Society Crumbles and the Church Lol — E.A. Johnston

The Church's Moral Responsibility in National Crisis

When there is spiritual disease in the church, then there will be gross immorality in the land. When the church fails to be a moral compass to a nation, and has lost her voice of authority, then she is nothing more than a powerless institution with little influence.

In times of national crisis, the church must be a beacon of light along a dark way, or else she'll be part of the national darkness and merely blend in. Today, society crumbles, and the church laughs out loud.

And that's the tale of my message this evening, friends. Society crumbles, and the church laughs out loud. My text can be found in the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 8. I challenge you, friends, go around and visit various churches in your community, and stand in the lobby during Sunday morning church, and press your ear against the doors of the sanctuary, and listen for something.

Chances are, you won't hear the desperate prayers from broken-hearted saints crying out to God. Chances are, you won't hear the lost crying out under conviction of sin from the Holy Spirit. But chances are, you will hear plenty of laughter inside the sanctuary.

They'll be rolling in the aisles as they laugh out loud. Many pastors today are more like late-night television comedians who make their audience roll in the aisles with laughter, rather than be prophets of the Lord, preaching under the authority of God and bringing conviction of sin by the Spirit of God.

The Church as a House of Prayer

The church was never meant to be a house of entertainment, but a house of prayer. But many today would disagree with me on that point. Many today believe that when Peter preached a sermon on the day of Pentecost, that the assembled crowd was rolling with laughter, and they said, "'Men and brethren, what shall we do with such an entertaining preacher as this?'.

But the text in Acts really says, "'Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, "'Men and brethren, what shall we do?'. Because they had just listened to a searching sermon unto the preaching of the Holy Spirit, not a bunch of funny stories with an irreverent attitude, like we have mostly today in our so-called churches.

But many pastors today treat their congregations like a nightclub audience, which needs to be warmed up with a few stilt jokes and some funny stories. Can you just imagine Jonathan Edwards in Anfield, Connecticut on that solemn night, warming up his audience with a bunch of jokes before he preached, sinners in the hands of an angry God?

Let me ask you a question, friends. How can the teenagers in our churches take God and the Word of God seriously when we don't? If a church to them is just a place to go and be entertained, then why should they go there at all?

Why not just go to some other houses of entertainment instead? Oh, why bother with church? After all, it's usually just a guy up there in blue jeans trying to get them to laugh out loud. It's just nonsense that takes place within the confines of church buildings, and very few today take religion seriously anymore because the church herself does not.

Jeremiah's Indictment of Spiritual Disease

I want to read us our text from the book of Jeremiah. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 8. I want to relate to you how the Jews suffered from spiritual disease and that they faced calamity in the form of judgment from God for their impenitency toward God.

And I want us to look at this striking passage of Scripture because of the vast similarities of the backslidden Jews and the backslidden church of our hour. Here now is the Word of God. And may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His holy Word.

Let us first look at verses 5 and 6 to see the stubbornness of the Jews and their impenitence toward God. Why then is this people of Jerusalem slid back by perpetual backsliding? They hold fast, deceit, they refuse to return.

I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. I will pause there.

The wayward people of God refused correction, and they refused to turn back to God because they believed themselves to be guiltless. But they suffered from spiritual disease and could not see their own condition.

They could not see the gray hairs upon them, so to speak. Now look at how God describes them in verses 9 through 12. The wise men are ashamed. They are dismayed and taken. Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?

Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them. For every one, from the least even to the greatest, is given to covetousness. From the prophet, even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely.

For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Where are they ashamed? When they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed.

Neither could they blush. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall in the time of their visitation. They shall be cast down, saith the Lord. I will pause there. This passage is an indictment against the people of God and the religious leaders of the people of God.

False Peace and Unfaithful Ministers

Their ministers were unfaithful men. They dealt falsely. They were covetous men who gave false hopes to their hearers. They preached, Peace, peace, when there was no peace. They healed the hurt slightly.

Listen, friends. Do you know how many ministers there are at this hour who fall under the same indictment by God? Someone in church may grow concerned over their eternal state, and the pastor heals their wounds slightly by saying they are saved when they are not yet converted.

Or the pastors will preach only soothing sermons that proclaim all is well when there is judgment on the horizon. This is exactly where we are today, friends. The nation, the church, faces a common storm of judgment, and very few are crying out, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

A Call to Solemn Assembly and Repentance

No, they just tell jokes and funny stories, and the church laughs out loud. This is no time for laughter, friends. This is a time for contriteness, brokenness before God, and repentance toward God. The leaders of the churches in the land should be having nights of solemn assembly all over this land, where the ministers of the Lord cry and weep between the porch and the altar, saying, Spare thy people, O Lord.

Where the leaders of the churches should be calling their people to nights of prayer, where the brokenhearted people of God cry out to God in repentance of sin and plead for God's mercy on the sin-loving nation.

We make Sodom look like a Sunday school picnic today. We're so much more wicked than they. And the blind lead the blind, while sleepy congregations laugh their way to hell, while society sends their way to hell.

That's where we are today, friends, whether you agree with me or not. I'll never forget going to hear a big famous preacher. When he came to a local church, this man began his message with about four or five stale jokes.

Then he read his manuscript and told some funny stories. The audience laughed out loud. They held their stomachs. They were laughing so hard as they listened to this entertaining preacher. And this is what he told the congregation that day.

I wrote it down in my Bible so I wouldn't forget what he said. He said, At my church in California, we would rather laugh than cry. That's what the old boy said. But there's a time for laughter, friends, and a time for mourning.

When perversion spreads in the land like an open sewer with its corrupting influences, it's not time to laugh out loud. It's time to weep and mourn for the great danger we face as a nation that has turned her back on Almighty God.

Jonah and Nineveh's Repentance

The preaching of Jonah brought the Ninevites to their knees in sackcloth and ashes, and that entire city repented before God, and judgment was averted. God spared them. But where are the Jonas crying out with authority today?

Yet forty days and the city shall be overthrown. In chapter 3 of Jonah and verse 5 we read,. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed to fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

But if Jonah came back to the modern church today, he'd only tell it funny jokes and stories, because that's what we think works today. Get them to laugh out loud. No, friends, God does not want laughter from us when we face such cataclysmic danger from a coming judgment because of the sins of society and the pride of the church.

The Lost Harvest and Missed Opportunity

The Jews in Jeremiah's day experienced both judgment and a mixed blessing because their grievous sins, which provoked a holy God, we see in verses 19 through 20. Now, friends, let's see the lost opportunity found in verse 20.

Individuals are being saved. We've got plenty of folks walking an island, joining a church, but few are truly converted. I don't believe I can find a verse in my Bible that better describes the sad state of things in our nation at this instant and the church's lost opportunity to have done something about it.

The harvest has passed. The summer has ended. And we are not saved. Does that break your heart, friend? It should. Oh, that the church in America had spent its precious time on her knees in brokenness and prayer over the lost all around her rather than entertaining the lost with funny stories and Hollywood movies to make them laugh out loud.

The Balm of Gilead and Spiritual Healing

God speaks to our spiritual disease in verses 21 through 22 as he looks at us in astonishment at the hardness of our hearts in a day of sad spiritual declension. It grieves his heart. It hurts him deeply.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people, am I hurt? I am black. Astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Oh, why then, is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

That is the sad indictment of the straying Jews. The balm is there, but they won't apply it. They've turned their backs on their God and forsaken him for other gods of their choosing. And that's our sad story today, friends.

We've forsaken the God of the Bible for worldly entertainments and selfish things which make us happy but fail to make us holy. We are a self-indulgent church whose main focus is centered around the happiness and comforts of man.

We preach a man-centered gospel and use man-centered methodologies to lure the lost into our houses of entertainment so we can amuse them and make them laugh out loud. But do you know what, friend? God is not amused.

God is not laughing. He is hurt and heartbroken over his straying pride-filled people who have traded him in for the world and the things of this world. God says in Jeremiah 3 .22, Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.

Returning Through Humility, Prayer, and Repentance

And that's what God is saying to us at this hour. Return to me, and I will return to you. But are we doing it? Are we following the biblical pattern for a return back to God? The biblical pattern can be found in 2 Chronicles 7 .14.

Let me read this solemn passage to us at this time. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Let me ask you a question, friend. Does our land need healing? Or are we at the point of no return in this country? Is it too late? Is the church too proud to turn back to God? Will we remain in our sad spiritual state?

And when it's all said and done, will the following verse best describe the epoch in which we lived? The harvest has passed. The summer has ended. And we are not saved. God have mercy on us all.