Your God Won'T Cut the Mustard — E.A. Johnston

Idolatrous Worship and the Wooden Jesus

I once heard Manly Beasley relate the following story. He said, you could stand on a cliff in Mexico and gaze down at a certain village of Mexican workers. These people work down in the riverbed in their corn patch, and there they grow their corn.

And when the corn is ready to harvest, they shuck it, and after it dries out, they'll take it and grind it into cornmeal and make tortillas. And then take these tortillas down to the open market, and there sell the tortillas for a few pesos and put them away for a special day.

Then they will come back out to their house, and there they will live off of lizards. They'll go out among the rocks and catch these huge, long lizards, and they'll eat those lizards and save that money for a special day.

A special day, when they will start a pilgrimage to a wooden statue of Jesus Christ up in the mountains. The terrain to that statue is so bad that most of the people will have to crawl on their hands and knees a couple of miles.

And by the time they get to that statue, they are bleeding all over. Standing beside the statue is a priest, and the priest is saying, Now, you love God, give to him, because you show your love to God by giving.

And those people will reach into their little bags and purses and pull those pesos out, stained in their own blood, and drop that money in a slit in the top of the head of Jesus. Then the priest prays, and when he is finished, the priest will yell, You have not given enough.

Look, Jesus is sad. He is crying. And all the time, there will be another priest hidden in that hollow statue, and with a little hand pump, he will pump water to where it comes out of human-made tear ducts, and that statue is crying.

And there those people will give all they have. Crawl down that mountain and go back to eating lizards, growing their corn to make more tortillas, to get more pesos, to go and give to a dead God that cannot move or hear.

And they are sincere, honest, and sacrificial in serving their wooden Jesus, who cannot save their soul. The rider won't get the job done. Their God won't cut the mustard. It's not the living God of the Bible.

And we listen to that story about those Mexican workers, and we shake our heads in disbelief, and we feel sorry for those people who were deceived by their priests with a false God, a wooden statue of Jesus that could not help nor save them.

But I submit to you, friends, that there are many today in our evangelical churches who worship a God who is not the God of the Bible. Some of you may have fashioned a God of your own imagination that you serve.

Some of you may have gotten out your pocket knife and carved out a God for yourself that you are comfortable with, a God who will do things for you, but at the same time will leave you alone to run your life on your terms.

The False Gospel of Easy Believism

Perhaps you've fallen victim to the easy-believed gospel, and a false priest declared to you a way to heaven that's broad, one not found in my Bible. Maybe you were in a religious meeting or a revival meeting, and some evangelist made the following comment.

He said something like this. Friend, Jesus says in Revelation, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.

Friend, did you know that Jesus is standing at the door of your heart? Did you know that, friend? All you have to do to be saved is to open your heart and accept Jesus. It's simple, friend. Just accept Jesus as your personal Savior, and you will go to heaven.

Just open your heart. But if you won't open the door of your heart and let him in, then he'll just keep knocking until you do. But you must open your heart and let Jesus in, friend. Go on, let him in and receive him as your Savior.

Now every eye closed, every head bowed, if you want this Jesus to enter the door of your heart, friend, if you want to go to heaven, just raise your hand now, and I will pray for you. Just raise your hand.

Yes, sir, I see you. Young man in the back, I see you. Yes, lady up in the balcony, I see your hand. Thank you. Thank you. Now you can put your hands down. I want to now extend an invitation to come to Jesus.

Jesus said, who's ashamed of me, I will be ashamed. You must make it public, friend. So at this time, while we sing this hymn, wherever he leads, I'll go. We'll sing this hymn, and I want you to stand up.

I want you to walk down this aisle and make it public. Make a public profession of faith. That's right. Come, come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. And many poor souls do what the evangelist tells them to do.

They raise their hand. They walk that aisle. They repeat that prayer and mistakenly accept this little Jesus that the evangelist just handed them. They take this poor little, impotent Jesus like they would a stick of chewing gum and chew on him for a while and join the church.

But sooner or later, the flavor is going to go out of their religion, just like the sugar goes out of that chewing gum, and they will be nothing more than gospel-hardened church members on their way to hell because their God won't cut the mustard in regard to keeping them out of hell.

Their God won't get the job done because it's not the living God of the Bible, but a perverted presentation of him. That priest just lied to you. That evangelist sold you a bill of goods that won't get the job done.

That little God of yours won't cut the mustard and keep you out of hell. Listen, friend. The modern church is in sad spiritual declension, so far away from the heart of God that the church of today is like the Jews of old.

Spiritual Declension and False Prophets

The Messiah stood in their midst, and they did not recognize him. Rather, they said, away with him. We will not have this man reign over us. And I believe in my heart that there is so much reprobation in the church at this hour, from the pulpit to pew, that if Christ stood in the midst of a congregation in a Holy Ghost revival, that very few would recognize him and bow in subjection to him through repentance from sin.

Now you say, that's a pretty hard statement, preacher. But it's true, friends. It's sad, but true. Many men standing behind the pulpit today don't even have a call of God on their lives. Just listen to them talk.

Just listen to the nonsense they speak. They do the people more harm than good. The blind lead the blind, and both fall into a ditch, the Bible says. I was being interviewed on the radio by a friendly lady who had a Christian radio program.

And while I was being interviewed, she shared a story with me and her listeners. She said that about 20 years ago, she had a job where she had to telephone pastors all over the country and ask them questions for some kind of survey.

And one of the questions she asked each one of those pastors was, how did you become a pastor? And she asked this to over 1 ,000 pastors across the country. And one by one, they would say something like, well, I became a pastor because I like people and I want to help them, or I became a pastor because I am a good speaker and I like to be in front of an audience, or I became a pastor because I want to do something good for my community, give something back, and so on.

Each man had a pretty good reason why he became a pastor, and every man to the one said he decided to become a pastor for one reason or another, all except one man, a black man, a black pastor from the South who told this radio host that the reason he became a pastor was because he felt he had a call of God on his life, one man out of 1 ,000.

I repeat, friends, there are very few God-called men standing behind pulpits today. We have a dearth of God's prophets because many today in ministry are there because of their own choosing. Few have a call of God on their lives, and subsequently, they cannot point you savingly to heaven because they don't know how.

They will show you a God who is easy to accept and one that won't get in the way of your daily living. And many today are deceived by these false prophets who offer a God that won't get the job done in eternity.

It's a God who won't cut the mustard in regard to keeping you out of hell. You better get rid of your wooden Jesus friend. He's no good to you. Your God won't cut the mustard, but the living God of the Bible will.

Isaiah 57:15 and the Holy God

Turn in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah, and we will take a look at the God of the Bible, the God who this entire nation has turned her back upon, the God who few today even worship or recognize. The title of my message this morning is Your God Won't Cut the Mustard, and my text is found in Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 15.

It is time, friends, that the church of this sad hour will set aside her worldly idols, get rid of her man-centered methodologies, put away her false gods and her false heresies, and get back to the Word of God and the God of the Word.

Now listen, brother preacher, if you do this, I can't guarantee you will be popular or that you will make a lot of friends, but maybe, just maybe, some poor sinner will get under conviction of sin and get awakened to his or her lost condition and become burdened to the point of desperation to where they are undone and admit they are big sinners in need of a bloody Savior from sin.

Let us read our passage, and as we do, it is my prayer that we are enabled to realign ourselves back to the living God of the Bible and worship Him again, both in church and nation, turning repentance to Him in holy desperation.

Maybe this country will see revival after all if the church will only get back to the God of the Bible and the true gospel message that proclaims man's utter ruin and sin, a blood-stained cross and a bloody Savior who died for sin, a man's utter need of repentance from sin to escape the burning fires of an eternal hell, and man's great need of a change of heart through the supernatural act of regeneration which makes that person a child of God.

Most folks today just make a decision for Jesus. They're like those Mexican workers, just believe what the priest tells them to do. They don't take the time to get out their Bibles and read it for themselves, get familiar with the Word of God and seek the God of the Bible for true, saving faith.

How many men in ministry have I heard make the following remark, Friend, see that chair? You just trust that chair to support you, don't you? Well, that's what trusting in Jesus is like, just trusting in that chair.

You place your trust in that chair, just place your trust in Jesus and you will be saved just like you trust that chair, friend. It's as easy as that. But that man doesn't know what he's talking about.

An atheist trusts a chair to support him. A pagan witch will trust a chair to support her. But they do not possess saving faith that will save them. Only God can give you saving faith, friend. Salvation is in the hands of the living God of the Bible.

He's not some impotent little Jesus standing outside the door of your heart with his hat in his hand like an insurance salesman waiting for you to decide, will you let him in? Listen, friend, you don't get saved by accepting a little impotent Jesus.

You get saved by receiving a revealed Christ. And when you hear his voice speak to your heart, he comes in with power, majesty, and authority. You then have a vital union with the living Lord. But too many today in our churches have a God they serve that won't get the job done.

Your God won't cut the mustard. Well, let me read you our text from Isaiah 57 and verse 15. And let's see who God is and who he is pleased to associate with. Here now is the word of God. And may the spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word.

For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabited eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also. That is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

That's how God describes himself, friend. He sits on high. He dwells in the holy place because his very name is holy. He inhabits eternity. He spoke and this world came into existence. There is no other God beside him.

Listen to him as he declares, look on to me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else. You better put down your God, friend. Your God won't cut the mustard. You better get rid of the preconceived image of God in your mind that you have fashioned for yourself.

Sin, Judgment, and the Need for a Blood-Bought Savior

Listen, friend. God is a God who sends sinners to hell. God is a God who will and must punish sin. God is holy and he hates sin. His law is perfect. Man is not. To get into his heaven, man must be perfect.

But man is a big sinner. You sin, friend, because you were born with a ruined nature. My Bible says in Job, man drinks iniquity like it's water. You love your sins. You're not a sinner because you sin.

Or rather you sin because you are a big sinner. And each one of us will be held up against the strictness and severity of God's holy law. And we will fail that test if we stand there in our own merits.

Our best righteousness is but filthy rags in God's sight. We're each guilty rebels who through sin have committed treason against the holy sovereign. Jesus said fear him who can send body and soul into hell.

God is a just judge and the sentencing of the law must be carried out. And the punishment is a place of misery for all eternity called hell. In Isaiah 33 verses 13 and 14 it declares, Hear ye that are far off what I have done and ye that are near acknowledge my might.

The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Listen friend, I know I am a sinner and I need a sin substitute in the person of Jesus Christ.

And so do you friend, so do you. The only way you will ever get to heaven is through the precious blood of Jesus Christ who died on a bloody cross for sin. You must repent of your sins friend to be saved.

Don't be fooled by this phony only believed gospel that has damned its millions and sent them straight to hell from the pew. If you are truly saved friend, it's because you've gotten under the blood of the lamb, Jesus Christ, the pardon for sin.

Are your sins washed in his blood? Are you born from above? Lay down your false God of your own imagination. He can't get the job done. Your God won't cut the mustard. Get under the blood. Flee to Christ and Christ alone to save you.

Repent of your sins. Humble yourselves. God says in Isaiah 57 15 that he is near the humble and the contrite. Get low before the God of majesty friend. Admit your guilt before him. If you're on your way to hell, it's because you deserve to go there.

You must get under the blood of Christ. He's your only refuge from the wrath to come. Every evangelist likes to quote John 3 16 which states, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And that verse rings true friend. It's true but we must also hear John 3 36 which declares, He that believeth on the son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him.

God has two sides friends, mercy and justice and they go hand in hand with the God of the Bible. If you're not under the blood of Jesus Christ through saving faith, you will surely be sent to a devil's hell.

God must send you there. He is not God. If only those poor deceived Mexican workers could hear this gospel message today friends. Oh what a difference it would make in their lives. They could then lay down their wooden Jesus and go to the only one who can save them.

The Gospel Call to Come to Christ

But you have heard this message. You have been duly warned. Your blood is off my hands. I'm free from your blood because I've warned you about dying in your sins and being sent to hell. Let me now preach the gospel to you and may the spirit of God speak to some hearts today.

That's my prayer, the prayer of this poor preacher. And as I pray, and as I preach these verses to you, I pray that you not only hear my poor pitiful voice but that you will be enabled by his grace to hear his voice as it comes through with power of majesty and authority.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall never thirst. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

And he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Ye come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. 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. And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth come. And let him that is a thirst come.

And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.