America Will Face a Different Side of God — E.A. Johnston

America’s Spiritual Decline and Coming Judgment

I have a very serious message for us today, friends, and I deliver it to you with fear and trembling. Things have changed so quickly in this country in just the last two or three years that this country is not even recognizable anymore.

America used to be a nation that was favored of God because she was a nation that once feared God. God brought her through world wars in victory, blessed her materially. He blessed her spiritually through poured out effusions of grace and revivals and spiritual awakening.

And he elevated her bountifully in the eyes of the world. But America not only was ungrateful to God, she turned her back on the God of the Bible. America legislated God out of her judicial system. She banned him from her educational system and she removed him from her military system.

And she has banished him from the borders of this once great land. America, once a nation favored by God, is now a nation forsaken of God. Wickedness grows in the land like a great plague and good is called evil and evil good.

God is hated in America today and this country blasphemes him on Sabbaths and mocks him with her entertainments and shakes her angry fists at him through her court systems by enacting laws that stand in direct opposition to him.

I believe America will face a different side of God than what we are used to for we mistakenly believe that God is just a God of love in this land. That's what our churches and evangelists have told us for the last 50 years and several generations have grown up believing in that kind of God.

But he's not the God of the Bible. One of the most startling passages in my Bible is found in 1 Chronicles 27 and verses 14 -16 which relate the punishment which fell upon the people of God by the hand of God through King David's disobedience in taking the census.

Let me read that text to you now. So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel and there fell of Israel 70 ,000 men and God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld and he repented him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand.

And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and heaven having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.

Then David and the elders of Israel who were clothed in sackcloth fell upon their faces. Now friends, we must ask ourselves a very vital question. Do we believe our Bibles or not? Do we believe that God did this thing where he destroyed 70 ,000 people because of sin?

Do we believe that a destroying angel can come to this earth with a sword of pestilence and hew down entire cities? Do we believe it or not? Do we believe our Bibles to be the inerrant word of God? Then we must be terrified by this picture of God's wrath poured out upon mankind because of sin.

And it was the sin of one man that brought this. It was David's pride in taking a census. Look around at America today. Look at what a God-hating nation it has become. Look at the perversions that have swept over this land like an open sewer.

Wrong is right today and right is wrong. It's as if the whole land has gone crazy. We live on a planet of violence and sexual perversion, and our day is much worse than the days of Noah when God destroyed the entire populace save Noah and his family.

We are more wicked today than Sodom ever was. Our sins are greatly multiplied over Gomorrah. America is a whore nation who spreads her disease to other nations upon the earth where in former days she was a beacon of light in missionary enterprise and the spreading of the gospel.

But now America corrupts other nations with her perverseness, and now she is a curse for she produces more filth than any other nation on earth. I believe a nation can fill up her cup of iniquity, and all that remains is certain judgment and destruction.

Are we there in America today? And if we are, is America getting ready to face a different side of God than what she is accustomed to? Then what have we been taught by the prophets in the land for the last 50 years?

There's been false prophets that have only spoken about a part of God, His love, and they've ignored the full counsel of God which speaks of His vengeance and His wrath. And where is the church in all of this?

Apostasy and the Corruption of the Church

The church in America has become an apostate church which mocks Him with her worship services and insults Him with her perverted gospel message. And this is a day of an unconverted ministry where many men occupy pulpits and run their churches in the name of Jesus, but they themselves have never been subjects of a work of grace upon the heart.

Many are famous men, powerful men, men in leadership within their denominations, yet they are blind leaders who mislead multitudes and who damn their hearers with a perverted gospel message. Corruption grows in the church today like a cancer, and many serve a false demonic spirit and believe it to be God.

Things have gotten so bad in this country, a person is hard-pressed to even hear the true gospel anymore. The false outweighs the true, and false prophets hold positions of authority and influence over many.

And we have a nation of teenagers who are sexually ruined before they turn sixteen. They are drugged up, boozed up, and used up before they even become adults. And for the last fifty years in this country, the pulpits of the land have only proclaimed the love of God, that God is a God of love and only a God of love.

The vengeful and wrathful God of the Old Testament was for another time, but not for today. God tolerates sin today. God is a loving God today who overlooks sin. God will let you into his heaven even if you never repent of your sins.

That's what we're told in many churches in this country today. But it isn't so, friends. It isn't so. God is a God who must punish sin. And America is getting ready to see a different side of God than they are accustomed to.

And that's the title of my message today. America will face a different side of God. Listen, friends. This country is nothing more than a house of cards waiting to be blown over. Utter destruction faces this nation from the hand of an offended sovereign.

God Almighty will not long tolerate an entire nation mocking him without consequences and swift judgment upon it. America has only heard about a loving God who wouldn't harm a flea. But America is getting ready to see a side of God that will quite alarm her.

For America has filled up her cup of iniquity and the settling time is about to occur. Would God today send a destroying angel with a sword of pestilence in his hand like our passage from 1 Chronicles?

Would God send an angel of such destruction that a virus like Ebola would spread over entire cities and who down hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions? The Black Plague in Europe killed over 25 million people.

Do we deserve such punishment from the hand of God today? Are we wicked enough to deserve it? Is this the beginning of the end for America? How much more wicked can this nation become before God sends a destroying angel with a sword of judgment in its hand?

Are we so asleep in our churches today that we don't even see our danger? The church in America is sound asleep and she sleeps the sleep of death. But her time for repentance is drawing nigh. Our text today is found in the book of Revelation in chapter 2.

Christ’s Warning to the Church at Thyatira

You can turn in your Bibles there now. We will be in verses 21 through 23. I will read these verses with much fear and trembling, friends, because they speak volumes to the putrefied condition of this country today.

Here now is the word of God. May the Spirit of God be pleased to attend the reading of His holy word. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

And I will kill her children with death and all the churches shall know that I am he which searches the reins and hearts. And I will give unto every one of you according to your works. Now, friends, I want us to see that these words from Christ Jesus are given to His church.

They were given to the angel of the church in Thyatira. But they are for us today, friends. The church is being given a period of time to repent and she has not repented. The proud American church, with her big buildings and expanding campuses, refuses to repent of her wicked ways and turn back to the God of the Bible.

Strange fire is the fire in our churches today. False doctrine is the doctrine in our pulpits today. Many are led to hell by being members of churches in our land today. I believe there are three ways to exercise repentance as found in our Bibles.

National Repentance Through the Example of Nineveh

Number one, national repentance. Number two, corporate repentance. Number three, personal repentance. Let us look at each of these as we proceed. In the book of Jonah, we see the wicked city of Nineveh repent and how God spared it.

Jonah cried out with his warning of coming destruction to the wicked city. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And our Bibles tell us how the people of Nineveh responded to the preached word of God.

So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For the word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and he laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes.

And he caused it to be proclaimed and published to Nineveh by the decree of the king. And it's noble saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let him not feed nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God.

Yea, let them turn every one of them from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hand. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not. And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way.

And God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them. And he did it not. Did you hear that, friends? Should the president of this country send out a public decree and call this nation to a time of fasting and repentance?

Are we a violent nation like Nineveh? Do we deserve destruction like they did? Our sins are more greatly multiplied than theirs. Are we willing as a nation to humble ourselves and turn from our evil ways and seek once again the living God of the Bible?

God tried to get this nation's attention with the terrorist attack at 9 -11, but I fear we all went back to sleep. What will it take to get this nation's attention, to turn her back to God? What national disaster will have to befall us?

Corporate Repentance and the Call to Assembly

A revival could prevent this, friends. Secondly, there is corporate repentance. I have been in a church where God visited it with his manifest presence, and there was a God consciousness there. All you could do was to be bowed under his awful presence.

If a church would do what is necessary and seek the Lord God, maybe he may be merciful to send a revival. But what is necessary? There are two places in my Bible which lay out the pattern for the people of God to do what is necessary in turning back to God.

The first passage is found in the book of Joel, in chapter 2, and in verses 12 -18. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We can read along together. Let me read the solemn passage to us. And may God send us the grace of repentance to do it.

This is Joel, chapter 2, verses 12 -18. Oh, if the churches in this land would just do the following. And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God. For he is gracious and merciful, a slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat offering, and a drink offering, unto the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify fast, call a solemn assembly, 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, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them.

Wherefore they should say among the people, Where is their God? Then will the Lord be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Oh, friends, if only the sleepy-headed pastors in this nation would do this, would call their congregations to a time of solemn assembly, and fill their sanctuaries night after night, with desperate cries and humiliation, begging God to forgive the sins of this land, and to forgive our sins as a people of God.

It's up to the spiritual leaders to gather the people, and weep between the porch and altar, saying, Spare thy people, O Lord, but who is doing it? Where are the pastors willing to humble themselves, and to throw their reputations out the window, and get on their faces before God, and weep, and mourn, and beg God for mercy, to lead their people in a serious time of fasting and supplication before the Lord?

Personal Repentance and Revival Through Humility

Lastly, there is personal repentance, and this is the second place in my Bible which speaks directly to revival in the land, through a beginning of personal repentance among the people of God. This means you and me, friend, this is what we can do individually, right now, right now.

If we will do the following, perhaps, God will not bring a national judgment upon us, but rather, he will show us mercy, and bring a national awakening, a spiritual awakening, and a revival that could sweep this nation from coast to coast, until thousands could come to know the Lord.

There'd be a God consciousness in our churches again. Our teenagers would know what it was like to sit in the presence of God, instead of sitting in a sanctuary of entertainment. Here is what is necessary on our part, friends, as found in 2 Chronicles 7 .14.

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, friend, does our land need healing? Are we willing to turn from our wicked ways? Are we willing to slay the very lust in our life that we cling to and enjoy? Are we willing to turn off our wicked television long enough to fall on our faces before the God of the Bible, and weep over the sins which break his heart?

Are we willing to be separated from our darling sins? Are we, are we, are we desirous of a national revival? Are we willing to stay on our faces long enough for it to come? I remember years ago, I used to meet with some local pastors, and we would pray each week for revival.

But after a while, one by one, they dropped off and stopped coming. They did not have the opportunity that was necessary to move the ear of God. I'm afraid most pastors today feel their church does not even need revival.

I was standing in line, in my cap and gown, waiting for my Ph .D. graduation ceremony to begin, and next to me in line was a pastor from the South. I asked him how often he met with other pastors in his community to pray for revival on a regular basis.

He looked at me strangely and replied, We don't need revival. We are all on the grow. In other words, as long as you are growing your church with numbers, then you are successful, and that's all that matters these days.

God's not even in the equation anymore. That's why God has withdrawn himself from the church in America, and that's why America will soon face a different side of God than what she is accustomed to. Heaven help us all.