A Nation's Only Hope Revival — E.A. Johnston

Moral Decline and the Threat of National Judgment

The days in which we live are dark days, where evil is promoted by government and society. The society in which we live is one of violence and bloodshed, and great wickedness runs rampant throughout the land.

If a revival of religion does not occur, then that nation grows darker, sinking deeper into sin and perversion. The very nation becomes an object of divine wrath by an offended God. Severe judgments will fall upon the land, one on the heels of another, until the people groan under those calamities.

And if the church fails in her responsibility to be a bright and burning light to the nation in which she exists, then she will fail to be a moral compass to society. And without that moral compass, the inhabitants of the land will call evil good and good evil.

Is this not the case, friends, in our country today? I repeat, if we as a nation do not have a revival of religion, whereby the tide is turned back to almighty God and the word of God, then all that remains is for that people is utter destruction.

Nuclear War and the Prospect of Sudden Destruction

We live in a nuclear age of nuclear bombs that can wipe out entire cities in a blinding flash and leave them in ashes and ruin like Hiroshima during World War II. Listen to me, friends. The next world war will be a nuclear disaster unleashed upon us with such swiftness and suddenness that we'll be like the inhabitants of Sodom who went to bed beneath clear skies and who awoke to hellfire raining down upon them.

Recently, I was in a private meeting with a high-ranking military officer who's being promoted to general, and he told me that America's biggest threat is not Islam, but Russia. That top-level military brass view the threat of war with Russia as impending and very disturbing.

Like I said, without a revival of religion in this country, life as we know it could soon cease to exist, for we would cease to exist as a nation through atomic blasts and nuclear holocaust. The title of my message today, friends, is A Nation's Only Hope, Revival, and my text can be found in Ezekiel chapter 36 and verses 25 to 27.

You may turn in your Bibles there now. Let me read us a striking passage of scripture, and may the Spirit of Almighty God attend the reading of His Holy Word. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.

Ezekiel's Promise of Cleansing and a New Heart

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments to do them.

God says, I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. Is this not what we need today, my dear friends? God declares that when He comes in His power and by His Spirit, that from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.

Friends, is this not the very thing we need as a nation at this hour? Is this not the very thing we need for the worldly and backslidden church at this hour? Then we see the glorious benefit revival in multitudes being saved.

A new heart will I give unto you, and a new spirit will I put within you. Now look, friends, how the people are turned back to the God of the Bible through this glorious outpouring of His Spirit. And I will take this stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes.

Revival as the Nation's Only Hope

This, my friends, is the only thing that can turn a nation back to God. Revival is the only thing that can avert a coming destruction. Had Nineveh not reformed themselves and repented toward God, they surely would have been destroyed.

But the king on down to the beasts fasted and sat in sackcloth and ashes as they turned their only hope they had to God Himself. He saw the repentance and spared them. Would He not do the same for this sin-soaked nation if she humbled herself and turned back to Him?

Oh, dear friends, how desperately we need a heaven-sent revival today. It's our only hope. We have this bleak warning from God as to the consequences of what happens to a people who refuse to turn back to Him.

Malachi's Warning and the Call to Repentance

Malachi 4 declares, He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. If the church continues in her worldliness and self-sufficiency and refuses to repent and turn from her wicked ways, then the light will go out of the nation until all that remains is total darkness, as that nation sits in its stupidity and sins until it's suddenly and ultimately destroyed.

Heaven help us all. Let us pray.