America's Perfect Storm — E.A. Johnston

I want to bring a message before we go to our time of prayer this evening, friends. We've been praying for a God-sent revival to come to America. Many have prayed for this weekly and agonized over it daily.

And this country needs desperate prayer. We hear a lot today about perfect storms where the elements of nature line up in a strategic pattern of inevitable destruction, whether by ice, wind, or flood.

And when we hear a weather expert announce a perfect storm, everybody in that area of the country runs to the nearest grocery or hardware store to prepare for the coming disaster and weather it the best they can.

America's Perfect Storm of Divine Judgment

I submit to you, friends, that a perfect storm is heading toward America as a nation. I do not speak of tornadoes or hurricanes or other weather-related events, of which I speak as a storm of divine displeasure from an offended God toward a provoking people.

Mother Nature is not behind this perfect storm, but Almighty God, who once favored this nation in past times, in seasons of prosperity and spiritual awakenings, the same God who raised America up as a nation and made her the envy of all other nations on earth, is the same God who will bring this country down into a heap of rubble and ash.

America's perfect storm is on the horizon, friends, and dark foreboding clouds of His hot displeasure are lining up as I preach this message to you this evening. The title of my message this evening, friends, is America's Perfect Storm, and my text can be found in the book of Isaiah, chapter 1.

Remedial Judgments in Isaiah and Amos

You may turn in your Bibles there now. We'll be in verses 1 through 9. In Scripture, we find examples of the remedial judgments of God. These remedial judgments are meant to turn the hearts of a wayward people back to God.

Often, the remedial judgments of God are unheeded by the people. Then the people become the subjects of increased judgments of God, increased in their severity. An example of this is seen in Amos, chapter 4, whereby an offended God sends remedial judgments to a strained people.

First He sends them a famine of bread, but the people disregard God and do not return to Him. Then He sends them a severe drought, but still the people refuse His divine correction, and God says,. Then God sends them a financial collapse, whereby He destroys their livelihoods as farmers by sending them a blast of mildew and palmer worms, but correction is still despised.

God declares in astonishment,. The remedial judgment of God becomes more severe in an increasing judgment, as the next judgment is a plague of death and sword, whereby the young men are removed from the city.

But the text reads in Amos 4 and verses 11 through 12,. And ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning, yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel, and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

America’s Ignored Warnings and the Church’s Compromise

Listen, friends, I believe that in the last four decades, God has sent remedial judgments to this nation in the form of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and God has sent a divine judgment to the church in America by giving the provoking people of God blind guides who cannot lead and dumb dogs who cannot bark.

Very few men standing in pulpits today in this land warn of a future judgment and come in damnation for the wicked. Rather, many pastors speak softly to their congregations like Eli did to his sons when they needed firm correction rather than soft words, which became their ultimate rune.

If a nation fails to repent and return to God, then the populace of a nation will become hardened spiritually and begin to provoke a holy God by legislating him out of the country through its educational, political, and judicial systems.

God's a hate word in America today, friends, and true Christians are viewed as narrow-minded bigots who are intolerant to others, and soon Christians in this country will be going to jail for their testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ because they'll be viewed as enemies of the state.

Persecution, Purging, and the Rise of the Apostate Church

America's perfect storm has several levels of destruction to it, as a hurricane will bring both destroying winds and wrecking floods, so this perfect storm of God's judgment will be layered as well in its intensity and destruction.

God will use the enemies of America to gain access to our major cities, to inflict chaos and destruction and mass deaths upon our populace, and the church in America will go through a purging process.

Many churches in this country today are sound asleep on pillows of conformity and compromise, and they sleep the sleep of death. In the coming persecution, we'll be much like the Chinese church is today.

The true church will go underground, and the apostate church will grow in its influence as it aligns herself with a godless society. One of the main tools in the hand of God to close the doors of many churches in this land will be the gay marriage issue, when gay couples begin to demand that church pastors must marry them, or they'll sue for discrimination.

This in itself will close the doors of many churches in our land. If a bakery can be put out of business for refusing to do a wedding cake, then a church can be shut down as well. And many churches across this land will be forced to close their doors or face lawsuits, or they will compromise and become more worldly and accommodating to the growing powers that have taken over our nation's liberty and dignity.

The Wake-Up Call of September 11 and the Isaiah Warning

I believe 9 -11 was a wake-up call from God to America, but I fear, friends, in the last 14 years, we've all gone back to sleep. Now it's judgment time. The perfect storm is forming on our borders, and God declares to us as a nation today, as he did to the Jews of old, I will do this unto thee.

Prepare to meet thy God. I want to read us our passage of scripture tonight, friends, from Isaiah, and it has a solemn warning to us today. We, too, are a nation sick from the head to the foot, and our country's desolate, a faithful preachers who warn a sinful society to turn from her wicked ways or face destruction from a provoked God.

Here now is our passage, and it's my prayer that God's Spirit will attend the reading of his holy word. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw, concerned Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Isaiah’s Picture of a Rebellious and Desolate Nation

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know.

My people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anchor.

They are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint from the sole of the foot. Even unto the head there is no soundness in it.

But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Your land strangers devour it in your presence.

And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughters of Zion are left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of Hosts hath left unto us a very small remnant.

We should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. I will stop there. Listen, friends. All we hear from the majority of our churches today is a love God, who loves everybody and who is tolerant toward sin.

God loves you. God loves you. God loves you but hates the sin, many pastors say. No, friend. God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready.

That's what my Bible declares. I believe America is getting ready to see a side of God they are quite unfamiliar with. A vengeful God who has been offended by provoking sin in people. His hot displeasure will be poured out upon this nation in this coming perfect storm of divine judgment.

America’s Pride and the Example of Nineveh

America has filled up the cup of her iniquity and has out-sinned Sodom. America has refused to turn back to God. Rather, she has outlawed God and his holy law from our society. She spits in the face of the Almighty, shakes her angry fist in his face, and dares him to do anything about it.

But God is not an idol or a block of wood. He cannot remain silent much longer as this nation continues to provoke his righteous anger. He is a supreme being who has been provoked by a sin-loving society that refuses to heed his corrective judgments and turn back to him.

The ancient city of Nineveh heeded the warnings of God as proclaimed by the prophet Jonah. And from the king down to the beast, that entire large city put on sackcloth and ashes and humbled herself in the face of coming destruction.

And God saw their humility and repentance and withdrew that sudden destruction from them. But America is too proud to turn back to God. America is too self-reliant to even need God. And where is the church in all of this?

She's let the world into her worship and entertainment and her sanctuaries. She's on a mad rush of a building program to expand her already built bulging campus. And all she has to offer is a watered-down gospel.

The Call to Repentance, Mercy, and Prayer

That's an insult to a holy God. The big question before us this evening, friends, is will America repent and turn back to the God of the Bible? Or will she refuse divine correction and continue to fill up her cup of iniquity?

If she continues to fail to heed his remedial judgments, there's only one alternative left for the Almighty. America, prepare to meet your God. God have mercy on us all. Let us pray.