Thirsty Souls in a Dry Land

Some interesting data was published this week from the Barna Research Group, which I would like to share with you now, friends. What I read was a news article concerning pastors in America. For the last two years, this research group disclosed that 90% of the pastors they interviewed over the course of two years did not preach on controversial subjects because they did not want to upset their congregation.

And when polled, pastors were asked how to describe their churches in regard to if they felt their church was a successful church. And this is what they said were the following five factors which determine a successful church. Number one, attendance.

Number two, giving. Number three, number of programs. Number four, number of staff.

And number five, square footage. In other words, the biggest churches with the largest buildings and most people were considered successful. So why would a pastor with that mindset preach an offensive message and drive off his comparable membership, which makes up the successful church? And I want to share a story with you, friends, which relates to the church in your day and mine in this country.

Based on that research material, my teenage daughter had a friend in a certain city which I was well familiar with in regard to the churches in that particular city. And this friend of my daughter had asked her to ask me to recommend a church to her within that city where she could go and hear the gospel and become a Christian. She was thirsty and seeking truth, and she wanted to go to a church and find it and to find Jesus.

And I racked my brain over and over again, and I could not for the life of me recommend a single church in that city to that young girl to go visit where I knew she could hear the real gospel and gain an interest in Christ. I knew that if she visited any of those churches, she would be spiritually harmed rather than helped. There was not one church I could recommend and say, go here and they will do you good.

Now, that's pretty sad, isn't it? Listen, friends, people are hungry for truth today and they're having a hard time finding it. People are getting thirsty and they want relief, but they don't know where to find it. People are weary of their sin burden and they're looking for rest, but the churches are not providing it for them.

The title of my message this afternoon is Thirsty Souls in a Dry Land, and my text is found in the book of Amos. You can turn in your Bibles there now. We will be in Amos chapter 8 and verses 11 through 13.

Let me read them to you now. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east.

They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. Now, that describes that young girl's condition and her predicament in the lack of hearing the word of God in her town.

Oh, there's plenty of churches in her town, one on every corner just about. But they're like the ones described in that research report, where they value success in numbers rather than true conversions. They won't preach truth because truth is offensive to sinful man.

So they preach a peace, peace gospel that heals the wound slightly. But it doesn't get the job done as far as keeping anyone out of hell because they fail to warn sinners of the great danger of dying in their sins. They fail to preach the law and show sinful man what a true rebel and outlaw he really is against the sovereign God.

How because of his sins, he justly deserves hell. And unless he repents of his sins and comes safely to the Lord Jesus Christ, he will die in his sins and be an endless woe and misery for all eternity. Now, I want us to see a couple of things from our passage today from Amos.

First, who is it that sends a famine in the land? From whose hand does it come? God declares that he will send a famine in the land for hearing the words of the Lord. Well, why is this? Why would God do such a thing as that? We read the first part of chapter eight and we see why, friends. Let me read you the first two verses and we will see our answer.

Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me and behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, the end is come upon my people of Israel.

I will not again pass by them anymore. What we have here, friends, is a vivid illustration of a disobedient people who have strayed far from the heart of a holy God. And the illustration that God uses with his prophet Amos is a basket of summer fruit, which is rotting in the sun.

It's no good to anybody. And God is saying his people are no good to him anymore. He won't have anything to do with them.

And he has withdrawn his presence from among them. He will not pass by them anymore. This is what has happened to the American church, friends, because the American church has become what it is, a corporation only interested in success and not the souls of men.

God has withdrawn his presence from her because the church refuses to humble herself and bow from her spiritual pride and repent. God, God has sent a spiritual destitution in the land. You'll be hard pressed today, friends, to go into a church and hear the real gospel today, much less feel the presence of God there.

It's a double judgment upon us. Judgment number one, we are experiencing the judgment of the withdrawn presence of the Almighty among us. And number two, we are under a judgment in this land for hearing the truth preached.

There is a famine in the land, friends, for hearing the words of the Lord. I receive emails from the East Coast and the West Coast and the heartland and the South from people from all walks of life telling me how fed up they are with the churches in their communities because they cannot hear truth preached in them. Anymore.

All they're getting is entertainment or dead formality. It's a crying shame, friends, that folks today are hungry, that they weary, that they are thirsty and they can't find bread. They can't find a place to lay their burden down.

They can't quench their thirst like that little girl who's searching for truth in her town. And she can't find it in the very town in which she lives. The church in America today, for the most part, is like a basket of fruit rotting in the sun.

I say sun because the church today has plenty of sunshine. They have pretty buildings and attractive sanctuaries and offer many programs and many amenities. But they lack the one thing needful, friend.

They lack the Holy Spirit in their midst. People are spiritually thirsty, but they live in a dry land today, a dry land because it's a land under divine judgment because of sin. But it shouldn't be that way, friends.

Jesus is ready to receive sinners. Jesus is ready to quench that soul's thirst. Listen to these verses which declare how spiritual thirst is satisfied.

They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shall make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

In the last day, that great day, the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sunlight on them nor any heat. And the spirit and the bride say, Come and let him that heareth say, Come and let him that is a thirst come and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

But today we have thirsty souls in a dry land. What will change the course of our nation, friends? What will turn this nation back to God? What will make the unrepentant church in America fall on her face and repent from her wicked ways and seek the God of the Bible? Will it be an uncontrollable plague of Ebola virus that will sweep our cities and lay hundreds of thousands in their early graves? This nation, friends, is on such a precipice of destruction that to ignore it is to be insensible. All we can do, friends, is to seek the face of the Almighty and turn from our wicked ways.

We must pray earnestly for revival. We must have nights of desperation, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, crying out to God for mercy in our day. We desperately need an invasion from heaven in the form of a Holy Ghost revival for our day.

This is America's only hope, friends. It's revival or ruin. Do you believe that? Do you? Then what are you doing about it? You can't complain about this country if you're not willing to pray and do something about it.

I'm going to read us Psalm 80 as a close, because this is the picture of what needs to be done for God to turn his face to this nation once again and to come and heal our land. I want us to listen to this solemn psalm and apply it to our own hearts and prayer this week as we seek the Lord. Listen carefully now to the word of God.

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength and come and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved. O Lord, God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread of tears and giveth them tears to drink in great measure.

Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt.

Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparest room before it and this caused it to take deep root and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.

She sent out her boughs unto the sea and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts, look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.

It is burned with fire. It is cut down. They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou made a strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee? Quicken us and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts.

Cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved.