Blind Guides Given to a Provoking People

About 25 years ago, a pastor friend of mine in the South invited Major Ian Thomas to come preach at his church for a week. When the meetings were over, my pastor friend drove Ian Thomas back to the airport. On the way there, he asked him a question.

He said, Major, now that you have been among Southern Baptists for a week, what do you think of us? Major Ian Thomas silently gazed out the window at the passing fields. My friend thought he went unheard, so he raised his voice and repeated the question, rewording it somewhat. Major, what is your impression of Southern Baptists? The evangelist answered my friend with one word.

He said, Shallow. And that sums up a lot of preaching done today, friends. It is shallow, but shallow preaching leads to shallow conversions, and shallow conversions lead to shallow congregations, and shallow congregations lead the devil alone, lead the lost astray, and lead the nation into moral bankruptcy.

The end result of shallow preaching is a long line of people marching straight to hell. We live in a day, friends, where God is judging the church in our country. He is judging it in two ways.

The first judgment is his withdrawn presence from among us. We have simply grieved him away with all our pride and worldly entertainments. Oftentimes, when a visiting evangelist goes to stand in a pulpit, he first has to win back the Holy Spirit who was grieved away by the music.

The second judgment upon Australian people is placing them under blind guides, and these blind guides are often given to a provoking people who have offended God. The Jews provoked God through their disobedience and departure from him, and he set blind guides over them in the form of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were so blind that when the Son of God stood in their midst, they did not even recognize him.

Yet they consider themselves great spiritual leaders, but they were nothing more than blind dogs and lazy ones at that. The title of my message this evening, friends, is Blind Guides Given to a Provoking People, and my text is found in the book of Isaiah chapter 56. We're going to be in verses 10 through 12.

You may turn in your Bibles there now. Our subject this evening is the great judgment upon Australian people who have turned their backs on the God of the Bible, and that judgment is the placing of blind guides over them to lead them around in circles or right back to themselves, and that is where we are in America today, friends. An offended sovereign has placed blinders on his church by giving the people blind guides.

This is a dark day of few conversions because few preach the truth in our pulpits today, and when there are few conversions amongst the people, then the entire nation will fall into utter moral darkness and spiritual chaos. The end result is gross immorality and perversion in a land amidst a society that is spinning out of control. The book of Proverbs declares, where there is no vision, the people perish, and we have little vision today, friends.

I have sat under blind guides in my time, and they never once pointed me savingly to Christ because many of them knew not the way themselves. They had winsome personalities that the people liked, but they had little power to point men from darkness to light. Allow me to read us our passage from scripture from Isaiah chapter 56 beginning in verse 6. Here now is the word of God.

May his Holy Spirit attend the reading of his word. His watchmen are blind. They are all ignorant.

They are all dumb dogs. They cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand.

They all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink, and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. We live in a terrible time, friends, when major denominations are calling evil good and good evil because they have blind guides.

There's such a sad spiritual declension in the church in America today, it's hard to find the true gospel preached in this country anymore. All you ever hear is, God loves you, God loves you, just accept Jesus and you'll go to heaven. But there was a time in this nation, years ago, when the law was thundered about the ears of sinful man until he saw Sinai all asmoke, and he beheld the terrible majesty of God Almighty.

Preachers back then warned men of the great danger of dying in their sins and being cast into a burning place of torment called hell. Those kinds of preachers called sin black and hell hot, and they weren't afraid of man, but they sure feared the Almighty. And because the church in those days was a praying church, there was a God-consciousness in the churches back then, and people were convicted of sin, and many cried out, oh what must I do to be saved? But today it's all laughter and loud music in our sanctuaries.

Gone is the weekly prayer meeting, gone is preaching the great doctrines of the Bible. You will be hard-pressed today, friends, to hear a sermon that informs you of your duty to repent and the necessity of regeneration through the new birth. We live under a black cloud of blind guides who speak peace, peace, but when there is no peace for the wicked, the pulpits of America can best be summed up by a recent visit of a Chinese pastor who visited countless churches in America in search of good preaching.

When asked what he thought of the American church, his summation was, first karaoke, then a lecture. And that's true, friends, but he left something out. A more accurate description is, first karaoke, then laughter, then a lecture, then a lecture, then more laughter.

That's the American church in your day and mine. Our text from Isaiah speaks of watchmen who are blind. They're compared to dumb dogs who cannot bark.

In other words, the message that the preach has no bite to it. There's no warning to the wicked. They are corrupt teachers whose messages are unsavory and unhealthy.

They are like a thorn in the side, a nuisance in the pulpit. Listen to Micah 7 and verse 4. The best of them is a briar. The most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.

These kind of preachers do more harm than good. They are plagues to a once healthy nation. An unfaithful ministry is a great curse to a land.

And when a nation is placed under divine judgment through the placement of blind guides as spiritual leaders, then the entire nation is led astray. God will give a provoking people, men in the pulpit who know not the Lord. Listen to how these blind guides are described in Jeremiah in chapter 2 and verse 8. The priest said not, where is the Lord? And they that handle the law knew me not, and the pastors have transgressed against me.

Listen friends, I've been in many a church where the pastor was nothing more than a master of ceremonies. All he did was introduce the entertainment, tell folks what his church had to offer, and then give them a funny story in the form of a sermon. Then he took up a collection and dismissed everyone.

I'm afraid one of the greatest judgments that can befall a people is blind guides placed over them, men in the pulpit who know not the Lord. Men who are CEOs and run their church like a business, and they are merely interested in counting nickels and noses. These men love to be entertaining.

They love to show off their personality and their talents, but they will not warn men of their duty of repentance and their great danger of dying in their sins. They are foolish shepherds who are foolish men, in and out of the pulpit. They are spoken of in Zechariah in chapter 11 and verses 15 through 16, which declares, the Lord said to me, take unto thee the instruments of a foolish shepherd, for I will raise a shepherd in the land that shall not visit that which is cut off.

When God places a people under punishment, he will often set up blind guides to lead them as a form of his hot displeasure with them. This happened to the Jews when the Pharisees were over them. They were fat, blind guides who loved their wine, loved to slumber and be lazy.

When the people of God have offended God, he will judge them with corrupt teachers who corrupt their morals, and what often occurs when a nation is placed under such divine displeasure, then there will be few conversions in the land because God's spirit is withdrawn, the Holy Spirit isn't working, and ministers over the people are nothing more than blind guides who cannot point you safely to Christ, nor direct a lost soul happily to heaven. The blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch. There is a great spiritual barrenness under such a devastating and wasting ministry.

What typically occurs during dark times as these is real Christians hunger for the word of God, but there is a famine in the land for hearing the word of God. Christians wander from church to church trying to find reality, searching for real spiritual vitality, and they come away greatly disappointed because the land is a spiritual wasteland. Little spiritual nourishment can be found among these blind guides.

People are hungry, and they can't find food. They can't be fed properly. People are thirsty for Christ, and they can't find them.

All is darkness everywhere, and that's how it appears today, friends. A spiritual darkness sits over our nation like a great plague from hell, but ministers in former days, when they saw God's hand against the people through his remedial judgments, that these ministers would grow alarmed and call their congregations to a time of solemn assembly where the priests of the Lord wept between the porch and the altar for the sins of the land. Pastors were much wiser then.

They gathered their congregations together to lead them in a time of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, seeking the face of God in repentance and prayer. There were nights of desperation in the churches back then where men and women cried out to God to come and heal their land. Now all we have is laughter in our churches today.

The nation is morally bankrupt. Our teenagers lie in perversion and addictions. Darkness settles over the land more and more each day.

Good is called evil and evil good. And where is the church in all of this? Telling jokes and funny stories, raising money to build more buildings onto their already bulging campuses, all in the name of religion and God. God left the church in America years ago and we didn't even realize it.

We're like Samson who went out from his tent, shook himself as in former times, but the spirit of the Lord had departed and he didn't even know it. Ichabod is on the front door of the church in America today. The glory has surely departed.

Our pulpits, for the most part, offer little spiritual nourishment. The churches look good on the outside. Pastors look good on the inside, but there's nothing there worthwhile spiritually.

The church in America today is like a basket of plastic fruit. Have you ever seen a basket of plastic fruit? When I was a boy, you could hardly walk into someone's home without seeing a bowl or basket of plastic fruit sitting on the coffee table. I remember the first time I saw a basket of plastic fruit.

It was appetizing to look at, very appealing, very convincing. But when I picked it up in my hand, it was light as a feather. There was nothing to it.

No nourishment in plastic, friends, and there's no nourishment in our plastic churches today that look good on the outside but don't taste good on the inside. Like I said, when the people provoke the Almighty through rebellion and willful disobedience, pride and arrogancy, and when they forsake the God of the Bible and walk in their own way, then God will punish them through a judgment of place and blind guides over them like a taskmaster over slaves. All is a burden upon that provoking people because of their sin.

Back in the days when the people of America feared God and honored Him, it was a time of incredible spiritual blessings which were poured out upon the land through national awakenings and multitudes of conversions. God truly blessed America in former times, but the people turned their backs on the God of the Bible and went astray, choosing rather to walk in their own ways. Now, instead of blessings and favor, God pours out His hot displeasure in the form of national judgments upon a provoking people by withdrawing His presence from them and placing blind guides over them to lead them further astray.

That's America in a nutshell, friends, and the nutshell has cracks all over it. God said of the Jews, Ephraim is tied to his idols. Leave him alone.

And it's as if God has said to the once great nation of America, America is tied to her idols. Leave her alone. Heaven help us all.