Elevated Man
E.A. Johnston warns that elevating man above God leads to a diluted gospel, a debased view of sin, and the loss of the church's authority and influence.
In this prophetic sermon, E.A. Johnston challenges the modern church's trend of elevating man through humanistic and self-help teachings, which he argues leads to the dilution of the gospel and a debasement of God's holiness. Johnston calls believers to recognize the true sinful nature of man as revealed in Scripture and to restore the church's authority by preaching repentance and upholding God's supremacy. This message serves as a sober warning against replacing biblical truth with man-centered philosophies.
Full Transcript
When so-called Christian publishers began to bow to the almighty dollar and publish self-help books and self-improvement books with the mantra, be your best you, they played a central part in the elevation of man. When the churches of the land began to elevate man by teaching humanism, giving out messages on self-empowerment, they began to do away with the bible by saying man is too precious to be damned in hell. God would not so destroy the works of his hands.
Man is too good to be destroyed in fire. And when this occurred, this philosophy that the popular gospel handed out today, which is man-centered, and when it gained prominence in the land, that salvation is accomplished for the happiness of man. Man is a king, not God.
And as the church elevated man, at the same time it lowered God. For you cannot elevate one, friends, without the lowering of the other. So slowly, but surely, as the years progressed, so did our beliefs about man and God.
By doing this, we accomplished the dilution of the gospel, and no longer taught that man is utterly corrupt in his natural condition. That man is wretched, blind, dead, miserable. This is how man in his natural state is described from the book of Job.
How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinks iniquity like water. That's what the bible says about man. But we preachers today have given man a bath, and cleaned him up with soap and water.
We say it's not so bad after all, at least not so bad to be sent to hell. For when we elevated man, we threw out preaching against sin, and we began to cease calling men sinners, but rather we referred to them only as the unchurched. Then we elevated man to such a degree that man no longer needed to repent to be saved, because he was never really that bad in the first place.
When you elevate man, you have to throw the gospel away, and replace it with one not found in my bible. So in our weak and debased evangelism, we ask men and women, hoarded in sin, only to believe and be baptized, join our churches, and we'll pat them on the back, and call them Christians. But we don't realize what we've done in the elevation of man is a debasing of God, and taking sides with the devil against God, and all things holy.
In the process of elevating man, we have turned our churches into mortuaries, embalmed our congregations, and hold funeral rites every Sunday morning in a tribute to the elevated nature of man. We believe God won't punish sin, yet ever send a person to hell for punishment of sin. We change God into an idol of our own imagination.
As the church elevated man, she lowered God, and placed him on man's level, debasing God, and diluting the gospel of God. And at this time, the church lost both her authority from God, and her influence upon society, displacing her moral compass years ago. Heaven help us all.
Sermon Outline
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I
- The rise of self-help and humanism in Christian publishing
- The church's role in elevating man over God
- Consequences of man-centered theology
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II
- The biblical reality of man's sinful nature
- How modern preaching has sanitized sin
- The abandonment of repentance in evangelism
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III
- The debasement of God through elevating man
- The dilution of the gospel message
- The loss of church authority and societal influence
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IV
- The spiritual danger of replacing biblical truth with man-centered ideas
- The need for a return to gospel purity
- A call for repentance and renewed reverence for God
Key Quotes
“When you elevate man, you have to throw the gospel away, and replace it with one not found in my bible.” — E.A. Johnston
“As the church elevated man, she lowered God, and placed him on man's level, debasing God, and diluting the gospel of God.” — E.A. Johnston
“In the process of elevating man, we have turned our churches into mortuaries, embalmed our congregations, and hold funeral rites every Sunday morning in a tribute to the elevated nature of man.” — E.A. Johnston
Application Points
- Examine your own beliefs to ensure they align with biblical teachings rather than humanistic ideas.
- Embrace repentance as a vital part of the Christian faith and encourage it in your community.
- Prioritize God's holiness and authority over cultural trends that elevate man.