America: Reprobate Nation? — E.A. Johnston

The Church's Crisis and the Need for Awakening

In 1740, when God moved through New England, it was called the Great Awakening. Revival has often been referred to as an awakening. At Gethsemane, Jesus faced the crisis point of His earthly ministry and His disciples slept right through it.

Today, the Church is in a crisis point and we are sleeping right through it. Those are words from my book, Reality's Revival, which were written back in 2004. Since I wrote those words, things have gotten a lot worse.

The Church in America has slept through the crisis point, of which I spoke of eight years ago, and now the Church in America is no longer slumbering, but sleeping the sleep of death. What will awaken her?

America's Moral and Spiritual Decline

What national tragedy will gain her attention? Something has happened to America recently, and if we are asleep, we won't notice it. America has turned a corner morally and spiritually, and there is no turning back.

I believe because America has ignored the corrective, remedial judgments from the hand of God, she is now, as a nation, under the state of reprobation by God Almighty. God is silent in America today. Few are being saved.

There is no national revival or spiritual awakening. The religious denominations of our land, which once were the very strongholds of truth and orthodoxy, are now impotent, limping, sleepwalking entities.

From the White House to the Church House, America has turned a corner and changed, and that happened while we were sleeping. Look at what has happened to our country just in the last eight years. We entered the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

Many economists labeled it a recession, but for hundreds of thousands of Americans, it was and still is a depression. Many have lost their homes, their businesses, and their financial security. We as a nation have seen, in the last eight years, more national calamities in the forms of hurricanes, tornadoes, and drought than we have seen in many years.

In the last eight years, our television sets have turned our homes into brothels. There is more full nudity on basic television today than in an old-time New Orleans brothel. Our nation thirsts after obscene and lewd entertainment.

The last time I saw a female blush was over thirty years ago. Have you seen anyone blush lately over sin? We as a nation have become desensitized to sin. Nobody blushes at anything anymore. Nothing shocks us.

There has been a dramatic rise in violent crimes in our land. Mass murders from the campus to the movie house seem to have become commonplace in our society. You don't know if the line you are standing in will be suddenly mowed down with bullets from a madman's gun.

Corruptness in politics and corporate businesses is at an all-time high. The divorce rate among church members is as high as those out of the churches. The trend toward demonic entertainment is a red flag as to the sickness of our land.

Many church members are viewers of the film series Harry Potter and our teenagers are hooked on vampire movies. The unseen demonic world is gripping the entire nation through the entertainment industry.

The rise in militant homosexuality is a phenomenon that can't be overlooked. We should pay heed to what happened to ancient Rome and Greece when their civilizations embraced homosexuality as an accepted lifestyle.

Those great ancient civilizations imploded as surely as America will implode and follow in their foolish footsteps. The rise of Islam in America is steady and growing to such a degree there are few cities in this land who do not have several mosques in places of prominence within the community.

Like I said America has turned the corner and there is no turning back. Public nudity is on the rise in cities and on our beaches. Today a Hollywood starlet or a country music star can show up at an award show in public with a see-through dress with nothing on underneath and she's photographed in broad daylight and applauded.

Thirty years ago she would have been arrested for public indecency but not today. Sex clubs are becoming more and more popular in our cities where spectators can watch lewd acts and be entertained with perversion.

Our nation is in the grip of a spirit of sensuality and perversion and this too is a sign of a people under the state of reprobation. There are more Americans with tattoos today than in our nation's history.

It seems America has become a tattooed nation. Even though the Bible prohibits marking the body many church members proudly exhibit their tattooed flesh. When the Antichrist appears he will have little resistance to the masses taking just another mark upon them even though it is the mark of the beast.

Technology, Social Media, and the Antichrist

What's one more mark to a tattooed person? In the last eight years there has been an explosion of social media which beforehand did not exist. Few today don't have a Facebook account or some other social media network and every mother and child in this country has a cell phone and is addicted to it.

When I sit in my car at a stoplight everybody around me in their cars is either texting, looking at something on their cell phone or talking on their cell phone. It can be a beautiful day with a sunny sky with pretty clouds in it and green trees all around and nobody takes notice of God's creation anymore because this nation is hooked and addicted to their cell phones and the internet and that could very well be the stage that the Antichrist uses to control the masses through your social media on your cell phones and the Antichrist is almost here.

We are already living under the spirit of the Antichrist in our society today. When I was a little boy in the 1950s there was still a fear of God in the land. Not anymore. People today mock God with their lives and attitudes.

When I was growing up in the 1950s all men wore hats and women wore hats and gloves and people dressed up to go out in society back then. There was a sense of decorum in the land. Now everybody is sloppy and many leave their homes wearing what they slept in.

America is a nation sloppy in dress, sloppy in morals, sloppy in behavior. Few today possess even the smallest social graces. We have become a nation of slobs. Even in our churches people don't dress up anymore but come to church looking like they just rolled out of bed or a ballroom.

Many pastors today preach in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt and the pulpits of our land have lost their dignity and authority. But what disturbs me the most about my country America is the feeling that God has reprobated her.

He is silent to America today. His withdrawn presence is startling to me. There are several signs of reprobation and I would like to discuss these now for the only hope America has as a nation is a God-sent revival to transform this sick, sin-laden land.

If America does not see revival soon we are doomed as a nation for reprobation means final judgment. Here now are some signs of a reprobate people. When a people no longer submit to the rule of God in their lives they are facing reprobation.

Rejecting God's Rule and the Judgment of Wicked Rulers

The Jews cried out to Samuel to give them a king and Samuel prayed unto the Lord because this thing displeased Samuel. Listen to God's response found in 1 Samuel 8. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee.

For they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. In America today we profane the Sabbath. We've made the Sabbath a day of entertainment, a day for sports and our pleasure.

For this nation does not want God to reign over them. The people want to be gods unto themselves. A nation will often suffer greatly because of the acts and actions of a wicked ruler. When Manasseh began his rule over Judah and he set up altars to worship Baal, the people became oppressed and suffered greatly for his open sins.

And the Lord spake by his servants the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh, king of Judah, hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols, therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle, and I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down, and I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies.

I never thought I'd live to see the day when the President and Vice President of the United States would come out and publicly endorse gay marriage. This in itself is a sign that America is in a state of reprobation, for when the leaders of the land, from the White House to the Courthouse, call good evil an evil good, this is a sign that America has turned a corner and there is no turning back.

We as a nation have turned our back on God, and we have escorted Him to our borders and have bid Him goodbye. We do not want Him to reign over us, and God has withdrawn His presence from America. When murder and violence are increasingly spreading across the nation, it is a sign of reprobation.

Violence, Lust, and National Judgment

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. When a nation becomes turned over to its lusts, this is a sign of reprobation.

Everywhere you go in America today, naked female flesh advertises products on billboards and television, and the very populace exposes their naked bodies more each year wearing less and less attire. People in America today enjoy exposing their nakedness.

There is no shame anymore in our land. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The subject of your average television programming is sex or sensuality, and the masses are eating it up in thirst for more provocative and sexually explicit entertainment.

When sexual perversion is flooding a nation, and it is adopted as a common lifestyle, that nation is under the reprobation of the Almighty, and that nation is ripe for destruction. America's cup of iniquity is full.

Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of heaven. And He overthrew those cities, and all the plains, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

When God has taken the bridle off man, and restraining grace is lifted, that man is turned over to vileness, and is consumed with his lusts. This is a sure sign of reprobation. Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.

When God has lifted common grace from man, that man is left to his own evil heart, without any bridle on him. Murders are increasing across our communities, and violent crimes are more common today than ever before in the history of America.

It's dangerous to walk the streets in many of our cities today. Drive-by shootings take many lives in America today. Sudden death is a common occurrence in America today. This is a sure sign of a people under the reprobation of God.

The second evidence of a reprobate people is that something terrible has happened to their conscience. People are born with a knowledge of right and wrong, but somewhere along the way their conscience is shut off.

A mass murderer has no conscience. An adulterer has no conscience. A child molester has no conscience. A man's conscience will either accuse him or excuse him. A reprobate mind has a conscience which no longer accuses him, but excuses him to do evil.

Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. When a man's conscience is seared with a hot brand, that man is under the reprobation of a holy God.

Look at 1 Timothy 4 .2, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. There is no hope for that kind of person. They are already under judgment. When a man's conscience is gone, there is no way to reach him with the truths of the gospel.

It is too late. He is reprobated. Many in our land today are in the state of reprobation, and there is no hope for them because their conscience has been seared because of their sins and hard, unrepentant heart.

This is seen in Titus 1 .15. Unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Somewhere along the way, through the hardness of their heart and sins, a man's conscience no longer accuses him, it no longer makes him uneasy to where he loses sleep at night.

No sir, it is no longer accusing him, but excuses him in his sins. Listen friends, the worst thing that can befall you is to be turned over to your sins through a seared conscience. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.

The Silence of God and the Collapse of the Churches

And the third warning sign of a reprobate people and nation is the very silence of God. God has withdrawn His presence from among them. Our sanctuaries today are mortuaries, death is all over. When was the last time you went to church and felt the awful presence of God in your midst?

God has withdrawn Himself from America today. The nation has grieved Him away through its multiplied sins, and the churches in our land have grieved God away from our sanctuaries. We have replaced Him with methodologies, money, and manpower.

We get along fine without Him, and God has placed many denominations today under the state of reprobation, denominations which were once used of God to shake the very gates of hell, denominations which were mighty under His blessings and presence in revival and spiritual awakenings.

But now, silence from heaven is a sure sign of a state of reprobation. Jesus stood before the Roman governor Pilate, and the chief priest accused him of many things, but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him, saying, Answerest thou nothing?

Behold, how many things they witness against thee! But Jesus yet answered nothing. He answered nothing. God is silent in America today, and His silence is startling. He is not sending us revival and spiritual awakening.

He is not regenerating very many in America today. Few are getting saved. Our churches, once spiritual powerhouses, are now impotent. Our churches, once houses of prayer, are now houses of entertainment.

God is silent in America today. America, reprobate nation! Only a heaven-sent revival will keep America from ruin and utter destruction if the people of God remain asleep and do not recognize this critical juncture in the history of our nation.

There will be no longer a nation to worship in. A reprobate nation is like a child playing on the beach building sandcastles when a tsunami is quickly approaching the shore. Will we awake before it's too late, or is it already too late?