Judgment Booth

Judgment Booth

Hosea 8:1-4

Many of you are familiar with the term "Judgment House." This is the name of a Halloween season event put on by many churches that presents the need for salvation by previewing the horrors of a godless hell. This morning I want to twist that term slightly and talk about Judgment Booth.

Judgment Booth is a place designated to make Christians realize the horrors of an godless government and call them to holy living. Judgment Booth is almost upon us. Our Judgment Booth is the voting booth many of you will be visiting this Tuesday, November 7th.

As Christians, we have allowed ourselves to be deceived about out duty as citizens. We have allowed ourselves to be lulled into believing the lie of separation of church and state. We have even taken for our own the cliché never to talk about politics and religion.

There is an obvious double standard in the world of politics today. As your pastor I cannot legally stand in this pulpit and endorse a candidate. To do so would jeopardize the tax exempt status of this church. Yet, the Democratic Presidential Candidate has gone to nationally recognized African-American pastors and encouraged them to endorse him before their congregations. Could it be that he has assured them there would be no reprisal from his Justice Department or the Internal Revenue Service? I wonder what kind of media outcry there would have been if the Republican candidate for President had asked conservative pastors to endorse him to their churches?

There is a double standard, and I am afraid it has affected how we regard the election process as a whole. Many of us feel, as Jay Leno said, if God had intended for us to have elections He would have given us candidates!

Dr. Peter Marshall, author of "The Light and the Glory," believes this is one of the most important elections in our nation’s history. "We’re losing our religious liberties," said Marshall, "The Supreme Court is systematically chipping away at religious freedom in this nation, in the guise of individual rights, and this is at an extremely critical time."

As Christians we are accountable to God for the men and women we elect to serve in public office. If we continue to elect godless leaders and allow them to move our nation farther and farther away from God and His rightful service and worship, He will judge us accordingly. I can say this with authority because there was a time before when God’s people set ungodly leaders in office and brought God’s judgment upon themselves.

"1 Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.

2 Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee.

3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him.

4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off." (Hosea 8:1-4).

I. The Call To Judgment

Hosea’s name means "God’s salvation", or "God has saved us." Hosea declares that God is going to bring judgment on His people, specifically, the nation of Israel, because they have failed to live up to their obligations under their covenant agreement with God.

He says the judgment has already been called for. The behavior of the nation has brought them to the point where they can expect nothing except the judgment of God to fall upon them. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, as I see our great country today, I see that we, too, stand on the threshold of the judgment of God. I see that we are at a place where we have rejected God. We know what God has called us to, and we know that what God’s Word says is right, and yet we allow our leaders, we allow our government to tells us it’s wrong, or to tell us we cannot do it.

We’ve let the leaders of this nation tell us that we cannot pray to God in school. Now, folks I believe that prayer, public prayer, and prayer in public places is a very important and crucial Christian liberty that we have. I’m of a mind as this, that if our Christian children were allowed to pray in school we would not be haunted by the demons that have attacked our schools in the last few years. I’m of a mind that if God’s children in school were allowed to publicly pray, that we wouldn’t have the turmoil and confusion that we have today.

Now, I know that there are some of you that say, wait a minute! If you let the Christians pray you have to let the Muslims pray and and you have to let the Buddhists pray. And I say, So What? Let them pray!