I have a video of Martin Lloyd-Jones
as he is touring England and visiting the
sites where George Whitefield labored.
While standing at the site of the Bell
Inn where Whitefield was born, Lloyd-Jones describes
the moral climate of London in the days
of Whitefield.
He said that morality was at an all
-time low, spirituality in the churches was almost
non-existent, and that in London every fifth
house was a gin house, that it seemed
the city itself was in a drunken debauchery
and spiritual stupor, and Lloyd-Jones glares into
the camera and comments, and where was the
church in all of this?
Today, in America, our situation is far more
grim than in the days of Whitefield and
Wesley, our national sins more multiplied, evil increases
at a rapid rate, and our society slides
into a sinkhole of perversion and debauchery.
Our civic leaders call evil good and good
evil.
God has been legislated out of our once
great country.
The spirit of Antichrist grows in the land.
And I ask the same question, where is
the church in all of this?
Where is the church?
She is shamefully silent amidst a sinful nation.
And that's the title of my message today,
friends, A Silent Church Amidst a Sinful Nation.
It reminds me of the days of Nazi
Germany, where a German pastor made the following
comments about the increasing evil in his day
and his failure to cry out against it.
He said, first, they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't
a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I
didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and
I didn't speak out because I wasn't a
trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I
didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I
didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me, and there was
no one left to speak for me.
Dear friends, this is a graphic picture of
the church in America today.
Evil abounds, and the church is silent.
God is systematically removed from society, and the
church is silent.
Perversion permeates the fabric of our society, and
the church is silent.
The government mocks God and His authority, and
the church is silent.
The church sleeps asleep of death and slumbers
on comfortable cushions of self-indulgence, and soon
they will come for her.
Persecution is on the way to the church
in America.
We have missed our opportunity to cry out.
We have remained silent for too long, and
the hour is now too late.
We have been busy building our own islands
and fortifying them by growing our church campuses
and building a comfortable environment where we can
be entertained.
The nation has passed the boundaries of decency
and crossed the line of blasphemy against a
holy God and an offended creator, yet the
church is silent, and her silence is deafening.
I can sum up the American church by
a description of a recent visit to a
Baptist church.
The church service led off with a Hollywood
video.
The content was banal, offensive, yet the church
laughed.
The music minister laughed.
The pastor laughed.
The congregation laughed because they were embarrassed.
I sat there looking down at the floor,
and my insides groaned within me.
I wept and sighed at the state of
the church in America today that has wedded
Hollywood and the world with sacred things of
God.
The pastor preached a doctrinally sound sermon, but
there was no power of the attending Holy
Spirit because the Holy Spirit had been grieved
away before the pastor entered the pulpit.
What occurred in that church service was a
religious ceremony without spiritual transformation, worship without the
presence of God.
We have become, as a people of God,
impotent, apathetic, and indifferent.
We rather be entertained than challenged spiritually.
We have turned into a cappuccino church, all
froth and no substance.
Listen to the wise words of Samuel Chadwick,
a pastor of former days.
When a church is run on the same
lines as a circus, there may be crowds,
but there is no shekinah.
Oh, friends, where is the shekinah glory in
our churches today?
How the glory has departed from among us,
and we have not even noticed.
We are like Samson who left the tent
and shook himself, but knew not that the
Spirit of God was no longer upon him.
Listen to the comments of another pastor, a
godly man, W.
Graham Scroggie, as he pleaded with pastors in
his day, make a show.
The people love a show, and you will
gain the end of your ambition at once.
The crowd is always ready for a sensation,
and alas, there are always those who are
disposed to stimulate religion to fill the churches
by the method of sensationalism.
Listen, friends, to yet another man, another pastor
who was much wiser than us in his
day.
Listen to Alan Redpath, former pastor of the
Moody Church in Chicago.
Listen to his words.
Today, the Christian church is helpless.
Behind the scenes and away from the public
arena, we are facing powers of darkness too
strong for us because somewhere in our personal
lives we have forfeited our right to the
Spirit's anointing, His authority, and His power.
In His absence, all we can do is
to substitute planning and organization schemes and techniques.
Alan Redpath's stinging observation can be modified for
our day by adding to our substitution of
God forms of entertainment in the sanctuary of
God.
Dear pastor brother, Hollywood has no place in
the sanctuary of God.
How can you introduce strange fire into your
assembly and still have the fire of God?
You cannot.
These idols should be removed from the house
of God.
When I visit churches and see the deplorable
spiritual condition of the church in America today,
I weep and groan and beg God to
forgive us for our spiritual slumber and dishonoring
of Him.
We have shrunken God down to our size
and taken salvation out of the hands of
God and placed it in the hands of
men.
Society crumbles all around us.
There is little hope for the future of
America as we as a nation have filled
up the cup of our iniquity before an
offended God.
It reminds me of the people of God
in the days of Jeremiah as described in
Jeremiah chapter 5 and verses 21 to 31.
Allow me to read this striking passage to
us today.
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without
understanding, which have eyes and see not, which
have ears and hear not.
Fear ye not me, saith the Lord?
Will ye not tremble at my presence, which
have placed the sand for the bound of
the sea by a perpetual decree that it
cannot pass it?
And though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet
can they not prevail?
Though they roar, yet can they not pass
over it?
But this people hath a revolting and a
rebellious heart.
They are revolted and gone, neither say they
in their heart.
Let us now fear the Lord our God
that giveth reign, both the former and the
latter, in his season.
He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of
the harvest.
Your iniquities have turned away these things, and
your sins have withholden good things from you.
For among my people are found wicked men.
They lay wait, as he that setteth snares.
They set a trap, they catch men.
As a cage full of birds, so are
their houses full of deceit.
Therefore they are become great and waxen rich.
They are waxen fat, they shine.
Yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked.
They judge not the cause, the cause of
the fatherless, yet they prosper.
In the right of the needy do they
not judge.
Shall I not visit for these things, saith
the Lord?
Shall not my soul be avenged on such
a nation as this?
A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in
the land.
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear
rule by their means, and my people love
to have it so.
And what will ye do in the end
thereof?
What a sad, tragic picture that is of
a people of God who have backslidden far
away from the heart of God.
Well, what did God do with such a
strange people?
This is what he did in the form
of a severe judgment upon them, as seen
in Jeremiah 5, 15-17.
Lo, I will bring a nation upon you
from afar.
O house of Israel, saith the Lord, it
is a mighty nation, it is an ancient
nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not,
neither understandest what they say.
Their quiver is an open sepulture.
They are all mighty men, and they shall
eat up thine harvest and thy bread, which
thy sons and thy daughters should eat.
They shall eat up thy flocks and thy
herds.
They shall eat up thy vines and thy
fig trees.
They shall impoverish thy fenced cities wherein thou
trustest with the sword.
God will bring a swift judgment upon America
if the nation does not turn back to
him.
It will be such a sudden and widespread
calamity that it will be numbing in its
intensity of destruction of human life.
It will be such a national calamity that
the government will be powerless to help anyone
because they will be rendered powerless themselves.
God's answer to a wonderful and horrible thing
committed in the land is judgment upon a
sinful and disobedient people.
And I ask, where is the church in
all of this?
Why is she silent while she still has
the time to do something about it?
Why, brother pastor, would you rather show Hollywood
movies in your church and entertain your people
rather than lead them in a time of
brokenness before God in humility and repentance and
prayer?
Why?
Because the people love to have it so.
So you give them what they want instead
of what they need.
God says, no, we have misused the time
given to us in this nation of ours,
misspent it on ourselves and our own selfish
desires.
Now it is time to pay the piper.
And we as a nation are unprepared for
what is about to befall us from the
hand of an offended God.
Then came they for the Jews, and I
didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I
didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me, and there was
no one left to speak for me.
Oh, great God, forgive us for our national
sins.
Forgive America for grievously offending thee.
Forgive us of our multiplied sins.
Forgive our blind leaders who lead falsely.
Forgive us for allowing our nation to be
permeated and saturated with perversion.
Forgive us, oh Lord, for our adultery and
fornications, for our idol worship.
But forgive us most of all, oh Lord,
for forsaking thee.
We as a nation, a people, have forsaken
thee.
Forgive us for corrupting the house of God
with abominable things.
Forgive us for mixing true worship with strange
fire.
Forgive us for our vast personal and corporate
sins.
We beseech thee, oh great God, look down
and hear our cry, and we seek thy
face and favor once again.
Visit us with a national revival, I beg
you, rather than a national calamity that will
come in judgment.
In thy wrath, remember mercy.
Come again, oh Lord, and fill our sanctuaries
with your presence and preeminence, we pray, in
the strong name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.