigarette and fell asleep and caught his mattress on fire, and when it came to he woke up in flames, but it was too late. If you die in your sins, you'll wake up in flames in hell, and it'd be too late for you.

Hell is populated by millions of souls a week, many of whom are unsaved religious church members who did what their pastor told them to do, to go to heaven, but their unsaved pastor did not know the way to heaven himself.

To tell a wicked sinner that all he has to do to be saved is to just accept Jesus is not true. God's word is plain that sinners must repent and turn from their wicked ways. The unsaved pastor who tells his people that they can receive full pardon for all their sins and escape hell and have assurance heaven by just making up their minds to accept Jesus is a lie, and it has the smell of the smoking pit all over it.

Satanic Deception and False Shepherds

Satan wants to keep you in his kingdom of darkness, and he will guard his goods. Satan poses as an angel of light, and he has his ministers standing in pulpits all over this land. Some are famous with recognizable names who stand at the head of big influential churches, and some are not so famous, and their influence is limited to the size of their congregation and whatever community outreach they perform in the flesh and in the name of religion.

And in this great day of apostasy within our religious denominations, it is difficult at best to find a truly born-again pastor who knows how to point lost sinners to Christ up for salvation. For no one apart from repentance and faith, brought on by the convicted power of the Holy Spirit, will ever see heaven.

It has grieved my heart to witness churches fill their sanctuaries with unconverted church members by broadening the way to salvation in ways that Jesus never did. Over the last 30 years, I have visited countless churches, been members of several of them with unsaved men as pastors who had not the slightest clue as to what real salvation was.

And I've squirmed in my seat as pastors would tell their congregation, If you want to go to heaven, friend, all you have to do is agree with John 3 .16. If you want to be saved, all you have to do is come forward and invite Jesus into your heart.

It's easy. Just accept Jesus as your personal Savior, friend. Come on and make it public. Make a decision for Jesus. Won't you invite Jesus into your heart? While he's standing there knocking at the door of your heart, friend.

Won't you let him in and accept him? All you have to do to gain heaven is to come forward now and place your trust in Jesus. In the same way you trust the chair you're sitting in to support you. That's all faith is, friend.

Come and place your trust in Jesus like you do that chair. That's all there is to it. And countless misled souls do what their spiritually ignorant pastor tells them to do. And they walk that aisle and shed a tear and shake that false shepherd's hand.

And he pats them on the back as he says, Welcome to the family of God. It makes me mad that I entrusted my soul to such false shepherds through the years all the while believing myself to be saved because another man assured me I was.

Testing Spiritual Assurance and Pastoral Claims

Listen to me, friend. Only the Holy Spirit can give you assurance. But this comes with a warning. Be absolutely certain you are not deceived by Satan giving you a feeling or an impression or a vision or a bright light.

Satan can impersonate the Spirit of God, but he cannot give you life. Only God's Spirit can do that. In the last 80 years in this country, there's been a replacement in our pulpits of saved godly pastors who were true to one's soul and who finished their course well and died and went to heaven to be replaced by a majority of unconverted Bible school boys and seminary boys who picked their profession as a means to stroke their ego, to seek the approval of men, and to see how fast they could grow a church within their denomination.

I've watched Baptists through the years send out pastor search committees looking for the right face man who had the best reputation for growing a church and increasing the yearly revenue. If you want to rise to the top of your denominational popularity, then become a pied piper at getting folks to join your church.

Makes no difference if they're saved or not, so long as the sanctuary's full on Sunday morning. Now that's a sad fact, friends, and a pitiful reality of our churches in a time of sweeping spiritual declension.

The Church’s Spiritual Decline and the Loss of God’s Presence

But the question that faces each of us today is, can I get saved in church today? I'd say that your chances are pretty slim. We're living in a day of remedial judgment from God on the land because we have forsaken Him.

We wanted to reach the world in our churches, so we invited the world into our churches, and God removed Himself from among us. The withdrawn presence of God is death to many of our congregations today.

All activity is worked up by music and entertainment and funny stories and emotion. That's what church has become on Sunday morning. False shepherds tell you that repentance is not necessary for salvation and that the lordship of Christ is a heretical doctrine.

But in the book of Jeremiah, we read in chapter 23 and beginning in verse 21, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, but then they should have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.

In other words, if these pastors were God's men, they would have made the scriptures their standard, and they would have made the conversion of souls their main business rather than trafficking into souls for their own selfish means.

Repentance, Holy Spirit Conviction, and the New Birth

Can I get saved in church today? I don't know if you can. I did not find salvation in a church, although I walked many in an aisle in an empty religious profession. I'll read evangelist newsletters, which will contradict my statement, for many of them boast of the many recent converts they've made with such warnings and excitement as, the altar was flooded and tears were flowing.

Listen to me, friend. I can work on your emotions with heart-stirring stories that will bring a tear to your eye and get you to do something. I know how to do it. I'm ashamed to say I've done it enough in too many churches in the past to get an immediate response to an invitation to accept Jesus.

The damage I've done as an unsaved evangelist cannot be undone. But you listen to me now, friend, because the destiny of your soul is at stake. If you sit upon a rotten plankboard of an empty religious profession, you'll go to bed one night like that drunk who woke up in flames, and it was too late.

Listen to me now, and listen to me closely. You can be saved in a church if the following takes place, but you don't have to be in a church to be saved. But you must come to the place of a lost sinner.

Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. Have you ever been lost, friend? Can you go back to a time when you took your place as a lost and guilty sinner before a holy God? Only God can open your eyes and reveal your true condition.

Only Holy Spirit conviction can make you aware of your great danger of being on the wrong side of God and the great peril of dying in your sins and entering a Christless eternity. You see your great danger of being sent to hell when you come under Holy Spirit conviction, without which no one can ever be saved.

Hear me now, friend. If you miss Holy Spirit conviction, you miss repentance. If you miss repentance, you miss faith. If you miss faith, you miss the new birth. If you miss the new birth, you miss Christ.

If you miss Christ, you miss heaven. If you miss heaven, you were doomed and damned to a devil's hell for all eternity. It breaks me up to tell you that, but it's true. Now, there are many of you who don't like what I just said, and you're upset at me for saying it because it goes against what your beloved pastor has told you all these years.

Personal Examination and the Call to Come to Christ

I'm sure your pastor's a good man, friend, but he may be an unsafe man and a blind guide, and don't trust your eternal destiny on another man's word. You get out your Bible and verify what I said to you today.

Get alone with God and search his word and ask God to search your heart to see if it's sound or unsound. If you were sick and dying, you'd want your doctor to be true to you and do all he could to save you.

Well, I've been true to your soul. It doesn't matter to me a hill of beans whether you've liked the preacher or not. I'm not preaching for your approval, but I'm warning you of your great danger of suddenly dying and awakening the very flames of hell because you believed a lie and thought it was salvation.

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. If you've missed Christ, wouldn't you want to know about it now? Before it's too late. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Make dead certain, friend, you get to Christ savingly and under the shelter of his blood, or you'll surely wind up in hell's torments as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Let us pray.