Must America Survive?

Depending on what you read on the internet, America is either doomed without hope or being prepped for a grand revival. Indeed, America has turned itself away from God or at least the God it was founded upon. Yea, it has even chosen to attack God in many ways and tried to erase His influence in all arenas of life and the history of the nation. That certainly does not bode well.

Psa 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

When you study the phrase, forget God, it does not mean a lapse of memory, but rather an intentional putting out of the mind. We use the phrase forget that when we consider something ridiculous or impossible. We mean to deliberately put it out of the mind. When we are mad we may walk away and say forget you to the person that made us angry. We mean we are putting you out of our mind and life. That is what the words mean in the passage. We have told God, “Forget you!” and “Forget that!” when His Word is spoken and it speaks to our life with either a do or don’t. We are doing it on a personal and national level thus it certainly looks like Hell is the destination for the nation as well as for many souls.

Many have concluded that America is done because of its various sins and the forget God attitude. Their arguments are reasonable. Yet, many others say that she will come back to God and return to her former glory and maybe even more glorious. Many times this hope comes from love of country and patriotism, but no real biblical reason.

America is a very religious country and many seem to be Christian or at least use the name of Christ, but America is not a godly country anymore. Indeed, many who name the of Christ do so out of ethnic background or tradition having no more than what we would call a nominal Christian lifestyle and even less doctrinal understanding of Christianity in general let alone their own sect’s beliefs. If I had been asked before my conversion if I were a Christian, I might have answered, “Of course, I am a Christian. I am an American.” Yet, I was lost and on my way to Hell as a nominal Methodist and my wife was a lukewarm Lutheran who knew nothing of sola fide, sola scriptura and sola gratia or even who Martin Luther was or what he had to do with her church. I had never heard of Wesley. I only knew some creeds that I had memorized and repeated on some Sundays.

Some will say that we will survive because there is a remnant of true Christians in the country. That does not wash in the light of Scripture. There was a remnant that entered the Ark and the rest perished. There was a remnant pulled out of Sodom before it was destroyed. There was a remnant in Israel when it went into captivity for seventy years due to idolatry. There was not only a remnant of faithful Jews, but an abundance of Christians in Jerusalem when it fell in AD 70. The country was destroyed and the Jews exiled for 1878 years before it became a nation again. None of those remnants spared the country.

If those examples are not clear enough to eliminate remnant theology, read Ezekiel 14:12-23. God had enough and was going to judge Jerusalem. He said that even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in the city it would not help. Abraham asked God to spare Sodom for the sake of ten, which there were only four righteous and one of them did not make it to safety and the other three ended badly shortly thereafter. In Ezekiel, not even three of the most righteous men to that date would have spared the city. They would have only spared themselves meaning God would have gotten them out of there or hid them in the city until the judgment was done. Thus if God means to take America down because of its sin then no amount of righteous people in it will prevent it. Thus remnant theology is a false hope.

We try very hard to find America in end time prophecy because of our love for this country and because we have been such a major influence in the past we cannot grasp her not being an influence to the end of time. That is great sentiment and patriotism, but not a promised reality. The only nation promised to make it to the Millennium is Israel and even she will not enter unscathed as it is prophesied that two thirds of the population will die before the return of Messiah/Y’shua/Jesus. Much of the map may change before the Millennium and before the Rapture as we are witnessing a change in countries about to take place as Russia annexes Crimea. We are not the influence we once were and even our affluence has waned. Much more can change in the coming years.