The Poisoned Pew

Listen to me dear friend. If the chair you sat in day after day was contaminated with lead poisoning, you would eventually become sick from contact with it. And if the seat you were sitting in in church Sunday after Sunday was poisoned as well, you'd want to know about it, wouldn't you? If you have gotten under a pastor who's an unsaved man, then whatever comes out of his mouth will be poison to you.

And the longer you sit under an unconverted ministry, the longer you expose yourself to the dangers of a poisoned pew. And I want to talk about those dangers today. For there is a great deal of religious racketeering taking place where men only want to swell the size of their congregations for their own egos and promotion within their denomination.

And the methods used to produce decisions is superficial and biblically deficient. They traffic in the souls of men having helped their black souls. And I pity the poor soul who gets sunk down under their poisoned ministry.

The title of my message today friends is The Poisoned Pew. And my text can be found in the book of Jeremiah. You can turn in your Bibles there now friends, would be in chapter 6 and in verses 13 and 14.

And in chapter 6 of Jeremiah, we see how God is speaking against the false prophets and phony priests who were leading the people astray by their false lives and pernicious lies. For from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness. And from the prophet, even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely.

They have healed also the herd of the daughter of my people, slightly saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. That's just like unconverted ministers going around today telling folks they were saved when they themselves are unsaved. They give folks a false peace and an empty faith.

And all their hearers will have to hang on to when to die is a church membership and an empty religious profession. I heard a Baptist pastor tell his congregation recently all they had to do to be saved was to believe John 3.16. That's what the old boy said. The dangers of staying under an unconverted ministry are frightening.

And there are several dangers to sitting in a poison pew. And I want to cover these today, friends, but first I'll make a confession. It's easy to be fooled into sitting in a poison pew.

I've sat in them myself until I figured it out. Pastors who had charming personalities and a feel-good message and a big sanctuary with all the modern technology. And the worship team could get emotional when they sang about Jesus.

Why, you could get a warm fuzzy feeling by just being in that church, but it was from the devil. The more I listened to these men, the more I heard error. The pastors turned out to be unconverted men who fed false sense of security to their people with their false gospel.

And the sad thing is congregations are growing like that, leaps and bound, where religious people are told they're saved, but they're ignorant of the true gospel message to be saved. And the longer they sit in their poison pew, the more gospel-hardened they become. You can't witness to them because they will inform you that they have already done that.

Vance Havner used to say, I could have led a few more people to the Lord had they not already joined the church. That unsaved pastor is damning his congregation to hell. And I want to discuss today, friends, the several dangers of sitting in a poison pew.

And these are, you will be led astray, you will be lulled to sleep, and you will be lost forever. Let's go over these one by one and look at these dangers. Danger number one, if you yourself are unsaved and you sit under a dead ministry, you will be led astray and come closer and closer to ending up in hell as a unconverted church member.

This happens because the longer you stay there, the more gospel-hardened you become. How many souls there are in hell at this hour who mistook church membership for salvation? An unconverted pastor will never stress man's duty of repentance because he will refuse to preach against sin. His gospel is all love and no justice.

But the gospel of the Son of God never makes light of sin nor ignores God's law, but rather it demonstrates how unsparingly God deals with sin. God's sword of justice fell on his own beloved Son, who fulfilled the law in every jot and tittle. Jesus was the sinless sinner, enduring the shame of the cross and enduring the curse.

For Galatians 3.13 declares, Christ hath redeemed us from the being made a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. An unsaved religionist will stand behind his plastic pulpit and give you his own opinion on the Bible, but he won't give you the real gospel message of ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration.

He will charm you like a snake charmer charms a cobra until it falls asleep. And that brings me to my next point, friends. Danger number two, you will be lulled to sleep upon a false foundation of carnal security.

What you rest upon for the hope of your salvation is shifting sand that will soon give way. The heresy you drink will poison the well. You won't be able to distinguish truth from error.

I sat in a congregational church in Connecticut, where revival occurred under the preaching of Azel Nettleton during the second great awakening. And the pastor of that church today is a lesbian. And I sat there and listened to her New Age message about how God is in all nature, and all nature is therefore good.

And because God is in everything, all people are good enough to go to heaven. And that church was packed with a well-dressed New England congregation who hung on every word and smiled. They sat in their poisoned pews as they were lulled to sleep by heresy and led astray by error.

And the more they sit there, the more contaminated they will become. If those dear deceived people remain under that devil in the pulpit, they will die under sins in their poisoned lost condition and drop down into a devil's hell. Danger number three, you will be lost forever if you remain under an unconverted minister.

For under such a dead ministry, there is no Holy Spirit conviction. Sinners are not being awakened to the fact they are lost, but the great spiritual drift away from true regeneration in our churches has produced thousands upon thousands of pious church members who are not saved. How many unsaved religionists stand in our pulpits today is shocking.

When George Whitefield came to the colonies during the great awakening, he preached against an unconverted ministry. And one of his hearers was a Boston minister who asked him, Mr. Whitefield, since you've been among us, all you preach is one message. You must be born again.

When, sir, will you preach another message? To which Whitefield replied, when ye are born again. I wonder what George Whitefield would say if he could come back today and go visit our churches in their sad spiritual condition. He'd weep over the whole lot of us.

But a lost religionist can't preach the real gospel. He doesn't know it. He can't point you to Christ.

He's never seen him himself. He can't tell you how to be saved. He's not saved himself.

He will never preach about a bloody cross and the blood stained Christ who was nailed to that ignoble tree, who was spit on and mocked and nailed up there to be a bloody spectacle of derision by the religious leaders of his day. But the unsaved religionist will slowly poison your mind with heresy. He will poison your concept of God and God's word and he will lead you blindly along with him to the bottomless pit of hell.

How many pastors there are in hell at this hour who have their congregation there beside them and he has to listen to their screams of anger at him for all eternity. They're yelling, you led me here pastor. I'm in hell.

You led me here. You damned me with your preaching. I believe friends, the most agonizing cries in hell come from lost church members who thought they were going to heaven when they died, but instead ended up in another region altogether.

Now like the rich man Lazarus, they lift up their eyes in hell. Their endless rebukes to their pastor will give that man no rest as they all suffer together in those flames. Listen friend, if you were sitting in a poisoned pew, then get yourself up and run for the door.

Get out of there as fast as you can and kick the dust off your shoes. The longer you stay there, the more poisoned you will become and that very pew you're sitting in is a death trap for the unsaved pastor is a blind guide and the poison pew is a contaminating evil and they will only sink you deeper in the mire of error and eventually drag you down to hell. Listen friend, Christ died for sinners.

Are you a sinner? Have you ever gotten to Christ or have you missed Christ? Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father but by me. Let us pray.