A Sign Spoken Against — E.A. Johnston

The Temptation to Preach for Popularity

There is an element missing in many ministries today. I believe our main problem is that we want to be well-liked so our message is molded around our level of acceptance to our hearers. We preachers like our messages to be well-received.

We like our ministries to be complimented and praised. We want popularity and acceptance so what we say from the pulpit determines our receptivity from our hearers. So we mainly preach nice little sermons that make our hearers feel better about themselves when they leave our meeting.

Jesus’ Ministry and the Growth of Opposition

But when I get my Bible out and read about Jesus, I see that his public ministry was quite the opposite of our ministries today. Jesus had an element of opposition that grew in its hatred towards him and it never went away but only increased.

It grew in its intensity as his public ministry progressed and there was a prophecy about Jesus Christ found in Luke's Gospel in chapter 2 and verse 34 made by Simeon as he said to Mary his mother, behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against.

And that's the title of my message this evening friends, A Sign Spoken Against. When Jesus entered his public ministry, we see how this prophecy was fulfilled. When Jesus preached, his congregation was divided.

You either loved him or you hated him. It was divided into those who were reviled by him. Every time Jesus preached, he divided his congregation. The very first time Jesus preached in his hometown of Nazareth, he was so reviled and hated that his hearers wanted to kill him.

Listen to the final reception that Jesus received after delivering his message in the synagogue. And all they in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him onto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built that they might cast him down headlong.

The Offense of the Cross and the Lordship of Christ

In other words, his hearers wanted to break his neck. And if you preach what Jesus preached, you will face the same opposition, especially from the religious crowd of our day. Listen friend, if you start preaching about a bloody cross and about a bloody savior who died there, why the good deacons will want to wring your neck.

If you start preaching up the lordship of Jesus Christ to this generation of hell bound church people, they will rise up against you and cry out. We will not have this man reign over us and they will go after your neck as well.

You don't believe me? Go try it sometime. But most of us preachers won't because we want to be accepted by our hearers. We want to be well received, well liked and invited back. And we certainly don't want to say anything that would hurt the amount of our love offering.

So we preach nice little sermons that don't offend anybody and people either clap when we're done or come up afterwards and tell us how much they enjoyed our message. But if you want a ministry like that, brother preacher, good luck to you because that's all you have, the approval of man.

And that's what most preachers want today. But listen, dear friend, if you study men who God has used in former times to reach their generation with the gospel of the son of God, you'll find men who were reviled by their generation.

They were hated by their hearers because their ministry was built on a bloody cross. And they preached up man's duty of repentance and his utter necessity of regeneration. They preached Christ crucified as an offense to the wise and a stumbling block to the proud and haughty.

George Whitefield’s Revival Ministry Under Attack

When George Whitefield preached, he had pieces of dead cats thrown at him. Whitefield had rotten eggs thrown at him to such a degree that in more fields, the little children who sat by his field pulpit were diligent to stand in front of Whitefield and take the eggs for him.

Whitefield was surrounded by children with egg stains on their clothing because of their great love for the evangelist. George Whitefield was maligned in the press, mocked in the theater. He was ridiculed for his stance for Christ in his day.

They made profane plays about him, called him Dr. Squintum, making fun of the physical defect of the squint in his eye. One time, Whitefield lay in a hotel room resting, and a madman entered in and violently beat Whitefield with a cane.

While Whitefield was preaching in the open air outside of London, a man tried to run him through with a sword. When Whitefield was preaching in Ireland, an angry mob beat him, dragged him, and stoned him to the point where he was struck unconscious and would have died had he not been dragged into a home to a place of safety.

The ministry of George Whitefield was a revival ministry where powerful religious awakenings occurred under his mighty preaching, but his ministry was a sign spoken against because the devil hated Whitefield's preaching.

The devil will hate any man who preaches up man's need of a work of grace upon his heart through regeneration. The devil will hate any man who preaches up man's duty of repentance because the devil does not want men and women to repent of their sins, rather he wants to keep them enslaved by sin.

Listen friend, you just take the time to study revival history, read up on men whom God has used in the midst of revival, and you will find men who were reviled by their generation, ridiculed in the press, and attacked physically frequently.

Sam Jones and the Cost of Preaching Against Sin

Sam Jones was ridiculed in the press throughout his preaching ministry. In fact, if you go visit his home in Cordesville, Georgia, like I have, you'll see a poster hanging on the wall with his picture on it, and where a contemporary had written across it, Hang Jones.

Sam Jones preached against the liquor trade in his day, and he had his enemies by the thousands. One man came up to him at a train station and asked him if he was Sam Jones. When Sam Jones said yes, the man took a cane and began to beat him violently about the face.

But God honored the ministry of Sam Jones with revival after revival. In fact, the Nashville revival under Sam Jones' preaching was one of the most powerful outpourings of grace in the history of this country.

But the ministry of Sam Jones was a sign spoken against. Go read up on an evangelist called Mordecai Ham. Mordecai Ham was greatly used to God. It was said of his ministry that 200 ,000 souls came to Christ under his powerful preaching.

Billy Graham was one of those souls. Mordecai Ham preached two main doctrines, which were repentance and the lordship of Christ, and he preached against sin in his day. He, too, preached against the liquor trade, and he was physically beaten for it.

One afternoon, a man came up to Ham in a hotel lobby and pistol-whipped him, leaving him almost dead. Another time he was beaten by a man with a chain. Another time a band of angry men stormed into one of his meetings, dragged him out of the town, and they had on their possession a bucket of tar, a pillowcase full of feathers, and a rope to hang him.

His life was spared because the local sheriff called the infantry in to rescue him, and he was given a police escort to get out of that Texas town. When Mordecai Ham preached in Jackson, Tennessee in the early 1920s, one-third of the population came to Christ in a mighty revival.

But the ministry of Mordecai Ham was a sign spoken against. When George Whitefield was in New England, he was greeted by a minister from Ireland, and as they greeted one another, Whitefield bent over, removed his beaver cap, and pointed to a large scar on his forehead, and replied, This, sir, is the wound I received in your country for preaching Christ crucified.

Christ’s Suffering and Paul’s Persecuted Ministry

And the preaching of Jesus got him arrested. He was beaten, spit upon, mocked, ridiculed, stripped naked, and nailed to a cross. That cross had Christ's blood all over it because of sin. My sins, your sins, our filthy, wretched sins.

We were the nails in his hands. We were the nails in his feet. And look at the ministry of the Apostle Paul. He states in Galatians, Why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased.

Paul was well familiar with persecution, with beatings. He was scourged, beaten with rods, stoned, all for his preaching of the cross. The Apostle Paul's ministry was a sign spoken against. But not us.

We want popularity. We want applause. We want recognition. We want acceptance for our hearers. We'd rather have them throw flowers at our feet than rocks at our heads. Ask yourself a question, friend.

The Dilution of the Gospel in Modern Churches

Why is it when you walk into an average church today that you seldom hear a sermon on hell? Why do you seldom hear a preacher call sin black and hell hot? Why do you not hear more sermons on man's duty of repentance and the utter necessity of regeneration to be born again?

Why do you not hear sermons on the utter lordship of Jesus Christ or even on the cross in the life of a believer? Why do you not hear sermons on the subject of the absolute need for holiness among Christ's followers?

Why not? Because most of the men preaching today do not want to offend you. They need you to fill their churches so they'll preach messages which are mainly positive, feel-good messages. We live in a day, friend, of the encouraging word.

Our Christian radio is all about the encouraging word. Our pastors mainly give us encouraging words. They do not warn us of the great danger of dying in our sins and being cast in a place of burning fire and torment called hell.

They don't warn against a judgment to come. Today in our churches, we have so diluted the gospel message that why it won't offend anybody. And because it's been so diluted of all its saving power, it won't save anybody either, much less a flea.

Historic Preachers and Uncompromising Holiness

But men in former days weren't so caught up in their reputations. Men in former days like Whitfield and Sam Jones and Mordecai Hamm called a spade a spade. They called sin black and hell hot. They called sin sin, not social disorders.

And if those kind of men were here amongst us today, they'd be out on the street corners preaching that marriage is only between a man and a woman. And if you want to be a Christian, then you must utterly surrender to all the claims and rights of the gospel on your life and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ and turn from your sins and repentance towards a holy God.

Those kind of preachers wouldn't dream of soft-soaking the gospel like we do today, friends. They would warn men and women and boys and girls of the great danger of dying in their sins and being cast into hell and its fires.

They would point to a bloody cross and the bloody savior who died there. They would cry out against the great evils in society in our day. They would preach on man's utter necessity of a work of grace upon the heart and the need for man to repent of sins if he wanted to get into God's heaven.

Sam Jones used to say that getting saved meant quitting your meanness. It meant you didn't drink liquor anymore. Sam Jones said the Christian man who would do something in New York City that he would be too ashamed to do in his hometown wasn't much of a Christian man at all.

These men preached up holiness. They preached up the lordship of Jesus Christ. Their ministries were attended with showers of blessings from on high and thousands upon thousands were converted under their preaching and it was all because their ministries were Christ-like.

They were a sign spoken against. Oh friends, that God would in our day raise up some young preacher boys who aren't so concerned about their reputations as they are concerned about the souls of men. Pray friends for the God of the Bible to raise up a generation of preachers who will once again call sin black and hell hot and warn men not to go there.

A Call for Fearless, Prayerful Preachers

A man who do not fear men but fear only the almighty. A man who care little about what others think about them as long as their instrument of salvation to thirsty souls. That God would raise up some praying preachers in our day who actually believe their Bibles and actually believe their God.

Men who were filled and anointed by the spirit of God. Listen to the following description friends of some of these preachers in former days and pray that God will once again raise up some men like this.

The Fire and Faithfulness of Revival Preachers

The apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitfield, Knox, Edwards, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody each shared a common denominator of fire in their belly. They were each so eaten up with the gospel and thirsty for Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost.

They could not stand idly by while others perished. They saw nothing but eternity, worshiped the Holy God and served the risen Christ. Living not for earth nor its gains but living only for heaven and its rewards.

When they preached they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation. They preached hell and its fire and Christ in him crucified. Not one of them feared king, queen or pope and not one of them sought the compliments of men.