A New America for God — E.A. Johnston

America's Moral and Spiritual Decline

America, America, God shed his grace on thee, and so go the words to America the beautiful. But anyone older than forty years old knows that America has changed, it has turned a corner as a nation, it is a shadow of its former glory, it has dropped in esteem among other nations, and it teeters on the verge of complete financial ruin, and she's already morally bankrupt.

I grew up in an America that looked like the Andy Griffith show, but now it looks like hell come up to earth, it's a sin-laden land in the grip of sensuality, where once moral decency prevailed in the land, now indecency flourishes, a seed hid in the shadows back then, but now it parades down Main Street.

When I attended public school, you didn't have to worry about someone coming in with a gun and killing everybody, society grows more violent every day, and the church back then was still a moral compass for a society that had not yet lost its way.

In the 1950s, there was still a fear of God in the land, and Christians held a majority rule in the land, but it all changed in the early 1960s when we kicked God out of the public schools, because when this country did that, it paved the way to legislate God out of our government, kick Him out of our judicial system, throw Him out of our military, and ostracize Him from our society.

As a nation, we have escorted God to the borders of our land and told Him we don't want Him anymore. Today, in America, God is little more than a curse word, and church membership is little more than a bunch of baptized heathens who know nothing about the new birth through regeneration.

Many church members sit under an unconverted ministry, and the blind lead the blind, and they both fall into a ditch. Compromise is everywhere. Within the churches, from its entertainment to its diluted gospel, church parents are reaping the double standard they set for themselves by telling their children to do as I say rather than lead with do as I do in a godly example.

Hypocrisy is the norm, and the church at large is largely unconverted, but when you talk to Christians who are looking for a decent church, they say it's almost impossible to find one in their community.

Most of the talk is gloom and more gloom, as if we are all awaiting an eventual annihilation in our land from the severe judgments of an offended God. Many feel powerless to do anything about it, and in many churches it is deadness and death everywhere.

Revival as the Hope for National Renewal

Listen, friends, it does not have to continue this way. I believe we can have a new America for God, and that is the title of my message today, a new America for God. The key lies within ourselves and our desire for change in the land.

I will lay out several principles this morning that can affect our entire nation, for revival is the key. Did you hear me, friends? Revival is the key. National spiritual awakening would bring about a new America for God.

Do you believe it's possible? Part of a hindrance to seeing revival is our own unbelief. Jesus often reprimanded his disciples for their unbelief and little faith. The book of Proverbs states that when the people lack vision, they perish.

Our spiritual vision today is tainted by sin and self-indulgence. Our free time is spent on this world rather than on eternity. Television has ruined us. The internet has hypnotized us. It seems like most everybody today is like the walking dead, glued to their cell phones.

Very few enjoy a pretty sky anymore, or the color in the trees and nature. It's as if the entire nation is addicted to their cell phones and social networks. Our teenagers are in an epidemic of being thieves.

There's more shoplifting among teens today than ever before. Many teens are experimenting with bisexuality. It's a shame that so many precious teenage girls are self-harming themselves by cutting and starving themselves through eating disorders.

Drug addiction is rampant among teens, and atheism among teenagers is on the rise. In society, it's dangerous even to go out in public these days because you could be gunned down by a madman any minute, and we are living in a tattooed society that is scarred by violence and perversion.

God's Power to Revive a Nation

I would like to read a verse of scripture to you from 1 Kings 17 and verse 22. I truly believe, friends, this is a principle that can apply not only to a person but to an entire nation. God can send the soul of a nation back to it again.

He can revive an entire nation by His Spirit. Do you believe that? Some people today do not believe that God will send a national revival, for the Bible declares that things will just grow worse and worse, wax worse and worse.

Let me ask you a question. Does God love people less today than He did in former times when He sent spiritual awakenings in the land? He is still a long-suffering God who wants all to come to repentance.

I believe if the people of God got right with God and turned from their wicked ways and sought His face through nights of desperation and prevailing prayer, it could make a difference for the entire nation.

The people of God need to turn to God in holy desperation and anguish and cry out to God to come and forgive the sins of our land and to heal our land. From this we could see a new America for God. Through a God-sent revival, a new day can dawn in our land.

Four Principles for a New America

Through a God-sent revival, friends, I want to lay out several principles that can turn this nation around. The first principle is, number one, we need to recapture the vanished vision of God in the land.

Number two, we need to repent of our spiritual apathy. Number three, the church needs a God consciousness, not an entertainment consciousness. Number four, the people of God need a fresh vision of eternity.

Recapturing the Vanished Vision of God

Let me address the first principle stated, we need to recapture the vanished vision of God in the land. There was a time in America when spiritual awakenings and revivals spread like prairie fires throughout the country.

The people of God maintained a fear of God and pursued lives of holiness before the Lord. Family altars were common, Bible readings were popular, and the predominant activity for Christians was not entertainment but eternity.

Eternity was stamped on the eyelids of the Christians back then, and missionary enterprise was advanced through self-sacrifice of thousands of young people who planted themselves in far distant lands for the sake of souls and the gospel.

When George Whitefield was preaching in Philadelphia, the effects of the revival under his preaching were so far reaching that Ben Franklin commented, It seemed as if the entire city was going religious and there was seldom a house where prayers and hymns could not be heard.

Listen friends, we have lost the vision of God in our land. We have lost the God consciousness in our land. God is nothing more than a curse word for many today. We need to recapture the vanished vision of God in the land, and this is only accomplished through a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God on the land.

The last national awakening America experienced was the 1858 Businessman's Prayer Revival that spread across the nation like a great fire. Prayer meetings were set up all over this country at the noontime hour to acknowledge a holy God and to gain His ear through heartfelt prayers.

God answered in a mighty outpouring of His divine effusions of grace, and entire cities were turned upside down and bowed under in prayer. Thousands upon thousands were swept into the kingdom of God through conversions, and many souls were saved right before the national tragedy of the Civil War which depopulated much of America's young men.

Many died in their teens and early twenties through that bloody war where an entire nation was divided against herself. We have not had a national revival since. Listen friends, we desperately need to recapture the vanished vision of God in the land.

Repenting of Spiritual Apathy

This alone could transform the entire nation and make it a new America for God. The second principle I'd like us to see is this. As a church, we need to repent of our spiritual apathy. We've lost our vision of eternity.

We've left our first love, Jesus Christ. We have replaced God with the things of this world, and we as a church need to go to our knees in repentance before an offended creator. Oh, how we need the grace of repentance today, friends.

How badly the church in America needs to have her eyes open to awake out of her slumber for she sleeps the sleep of death. Death she sleeps. Awaken, O bride, for the bridegroom is at the door. He's ready to come back for his bride, but he cannot come for a dirty bride.

She must be washed white in repentance and purity. Our spiritual apathy handcuffs us so greatly we cannot carry on the work of the kingdom of God as we could and as we should. D .L. Moody was used of God to turn Great Britain upside down and revitalize the church and missionary enterprise.

Restoring God-Consciousness to the Church

Oh, great God, send us a D .L. Moody for our day to reignite your bride with a fire from on high. Once the church repents of her spiritual apathy, we can have hope for a new America for God. The third principle, which I mentioned earlier, is this.

The church needs a God consciousness, not an entertainment consciousness. Today the church is entertainment conscious, worship conscious, personality conscious, but it's not God conscious. We have replaced God with the things of this world, and in the process we have lost the God consciousness that used to permeate our sanctuaries years ago.

Even in the early 1970s in some parts of America there was still this God consciousness and power in the meetings. You could feel the presence of God in a prayer meeting back then, but today we have done away with the weekly prayer meeting in our churches and replaced it with self-help groups or cell groups.

There was a time in our land years ago when you could walk down the corridors of a church and hear the moans and groans of a broken hearted people crying out to God over the sins of the land. There was a level of desperation in the prayer meetings back then and a level of expectation as to what God was about to do in answer to that soul intercession.

The prayer meeting is the engine of the church, and I fear many churches today have run out of gas. There is a story about Charles Spurgeon escorting some seminary students around the Metropolitan Tabernacle and he asked them if they would like to see the powerhouse of the church.

They said yes, so he took them downstairs to the basement and opened the door and there was 300 deacons on their knees crying out to God in prayer. Those good deacons never got to hear Spurgeon preach because they were down on their faces while the great Spurgeon was upstairs preaching.

I recall preaching in a southern state years ago and the pastor of the church missed my sermon because he decided to spend that hour on the floor of his study crying out to God in prayer for me and his congregation while I was preaching in his pulpit.

There was a stir of God in that meeting and it wasn't because of my preaching, it was because that dedicated pastor was willing to intercede and stay on his face for an hour in prayer before God on behalf of his people.

God's word declares it is not by power nor by might, but by my spirit sayeth the Lord of hosts, we need to bring back the weekly prayer meeting in our churches, we need more praying pastors today, we need to bring back a God consciousness once again in our sanctuaries and our land, we as a church need to repent that we have replaced the presence of God with entertainment.

Recovering a Vision of Eternity

The last principle is this, the people of God need a fresh vision of eternity, we need to take our eyes off this world and its allurements and ask God to stamp eternity on our eyelids, to turn our hearts and give us a real burden for the lost and perishing, to live our lives in light of the Bema seat where all our works will be brought before the King of Glory.

If we live more in light of eternity, we will be brighter lights for God here on earth to our generation, we need to be salt, salt is a preservation against evil friends, somehow the church has become nearsighted, focused on building her own little kingdoms and expanding her campuses and she has lost the greater vision of a world of sinners perishing into a gaping hell, God is a global God and our vision must be global as well, if the people of God were infused with a fresh vision of eternity, how this would impact the entire nation for God, the lost would see Christians on fire for God, they would be drawn to that holy flame like a moth to a light, unfortunately when the world looks at most of us now, they see gloomy faces looking like we are sucking on lemons and hear complaining lips and see defeated lives and the world says why would I want to become a Christian and be miserable like them, a fresh vision of eternity would alter this significantly, it would bring joy back to many, is revival possible, is God deaf, does God desire to pour out his spirit upon the land once more to bring in a harvest of souls, are we the main hindrances to seeing revival, do we lack faith, these and other questions need to be addressed in these declining days of spiritual apathy and indifference, God is a God of life and he can breathe fresh life into his church through a spiritual awakening and revival, the question is will we do what the old hymn says and trust and obey or will we continue to go our own way and witness the fall of a nation that will be so sudden, so surprising, so devastating and so complete in its utter overthrow and ruin that will make the ears of the world tingle, friends turn back to the God of the Bible before it is too late, let me pray, great God come back to this land and shower it with your blessings, please oh Lord let there be a God consciousness in our churches once again, we are bankrupt without you great King, Lord Jesus be prominent in your sanctuaries once again, oh great God come and save the teenagers in the land, come save the precious teenage girls, come save the teenage boys, oh Lord Jesus you were once a teenager, you know what it is like, oh come do a great work among the youth in our land oh Lord for your great glory I pray, Amen.