The American God — E.A. Johnston

The Fear of God Means More Than Reverence

I remember sitting in the congregation of a big Baptist preacher, who was the darling of his denomination, and he made the following comment, which expressed the view of God maintained in our churches today.

He said, when you see the word fear in relation to God in the New Testament, like in 1 Peter 2 .17, where it reads, Fear God, that merely means to reverence God, not to be afraid of Him, because God is a God of love.

Fear means merely to reverence God. That's what the old boy said, and he was dead wrong. The Greek word for fear is phobio, and the primary meaning of fear in the Greek is to frighten, to be alarmed, to be sore afraid, to fear exceedingly.

The second definition is awe and reverence. That's why the apostle Peter, in the same epistle, states this about God,. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect to persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time, your sojourning here in fear.

The False God of American Christianity

The American God that is worshipped today is not the God of the Bible. The American God would never punish sin or send anybody to hell. Rather, the American God that is preached today is a friendly being, whose main concern is the happiness of man.

This concept of God is false, and it misrepresents the God of the Bible, and it is for this reason that the church in America today tolerates sin in the life of the believer, because their God would never punish sin.

A Shrunken View of God Produces a Low View of Sin

God is on man's level. When we maintain a low view of God, we then maintain a low view of sin as well. The following story, friends, sums up what I'm saying. I was sitting in a Southern Baptist church, and the pastor made the following comment.

He said, I can't wait to get to heaven. When I get to heaven, the first thing I'm going to do is walk up to Jesus and shake his hand for all he's done for me. That foolish pastor is going to walk up to Jesus like he's a deacon in the hallway of church and grab his hand and shake it.

I guess that seminary-trained pastor never read the book of Revelation, where the apostle John encounters the risen Christ, and he says,. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. The American God is a shrunken God, for we have shrunk him down to man's level or lower.

And when the people of God maintain a low view of God, they will also maintain a low view of sin and tolerate sin in their life, even though God hates sin and demands obedience and the pursuit of holiness from his followers.

Rejecting the Man-Centered Gospel

The God that is preached on Sunday mornings in most churches in this country does not exist. Today's modern church has made him up. The main message you will hear in church this Sunday is that God exists to make man happy.

But my Bible declares that man was made to glorify God. We preach a man-centered message that soothes our minds and makes us feel better about ourselves so we can reach our full potential. It's all self-improvement philosophy spilling out of our pulpits today.

The Pastor’s Duty to Warn of Judgment

The pastor exists to keep you entertained and happy so you'll be back next Sunday and bring a friend so they can hear the same feel-good message. But the pastor's role is quite opposite of that. A pastor who is true to his hearer's souls will inform them of their duty of repentance.

He will warn them to flee a future punishment for sin, which is a burning hell of torment and misery. He will preach the great doctrines of the Bible to awaken you to your lost condition and warn you of your great danger of dying in your sins, and that God is a God who must punish sin, that the very center of the gospel is a bloody cross on which the Prince of Glory died, that if you want to be saved, you must get under the blood through repentance, and you must be born again through a supernatural act of God in regeneration, which is the new birth, and that to be a Christian is to hate sin, to turn from the love of this world, and to take an up of a cross, a self-denial, and follow a crucified Savior through a crucified life.

Salvation Belongs to God, Not Human Decision

The American God is an impotent God who stands helplessly at the door of your heart, knocking, hoping you will let him in. He's like an insurance salesman with his hat in his hand, standing there, hoping you'll let him inside.

The American church has taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men. The American God can't help you, friend, because he only exists in church on Sunday morning, when a watered-down gospel's handed out like free pieces of chewing gum.

False Conversion and the Necessity of Repentance

And the sad thing is, most folks respond to that kind of feel-good invitation and walk an island, accept Jesus, and chew on him a while until the flavor goes out of their religion. The American God is a false God, and those who worship him will surely die in their sins and be cast into a devil's hell for all eternity.

You must repent of your sins, and you must be born again by the living God of the Bible, who will one day judge the quick and the dead. Let us pray.