Bloody America Turn Back to God

I was driving across a causeway in Florida recently after a rain, and in the sky was a brilliant rainbow, arching its way across the Gulf of Mexico, and I stood in awe of its beauty, and it made me think of God's promise to mankind not to destroy it again with a mighty flood. And as I saw that rainbow, it made me think also of the time in which the days Noah lived. It was a time, my Bible says, that the earth was filled with violence, and I cannot help but think that the present society in which we live is no less violent than the days of Noah.

Look around today, friends, at this once great country of America, and it is a nation filled with violence. Parents are afraid to send their kids to school because of all the campus killings. People are afraid to go outside because you can be gunned down in a movie theater or even in a prayer meeting at church.

There's no safe place in this country anymore. How many more tragedies will this nation have to endure before she's driven to her knees in humility and repentance? What terrible catastrophe will have to befall this bloody nation before America will turn back to the God of the Bible? My message today, friends, is entitled Bloody America Turned Back to God, and my text can be found in the book of Isaiah in chapter 1. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. When I look at America and how she has changed as a nation since I was a child in the 1950s, I cringe at what this nation has become.

It used to be a nation of modesty where women wore their skirts below their knee and they wore hats and white gloves when they went out in public. Now they just go out in their underwear. America used to be a God-fearing nation, but now it is a God-hating nation.

America used to be looked up to by other nations of the world. Now they look down on her as she has become a symbol of great wickedness to the world. From her head to her foot, the nation is sick with a cancer of gross immorality, and our young people today are sunk in perversion and drugs, and the only time they will take out their Bibles is to tear off a page of it to roll it up with some marijuana to smoke it and have a holy joint, so they call it.

Our government mocks God. Our educational system mocks God. Our judicial system mocks God.

And we live in a time, friends, where good is called evil and evil good. It's as if this once great nation is doing all it can to offend a holy God. And as a godless society shakes her fist in the face of God, she dares him to do anything about it.

And I look around and I see things aren't getting any better, but rather they're just getting worse. And God has removed his protective hedge away from America. That's why her streets are filled with blood.

That's why perversion runs rampant in the land. It's as if America has become an open sewer, polluting its way from one city to the next. And where is the church in all of this? The worldly apostate church sits silent among the ruins of a country gone to waste while she parties her way to hell.

I want to read us a solemn passage of scripture taken from Isaiah chapter 1. And as I read it to his friends, I want us to reflect on what America used to be, what America used to stand for, and what America has become. And I ask this question, is there any hope yet for America? Not if she continues on her reckless path of abandonment, but if this nation will turn from her wicked ways and repent, there is hope. All you have to do is look in your Bible and see how God spared the wicked city of Nineveh when they turned from their wickedness and turned to God in humility and repentance.

God is a merciful God, friends. God can bring a modest spiritual awakening to the shores of America yet. I believe with all my heart that God wants to send blessings to us rather than judgment.

I recall a time in our churches where there were still prayer meetings and people stayed on their faces and with broken sobs they cried out to God to come and heal the land. And I remember a time in this country where you could experience the power of God in a where you were bowed under the awful presence of a holy God and lives were transformed for eternity by the spirit of God. Those times can come again, friends.

In fact, there are little dew drops of heaven going on in this country and some churches right now across the land. People are starting to get serious with God and God is getting serious with his people. Well, let me now read us a silent passage from God's word in Isaiah chapter one.

And may the spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word. I'll begin with verse two here. Oh, heavens and give ear.

Oh, earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib.

But Israel doth not know. My people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the holy one of Israel onto anchor. They are gone away backward.

Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint from the soul of the foot, even onto the head. There is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.

They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.

Your land, strangers devoured in your presence. And it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. As the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom.

Give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. And I delight not in the blood of bolecs or of lambs or of he goats.

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with.

It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth. They are trouble unto me.

I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear.

Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes.

Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment.

Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow.

Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Although your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

I will stop there. Will this nation turn back to the God of the Bible before it's too late? Will bloody America turn from her wickedness and turn back to God? Or will she just continue to go on in her sinful course and continue to fill up the cup of iniquity to the degree that's all that's left is for God to bring a swift and sudden destruction? God have mercy on us all.