Religious Mummies — E.A. Johnston

We live in a day, friends, where there is a lot of religious activity carried out primarily through money and manpower. Mega-churches just keep on growing and attracting more people with all their fancy country club amenities.

Dead Formalism and Entertainment Christianity

But the modern church of our hour mainly sends forth a chilly blast as it is enwrapped in dead formalism and dry lectures. A lot of dialogue occurs in our pulpits today, friends, but I would hardly call it preaching the gospel.

Churches Indistinguishable from the World

If we are not careful as a people of God, we will continue our spiritual decay until our churches are nothing more than houses of entertainment, indistinguishable from the world, where people just go to be seen and see on Sunday morning.

The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry

I know many good pastors who preach truth, and they are all over this country doing good as a means of blessings to others, but I fear we live in a day, much like the times when George Whitefield lived, when it was a day of the unconverted ministry.

Whitefield cried out against the unconverted ministry of his day, and I believe that because of the spiritual downgrade which has occurred in our churches over the last fifty years, we too have an unusual amount of unconverted men in our pulpits today.

They are seminary trained. Many have doctorates and Ph .D .s and much education, but they are nothing more than religious mummies who have no spiritual life, and they sleep the sleep of death. How can a dead man show you the way to life?

He cannot. He cannot find it himself. And I pity the congregations who sit underneath the unconverted ministry, for they themselves are mainly unconverted and go about in their activity for God as religious mummies as well.

False Doctrine and Religious Self-Righteousness

The walking dead are activating many churches around this country today, friends, and there is only death, death everywhere in our land. Some of these religious mummies are wrapped up in the grave clothes of doctrine and tradition.

Some of these religious mummies totter along upon a shaky foundation of a false profession, and some religious mummies try to navigate the big ship of their entire denomination, but I fear have run up on the reefs of modernism and liberalism as they steer many souls off course on their way to hell, much like the religious crowd in the time of Christ who wrapped themselves in their self-righteousness and then crucified the Lord of Glory.

Ezekiel's Warning Against False Prophets

I really believe, friends, that if a powerful revival of religion were to visit the shores of this nation today, some of the first converts would be ministers and church members. The title of my message today is Religious Mummies, and my text can be found in the Book of Ezekiel in chapter 13.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verses 1 through 10. Allow me to read us this striking passage of Scripture at this time. Here now is the Word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His Holy Word.

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, hear ye the word of the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.

They have seen vanity, and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith, and the Lord hath not sent them. And they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination?

Whereas ye say, The Lord saith it, albeit I have not spoken. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God. And my hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies.

They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writings of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter to the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord God, because even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace, and there was no peace, and one built up a wall, and lo others daubed it with untempered mortar.

I will stop there, friends. I was being interviewed on a Christian radio station, and the female host was relating to me an intriguing story. She said that years ago she had a job where one of her duties, she was required to telephone pastors all over the country and take a survey.

Professional Ministry Without a Call from God

And she asked each one of these pastors how they got into the ministry. And one man said that he had a talent for public speaking, and that's why he became a pastor. Another man said he wanted to help the people in his community, so he chose the best way to do that, he thought, was to become a pastor.

Each man had a reason for choosing the pastoral ministry. And this radio host interviewed about a thousand pastors all over the country. And she said finally she came to one man, a black pastor, who said the reason he became a pastor was because he felt he had a call of God on his life.

One man out of a thousand, all the other men just chose the ministry as a profession. And that's what we have mainly in our pulpits today, friends, professionals who are merely religious mummies with no life, animated corpses who can't help you find heaven for they have not found it themselves.

Entertainment Instead of the Gospel

They will use lewd humor to make you laugh. They'll show you Hollywood movies in their sanctuaries to entertain you. They'll make you laugh and make you clap your hands and make you have a grand old time.

But they don't know the first thing about pointing a poor sinner to a bloody savior. They speak peace, peace when there is no peace for the wicked. I believe our main problem today exists because for the last several decades we have forsaken our God and the gospel of the Son of God.

The Abandonment of Repentance and the Cross

We have so watered down the gospel message to make it more palatable to sinful man that it doesn't have the power to save a flea, much less a poor sinner. We have removed man's duty of repentance because we no longer inform our hearers about their ruined condition of being under a curse and dead in sin.

We fail to warn folks to flee from a future judgment and a burning hell because we no longer mention sin and the punishment for sin from a thrice holy God who hates sin. We no longer preach up a bloody cross and a crucified savior.

Rather, we've gotten out our mop buckets and cleaned up all the blood and gore around Calvary to make it politically correct and so pristine that you can sit and have your lunch there. And I believe this environment has permeated our seminaries to the degree that many men sit in ivory towers who are mere religious mummies themselves, the walking dead teaching the walking dead and handing out degrees in this so-called cemetery.

The Old Gospel of Sin, Judgment, and Regeneration

But I remember a day, friends, years ago when we had more preachers than teachers. We had more men in our pulpits who knew how to point a sinner to Christ to be saved. They knew how to awaken men to their lost condition, get them convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit, and get them to Christ to be saved.

We had men who were men of God who were, they preached that sin was black and hell was hot and warned you not to go there. They were not afraid of men, but they feared the Almighty. They preached that man was born under a curse and with a fallen nature through Adam, and that man could only drink iniquity like it was water because he was a rebel against a sovereign king.

These old boys preached up man's duty and repentance, and if you didn't repent, you surely were going to hell, even if you were the chairman of the deacons. They preached up man's utter necessity of a work of grace upon the heart through the supernatural act of the Spirit called regeneration.

Prayer for Revival and Spiritual Awakening

And we need more men like that today, friends, not religious mummies who will embalm you with their cries of peace, peace, when there is no peace. Let us cast off our grave clothes of dead formalism and seek God for a true move of grace in our day.

Let us pray for a Holy Ghost revival that will wake the slumber of church, breathe new life into it, and restore it to vital Christianity. Let us pray, friends. Let us go to our knees and go to our God and pray for a mighty spiritual awakening which would convert thousands across this land and stir the entire nation from coast to coast.

Oh, how we need a fresh move of God in our day. Let us go now to a time of prayer.