Ripe for Judgement — E.A. Johnston

A Nation Filling Its Cup of Iniquity

I have a very solemn and serious message to bring before you this evening, friends, and my heart is heavy to unload the burden of it. When a nation grows more wicked day by day and promotes evil in every conceivable way, then that nation is fast filling her cup of iniquity as her provoking and grievous sins come up before a holy God.

Biblical Examples of Judgment and God's Plumb Line

Like the corrupt and violent society rose up before God in Noah's day, where God drowned the world in judgment, saved Noah's family, where the cry Sodom rang in God's ear, and He rained fire and brimstone from heaven down upon them, burning them to ashes.

When the very existence of society rises like a filthy stench up to the nostrils of a holy God, then an offended sovereign takes action and the sword of judgment falls. When the people of God grow careless, self-sufficient, and become self-preserving as they pursue their own interests and live by their own guidelines and standards, then God withdraws Himself from that people, like God declared to Amos, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel, I will not again pass by them any more.

The remedial judgments upon a sinning, self-sufficient people of the withdrawn presence of God is where the church in America stands at this hour, the nation stands at a preface ripe for judgment, and that's the title of my message this evening, friends, Ripe for Judgment.

Amos's Vision of the Basket of Summer Fruit

My text can be found in the book of Amos, in chapter 8. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verses 1 through 3. Let me read this striking passage of Scripture to us at this time.

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His holy word. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou?

And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God.

There shall be many dead bodies in every place. They shall cast them forth with silence. I will stop there. What the prophet Amos sees in this basket of summer fruit rotting in the sun is a vivid imagery of a people ripe for destruction.

God's Withdrawal and the Church's Need for Repentance

Two things stand out to me in this vivid passage of a provoked God and a sinning people. Number one, God had withdrawn Himself from among them. They grew accustomed to God's absence. Very much like the church in America today has provoked God and has grown accustomed to His absence.

In His absence, we work ourselves up emotionally, either by loud entertaining music or repetitious liturgies. The sinning, self-sufficient Jews fail to humble themselves and repent and turn from the wicked ways and turn back to God.

America's Vulnerability and Imminent Judgment

The church in our day fails to turn its sanctuaries into solemn nights of prayer where the people of God turn in repentance back to the God of the Bible. Number two, both the nation and the people are as ripe as fruit in an open, vulnerable basket rotting out in the hot sun.

God says instead of songs, there will be howling in the temple. Dead bodies will be strewn in the streets. America has more enemies at this present hour than you can count, friends. We as a nation are more vulnerable to nuclear attack than ever before.

Our economy is fragile as it sits atop a wall, titering back and forth like Humpty Dumpty ready to fall any moment to such a devastating degree. In a complete financial collapse that, like Humpty Dumpty, all the king's horses and all the king's men will not be able to restore America again.

The proud and arrogant nation and a proud, arrogant church sits like rotting fruit ripe for destruction. I want to read you something by the Puritan John Owen. He has a remarkable observation upon this very thing.

John Owen on Divine Patience and Judgment

I spent an afternoon in Bun Hill Fields outside of London as I stood beside the grave of John Owen. It was humbling to me to stand there and reflect on his useful life in the hands of God. I place a great deal of importance on his words as he was a man who walked closely with his God.

So as I close this message, friends, with the words and warning of John Owen across the centuries, pay heed to his alarming words. When a sinful church or people have passed the utmost bounds of divine patience and forbearance, they fall into such abominable crimes, sins, and provocations as shall render the utmost vengeance beneath their desserts.

So Josephus affirms of this Jewish generation, after they had rejected and slain the Lord Christ, that they fell into such a hell of provoking abominations, that if the Romans had not come and destroyed them, God would have sent fire and brimstone upon them from heaven as he did on Sodom.

America as a Modern Sodom

America, friends, is a modern Sodom, ripe for destruction and completely ignorant of the growing red hue in the skies. Let us pray.