I have a very serious message for us
today, friends, and I deliver to you with
fear and trembling.
Things have changed so quickly in this country
in just the last two or three years
that this country is not even recognizable anymore.
America used to be a nation that was
favored of God because she was a nation
that once feared God.
God brought her through world wars in victory,
blessed her materially.
He blessed her spiritually through poured out effusions
of grace and revivals and spiritual awakening, and
he elevated her bountifully in the eyes of
the world.
But America not only was ungrateful to God,
she turned her back on the God of
the Bible.
America legislated God out of her judicial system.
She banned him from her educational system, and
she removed him from her military system, and
she has banished him from the borders of
this once great land.
America, once a nation favored by God, is
now a nation forsaken of God.
Wickedness grows in the land like a great
plague, and good is called evil and evil
good.
God is hated in America today, and this
country blasphemes him on Sabbaths and mocks him
with her entertainments and shakes her angry fists
at him through her court systems by enacting
laws that stand in direct opposition to him.
I believe America will face a different side
of God than what we are used to,
for we mistakenly believe that God is just
a God of love in this land.
That's what our churches and evangelists have told
us for the last 50 years, and several
generations have grown up believing in that kind
of God.
But he's not the God of the Bible.
One of the most startling passages in my
Bible is found in 1 Chronicles chapter 27
and verses 14 through 16, which relate the
punishment which fell upon the people of God
by the hand of God through King David's
disobedience in taking the census.
Let me read that text to you now.
So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and
there fell of Israel seventy thousand men, and
God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy
it.
And as he was destroying, the Lord beheld,
and he repented him of the evil, and
said to the angel that destroyed, It is
enough, stay now thine hand.
And the angel of the Lord stood by
the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
And David lifted up his eyes and saw
the angel of the Lord stand between the
earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in
his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem.
Then David and the elders of Israel, who
were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
Now, friends, we must ask ourselves a very
vital question.
Do we believe our Bibles or not?
Do we believe that God did this thing
where he destroyed 70,000 people because of
sin?
Do we believe that a destroying angel can
come to this earth with a sword of
pestilence and hew down entire cities?
Do we believe it or not?
Do we believe our Bibles to be the
inerrant word of God?
Then we must be terrified by this picture
of God's wrath poured out upon mankind because
of sin.
And it was the sin of one man
that brought this.
It was David's pride in taking a census.
Look around at America today.
Look at what a God-hating nation it
has become.
Look at the perversions that have swept over
this land like an open sewer.
Wrong is right today, and right is wrong.
It's as if the whole land has gone
crazy.
We live on a planet of violence and
sexual perversion, and our day is much worse
than the days of Noah when God destroyed
the entire populace, save Noah and his family.
We are more wicked today than Sodom ever
was.
Our sins are greatly multiplied over Gomorrah.
America is a whore nation who spreads her
disease to other nations upon the earth where
in former days she was a beacon of
light in missionary enterprise and the spreading of
the gospel.
But now America corrupts other nations with her
perverseness, and now she is a curse for
she produces more filth than any other nation
on earth.
I believe a nation can fill up her
cup of iniquity, and all that remains is
certain judgment and destruction.
Are we there in America today?
And if we are, is America getting ready
to face a different side of God than
what she is accustomed to?
Then what have we been taught by the
prophets in the land for the last 50
years?
There's been false prophets that have only spoken
about a part of God, his love, and
they've ignored the full counsel of God which
speaks of his vengeance and his wrath.
And where is the church in all of
this?
The church in America has become an apostate
church which mocks him with her worship services
and insults him with her perverted gospel message.
And this is a day of an unconverted
ministry where many men occupy pulpits and run
their churches in the name of Jesus, but
they themselves have never been subjects of a
work of grace upon the heart.
Many are famous men, powerful men, men in
leadership within their denominations, yet they are blind
leaders who mislead multitudes and who damn their
hearers with a perverted gospel message.
Corruption grows in the church today like a
cancer, and many serve a false demonic spirit
and believe it to be God.
Things have gotten so bad in this country,
a person is hard-pressed to even hear
the true gospel anymore.
The false outweighs the true, and false prophets
hold positions of authority and influence over many.
And we have a nation of teenagers who
are sexually ruined before they turn 16.
They are drugged up, boozed up, and used
up before they even become adults.
And for the last 50 years in this
country, the pulpits of the land have only
proclaimed the love of God, that God is
a God of love and only a God
of love.
The vengeful and wrathful God of the Old
Testament was for another time, but not for
today.
God tolerates sin today.
God is a loving God today who overlooks
sin.
God will let you into his heaven even
if you never repent of your sins.
That's what we're told in many churches in
this country today.
But it isn't so, friends.
It isn't so.
God is a God who must punish sin,
and America is getting ready to see a
different side of God than they are accustomed
to.
And that's the title of my message today.
America will face a different side of God.
Listen, friends.
This country is nothing more than a house
of cards waiting to be blown over.
Utter destruction faces this nation from the hand
of an offended sovereign.
God Almighty will not long tolerate an entire
nation mocking him without consequences and swift judgment
upon it.
America has only heard about a loving God
who wouldn't harm a flea.
But America is getting ready to see a
side of God that will quite alarm her.
For America has filled up her cup of
iniquity, and the settling time is about to
occur.
Would God today send a destroying angel with
a sword of pestilence in his hand like
our passage from 1 Chronicles?
Would God send an angel of such destruction
that a virus like Ebola would spread over
entire cities and who down hundreds of thousands,
perhaps even millions?
The Black Plague in Europe killed over 25
million people.
Do we deserve such punishment from the hand
of God today?
Are we wicked enough to deserve it?
Is this the beginning of the end for
America?
How much more wicked can this nation become
before God sends a destroying angel with a
sword of judgment in its hand?
Are we so asleep in our churches today
that we don't even see our danger?
The church in America is sound asleep, and
she sleeps the sleep of death.
But her time for repentance is drawing nigh.
Our text today is found in the book
of Revelation in chapter 2.
You can turn in your Bibles there now.
We will be in verses 21 through 23.
I will read these verses with much fear
and trembling, friends, because they speak volumes to
the putrefied condition of this country today.
Here now is the word of God.
May the Spirit of God be pleased to
attend the reading of His holy word.
And I gave her space to repent of
her fornication, and she repented not.
Behold, I will cast her into a bed,
and them that commit adultery with her into
great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill her children with death,
and all the churches shall know that I
am He which searches the reins and hearts.
And I will give unto every one of
you according to your works.
Now, friends, I want us to see that
these words from Christ Jesus are given to
His church.
They were given to the angel of the
church in Thyatira.
But they are for us today, friends.
The church is being given a period of
time to repent, and she has not repented.
The proud American church, with her big buildings
and expanding campuses, refuses to repent of her
wicked ways and turn back to the God
of the Bible.
Strange fire is the fire in our churches
today.
False doctrine is the doctrine in our pulpits
today.
Many are led to hell by being members
of churches in our land today.
I believe there are three ways to exercise
repentance as found in our Bibles.
Number one, national repentance.
Number two, corporate repentance.
Number three, personal repentance.
Let us look at each of these as
we proceed.
In the book of Jonah, we see the
wicked city of Nineveh repent and how God
spared it.
Jonah cried out with his warning of coming
destruction to the wicked city.
Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
And our Bibles tell us how the people
of Nineveh responded to the preached word of
God.
So the people of Nineveh believed God and
proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from
the greatest of them even to the least
of them.
For the word came unto the king of
Nineveh and he arose from his throne and
he laid his robe from him and covered
him with sackcloth and satin ashes.
And he caused it to be proclaimed and
published to Nineveh by the decree of the
king.
And it's noble saying, let neither man nor
beast, herd nor flock taste anything.
Let him not feed or drink water, but
let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
and cry mightily unto God.
Yea, let them turn every one of them
from his evil way and from the violence
that is in their hand.
Who can tell if God will turn and
repent and turn away from his fierce anger
that we perish not.
And God saw their works that they turned
from their evil way.
And God repented of the evil that he
had said that he would do unto them.
And he did it not.
Did you hear that, friends?
Should the president of this country send out
a public decree and call this nation to
a time of fasting and repentance?
Are we a violent nation like Nineveh?
Do we deserve destruction like they did?
Our sins are more greatly multiplied than theirs.
Are we willing as a nation to humble
ourselves and turn from our evil ways and
seek once again the living God of the
Bible?
God tried to get this nation's attention with
the terrorist attack at 9-11, but I
fear we all went back to sleep.
What will it take to get this nation's
attention, to turn her back to God?
What national disaster will have to befall us?
A revival could prevent this, friends.
Secondly, there is corporate repentance.
I have been in a church where God
visited it with his manifest presence, and there
was a God consciousness there.
All you could do was to be bowed
under his awful presence.
If a church would do what is necessary
and seek the Lord God, maybe he may
be merciful to send a revival, but what
is necessary?
There are two places in my Bible which
lay out the pattern for the people of
God to do what is necessary in turning
back to God.
The first passage is found in the book
of Joel, in chapter 2, and in verses
12-18.
You can turn in your Bibles there now,
friends.
We can read along together.
Let me read the solemn passage to us.
And may God send us the grace of
repentance to do it.
This is Joel, chapter 2, verses 12-18.
Oh, if the churches in this land would
just do the following.
And rend your heart, and not your garments,
and turn unto the Lord your God.
For he is gracious and merciful, a slow
to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth
him of the evil.
Who knoweth if he will return and repent,
and leave a blessing behind him, even a
meat offering and a drink offering, unto the
Lord your God.
Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify fast, call
a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the
congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and
those that suck the breasts.
Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber,
and the bride out of her closet.
Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
weep between the porch and the altar.
And let them say, spare thy people, O
Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach,
that the heathen should rule over them.
Wherefore they should say among the people, where
is their God?
Then will the Lord be jealous for his
land, and pity his people.
O friends, if only the sleepy-headed pastors
in this nation would do this, would call
their congregations to a time of solemn assembly,
and fill their sanctuaries night after night with
desperate cries and humiliation, begging God to forgive
the sins of this land, and to forgive
our sins as a people of God.
It's up to the spiritual leaders to gather
the people, and weep between the porch and
altar, saying, spare thy people, O Lord.
But who's doing it?
Where are the pastors willing to humble themselves,
and to throw their reputations out the window,
and get on their faces before God, and
weep, and mourn, and beg God for mercy
to lead their people in a serious time
of fasting and supplication before the Lord?
Lastly, there is personal repentance.
And this is the second place in my
Bible which speaks directly to revival in the
land through a beginning of personal repentance among
the people of God.
This means you and me, friend, this is
what we can do individually right now, right
now.
If we will do the following, perhaps God
will not bring a national judgment upon us,
but rather he will show us mercy and
bring a national awakening, a spiritual awakening, and
a revival that could sweep this nation from
coast to coast until thousands could come to
know the Lord.
There would be a God consciousness in our
churches again.
Our teenagers would know what it was like
to sit in the presence of God instead
of sitting in a sanctuary of entertainment.
Here is what is necessary on our part,
friends, as found in 2 Chronicles 7.14.
If my people, which are called by my
name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek
my face, and turn from their wicked ways,
then will I hear from heaven, and will
forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Let me ask you, friend, does our land
need healing?
Are we willing to turn from our wicked
ways?
Are we willing to slay the very lust
in our life that we cling to and
enjoy?
Are we willing to turn off our wicked
television long enough to fall on our faces
before the God of the Bible and weep
over the sins which break his heart?
Are we willing to be separated from our
darling sins?
Are we, are we, are we desirous of
a national revival?
Are we willing to stay on our faces
long enough for it to come?
I remember years ago, I used to meet
with some local pastors, and we would pray
each week for revival.
But after a while, one by one, they
dropped off and stopped coming.
They did not have the importunity that was
necessary to move the ear of God.
I'm afraid most pastors today feel their church
does not even need revival.
I was standing in line in my cap
and gown, waiting for my Ph.D. graduation
ceremony to begin, and next to me in
line was a pastor from the South.
I asked him how often he met with
other pastors in his community to pray for
revival on a regular basis.
He looked at me strangely and replied, we
don't need revival.
We are all on the grow.
In other words, as long as you are
growing your church with numbers, then you are
successful.
And that's all that matters these days.
God's not even in the equation anymore.
That's why God has withdrawn himself from the
church in America.
And that's why America will soon face a
different side of God than what she is
accustomed to.
Heaven help us all.