Suffering Nation Unrepentent Chuch

Before we go to our time of prayer, I want to bring a message that's difficult to bring because very few want to hear it, and very few still want to respond to it. But we must hear it, and we must respond to it if there's any chance, any hope for our nation today. My text can be found in the book of Hosea.

You can turn in your Bibles there now. We're going to be in chapter 7 and verses 8 through 16. The title of my message today, friends, is Nation Suffers and an Unrepentant Church.

Because when the church fails to be a moral compass to society, the nation suffers. When the church becomes compromised and worldly, the nation suffers. When the church becomes self-absorbed and self-sufficient, the nation suffers.

When the church has half-hearted congregations who are sound asleep, the nation suffers. When the church refuses to preach on sin and hell and warn against a future judgment for all mankind, when the church refuses to preach up the blood of Christ and the blackness of sin and the need of repentance, then the nation suffers. I was riding in a car with my daughter, and she said to me, she said, Dad, you've got some gray hairs starting to come out on the side and back of your head.

And I denied it. I said, no, that's not gray hair. That's the sunlight that has made my hair blonde looking.

It's a bleached look. It's not gray. And she said, no, you got gray hairs.

And she proved it to me. She took a picture on her phone of my side of my head and showed it to me. And sure enough, the hairs were gray, but I was in denial of it.

And the church in America today is in denial of her sad spiritual declension. She's in denial. She's self-deceived.

Let us look at this text here in Hosea chapter 7, and look what God has to say about gray hairs on his people who refuse to acknowledge it. I want to start in verse 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned.

Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face, and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.

Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart. They call to Egypt. They go to Syria.

When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them. I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven. I will chastise them, as the congregation hath heard.

Woe unto them, for they have fled from me. Destruction unto them, because they have transgressed against me. Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. They assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me.

They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a deceitful bow. Their princess shall fall by the sword for the rags of their tongue, and for this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

I will stop there. What a sad picture of the church in this country to-day, that's become a laughing-stock among the people. Your average young person to-day, friends, won't go ten feet— close to your average church congregation to-day.

They think they're nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. They think that the preaching's nothing but nonsense. There's no depth there.

Your average youth only go to church because their parents make them go to church, and when they get old enough, they quit going altogether. They'd rather hang out with friends who they feel are real, rather than hang out with people who they feel are hypocrites. I want to look at three things in our passage today about the church in this country, about number one, the church's self-sufficiency, and number two, the church's self-deception, and number three, the church's unwillingness to repent, and I want to focus on these aspects of our text today in these first three verses of Hosea chapter 7 and verses 8 through 10.

Let me read them to you once more. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Does this not speak of compromise and conformity to the world in which we live, friends? Has not your average congregation become worldly and compromised to the world? We wanted to reach the unchurched.

We wanted to reach them, so we let the world into our church, but all that did was fill our churches with the unchurched, who are nothing more than baptized pagans. Ephraim is a cake not turned. In other words, she doesn't know that she's half-cooked, half-baked.

She's raw on one side, and the text goes on to say that strangers have devoured his strength. Where's the power in the pulpit? Where's the power of God in the meeting? Where's the transforming influence of the Spirit of God among us today, friends? It's as if we're like Samson, who went out from his tent, and he knew not that the Spirit of God had left him, and he knoweth it not, our text says. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, and yet he knoweth it not.

That's a great example of self-deception. Your average pastor thinks his church is successful because its growth of numbers because of the expansion of the campus and buildings. I was sitting with a pastor in a study, a pastor of a megachurch, and I asked him if he knew this couple who were members of his church, and I named them, and he looked at me with a blank stare, and he shook his head no.

Well, this couple had been members of his church for more than eight years. They both taught Sunday school in that church. Their family tied faithfully and regularly to that church.

Their children went on mission trips within that church. The husband discipled men in that church. He had a discipleship group, and they served.

They were there every time the door was opened. They gave themselves sacrificially to this church, yet this pastor of this megachurch didn't have a clue who I was talking about. Listen to me, brother pastors, if you are not familiar with your sheep, you indeed are a pitiful pastor.

How can you call yourself a pastor if you're not familiar with your sheep? So, we see here the church is self-deceived, and another thing, friends, the church is self-sufficient. I'll never forget. I was standing in line, waiting with my cap and gown on for my Ph.D. ceremony from seminary, and there was a pastor standing beside me, and we both were from the same state, and I turned to him.

I said, hey, brother pastor, I said, how often do you get together with the local pastors within your community and pray for revival, pray for revival to come to your community and to your church, and he looked at me kind of strangely, and he said, we don't need revival. We're on the grow, and that spoke volumes to me. That's how the church views itself today in her self-sufficiency.

As long as the building program is going on, as long as the campus is expanding, as long as she's on the grow, then she's successful. Matters little whether people are being transformed spiritually into services or not. It matters little that the Spirit of God has left that congregation years ago.

Oh, how we need revival again, friends, how we've lost sight of the person of Christ amongst us, how we need Christ to come again and reestablish his prominence and preeminence in our midst, and this third aspect in our text says, and the pride of Israel testifies to his face. The pride, the boasting that goes on among us, the pride of evangelism where we boast about our converts, even though we don't know if we even had one convert. How can we boast so much and count our nickels and noses and call ourselves churches just because we're growing in size? Pride has taken hold of us in this country in regard to our churches, but we lack the humility to turn and do the one thing necessary, and that's the rest of this verse, and they do not return to the Lord their God nor seek him for all this.

Their impotence is a horrible stench in the nose of a holy God. They refuse, the Jews here, refuse to turn back to the God of the Bible, to turn back to the living God who gave them victory. He says here in the last part of this passage that their princes shall fall by the sword, and that they shall be a derision in the land of Egypt.

Let me ask you a question, friends. Is not the church in America today a laughingstock in the eyes of the world? She's lost her integrity. She's lost her influence.

She's lost her light. When the light goes out in the church, when she fails to be a moral compass that leads the nation, then that nation falls into deep, gross darkness, into deep, gross immorality that spreads out over the land like a spilled out sewer. Look around us today.

Society's falling apart all around us. It's falling apart at the seam because the church refuses to repent. The church refuses to realize that she's self-deceived, self-sufficient.

We claim we can do more because we've got more resources today. We have more technology today. We have more outreach today.

But when the church operates on money and manpower, or rather by prayer and the Spirit of God, it's a sad situation indeed. It reminds me about the success of Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon, when he preached, people's hearts were pierced as if a sword was going through them.

And one day Spurgeon was taking a visitor around to his church, a metropolitan tabernacle, and he said to the young visitor, he said, would you like to see the engine of the church? And the young man said, certainly. He thought he was going to take him to the boiler room and show him the engine. Instead, he took him down to a room where he opened up the door, and 300 of his choice deacons were on their faces in a prayer meeting.

And those deacons stayed down there the whole time Spurgeon was preaching upstairs. Spurgeon looked at the young man and pointed to the deacons on their faces, and he said, that's the powerhouse. That's the power engine of this church.

Let me ask you today, where's the powerhouse? Where's the power engine of the church? We don't have one. We've run out of gas because the prayerlessness among us. We refuse to do what's necessary.

We refuse to humble ourselves and turn and seek God with all our hearts. We sit in our congregations satisfied and proudful and prideful and proud of our achievements. But God looks at us and he says, Ephraim is a cake not turned.

In other words, she doesn't know that she's half-baked. She can't see the gray hairs all around her. When oh when will the church realize her self-deception, her self-deficiency, self-sufficiency, and her inpenitent heart and turn to the most high in a spirit of reformation and repentance? Woe unto them, God cries, for they have fled from me.

Friends, Jesus wept over an entire city. Why won't we gather ourselves and weep over the sins of this nation? Why won't we gather ourselves in a corporate body and confess our sins and turn and seek the Lord Almighty once again? That's the only hope for a spiritual awakening. That's the only hope for revival.

If this nation does not have a great spiritual awakening, there's only one thing awaiting it, and that's her sudden and imminent destruction. And if the church refuses to be a light and be a moral compass to society, if the church refuses to be that shining light, then darkness will prevail in the land. Look around you today, friends, and you tell me what you see.

You tell me what you see and what's happened with the changes in this country, with the moral changes from top down. And you tell me that darkness is not prevailing. It's because the church has lost her way.

The light isn't shining as she should because the church herself has gray hairs all over her and she knoweth it not. She refuses to see and admit the self-deception. Let us pray that the Spirit of God will open our eyes and turn us once again to the Most High, to the Most High, who's the only one that can send His grace and revival in our midst and turn us once again.

Let us pray.