Contemptible Silence of Church

Can I ask you a question, friend? Why is it that in our churches today, we don't come across lost sinners tugging on our sleeve and inquiring, what must I do to be saved? Why are so few today experiencing the transforming power of a risen Christ in their daily living? In our churches today, why is there the missing presence of Christ? Why so much deadness? When I was conducting my research on the Second Great Awakening, for my biography on the life and ministry of A. Z. L. Nettleton, I came across a document which startled me. It was a memoir written by a pastor whose church was in the midst of revival on a college campus, and he was walking at night on campus on the way to his church's prayer gathering, and he encountered a student while on his way there, and he invited the student to go with him with the following words, Come with us, and we will do you good. And I chewed on that for a while as I compared it to the church in our day.

Could I honestly say to a stranger in an invitation to come to church, Come with us, and we will do you good? I believe that is practically impossible with the church in her present apostate condition, where more harm is done than good. There is in our churches today a contemptible silence of being true to a person's soul. We fail to warn the lost of the great dangers of dying in your sins and being cast into a furnace of everlasting misery and torment called hell.

Our pulpits are silent today on the doctrine of hell. Our pulpits are silent today on the doctrine of the sinfulness of sin. Our pulpits are silent today on the doctrine of man's duty of repentance.

Our pulpits are silent today on the doctrine of regeneration, stating the utter necessity of having a work of grace performed on the heart by the Spirit of God through the new birth. There is a contemptible silence. I use that word contemptible for a reason.

The word contempt originated in 1393 from the Latin word contemptus, meaning scorn. And the definition of scorn is open dislike and disrespect for something. I submit to you, friends, that the modern church, with her predominantly unsafe pastors, has scorned the true gospel with its only saving power and has replaced it with a perverted, diluted version of it.

And thus the church in our day stands under indictment for her contemptible silence of not preaching the truth of God's holy word. We have been silent on warning the wicked to flee from the wrath to come in an effort to grow our church campuses and draw our salaries while we make merchandise of men's souls for profit in pride of contemptible silence. And that's the title of my message today, friends, The Contemptible Silence of the Church.

My text can be found in the book of Ezekiel in chapter 3. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We'll be in verse 18. Let me read us a striking passage of scripture to us at this time.

And may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His holy word. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life. The same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand.

I will stop there. Many of you have never heard a true presentation of the gospel, and you have never come under Holy Spirit conviction, apart from which no one can be saved. Many are deceived today, thinking they are on their way to heaven through an empty religious profession.

And if they died now, they'd have no covering for their sins, and would be thrust into a crisis eternity to suffer the torments and miseries of hell forever and ever. Listen, friend. Accepting a preacher's invitation to accept Jesus and making a public profession of faith is not salvation.

Now that just knocked the chair out from under most of you. If you can't go back to the time and place that you became a lost sinner, you cannot rightly say that you were saved. Christ died for sinners.

Are you a sinner? Have you ever been lost? If not, how can you be so sure that you were saved? You may be sitting on a rotten plankboard of an empty religious profession that has no soundness nor security. And every time you move, friend, that rotten foundation creaks, and it will soon break beneath you, plunging you into a devil's hell. Let me ask you, friend, and I will be true to your soul today if you stay with me in this message, I will do you good.

I'm not preaching for your acceptance nor your approval, but I will warn you of your duty of repentance and your great danger of dying in your sins and being thrust into a burning and smoking hell because all sin is transgression of the law and the sentencing of the law must be carried out by a just judge who must punish sin. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? And I will do right to the good of your soul, friend, by warning you to turn from your wicked way and turn to God in repentance towards Him and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's either Christ or hell, friend.

Have you missed repentance? If you have, then you have missed faith. No one can be saved through faith alone, Jesus declared. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish, and that means you, friend, even if you are the pastor of a big church, can you retrace the religious experience of your life and find the time or place that you'd ever come to the knowledge of the fact and admit it to God in your heart that you were a lost sinner? Go back in your mind right now and retrace the steps of your salvation experience and see if you can locate the time and the place of when you realized you were a lost sinner.

If not, then you were not saved. I know of which I speak from personal experience. For years, I believed myself to be a saved individual because at the age of 14, I was in a revival meeting and the visiting evangelist gave a very moving message on the gospel and on the need to accept Christ.

And when he gave the invitation, I went forward and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and I even cried real tears as I said my prayer. And years went by and I joined several churches all the while believing myself to be saved. I did Christian work.

I volunteered at church whenever they asked me. I did all I could to serve God in the best way I knew how. I held discipleship meetings in my home on a weekly basis for groups of men.

I went door to door sharing my faith and handing out gospel tracts. I began to teach a Sunday school class and did that for 15 years and I never missed a Sunday. I began to preach at conferences and churches and I even went to seminary.

I'll never forget sitting at a banquet table for my seminary graduation dinner to receive my Ph.D. I was seated at a round table with four pastors and their wives and the talk went around the table as to who was getting what degree. One pastor said he was finally getting his master's. Another man said he was finally getting his doctorate.

The man sitting right across from me at the table was a pastor and he pointed to me and asked what degree are you receiving, brother? And I told them that I had already had my doctorate. I was now receiving my Ph.D. To which this pastor sarcastically replied what will they call you, Dr. Doctor? And they all had a big belly laugh at that one. And looking back on that time I wrote a little poem to commemorate that experience.

It goes like this. Dr. Doctor was all the rage. But Dr. Doctor wasn't saved.

I wasn't saved. I was a deceived individual who swallowed the diluted gospel of my generation and made a public profession and mistook that for salvation. I had never been lost.

I had missed Holy Spirit conviction. And I had missed Christ. And for years I went on that way under the cloak of an empty religious profession.

But my sins had not been washed in the blood of Christ. Oh friend, you must be washed in the blood and born from above. Have you ever experienced a new birth? Has the spirit of God come and made your heart a major heart of stone, a heart of flesh through a supernatural act of regeneration whereby the spirit of God implants a new disposition of holiness in you? I was listening to Paris Reedhead preach a message to a packed church and he asked everyone there to raise their hand if they knew they were saved.

And just about everyone in that auditorium raised their hand. Then Paris Reedhead asked the following question. How many of you have ever been lost? Please raise your hand.

And out of that congregation of several hundred people only four hands went up. And then he solemnly said, How can the rest of you know so sure that you are saved if you've never been lost? And I ask you that, friend. Have you ever been lost? I vividly recall the time I became lost.

I was at home alone and I was reading a sermon by the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard. And as I read that sermon I came under Holy Spirit conviction. I became disturbed and alarmed to the thought that the very foundation I had been resting upon all those years for salvation was false.

I had thought I was on my way to heaven because of my long track record of service and I had a good opinion of myself. After all, had I not taught Sunday school for years, had I not been a gospel witness and handed out tracts on a regular basis, why, I had spent years discipling men in my home on how to be better Christians. I had preached in churches and preached at conferences.

I had a long track record I could look back upon as proof that I was a Christian. But as I read that searching sermon by Solomon Stoddard, God threw his search and spotlight on the wickedness of my heart and I saw all was not well with my soul. I saw that I was on a slippery, darkened road that led to hell.

I suddenly became seized with terror and alarm. Fear gripped me all over. I threw myself down on the floor of my study and there I argued with God that surely I was a saved man because of all the good works I'd done for him all those many years.

I said, Lord, Lord, I'd done this for you and I'd done that for you. And then I felt as if he was turning away from me with his hand up saying, away from me, I never knew you. I put all the strength I had into prayer and agony that day.

I wrestled with God that day. If I may so speak, there on the floor of my study I prayed that day until I knew in my heart that I had missed Christ through believing the modern gospel of our day. Why, I'd only done what the preacher had asked me to do.

I got up out of my seat and walked an aisle and prayed a prayer to accept Jesus as my savior as I made a decision for him. But I did not realize at the time that that was not salvation. Coming under Holy Spirit conviction, I was now awakened to the fact that I was a lost sinner and I felt in my heart that not only was I going to hell but that I deserved to go there.

That God was just and sent me on to hell. I saw that because I missed repentance. I'd never gotten under forgiveness of sins through Christ's blood.

I saw I'd never been born again. That I was a lost man who just deserved hell. Well, I became a seeker of God that day while I wrestled with God on my knees in prayer.

And like Jacob of old, I would not let him go until he blessed me. Several hours went by during this time of desperate, agonizing prayer where I finally arrived as a beggar before God seeking mercy. I could bring nothing with me.

All my years of good works were done in the condemned flesh and stood only under his judgment. And I realized my good opinion of myself was in his sight. Just stinking filthy rags of refuse all under his judgment as well.

I deserved hell, not because I had sinned, but because I was a sinner by nature. And that was under his judgment as well. I knew my Bible said that.

Jesus said he came to seek and to save that which was lost. And that was me. That day I finally took my place before God, admitting in my heart that I was lost and I needed a sin substitute in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

God gave me the grace of repentance that day. God gave me saving faith as well. If you ever get saved, friend, it's because God gave you saving faith.

Jesus declared, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. I came to God that day as an empty-handed lost sinner.

And bless God, he saved me by his grace. But it took a sermon from the 18th century to awaken me to my lost condition because that sermon by Stoddard was full of the true gospel. The contemptible silence of the church today in not preaching the great doctrines of the gospel and failing to warn the wicked to turn from their sins to God is an indictment against it.

Let me say this to you, friend. If you can't go back to the time and place that you became a lost sinner, you cannot rightly say that you were saved. Christ died for sinners.

Are you a sinner? The gospel is for folks who feel their need, feel their need of a sin remedy. The gospel is for the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty. Are you hungry for God? Are you weary of your sins? Are you thirsty for Christ? Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.

He that cometh to me shall never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe not.

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Come to Christ, friend, and take your place at his feet as a guilty and ruined, lost sinner needing only him, only Jesus.

Salvation is Christ. He is the pearl of great price worth forsaking all for and losing all for. Come to Christ and believe on him and own him as your Lord and Savior.

Let us pray.