Tears Between the Altar — E.A. Johnston

The Church’s Former Fear of God and Moral Authority

I grew up in America in the 1950s when most folks still believed their Bibles and there was still a fear of God in the land. The church still had a voice of authority and had not yet fallen into worldliness and empire building.

Pastors were not afraid to preach hard against sin and warn folks of a place of punishment for sin called hell. People actually brought their Bibles to church with them back in those days. And there was such a thing as a weekly prayer meeting where all that took place in that room was prayer.

Prayer Meetings, Hymns, and the Bloody Gospel

No Bible study, no social groups, just knee-bending heartfelt intercessory prayer. And we actually sang hymns back in those days, hymns about the blood, nothing but the blood, and power in the blood, and a fountain filled with blood.

Preachers back then still preached a bloody gospel with a bloody cross and a blood-stained Christ who died for sinners like me. Women still had modesty back in those days and they wore hats and gloves to church and their dresses covered their knees.

Now they want to show off their thongs. Times have changed, society has changed, the church has changed, preaching has been replaced with teaching, reverence has been replaced with entertainment. I'll never forget the big famous pastor of a church in California who came to my church in the South and announced in the pulpit that in his church the people there preferred laughter over tears.

And then he told several stale jokes in an attempt to get some laughter. It seems like many pastors have become jokesters bent on getting a laugh instead of men of prayer bent on gaining God's ear. Most churches have become houses of entertainment rather than houses of prayer.

The Message: Tears Between the Altar

Laughter has replaced tears of the broken-hearted saints crying over the sins of the land. The title of my message today, friends, is Tears Between the Altar, and my text can be found in the Book of Joel.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 2, beginning in verse 12. This striking passage of scripture deals with the solemn assembly of the people of God who gather before God in humility of heart and cry out to God in intercessory prayer.

Our nation needs intercessors at this desperate hour. I've never seen our society more morally bankrupt, and I've never seen our churches more spiritually bankrupt than they are now. It's time to seek the Lord.

Joel’s Call to Repentance and God’s Mercy

Hear now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His holy word. Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God.

For He is gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repented Him of the evil. Who knoweth if He will return, and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him? I will pause there, friends.

Here we see what God says about Himself to those who earnestly seek Him. But He doesn't stop there. He tells the prophet Joel to blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify fast, call a solemn assembly. What is a solemn assembly, you may ask?

The Solemn Assembly and Priestly Intercession

He tells us in verses 16 and 17. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts. Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.

Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, spare thy people, O Lord. I will stop there, friends. It is time for the people of God to cry out to God over the sins of the land.

Returning to Brokenhearted Intercession

It's time to set aside entertainment, and laughter, and fall on our faces, and humility before the Lord. As brokenhearted people of God, we should pray and weep over the withdrawn presence of God in a corrupt society that needs to return back to God.

It begins with us, one by one, crying out to God as we stand as intercessors between Almighty God and sinful man, shedding our own tears between our altar. Let us pray.