Why the Devil Hates Repentance and the Lordship of Jesus Christ — E.A. Johnston

The Church Replaced Spiritual Worship with Entertainment

I was sitting in a big successful church the other week, and during the service, the adults were sitting there sipping on their lattes while some of the teenagers were kissing on each other. Others were sitting there laughing and clapping, and I looked around me, and I felt for a moment that I was sitting in a nightclub, because surely this cannot be what the church has become in America today, and there was nothing taking place spiritually in that church, for it was all flesh and emotion.

The preacher gave a little pep rally for religion. He got the people to shout amen and clap their hands and agree with him, and when it was time for him to give his invitation, he led the crowd in the most careless, casual prayer I ever heard, and then he said, just get up from your seat and come down front and accept Jesus, and you can be assured that you are going to heaven.

Apostasy and the Man-Centered Gospel

I fear, friends, that the apostate church in America has become the dominant church in the land. Entire denominations have fallen into great apostasy, and what's considered Christianity today bears no resemblance to my Bible, but everybody seems fine with the status quo in our churches today.

Everybody's having a good time on Sunday morning, clapping their hands and laughing and having fun, because that's what church and religion is all about, right? Having fun. When you open up the book of Acts, you will find Peter and John going around the city doing their level best to get their hearers to clap their hands and to laugh at their funny stories.

You will find the apostle Paul has his hearers rolling in the aisles at Ephesus with laughter and enjoyment while the book of Acts is one big party. Is that not so? That's what we think it reads. That's what we think it says.

That's what we think Christianity is today, a big party. I heard a pastor make the final remark as he stood in the pulpit of his church. He said, hey, everybody, you know what I would do if I had a million dollars?

I would throw a big party for Jesus and invite you all. Oh, they loved that. They all clapped their hands and shouted, listen, friends, our main problem today in our churches across this land is not the sad level of spiritual declension that has occurred in our churches.

Our main problem in our churches today across this land is not the man-centered gospel and easy believism that's preached from the majority of our pulpits. Our main problem in our churches today across this land is the sad fact that we leave the devil alone.

You see, we don't preach what the devil hates. Rather, we preach what the devil likes. The devil likes a gospel that's a only believed gospel because he knows that no one will be saved under that false gospel, which he has propagated over this last century by raising up big seminaries to teach it, raising up big scholars to promote it and raising up big preachers to preach it.

The only believed gospel is damn this generation to hell. And the devil likes the way preachers today have shrunken Jesus down to third level and speak of him on human terms with human limitations. And the devil loves a preacher who broadens the way to heaven by diluting the gospel message and its demands.

Repentance and the Lordship of Jesus Christ

But listen, friend, let me tell you what the devil hates. The devil hates two doctrines more than any other doctrines on this planet. The devil hates with a vengeance the two doctrines of repentance and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

And that's the title of my message today. Why the devil hates repentance and the lordship of Jesus Christ. If you don't believe me, brother preacher, you just go out and change your message and begin to preach up that man has a duty and a command to repent of his sins toward God.

And if he has any hope of getting into God's kingdom, you just go out and start proclaiming the utter necessity of bowing your neck to the lordship of Jesus Christ to be a follower of his. And that if you call yourself a Christian, then you must submit to all the rights and claims that the gospel has on a person's life in regard to the utter surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Just go out and preach that for a while and see how much the people will love you for it. You'll be dodging bricks. A wife, good deacons will wring your neck and kick you out of your own church. I'm going to list today some reasons why the devil hates repentance and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

He hates it because it's the true gospel of salvation. The false gospel omits these twin doctrines and any gospel that omits man's duty of repentance and his surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ is a false gospel, friend.

Now, that's the predominant gospel in this country today, a false gospel. And we have pulpits full of false prophets all over this land proclaiming this damn and heresy of a false gospel to gullible lost individuals who never read the Bibles and only believe what the preacher says.

Listen to me, friend. You better get out your Bible and double check everything I tell you. Always check what the preacher says against the word of God. Let me tell you something else. Listen to me, young man, if you're thinking about attending a seminary, you better do your homework before you choose a seminary.

There's been countless men through the years who've lost their faith in seminary. There's been countless pastors who's been trained to preach a false gospel from these seminaries, and it bears no resemblance to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are seminary professors out there who will damn you to hell with their heretical teaching. Hell is full, friends, of wicked seminary professors who never knew Jesus Christ savingly. I know what I'm talking about.

I have two different doctorates from two different seminaries. You better do your homework before you go to any seminary. Now, there are some good ones out there, but you have to do your homework. The devil loves a seminary that promotes his devilish doctrines.

The Biblical Command to Repent

Listen, friend, any gospel presentation that omits man's duty of repentance is a gospel from hell. Jesus declared, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And in Acts 1730, it reads,. And the times of this ignorance God winked at.

But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Now, if you want to go against what the Bible says and what Jesus says are necessary conditions for true salvation, then go ahead. But you're going to risk going to hell.

Listen to me. The church in your day and mine has murdered the doctrine of repentance and buried it in a nameless grave. All you have to do today to be saved is to say a little careless prayer, take a casual walk down an aisle and believe on a shrunken Jesus who exists only to make you happy.

That's the gospel of your day and mine, friend. And it's damned its millions. But listen to me. The devil will hate and roar against any man who preaches up man's duty of repentance and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

How the Devil Distorts Salvation

And this is why, number one, the devil wants to keep you enslaved in sin with the reservation for hell. Number two, the devil wants to reduce Jesus Christ down to man size and make him appear to be an impotent being who is dependent upon you and your decision to accept him as your savior.

And number three, the devil wants so-called Christians to sit on the throne of their lives and rule there and indulge themselves in the name of religion. Listen, friends, any preacher who preaches a message on the utter sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ in the life of a believer will face persecution from the religious leaders of his day.

You start preaching that Jesus is a risen Lord who sits at the right hand of God. And if you want him, you must come to him there and surrender all your rights to him that you must throw down your shotgun or rebellion and submit to a sovereign king.

If you want to go to heaven, you start telling folks that to become a Christian does not mean you merely recite a sentimental prayer and walk an aisle in a church service and invite Jesus in your heart.

You start going against mainstream Christianity and pulpits will be close to you. You will be an object of ridicule. You'll be hated by the masses if you tell folks that they cannot be saved and go to heaven by merely accepting Jesus as savior, that you must submit to him as Lord of all you are and all you have.

You'll be hated because people begin to cry out against you. We will not have this man reign over us. People who have swallowed the diluted, perverted gospel of this hour will sadly die in their sins and wake up in hell.

This is serious business, friends. True salvation is the most important subject in this world and in eternity. The false conversions that occur in our day are mainly the result of preachers who refuse to preach the true gospel of repentance and the lordship of Jesus Christ now have a fight on my hands with that one.

Confronting Lordship Salvation and Church Apostasy

I'll never forget when I parted company with a man. He was a pastor and I was helping him plan a church and we were sitting in his car one day and he was talking about how false and dangerous the doctrine of lordship salvation was.

He told me that all you had to do to be saved was to believe in Jesus. Well, I decided right there and then I wasn't going to help that man plan a church because it was the wrong church. And we parted company that day.

Listen to me, friends, just because the major mentality declares something to be so doesn't make it right. Just because major denominations and professors of theology are promoting a gospel that omits man's duty of repentance doesn't make it right.

It just makes the majority in our day wrong. We live in a crazy day of church apostasy where wrong is right and right is wrong. Society spins out of control all around us as perversion grows by leaps and bounds among us.

And I don't blame the moral wreck called America today on the White House. I don't blame the decline of this once great nation on the courthouse or even on the schoolhouse. I place all the blame, 100 percent of the blame at the door of the church house, because when the church in this country decided to become a seeker friendly church to grow its campus, it changed its message and it turned her back on the God of the Bible.

The church walked God to the back door of the church and escorted him out and it threw open its front doors and invited the world in. The biggest regret the church in America will face one day will be the time it made a choice to become like the world, to reach the world.

Teenagers look at the church today and they just laugh. They think it's a joke. Teenagers can't wait to become adults so they don't have to go to church anymore. There's no reality in the church today.

They can be entertained a lot more easily outside of church. There is no power of God in a meeting today. There's no God consciousness in our sanctuaries today. There is little spirit anointed preaching in our pulpits today.

Oh, why? It's because we leave the devil alone. We've sold out to the world. We've brought him the way to salvation. But Jesus never did. Jesus is Lord and he sits at the right hand of the father and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.

That cross had his blood all over it because of sin. And if you think you can get into his heaven with a casual head nod to him and still hang on to your sins, you are greatly deceived, friend, greatly deceived by the modern gospel of our day.

Self-Denial and the Call to Follow Christ

Listen, friend, when someone truly comes to Christ, something happens. Self is dethroned and another is enthroned there. The Lord Jesus Christ. And you must turn from your sins apart with your darling sins and nail every single one of them up on that cross and take up the cross and deny yourself and follow a crucified Lord.

He is Lord. He is Lord. He is Lord. And if he's not your Lord and you call yourself a Christian, you're in danger of dying in your sins and dropping into hell for all eternity. The devil loves a gospel that omits the two doctrines of repentance and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

If you want to base your ministry on the modern gospel of our hour, then you won't have any trouble from the devil, brother preacher. He will be your friend. But the man who does not warn sinners of God's command to all men everywhere to repent is a false prophet.

And I don't care how big and famous that man is. He's still a false prophet. And the man who preaches an easy belief gospel and does not cry up the utter necessity to submit to all the rights and claims that the Lord Jesus has on a follower of his is preaching no gospel at all.

He is merely a butcher of souls. You want to make the devil mad friend, then start telling folks about the need of turning from their sins in repentance and that they must surrender all they have and all they are to the Lord Jesus Christ and his rights and claims on them through his gospel.

Repentance, Faith, and the Promise of Mercy

The devil will fight you for sure, because you will be depopulating hell in your generation. Listen to me, friend. The devils believe in tremble and they will always be devils no matter how much they believe in Jesus.

If you want to change your life, friend, if you want true conversion, you better seek God and become a beggar for mercy to receive the grace of repentance and faith. God declares in his word in Ezekiel 1831.

Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die? Oh, house of Israel, in acts it declares, repent you, therefore, and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Listen to God, friend, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man, his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Don't be fooled by today's false gospel, friend. Repent before it's too late.