Perverted Nation and a Powerless Church

When you have the dynamic and fabric of a nation altered morally for the worse, it is a downhill slide until that nation no longer exists. It happened to ancient Rome. It happened to ancient Greece.

It's happening to Great Britain today and North America as well. And more and more nations, as they turn their back on God and vote them out of their country, then the more storm clouds will gather on the horizon. The nations of the world are lining up against God and are ready to fall like dominoes under the swift and severe judgment of God.

We have crossed a point of no return in this country. America is sick from the head to the foot. Corruption is rampant in the land, and the wicked legislate God out of society on every level.

We live in a court-run society that is rapidly changing the laws of the land to outlaw God in the land. This nation that once feared God and was once favored by God is now a God-hating nation that promotes all kinds of evil and enacts them into the law of the land. We live in a day, friends, of a perverted nation and a powerless church.

The nation has slid so far downhill just in the last 10 years that it now sits in the sewer and enjoys herself and all her filth and perversion. And let me ask you, where is the church in all of this? Why has the church no voice of authority today and no influence to stop the bleeding of a dying society when the church chooses to be silent against the growing evil in the land? Then the church loses her voice of authority and merely blends in with a perverted society. Rather than be salt and light to it, the church is powerless to do anything about it because the church herself is a compromised institution tied to the world.

We wanted to reach the world, so we invited the world into the church. Where has that gotten us? Nowhere. It has merely compromised the church by joining it to idols.

The church has her head buried in the sands of entertainment and self-indulgence. Her gospel is centered around man and his happiness, and she builds palaces of comfort so man can be more comfortable. Many pastors are mere harlings who enjoy a steady paycheck without having to do any manual labor, and they care nothing for the lost perishing within their sanctuary and without in their community.

How can an institution impact a perverted society when its own gospel is perverted without any saving power? When the church in America exchanged the weekly prayer meeting for self-help classes and Bible study, it lost the only influence it had upon society. And when the church in America decided to embrace the world with a diluted gospel and broaden the way to heaven, which Jesus never did, then the church lost her saving influence upon society. The church in this country missed her window of opportunity to spread the true gospel in the land, and now she'll be faced with more compromise as evil is enacted into law and it forces itself onto the institutional church.

Will the modern church bow to the state and become more politically correct, or will she go to her knees in repentance and beg God for mercy and return to her biblical authority and vitality? The entire nation sits on the verge of cataclysmic destruction and is completely unaware of her great and grave danger. My message today, friends, is entitled A Perverted Nation and a Powerless Church, and my text can be found in the book of Isaiah in chapter 5. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verses 8 through 21.

Let us go to this striking passage of scripture at this time and see the comparisons between the predicament facing the backslidden Jews and the backslidden church of our day. Notice how the morality of a nation is drastically changed by those in charge who call evil good and good evil. Is this not the day in which we live, friends? Notice how the prophet Isaiah speaks of common judgments upon impurity, drunkenness, and impiety, and woe is mentioned to those who set their hearts upon the wealth of this world and regard not the work of the Lord.

Listen carefully as I read us this indictment of the Jews in Isaiah's day and the indictment against the modern worldly church in our day, friends. Here now is the word of God, and may the spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. Oh, woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.

In mine ears said the Lord of hosts of a truth, many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seat of a homer shall yield an epah. Oh, woe unto them that rise up so early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, till wine inflame them.

And the harp and the vial, the tabret and the pipe, and wine are in their feasts, but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge, and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure, and her glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoices shall descend into it.

And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manor, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. Oh, woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope, that say, let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it, and let the counsel of the holy one of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it.

Oh, woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Oh, woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight. I will stop there.

I was holed up in a hotel room with my dear friend Richard Owen Roberts, and we were talking about revival and the sad state of the American church, and I made a comment to him. I said, the thing that amazes me more than anything else lately is the fact that the sleepy-headed pastors in this country refuse to set aside nights of desperate prayer in their churches to turn this nation back to God, and they refuse to preach revival sermons aimed at reaching the conscience of their hearers with the great doctrines of the Bible and showing man his duty of repentance, and Richard Owen Roberts agreed with me and said it amazed him as well. Let me ask you, friends, if the country is really in the sad, deplorable condition we believe it is, and if we think it's just going to get worse and worse and not better, then why complain about it if we're not willing to do something about it? How can you call yourself a church today if the carpet in your sanctuary is not wet with the tears of broken-hearted believers weeping over the lost in their community and crying out to God to come and heal the land through a mighty revival? The nation's too far gone, friends, for us to continue playing church on Sunday morning.

The time is too late and the day too desperate for us to sit and laugh in the sanctuary on Sunday and be entertained. I know of some God-called pastors in the land. They are out there, but I believe the main problem we face today is a unconverted ministry.

I really believe there are many pulpits in this land who have an unconverted minister standing in them, like in the days of George Whitefield when he preached against the unconverted ministry of his day. Many of the ordained men in London were unconverted men in the days of Whitefield and Wesley, and I believe we face the same problem today, friends. Many of the young preacher boys who come out of seminary today are men who know nothing of an experiential relationship with Jesus Christ.

They've never experienced a work of grace on their heart through the new birth. Rather, they just made a decision to become a Christian as a little boy or young adult, and they decided being a pastor was a decent way to make a living and be appreciated and acknowledged. That's why a good many of them preach to please their congregation, so the members will come up to them afterwards and say how much they enjoyed the sermon.

It's sad, but true, friends. I know of which I speak. I was an unconverted preacher for years until God got a hold of me and showed me I was not only on my way to hell, but that I deserved to go there, and then I became an object of mercy.

I praise God. He saved one preacher. He can save a bunch more.

A holy ghost revival would not only bring the lost within the community, but it would save the lost behind the pulpits. If preachers got saved and got on fire for God and called the people of God to nights of desperate prayer for God to save the lost and send a spiritual awakening in the land, I believe this nation can turn back to God before it's too late. If we do not turn back to God and repent of our sins and seek his face in prayer and humility, we face sudden judgment from a provoked God.

God will not tolerate nation after nation lining up in defiance against him and his laws without doing something about it. There was a certain farmer who was an atheist, and he purposely planted most of his crop on Sundays and harvested it on Sundays, and then he wrote a letter to the editor of the country paper bragging that his crops were richer and more plentiful than his Christian farmer friends. He made it a point to labor mostly on Sundays and how his crop was the best that he just pulled out this last October.

And the Christian newspaper editor wrote a response at the bottom of the article. When he printed it, he put the words, I cannot argue with you about your recent crop production, but I know this, God doesn't settle his accounts in October. In other words, there's a common day, friends, a settlement, a common judgment for all mankind, where hell will enlarge herself, open her mouth without measure, like a passage in Isaiah speaks, if the church does not return to God and regain her power and authority from on high, then she will remain a powerless institution that will suffer the consequences of a destroyed society because of sin.

The enemies of America line up against us as I speak. They've already infiltrated our major cities. They're just buying their time to unleash a catastrophic disaster.

They'll wipe out half the population of that city, perhaps with a dirty bomb. A suitcase bomb can be hidden anywhere and set off and bring a city to its knees. How foolish we are as a nation and as a church to allow evil to grow in the land without speaking up and doing anything about it.

A sudden judgment will come down upon our heads and destroy us. And meanwhile, we sit in church and pamper ourselves, indulge ourselves, entertain ourselves while hell opens her mouth and fills by the minute. Heaven help us all.