Do We Really Want Forgiveness And Healing? Series

Opening Illustration: During the Revolutionary war, Colonel Rall, A Hessian (German) commander at Trenton, New Jersey, was playing cards when a courier brought a message stating that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware River. It was Christmas Day evening 1776. Rall put the letter in his pocket and didn’t bother to read it until the game was finished. Then, realizing the seriousness of the situation, he hurriedly tried to rally his men to meet the coming attack, but his procrastination was his undoing. Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware and won a victory that was arguably the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Rall and many of his men were killed, and the rest of the regiment was captured. Washington’s troops suffered minimal casualties.

“Tomorrow” is the excuse of the lazy and the refuge of the incompetent. (1) Col Rall was a case of too little, too late.

“Tomorrow, I’ll repent and come back to God. Later when I’m through with the things I want to do.” The fact is, there is no guarantee for tomorrow.

If I were to ask, “Who would like to make an impact on the world around them and help inspire true change for the better,” I believe just about everyone would raise their hand. There will be some who will make a difference and help change their world during their lifetime. Sadly however, most people will never truly make a significant impact on the people around them This is because of one of Satan’s most valuable tools that he uses on people – it’s called procrastination or (I can do it tomorrow).

A prominent man once said about our nation: "We have been the recipients’ of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

That man was Abraham Lincoln in 1863! How much worse off are we today? The fact is, judgement is coming on our Nation. And in many ways, judgment is already falling on us. I believe God is bringing judgment first on His church, because we, as the body of Christ, have failed to hold this country accountable for its actions.

We looked the other way as God and prayer and the Bible were systematically eliminated from our schools and the public forum and replace with the godless religion of secularism, which by definition is atheism. We have functional become an atheistic country and culture and the church has been rendered powerless.

Look around, the statistics do not lie. A recent nationwide poll found that 44 percent of liberal Democrats believes that churches in the United States have a negative impact of society. (2)

Recent polls show more Americans discarding Biblical marriage in favor of same-sex marriages- Plew Research shows by a margin of a nearly two-to-one (62% to 32%). (3) The list goes on.

The church in America is on the decline. Americans involved with anything religious is noticeably down. (4) Church attendance is down, church membership rolls are declining, baptisms are down. Church giving is down. Church influence is down. Churches are closing. (5)

Like Col Rall of the Hessians, We have missed the fact that the enemy is at the gates but we are too busy with our game to pay attention. You can google these statistics. The church as a whole is turning from God. Whole denominations are falling away. God warned us about these things.

2 Chronicles 7:13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, . . .

In King Solomon’s day, an economy based on agriculture, these things are what they were concerned about, no rain, insects, pests, and so forth. Not to speak about enemies and war filling the land. But the Key word in this verse is WHEN

God didn’t say “If” here, He said “When.”

When God said “when”, he knew the hearts of men. God knows there is no “if,” but when man when turn from God. This is the saga of human history, man turning from God. Go back to Genesis. Why did God destroy the earth with a flood?

Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.