America's Final Chapter — E.A. Johnston

America's Nuclear Crisis and the Threat of Judgment

This nation is on the verge of a nuclear war, and time is running out. Our enemies can reach our shores with a nuclear bomb that would destroy our crops, poison our water supply, and bring annihilation to our cities.

I've never seen a time in my life, friends, as dangerous as things are right now. I'd have to go back to the early 1960s, to the Cuban Missile Crisis under JFK, to find a time in America where we were so close to nuclear war.

I believe a nation can fill up its cup of iniquity before God destroys it. I believe America will soon end up on the ash heap of history, just like ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Let me ask you, friend, do you fear an Italian army?

Does a Greek army send shivers down your spine? No, they're laughable. But back in history, those two empires ruled the world. The title of my message today, friends, is America's Final Chapter. My text can be found in the Book of Amos.

Amos and the Call to Return to God

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in Amos 1 -1 to begin. Here now is the Word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His Holy Word. The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

Amos was a fiery prophet of God whose main message was judgment. God visited His disobedient people with a remedial judgment in the form of an earthquake, which shook their houses down and made them flee to the mountains.

And then He sent His prophet to call His people to repent and to turn back to Him. God sent them a series of remedial judgments, but the disobedient Jews disregarded the prophet of God and the remedial judgments from God to their hurt and ultimate destruction.

Walking with God Requires Agreement

God asked the backslidden Jews a question given by His prophet to them, look at Amos 3 .3, can two walk together except they be agreed? The problem with Israel here in Amos was that they had quit walking with God.

They preferred their sins over God. They turned their backside to God, and yet they still believed they were all right in God's sight, that God somehow adjusted Himself to their wicked ways in their minds.

He was a God who tolerated their sins because of His great love for them. But God was angry with the Jews, and God is angry with the church member who claims to be a Christian, yet who still hangs on to his sins.

Can two walk together except they be agreed? Can they? If you want to walk with God, friend, you can't have one foot with God and the other play footsie with sin in the world. Let's look now at how God sends remedial judgments to a people who have turned their backs on Him.

Famine, Drought, and the Escalation of Judgment

Look at Amos 4 .6. And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord? Judgment number one was that God sent a famine in the land, and His mercy sent them a famine to draw them back to Him.

But how did they respond? Yet have ye not returned unto me? A remedial judgment, unheeded, becomes more severe next time. Look at judgment number two in verse seven. And also I have withholding the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest, and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city.

One piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. God sent a drought to His disobedient people. This was more severe than the last one, because you can go a week without food, but you won't last long without water.

Did the people repent? No. We read again. We hear the sorrow-laced words of the heart of God. Yet have ye not returned unto me? God then sends them a more severe remedial judgment, as seen in verse nine.

I have smitten you with blasting and mildew, when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased. The palmer worm devoured them. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord?

God sent them a financial collapse. I've never seen the stock market so high, and things so bad around the world, that it wouldn't take much to have a global financial collapse that would knock the world economies down like dominoes one after another.

China is a bubble, ready to pop. So is the stock market, and the real estate market in this country. Listen, friends. God is trying to get our attention, but when His remedial judgments go unheeded, they become more deadly and severe.

Pestilence, War, and America's Future

Look at judgment number four. Look at verse ten. I have sent among you the pestilence, after the manor of Egypt. You young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stank of your camps to come up unto your nostrils.

Yet have ye not returned unto me? God removed the young men of the city by death. Why, take the young man out of a community, and the community its little future. God sent His disobedient people, death through disease and war.

What's it going to take in America? What kind of terrible national calamity will have to fall upon this nation before it turns back to God? Will it ever turn back to God? I fear America is filling her cup of iniquity with greedy lust, and soon she'll be no more.

Heaven help us all, let us pray.