America the Beautiful — E.A. Johnston

America's Christian Founding and National Righteousness

In Proverbs 14 .34 we read, Righteousness exalted the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. When the pilgrims sailed for the continent of America, they had in their hearts the Mayflower Compact to be their guide and rule of life.

And the theme of that agreement between the settlers at New Plymouth in 1630 reads from this portion of the text. In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten, having undertaken for the glory of God an advancement of the Christian faith.

That's what it said, friends. Two big statements was their purpose, and it was twofold. The glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith. What that tells us about the history of this country is the founding fathers of this country weren't a boatload of Muslims, or a boatload of Buddhists, or a boatload of liberals, or a boatload of atheists, or a boatload of homosexuals, but a boatload of God-fearing, God-centered, God-glorifying Christians who desired to expand God's kingdom on earth through the gospel of the Son of God.

Spiritual Awakenings and National Prosperity

God honored the growth of our young nation with spiritual awakenings and a God-consciousness in the land. God prospered our nation that feared Him and honored Him. And God will punish a nation that turns her back on Him and forsakes Him.

America's Loss of Sin and the Fear of God

Today, in America, there's no sense of shame in the land. There's no sense of shame because there's no sense of sin, no sense of sin in society, and no sense of sin in our churches. Therefore, there is no fear of God in the land and little knowledge of God in the church.

Prior to the rebellious and turbulent 1960s, there was a time in this country when it looked to God for guidance and to the church for direction. But the country has lost her moral compass because the church has lost her spiritual compass.

The Church as a House of Prayer

Our churches have become houses of entertainment filled with laughter rather than houses of prayer filled with intercession to a holy God. A largely unconverted ministry today mocks God and leads men to perdition in a devil's hell.

The Former Generation of Godly Preachers

But in former days, the carpets in our sanctuaries were wet from the tears of broken-hearted saints crying out to God over the sins of the land. There was a time in this country 80 years ago when God-called men occupied our pulpits and they preached the full counsel of God in the power of God and proclaimed the great doctrines of the gospel of the Son of God, which were ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration.

They were prophets, not trying to build their churches numerically like corporate CEOs, but men full of the Holy Ghost who desired to bring spiritual transformation to the lives of their members for the glory of God.

Repentance, Regeneration, and Holy Living

Those kind of preachers feared God rather than men and they weren't afraid to call sin black and hell hot and warn of a future judgment that awaited all mankind. They stood with authority in the pulpit and proclaimed, Thus saith the Lord.

They preached man's duty of repentance and man's utter necessity of regeneration. They were men who knew their God and lived lives of holiness unto Him. But today, for the most part, we have entertainers and jokesters in our pulpits who are strangers to a work of grace upon the heart and these false guides know not God nor fear Him.

Therefore, we have churches full of the unconverted who rest upon an empty religious profession. God will let a nation who has turned its back on Him to continue to fill its cup of iniquity to the brim until it's time for their utter ruin and destruction.

National Judgment and the Need for Revival

America totters on the brink of destruction with few intercessors left in the land as the elderly godly men and women are being called up to glory. When God removes His prophets from the land without replacing them, it's a clear sign of dread.

That God, it breaks my heart to say it, but God's doing that because He's clearing the land for judgment. Only a heaven-sent revival can save this once great nation from destruction. A nation that was once beautiful but now is sullied by her aggravated sins.

A Call for America to Return to God

May God have mercy upon America. May God make America to be beautiful spiritually once again by having this country return to Him.