Come Back America — E.A. Johnston

Amos as a Country Preacher Calling Israel to Repentance

Some of the best preachers I've heard didn't come out of seminary, but emerged from the backwoods of the country. The prophet Amos was like that. He was a country preacher who had no formal training, but he walked closely with his God, and that's where all the power comes from anyhow.

Prosperity, Spiritual Forgetfulness, and Israel's False Security

Because Amos' messages to the nation of Israel were pleased to repent and predictions of their destruction, he had a very unpopular ministry. Israel was at the peak of material and political success as they were enjoying a prosperous reign under Jeroboam II, who had expanded Israel's territories.

But this prosperity caused the people to forget about God, kind of like America today. Most folks in America don't need God because they have pretty much everything they need. They get their money and their freedom.

Amos called a wayward nation back to God, and his repeated warnings fell on deaf ears because Israel lived under the false assumption that because they had the temple, God would protect them so they could live any way they wanted.

Kind of like the church in America today, whose members know nothing about holiness or the cross and the life of the believer. Most church folks just live like the rest of society. They live for themselves, their families, and they are full of the world.

Why, you can't tell a Christian today from a pagan. They both pretty much look and act the same. Well, that's what happened when the people are backslidden and away from the heart of God and to the Jews in the days of Amos.

Remedial Judgments and God's Call to Return

God sent his people a series of remedial judgments, as seen in chapter 4. He sends them a drought. He sends them a famine. He sends them a financial collapse. And then he sends them, worst of all, a pestilence, which takes the young man out of the community.

You take the young man out of a community and you don't have much hope. Yet God laments, Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. Israel's situation was very similar to ours today, friends, where God's been sending America remedial judgments in an attempt to turn the nation back to him.

We've had more hurricanes and fires and floods and tornadoes, more than I can ever recall in my life, but the church fails to repent from her worldly ways, and the situation just grows worse and worse as society spins out of control into moral chaos.

The Plumb Line and the Withdrawal of God's Presence

God gives Amos three visions how Israel will be destroyed. God gives Amos a vision of a plumb line. We see this in chapter 7, in verses 7 through 9. Thus he showed me, and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line with a plumb line in his hand.

And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumb line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people, Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

What God was saying to his wayward people was in their eyes and by their standards. They were all right in the sight of God, but by his standards and in his sight. They were far away from the heart of God, and he says he won't pass by them any more.

The withdrawn presence of God is a terrible judgment, friends, and the church in America today has this judgment upon them. We live in the day of the withdrawn presence of God in our assemblies. Let me ask you, friend, when was the last time you saw the power of God in a meeting?

We have replaced God in our churches today with entertainment instead of sinners crying out under conviction of sin, what must I do to be saved? We just have laughter and applause in our churches today.

The Basket of Summer Fruit and a Nation Ripe for Judgment

The second vision God gives Amos is one of a basket of summer fruit we see in chapter 8 and verses 1 through 3. 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 Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. In 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. Well, this image of a basket of ripe fruit was God's way of saying that Israel, because of their multiplied sins, was a nation ripe for judgment.

I look around at America today and I see a perverted nation of pagans ripe for judgment. God has been systematically removed from our society. He's been legislated out of our land. It's against the law to have public prayer in school or to display the Ten Commandments.

But you can have a transgender teacher's son's biology class and everyone is okay with that. We call evil good and good evil today. I remember a time in America when marriage was between a man and a woman.

I'll never forget the photograph I saw of the president and the vice president of the United States. It was Barack Obama and Joe Biden running down the halls of the White House waving a gay rainbow flag and grinning ear to ear as they celebrated the legislation of homosexual marriage.

America is a nation whose multiplied sins have made her ripe for judgment. We have a generation of young people today who grew up in church but now they are atheists. Their parents dragged them to church but the parents live one way at church and another way at home and the kids saw right through that hypocrisy.

The teenagers saw no reality of God in the lives of their parents and the church was just another place to park them, to babysit them for there was no power of God there in the meetings so we just gave them pizza and movie nights.

The kids are adults now and you couldn't drag them to church. They're part of a pagan generation that tries to find happiness and satisfaction in drugs and sex and alcohol and many of them experiment with same-sex partners.

The Sieve, Persecution, and the Need for Revival

America, like Israel of old, is a nation ripe for judgment. The third vision God gave Amos was that of an illustration of a sieve. In Amos chapter 9 and verses 8 through 10 we read, Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom and I will destroy it off the face of the earth.

Saving that, I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. For lo, I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations like as corn is sifted in a sieve. Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth and the sinners of my people shall die by the sword which say the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

What God is saying to his backslidden people is that God would scrutinize and sift out every evil thing that had been committed and not one deed would pass through this judgment. They would be sifted like corn in a sieve.

The nation of America sits ripe for judgment right now and we too would be sifted like a sieve in a common time of calamity and persecution. If history is any indicator, the church thrives in times of persecution and sleeps in times of prosperity.

Look at the underground church in China, how it's grown through persecution from the communist government. I believe a day is coming, friends. It's fast approaching in this country where a church will not be allowed to preach redemption through Christ Jesus.

True Christianity will be outlawed by the state and many churches right now are paving the way for anti-Christ. Only a heaven-sent revival can save this nation. But will America turn back to the God of the Bible?

That's our only hope. May heaven have mercy on us all.