A Message for America and Its Cultural Religion - Carter Conlon — From the Pulpit & Classic Sermons

Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons. Each week we bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith, and powerful sermons for modern preachers too.

This week we have Carter Conlon with his message for America and its cultural religion.

A Call to Understand America’s Spiritual Condition

Praise God. If you'll turn please to the Old Testament to the book of Hosea. If you find Ezekiel, the next book is Daniel, the next one is Hosea. I think Hosea is about eight or so books to the right of the book of Psalms.

Hosea. Go to chapter 14. We'll start there and then we're going to go backwards from there. Father, I thank you God with all my heart for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I would never attempt to speak this, Holy Spirit, if you didn't come and animate me.

I need you, Lord, to form your heart within me. I need to speak, God, the thoughts of your heart and I need to speak them with the intonations of your voice. Lord, I'm asking God for you to overshadow me, grip my heart and my mind, unlock the incredible truths and secrets of your word, and let them be known as they're spoken in simplicity.

Help us to understand the time we're living in. Deliver us, Lord, from childishness. Make us men and women of understanding. You said through the prophet Daniel that there would be an understanding in the last days that you would unlock, that you would give to your people.

Lord, we want to know where we live in. We want to know what lies ahead. And I thank you for this in Jesus' mighty name. I've entitled this a message for America and its cultural religion. You know, beloved, we're going to be in the streets of New York at Times Square on September the 20th.

There seems to be a recognition in many people throughout the world that this is a momentous time, although many people may not fully understand why. Hundreds of churches coming together, other countries, entire congregations, many, I think there's as many as 76 now, are going to be gathering together.

They're going to be screening this event live. They're going to be praying with us. But you and I need to pray with an understanding. A lot of prayer events in the past are just simply gatherings, and prayer is a good thing, and I'm not ever downplaying that.

But this is not a carnival. This is not a gathering together to shout into the air and wave a few flags and walk away saying God has changed the world. No, this is much deeper than that. This is a call of the Holy Spirit gathering his people to a specific location, outside perhaps because there's no other venue where we would all get together.

Over 300 churches are anticipated to be in attendance in Times Square in two weeks for the specific purpose of coming to God and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, praying this simple prayer, Lord, forgive us.

But forgive us for what, is the question. What have we done as a nation that is causing God to gather us into a specific central location, beaming it out to over 80 colleges, high schools, youth groups, churches, various states and various countries?

What have we done that the Lord would say, I want you to pray this way, Lord, forgive us? If we don't understand this, we're going to just go out with a generic, Lord, forgive us for whatever. And we're not going to walk away having found something that God wants to give us as a people, wants to do something very profound in you and in me.

And I do believe in all those that are praying, but we need to have a right perspective. We need to understand some things. I want to ask you in Christ's name to bear with me through this message. The Lord wouldn't let me write this down.

I tried a few times to write it down, and the more I tried to write it down, the harder it became. And he said, no, you've been fasting, you've been praying, you've been seeking. I want to speak now. I want to speak to my church.

I want to speak to my people. Let's start in Hosea, please, chapter 14. Now, in order to understand this book of scripture, we have to understand who Hosea was. He was a prophet sent of God to the northern kingdom, which was the numerically larger number of people.

After the kingdom of Israel split under the leadership of Rehoboam in the northern kingdom, it started on a progression of continual spiritual declension until eventually it was swallowed by Assyria, dissipated among the nations, and realistically ceased to exist.

And Hosea is a man who's... he had a wife that was not faithful. And because of this, he understood the heart of God. He understood where this nation was going, and God sent this man to plead for them to turn back again.

And the one voice that a society in spiritual declension will not listen to repeatedly is the voice of the prophet. You see it all the way through scriptures. When God sends the voice of the prophet, they technically usually will put them in a dungeon, will mock the prophet of God, will send them away into another place, will push that voice completely away.

One of the kings in the Old Testament tore up the words of Jeremiah and threw them in the fire. There's something about a society that has come to a flashpoint of judgment. Really, that's what it is. When society has hit that point, when we've crossed the line, when we've gone beyond the warnings of God, where we can't hear anymore, and I'm talking now collectively as a society, we can't hear anymore, the voice of the prophet will still be there because God will be faithful to warn.

But sad to say, most of the nation will no longer be able to hear. I fear in my heart that in this society we've come to this point. We're long past it. The voice of the prophet is a mocked voice now.

Maybe entertained for a little while, several years, maybe a decade or two back, but no longer listened to. Just considered another railer on the street corner with another viewpoint of the country and of God and of the future.

America’s Idolatry and the Loss of Spiritual Discernment

How it must break the heart of the Lord when people that he loved, when people that he gathered from all over the world, people who longed for freedom, and they came and they were given in a certain land, as in Hosea's day, they were brought out of captivity and they were brought by the power of God into a nation.

And in that nation they were given freedom to worship. They were warned in that nation that you must turn away from the gods of the people who have previously occupied these places. Because if you don't make a clear break from them, you're going to find you're going to eventually go in that direction.

And the gods of the nation are going to so interweave themselves with the worship of the Lord Jehovah, as it was in the Old Testament, that eventually it'll no longer be discernible that it really is God.

There'll be such a mixture in it. And that mixture will produce a powerlessness and a blindness and a mysterious inner blindness that even though the clouds of judgment may be right on the horizon, the people will be still talking about wonderful days ahead.

In the house of God, they'll be talking about increased and never-ending prosperity, not aware. Think about Belshazzar for a moment. Took the holy things of God and partied with them in Babylon. And Daniel stood before Belshazzar and he said, Belshazzar, you knew.

You knew the history. You knew that God judges. Even in your own house, he said, your own father came under judgment because he played with the holy things of God. He said, Belshazzar, you should have known.

You've taken the holy things of the temple and you've made a party out of it. And you've sat there and you've drank to the gods of gold and silver and stone and wood, things made with men's hands. And Daniel stood there and said, now, Belshazzar, the Lord has numbered your kingdom and he's finished it.

It's over. But such a blindness was upon that particular generation that even though the word of God was pronouncing the end of this kingdom, that seemingly had ruled the world for many, many years, and even though there's a pronouncement that it's over, Belshazzar commands them and says, come to Daniel.

Put fine robes on him. Put a gold chain around about his neck and make him third ruler in the kingdom. The spiritual blindness, I don't know if there's an evidence or indication of greater ignorance than that.

When people are standing in the presence of the living and the holy God and unaware of the precarious situation that they're in. The Lord wants us going into the street with understanding. We have to know the hour that we're in.

We're not children that are just looking for a good time. We have to understand this is a perilous moment. We have to know that, as Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24, that people will be preoccupied in the last days, just prior to the coming of Christ with buying and selling and marrying and giving in marriage.

It will so grip a society, they won't be aware of what's happening. They won't be aware when danger is right at the door. And especially if God himself even has set his hand to bring about a correction, they'll not be aware of it.

Hosea’s Call to Return and Receive Mercy

Chapter 14, verse 1 of Hosea. O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou has fallen by thine iniquity. Take with your words and turn to the Lord and say to him, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously.

And so will we render the calves, or that means the praises of our lips. Asher will not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. You are our gods, for in thee the fatherless find mercy.

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel, he shall grow as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread and his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon.

They that dwell under his shadow shall return, they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine. The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with idols?

I've heard him and observed him. I'm like a green fir tree, from me is thy fruit found. Who is wise and he shall understand these things, prudent and he shall know them. For the ways of the Lord are right and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein.

In other words, Hosea is saying there'll be a very clear word, there'll be a very clear revelation of God and those that are just, those that God can't speak to, those that can approach unto the Lord and say, God I'm not here to have you fit into my agenda.

I'm not here to use you as a vehicle to become what is in my heart to be. But God I'm here for the sole purpose of yielding my life to you and to say God forgive me for everything I've embraced, for everywhere I go, for everything I do that is not representing you among men in this generation.

I yield to you Lord, I yield to your purposes. And scripture tells us very clearly that those who choose to walk this way will return, they will revive, they will grow, there will be a sweet savor of Christ flowing through them in these last hours of time.

They will cast away their idols, they will come to Christ and they will find him to be a green tree abounding in fruit. The glory of the Lord will be the portion of his people in this last hour of time.

I know it with all my heart, I know it as surely as I stand here. The glory of the Lord and it will not be circumstance dependent. It won't really matter if a thousand are falling at this side and ten thousand on that side.

It won't really matter if the trumpet is blowing and all kinds of alarms are being raised in the nation. No, God will have a people, their eyes will be fixed on the ways and the works of God, their hearts will be gripped by the passion and the power of God, their steps will be ordered in the work of God, their hands will be about the tenderness of God, their voices will be directing those that are terrified to where the power and the provision of God is found.

Oh yes, oh yes my friend, God will have a people in the earth. Praise be to God, praise be to God, praise be to God. He will have a people in the earth. We ought not to be afraid to say, Lord, help us, cause us to return to you.

Forgive us, Lord, where we've failed you. Forgive us, God, for where in our hearts we have embraced the ways of a fallen society. God Almighty, forgive us. I'm going to be among the chiefest of those there, crying out to the Lord, saying, God, forgive me.

Lord, for the things I see, for the things I don't see, for what I know, for what I don't know. I am part of the church of Jesus Christ. I am part of this testimony that you wanted established in the earth in this generation.

And God Almighty, I'm asking you to get out of my heart everything, Lord, that has stood in the way of your life. Everything, God, that hinders the expression of your heart to this human vessel, to this generation.

Everything, God, that renders the testimony of your resurrection powerless coming out of this human vessel. God, please, Lord, take these things out of my life. God, give me the courage of Daniel to open my window and face, Lord, face, God, the failings of your people.

And face, God, what we've done. And face who we've become. And unashamedly turn to you, Lord, and say, God, I'm coming to you today because you're a God of mercy. Lord, when you established the temple, you wrote a song about yourself.

And that song said, praise the Lord for he is good and his mercy endures forever. So, Lord, I'm coming to your mercy today. I'm coming, God, believing, Lord, that you are the God who can restore. You're the God who can heal.

Lord, you're the God who will have a testimony in spite of what happens to the nations. Now, go to chapter 13, please. Hosea is speaking about what happened to the testimony of Israel. Why was God going to judge his own people?

Why would God bring a people out of bondage and into a nation, call it by his name, and then judge it? And literally let it be overwhelmed by its enemies, intermingled and dispersed among the peoples of the world.

The Loss of Holy Fear and the Rise of Prosperity Religion

What could be the reason why this kind of a thing could happen to God's own house and his own people? When Ephraim, that's Israel, that's another chapter 13, verse 1. When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel, but when he offended in Baal, he died.

When my people honored me, when there was conviction in my house. I believe America has not had a perfect religion. All you have to do is look back in history, a hundred years, and you can see the glaring inconsistencies.

But there has been an underlying seeking of God. There have been times in society where there have been great moves of God. When people could be confronted, when they could be turned back. When the voice of God could be lifted in his house and there was a trembling.

There was an awe, there was a reverence of God. There was a sense of God's holiness. Men had enough sense to know that God's ways were right and men's ways were wrong. And there was a time in this country when I'm sure you would walk in the house of the Lord, and if you were living in willful sin, you would tremble.

You would tremble. Preachers preach. Now, they may not have always had it right. They may have been a little heavy on the legal side or they may have focused a little too much on certain things, but there was a trembling.

There was a time in this country when you walked in the house of God and you knew if you were living in sin, you were going to be confronted. There was a time when sinners were not comfortable in the presence of God.

There was a trembling. There was a word. There was a time when old-fashioned preachers left the plow. They didn't have much education, but they went in the prayer closet and God touched them and they stood in pulpits.

And when they stood in pulpits, the glory of God came. They didn't, they massacred the king's English half the time and they didn't even know how to pronounce things in the Bible, but they knew who God was and they knew who men were and they could speak into the heart.

There were seasons and times when tent meetings throughout this country, the sawdust meetings, when people would come in and the glory of the Lord would be so in these places that people would fall on their knees and fall on their faces before a holy God.

They would repent of their sins because there was a reverence. There was an awe of a holy God in spite of the mixture that is always part of every society. There was still a reverence for God in much of his house.

When Ephraim spoke trembling, exalted himself. When there was this awe, when there was this reverence of God, the church, the testimony of the church was held in esteem in the nation. But when he offended in Baal, now Baal was the Canaanite God of the surrounding territories.

Baal is the God that people without God worship. Baal is the God of provision. He's the God who sends crops into the field. He's the God who fills your cupboard. And as long as the cupboard was full, then people could worship Baal.

When we worship God, there was a trembling in his house. But folks, America has made a tragic mistake. The worship of Baal has come into the house of the Lord. And the God of prosperity has become the God that much of the church of this age, which is a cultural church.

In a sense, it's in the culture, that part of the country that's without God to worship prosperity. And as long as the church stood as a contrast to this, not to say that God's people should be poor, but the prosperity that God gives should have a proper focus.

In the alleviation of the suffering of the poor, in the relieving the oppressed, and using the resources of God to bring the kingdom of God to those who have no helper. But it all changed. And suddenly it became about us.

It became about individual people. And when this came into the house of the Lord, the testimony of God died. Died, folks. The testimony of God is almost dead in this country. Just because 50 ,000 people attend some church somewhere, does not mean that God is even there any longer.

If there is no conviction of sin, if there is no burden to let go of the things of this world and to walk with the Holy God, I'm telling you the Holy Spirit is not there. I don't care how many people attend.

I don't care how fancy it is. I don't care how much money it has. God is not there when there's no conviction of sin. When sinners come in and they're not challenged to turn from all of the pursuits of the natural life and heart, the Lord has left the place.

And now, he says, they sin more and more, verse 2, and have made them molten images of their silver and idols according to their own understanding. All the work of craftsmen. And they say that let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

In other words, now it's all the work of craftsmen. Have you noticed much of American religion today is always crafting some new image of God? Always crafting, always fastening, always looking for some new thing because they've really abandoned the cross.

And they say to the people constantly, they're not called men of God, they're not holy men of God, they're not separated men of God, they're not men who challenge the people of their behavior and their lifestyle.

No, they just fashion these constant images that are palatable to the masses. And they say, come now, worship this. The brand new image of God. And let's call him Jesus. Let's worship him. Never confronts your sin, doesn't require holiness of you, doesn't require that you take up your cross and follow him, will prosper you, will give you a great destiny, will make you into an important person, and et cetera, et cetera.

Verse 3 says, Therefore shall they be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, and the chaff that's driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.

When difficulty comes, and folks, we're heading into some incredibly stormy waters. People will run to them, because they promised the drink of God as it is. But the clouds will have passed away. They promised weight, or weightiness, but adversity will drive them out of the house of God.

They promised the fire of God, but there's just no more smoke coming out of the chimney, driven by the wind, and will be dissipated. I see much of what calls itself the church of Jesus Christ in this country will be soon driven to the wind by adversity.

God’s Judgment on a People Who Forget Him

He said in verse 4,. Yet I'm the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. You shall know no God but me, for there's no Savior beside me. I knew you in the wilderness in the land of great drought. How it must break the heart of God.

How it must break his heart. All the people that came to this country. So many were persecuted. A lot of people were persecuted in their own lands, because they wanted to believe in God and walk with God.

And he says, I saw you in the wilderness in the place of great drought, and I brought you here. And verse 6 says, According to their pasture they were filled, and their heart was exalted, and they'd forgotten me.

I brought you to this place, where you were free to pursue life and liberty and happiness. You were free to worship me, and I blessed you here, but you forgot me. What a tragedy to be living in such a time.

What a heartbreak. Therefore I'll be unto them as a lion, and as a leopard by the way I'll observe them. I'll meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the call of their heart.

And there will I devour them like a lion, and the wild beast shall tear them. Oh Israel, you've destroyed yourself, but in me is your help. The Lord says, I'll come to you like a bear that has lost her greatest treasure.

The Lord doesn't judge because there's any delight in his heart, but he looks down and he sees what was supposed to be his heritage, and says, I can't let this go on any longer. I can't let this forest that calls itself the temple of God go on any longer.

I can't let these people, I can't let them any longer pursue this path that is going to lead them into hell. Folks, just shortly, just a few weeks ago, in a major city in this country, there was a huge meeting of Christian leaders, gathered together, and in this, enough to almost fill a stadium, in this particular gathering, I'm not aware of one born again Bible believing speaker that spoke to these pastors.

I got a letter from a pastor that was there, and he said, my heart was broken, my heart was pounding, and he said, oh my God, does anybody around me see what's happening to us? Here we put men in the pulpit that are headed for hell, and that we're putting them up as role models of success in the Christian church, because they have power and influence and authority.

Try to tell me that the Canaanite culture is not in the house of God in our generation. Try to tell me that we've not fallen to the idols of this society, where people just lust after power, they lust after recognition and fame and money, and don't care what it takes to get there.

As pastors sit there, mesmerized, listening to unsaved men teach them the principles of success in the kingdom of God. Men who are headed for hell are teaching the church, folks. You destroyed yourself, he said, Israel, but I was there to help you all along.

I will be your king. Verse 10, Where is any other that may save you in all your cities, and your judges of whom you said, give me a king and a prince? I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.

The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hid. In other words, it's gotten so deep now, that no reasoning will take it out. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him, he's an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.

Another translation says it this way, He's so entrenched in his way of doing things, that even though I bring upon him the pains of labor, he will not come forth into new birth. So stubborn, so set on his view of God, his legitimate right as he sees it to this pursuit of himself, so stubborn, that though I cause pain, though I clearly speak, though the heavens, though the earth, though everything around begins to shake, he will not come forth, because he has so entrenched himself in stubbornness against the ways of God.

Hope of Redemption and the Certainty of Accountability

Verse 14, I'll ransom them from the power of the grave, I'll redeem them from death, O death, I'll be thy plagues, O grave, I'll be thy destruction. Now, this is not really a good translation in the King James, because what it really says, when you read other translations, I would have ransomed them from the power of the grave, I would have redeemed them from death, I would have stayed your plagues, I would have destroyed the grave, but now repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his springs shall become dry, his fountains shall be dried up, he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.

Samaria shall become desolate, for she has rebelled against her God, and they shall fall by the sword, and their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. Unthinkable to the people of that generation.

And they'd be sitting there like you're sitting here today saying, who is this man that he dares speak to us this way? Who is this man that he speaks such words, when we are at the zenith of prosperity, which they were when Hosea began to prophesy, that we have formed political alliances that are guaranteeing us security in the future?

We seemingly have it all together. We've got a plan to get out of every situation we find ourselves in. Who is this man now to stand here and tell us that such calamity is coming into our society? Folks, he said your children are going to be overcome, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

And if that doesn't speak about abortion, and selfishness so gripping a nation, that a river of blood now is flowing, don't think for a second God doesn't see this. Don't try to tell me that women with children are not being ripped up by the thousands now every day.

And don't tell me that there's not an accounting for this. There's no delight in the heart of God, in judging a place that was precious to His heart. When we stand before the Lord on September the 20th,.