National Tragedy — E.A. Johnston

National Tragedy and the Fear of Speaking About Judgment

I remember immediately after the national tragedy of the terrorist attack on 9 -11 that Jerry Falwell went on national television and said it was a judgment of God on the sins of the land. Then President Bush condemned him for saying that, and the news media condemned him for saying that, and then Falwell caved in to the opposition and retracted his comment and said he didn't mean that at all.

It was taken out of context. I wonder, friends, if a national tragedy like that or worse hit this nation today, if any ministers would stick their necks out there and say it was God allowing a great judgment to fall on the land and we need to repent and turn back to Him, or would they be silent to preserve their reputations?

The Nation Must Turn Back to God

But listen, friends, this nation needs to turn back to God, and God's people must lead the way and turn back to Him. The title of my message today is National Tragedy, and my text can be found in 2 Chronicles 7.

God's Providence and Judgment on a Sinful Society

And we are going to look at what God has to say in His Word about how He deals with sin and nation. Our passage begins with a divine appearance from the Almighty to King Solomon after the people of God had just celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, and Solomon led the people in a solemn assembly before the Lord.

We will pick up the text in verse 12 of chapter 7, friends. Here now is the Word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His Holy Word. And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.

Let me pause here, friends, to say that God then goes on to say some things about His providence and divine judgments on a land, and we should pay attention to what He declares here, because the God of the Bible is a God who changes not, even though we today have modernized Him and shrunken Him down to our size and made Him a more politically correct God and more appealing to this generation of pagans, both in and outside the church.

Drought, Locusts, and Pestilence as Remedial Judgments

In verse 13 of 2 Chronicles chapter 7, we have a declaration from God in His methods with dealing with a sinful society in the form of remedial judgments on the land through national disaster with the express purpose of turning the people back to God.

The remedial judgments become the increased judgments from God in their severity if unheeded, and the people fail to repent and turn back to Him. We see in verse 13, If I shut up heaven, that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, let me pause here, friends, to say, notice God here is a sovereign being over creation, and He works all things according to His providence and His purpose.

He is the king of the universe, minutely interested and involved in the affairs of men. If God sends a remedial judgment to turn the people back to Him in the form of a drought, and if they fail to respond in repentance, then the next judgment is more severe.

A locust devour the land. That speaks of a financial collapse as all crops are destroyed. America is a debt-ridden nation with a paper currency that is only worth something if the country is solvent.

There's nothing back in the dollar because we came off the gold standard years ago. There can come a day, quite suddenly, where the U .S. dollar is as worthless as the paper it's printed on. This dying nation is a heartbeat away from a complete financial collapse.

Anything could trigger it. China could implode financially. That would do it. The financial markets could vaporize. That could do it, too. This sin-loving nation sits on the very brink of collapse and could fall at any moment because God can pull the rug out from underneath America in a split second.

And if He did, how would the churches respond? The next remedial judgment God mentions in verse 13 is more severe in the form of a pestilence which represents mass deaths. This could come from a devastating war or spreading an infectious plague.

Infectious diseases that ravage populations in the Middle Ages are strangely starting to appear out in California among the homeless. It wouldn't take much for a devastating plague to spread across this country and wipe out a large part of it.

National Repentance and the Promise of Healing

Now I want you to notice, friends, what God has to say in verse 14 about the response He looks for from His people when a national judgment occurs. He looks for national repentance. 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 I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

The response God is looking for in a national judgment is national repentance. And that means God's people lead the way to turn this nation back to God, but first they turn back to God themselves. That means one church after another calls a solemn assembly throughout this land from coast to coast, from north to south, and have their people line up in their sanctuaries and then fall on their faces like dominoes in a turning of those sanctuaries into bethels and bachams where the brokenhearted people of God cry out to God for the sins of the land and their own sins.

National Revival Through Repentance

If this occurs, then God can send a national revival, which we so desperately need, friends, to heal our land. Let me ask you, friend, does our land need healing? Do our young people need saving? Are the times we live in desperate?

A national judgment begets a national repentance, which can lead to a national revival. I titled this message National Tragedy because I fear, even if all these horrific events unfolded in this nation, that the churches would still refuse to humble themselves and repent and turn from their wicked ways back to the God of the Bible.

The Silence of the Churches

And the real national tragedy is the current silence of the churches in the land right now who refuse to call their congregations to repentance in a turning back to the God of the Bible. To avoid these terrible events from taking place, let us pray.