When Judgment Comes — E.A. Johnston

A Solemn Warning of National Judgment

I want to bring a very solemn message this evening, friends, and this message is a solemn warning for our nation. America is two steps away from a sudden and swift judgment from Almighty God. When judgment comes, all of society will spin out of control, every place of refuge will prove futile, lawlessness will take over our major cities, and the government will be completely powerless to do anything about it, for she'll be bankrupt and in utter chaos.

America’s Rejection of God

This nation has out-sent every civilization which has preceded it. We have out-sent ancient Rome. We have out-sent ancient Greece. We have out-sent both Sodom and Gomorrah. America's turned her back on the God of the Bible and is doing everything she can to legislate him out of our country and wipe his memory off the face of this earth.

We've kicked God out of our educational system and will not allow prayer in his name or the reading of his word in public classrooms. We've kicked God out of our judicial system by enacting laws that prohibit both his name and his written law as the rule of the land.

We've kicked God out of our society altogether by making it a hate crime to preach against sin as it is called in my Bible. And God is not deaf, friends, and God is not blind to how this nation has forsaken him completely in many respects.

We are like the Jews of old who rejected God through their depravity, adultery, and injustice. We as a nation bow down to false gods and sit high in our worldly fullness and wantonness. We live for sensuality and pleasure like brute beasts in a forest.

And when judgment comes, it will come suddenly and without warning. And that's the title of my message this evening, friends. When judgment comes, my text can be found in the book of Jeremiah in chapter 5.

Jeremiah 5 and the Pattern of Divine Judgment

You can turn in your Bibles there now. How strikingly familiar is this passage of scripture to our present-day situation, even as our enemies line up and are ready to attack us. They are an ancient nation from afar whose language we do not understand.

How foolish we are as a nation to provoke a holy God with our grievous sins and rejection of him. Our passage this evening from Jeremiah chapter 5 will be divided between verses 7 -17 and then verses 21 -31.

I don't want to rush over this important passage of God's word because it pertains to our sad condition today as a nation and a people. I want to list several aspects of how a nation provokes God to divine judgment by filling her cup of iniquity.

Then I will read us our passage of scripture. But first, allow me to list the following aspects of how a nation brings judgment upon herself. 1. A forsaken of God and a rejection of his law and his word.

2. Atheism, wickedness, and violence spread like a great plague in society. 3. The populace rests in carnal security, quite unaware of their impending doom. 4. Religious rulers are mainly false prophets and corrupt priests.

Jeremiah’s Description of Israel’s Adultery and Rebellion

Friends, let me read us this striking passage of scripture at this time and notice the similarities expressed in this portrait of the judgment of God upon the Jews for their grievous sins and great departure from him and apply it to us in our day.

5. How shall I pardon thee for this, that children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods? When I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlot's houses.

They were as fed horses in the morning, every one nayed after his neighbor's wife. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord, and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 6. Go ye up upon her walls and destroy, but make not a foal end.

Take away her battlements, for they are not the Lord's, for the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the Lord. 7. They have belied the Lord, and said, It is not he, and neither shall evil come upon us, neither shall we see sword nor famine, and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them, thus shall it be done unto them.

8. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God of hosts, because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people would, and it shall devour them. 9. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the Lord.

It is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandeth what they say. 10. Their quiver is an open sepulcher, and they are all mighty men, and they shall eat up thine harvest and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat.

False Prophets and the Instruments of Judgment

They shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds, they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees, they shall impoverish thy fenced cities wherein thou trustest with the sword. 11. I will pause there, friends, how careless and secure the Jews were against the warnings of the Almighty.

The word of God is despised, as false prophets feed them worthless banter and false hope, rather than feed their flocks with the rich and powerful word of God, because its word is despised and its ways forsaken.

12. God brings a day of visitation upon them through divine vengeance in the form of mighty men, a mighty army from afar, and he uses this army as instruments of judgment upon his people. 13. Let me now continue with the remainder of our passage as we pick it up in verse 22.

The Rebellious Heart and Social Injustice

14. Fear ye not me, saith the Lord? Will ye not tremble at my presence, which hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it? And though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail?

Though they roar, yet they cannot pass over it? But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart, they are revolting and gone, neither say they in their heart. 15. Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season.

He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. For among my people are found wicked men. They lay wait as he that setteth snares, they set a trap, they catch men.

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they are become great and waxen rich, they are waxen fat. They shine, yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked. They judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper.

And the right of the needy do they not judge? Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and their priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so. And what will you do in the end thereof? I will stop there. Does that sound like the modern church of our day, friends, where people set up preachers over them to itch their ears and appease their lifestyle of sin?

The priests bear rule by their means and not by the word of God. Oh, friends, I know how desperate and dangerous are the times in which we live. Let us go over these four aspects of when judgment comes.

The Rejection of Biblical Marriage and God’s Law

Let us examine the first, forsaken of God and a rejection of his law and word. Our country, in the form of its highest judges, are at this very time rewriting and redefining the biblical view of marriage.

And laws will soon be enacted through this land, which call evil good and good evil. Right is wrong today, friends, and wrong is right. This country is not run by the people anymore, but by the judges and the courts.

Liberal judges rule the land and pervert society with their treachery and deceit. God will not remain silent much longer on this issue, friends. He destroyed Sodom in a day. He can do the same with this wobbly nation as well.

America is a house of cards ready to be blown over by the mere breath from the nostrils of a holy God. This nation has forsaken and turned her back on the God of the Bible, and she as a nation sits in carnal security beneath dark clouds of common judgment.

Atheism, Violence, and Cultural Desensitization

Let us look at this second aspect of when judgment comes, which is atheism, wickedness, and violence spread like a great plague in society. I was a boy in the 1950s, and the country back then looked like the old Andy Griffith show on television.

Women would not go out in public without their hats and white gloves, and their dresses came down below their ankles. There was a sense of modesty back in those days. The only ones who had tattoos back then were sailors.

There was a thing such as decency and a shame in society back then. People actually blushed back in those days. Now we're all so desensitized to sin, we no longer blush at it, but admit it into our lives with little conviction at all.

Let's face it, friends, television has ruined us. When we put a TV in our living room, we placed an open sewer there where filth can continually pour out and pollute what integrity we once had. We've become a violent nation.

Blood runs in our streets as frequently as rainwater. The young people of this nation are mainly atheists, hell-bent on their own destruction through their sinful addictions and a hatred of a holy God.

Carnal Security and Impending Doom

Our college professors brainwash our kids into believing there is no God, and they live like there's no God at all, for everybody does what's right in their own eyes. Let's look at our third aspect of when judgment comes, and that is the populace rests in carnal security, quite unaware of their impending doom.

In our text in verses 20 through 25, we see a people whose fearlessness is foolishness. They fear not God. They fear no recourse to their sinful lives. They sin all they want to and fill up the cup of their iniquity.

The word of God is despised, and they are ignorant of the fact that God is not only their only hope, but soon will be their only judge. Even most church members today rest on a false foundation of carnal security and a good opinion of themselves.

The Jews in our passage rested in carnal security, quite unaware of their impending doom from an invading army from a distant nation. The same armies, the same enemies of ancient Israel are America's biggest threat today, friends.

9 -11 was a wake-up call, but I fear this country went back to sleep, and we are already facing great danger from our open borders and enemies who are intent upon our utter destruction, and our government does nothing but aggravate the situation.

Corrupt Religious Leadership and the False Gospel

Let me move on to our fourth aspect, which sums up the very reasons of why we are facing such judgment from God in the first place, and that is number four. Religious rulers are mainly false prophets and corrupt priests.

Let me state this right now, friends. There are a good number of faithful shepherds in the land. I know many of them, but they are in a minority. The majority of our churches today are merely houses of entertainment rather than houses of prayer.

You'll hear in most of our modern churches a false gospel preached by false prophets who damn their peers rather than help them. This itself is a great remedial judgment from the hand of God on the church in our day for her unwillingness to turn from her wicked and worldly ways and repent of her great pride.

The Jews had religious leaders who gave them soft messages of peace, peace when there is no peace rather than warn them of the coming destruction upon them for their disobedience to the living God. They were a sin-loving people who had departed from God, and today in the land we are a sin-loving people both in the church and out of the church.

We wanted to reach the world, so we invited the world into the church, and where has that gotten us? We've only corrupted the house of God with our worldly idols and fleshly entertainments. As the Jews of old dealt treacherously with their God through self-love and sin, this nation today lives as if there is no God and no future judgment.

The great failure of the church was to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked ways in repentance toward God and be reconciled back to him through the blood of Jesus Christ. This is a picture of the corrupt religious leaders in our day, friends.

The Urgency of National Repentance

When judgment comes, it will come swiftly. When judgment comes, it will be devastating. When judgment comes, it will be too late. Will this nation turn back to God as ancient Nineveh did and reverse the coming judgment upon us?

Will the leaders of the land be willing to repent and humble themselves and sit in sackcloth and ashes like the people of Nineveh did from the king down to the beast? Or will this nation continue to live as if there is no God in the world and fill up the cup of her iniquity until the only thing left for God to do is to remove this nation from the face of the earth with a swift and sudden calamity that will shake it off its foundations from coast to coast?

I fear, friends, we have reached that point of no turning back. The storm clouds are gathering and will soon be upon our heads. Heaven help us all.