America in Prophesy
I have had a number of people asked me about the conditions in our Country, and how they might relate to Biblical prophesy. That is the subject of this sermon. Back in the early 1970's, I became very interested in Biblical prophesies. For fifteen years, I studied the prophetic scriptures in the Bible; I considered what many commentaries had to say about these scriptures and I read many books on the subjects. A proper study of prophesy begins in the Old Testament. There we see that God does not fool around with sin. When God saw the world embracing sin He sent a worldwide flood. Later, He called the Nation of Israel into existence; it was to be a light unto the world. When God saw Israel embracing sin, the Father would send a prophet to His beloved Nation saying, "If you do not straighten up and fly right, I will straighten you up and it will not be fun." Rarely did Israel listen and they paid the price. Their nation was divided; they were defeated and taken away into slavery more than once. God did not give up on them; He sent the Messiah.
The New Testament records God continuing to ask His people to keep on the straight path and not to fool themselves. Matthew 7:21, Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." Jesus was giving us a warning.
From the founding of our Nation, America's leaders have also warned us to do God's will. George Washington said, “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” Is our Nation obeying God's will? We are the richest most powerful Nation ever on earth; but are we grateful for that or do we complain? Does our Nation humbly implore God for protection?
James Madison, our fourth President, wrote, “We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.” Do we govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments?
Our Founders felt that God's Word was so important that in 1782, "The United States in Congress assembled … recommend this edition of the Bible [King James Version] to the inhabitants of the United States … a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools.” Do we have Bibles in our schools so that students may learn the principles on which our Founders depended?
Jesus said that the greatest Commandment was, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Our Declaration of Independent obeys this Commandment, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." A king did not give us our rights; God did. Our Creator endowed us; we owe Him for establishing our Nation.
In modern times, other presidents have echoed our founders' words. For example, John F. Kennedy said, “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” Do we, America, thank God for our freedom and blessings or do we take them for granted?
We know God to be a God of mercy and kindness but we often forget that He is also a God of justice and repentance. God gave us freewill. Free will means that all gifts from God to us are double-edged. Therefore, God's labor to redeem the world cannot be certain of succeeding as regards to individuals or to nations. Some will not accept redemption. "There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity that this", but Scripture, Jesus' words and reason support this. (C.S. Lewis)
Be warned, God has favored this nation. He looks down upon us today expecting us to do His will. His will is, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” Do we Americans love our neighbors? Or, are we in the time predicted in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths." Let's look at just a few facts.
God sees a drug-infested Nation where more than 50,000 Americans die of drug overdoses a year. From November 1965 until April of 1975, the Vietnam War cost 58, 209 lives. Deaths in America from traffic accidents in 2017 were 40,100. That is to say, annually illegal drug use kills nearly as many Americans as died in all of the Vietnam War and more people die from drug overdoses that die in traffic accidents. Yet, we have states legalizing marijuana; you can purchase stock in companies that are selling marijuana products with the promise of great rewards; large rewards like the cigarette companies used to pay their shareholders. You see, like the nicotine in cigarettes, marijuana is somewhat addictive. The Nation Institute on Drug Abuse writes that 30% of users experience some degree of addiction. Is selling this product just to make money loving our neighbor? There must be tears in God's eyes as he sees beautiful young people dying from what some refer to as 'recreational drug use'.
That is not all that brings tears to God's eyes. Marriage has become less important to many Americans. Of the 3,853,472 births in the U.S. in 2017, half of those babies went home to where a husband was not present. That has contributed to an increase in child abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that authorities have more than 6,600,000 children referred to them each year due to abuse. God's heart must be breaking by what He sees.
In Genesis chapter 4 we find where Cain murdered Able. God came to Cain and said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil." If God heard the voice of one man's blood crying out, how loud is the sound of the gush of blood of millions of the unborn? Will God long tolerate this?
America is 22 trillion dollars in debt; that is, more $60,000 for each man, woman and child in America. Further, our nation has more than 200 trillion in unsecured liabilities, and both of those numbers are growing by an additional trillion a year. We Americans have spoiled ourselves with money we do not have spending it on things we do not need for the United States has 4% of the world's population but buys 56% of the world's dope. Maybe many Americans have too much money.
I could go on with other examples of problems in America that have occurred since the Ten Commandments have come down from in front of our courthouses and the hallowedness of the Sabbath has fallen by the way side. Many Americans pay scant attention to the Commandments. God cannot be pleased. God tells us of sins' consequences in Isaiah 5:20-21, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!" Woe to us, God did not hesitate to punish Israel many times, how can we expect God to treat us any differently?
What can we do? I had no trouble finding more than 50 scriptures that give the answer. Here are few of those: Hosea 14:1, "Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity." Here the prophet Hosea says that Israel had stumbled because of its iniquity, its sin. America is also stumbling. We, as did the ancients, want God to condone our sins, to accept them because we too do them. After all, many Americans argue, a good God would not punish people for doing this or that, "It is my business, and hurts no one else." This is foolishness. God did not take a poll or asked for our opinion when He wrote His Law. He was a Father giving His children rules to maximize happiness both for each individual and for the nations.
God does not condone sin. The Lord wants us to do more than ask forgiveness for sin; He wants to change the sinner. To forgive sin without repentance attached would be to condone it. God’s basic requirement for forgiveness is true repentance.
A Sunday school teacher asks her class what the word "repentance" meant. A little boy put up his hand and said, "It is being sorry for your sins." A little girl also raised her hand and added, "It is being sorry enough to quit."
Another call of God to us is found in Joel 2:13, "Now return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and relenting of evil." He is gracious. He is compassionate. God is patient. He is full of kindness. He is slow to anger but He expects His patients to yield repentance and change but it has not. We live in moral climate controlled by opinions and not by God's laws. Evil is in this abuse of freewill. God may soon act.
Psalm 51:13, "Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You." He eventually has enough of a nation's sin and spanks His children hoping they will return. If we do, many will follow.
Jesus illustrated this principle of return and forgiveness in the parable of the prodigal son. Luke 15:20, "So he [the son] got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." Only a morally blind person would doubt that there is much evil in America today. We must change and change soon for the Bible plainly tells us that like all great civilizations before us, we will fall. Israel did.
The Prophet Jeremiah came to the Nation of Israel and warned them to return to God. Jeremiah said that if Israel did not heed his warning God would act. Jeremiah 18:19-20, records only a part of that warning, "Therefore give their children over to famine; hurl them out to the power of the sword, let their wives become childless and widowed. May their men meet death by pestilence, their youths be slain by the sword in battle." Israel did not listen. The Nation split into factions. Israel was invaded too much death and destruction. Approximately 2,600 years separate us from Jeremiah’s day. Israel needed to heed Jeremiah's prophecy then and America needs to now. God still responds to people who genuinely repent of their sins by forgiving them.
You say, "Yes, preacher, America is quickly becoming something that I do not like but what can I do? Let me give you one thing that, if many Christians do this it, will cause America to change. It is something that our Christian Founders knew we might need to do so they protected it.
Eight of our first thirteen states had an officially recognized denomination; but all of the states permitted all religious faiths. Before all thirteen states would ratify our Constitution, they had to add the Bill of Rights. It listed the things over which our Federal government has no say. One of the things that they felt they must protect was the right of each state and each individual in the states to be free to worship, as they felt appropriate. They protected that with the First Amendment.
The First Amendment to our Constitution reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The Federal government could not force one state's religion preference on a sister state. Further, all citizens were guaranteed the free exercise of the religion of their choice. Our Bill of Rights protects our right to discuss religious issues as well as our right to print religious material and freely circulate it. It protects our right to assemble when and where we choose. And, perhaps most important, we have the right to redress grievances. Therefore, you can and should write your Congressman or Congresswoman and Senators concerning Christian grievances. The possible subjects of your letters are numerous: opioid addiction, human trafficking, drugs in schools, child abuse and on and on.
In the early 1990's, I had to go to Washington and lobby for North Carolina State University's Industrial Extension Service. I asked a fine lady who was a Congressman's aid what was the best way for the average citizen to get the attention of a Congressperson or a Senator. She said letters, handwritten get the most attention paid to followed by typed letters and then petitions. Poor grammar and spelling make no difference; these are voters expressing their grievances. E-mails and the easier ways of sending messages to Congress are not as effective as the personal letters. She said that seven or more letters on a subject a day catches their attention. If that rate goes on for a few days, the subject becomes an issue for her Representative.
You see things going crazy in our society. Jesus told us that we are the salt of the world but if we lose our saltiness we are no good but to be thorn out. Have we Christian lost our saltiness? Are we no longer a light unto the world? The Book of James, 4:17, says, "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." James tells you that you must act. Further, your Christian Founders gave you a way to act, to redress your grievances. People have tried to undermine this right by taking away the tax-exempt status if the church gets involved in politics, but that does not apply to you as individuals. Yet, many Christians have been frightened into believing that they must keep their religion and their politics separated. Look what that attitude has done. Your Christianity is who you are. Write Congress.
Is writing Congress the end of our problems? No, but it is a start. Politics is about power. If enough Christians write, Congress will become aware of their Christian voters power to unseat them or to reward them with winning.
Write today. Write once a week. Have faith in the words of the prophets that say that America should and can change. Matthew 17:20, "... for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." Christian, move this mountain; save the Nation. "Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." Move the mountain, save the nation. "The night is far spent and the day is at hand."
