WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA?
The America that we see today is not the America that
many of us remember from our youth. Much
of what we currently see is the fruit of decades of preparation by those who do
not hold to the same traditional Judeo-Christian values that the majority of
Americans have embraced for so long. Our
schools have been used to indoctrinate a generation of young people to a
socialist, humanist ideology that seeks to erase God, family, and faith from
their hearts and minds. There are those
who would even seek to permanently sever the bond between parents and children
so that children are no longer influenced by their parents’ culture, religion,
or moral values. One example is how
teachers and professors have long been sowing seeds of distrust in our
children’s minds regarding the subject of abortion and the time of
conception. One of our kids came home
from school one day and challenged his mother when she referred to an unborn
child as a baby. He said, “No, that
isn’t a baby, that’s a fetus!” That is
what they had been teaching in his class, and we had no idea. In this, and many other areas, public school
systems are removing Christ and God from the classroom and inserting
anti-Christian thought. They are even now
trying to cast doubt and confusion in young children’s minds concerning their
own gender and advocating that they be allowed to have sex changes without
their parent’s knowledge or consent!
There has been a very rapid decline in law and order in
the last several years, especially in many of our largest cities. Crime has been allowed to run rampant to the
point that many citizens are afraid to use public transportation or walk the
streets because of the violent crimes committed even in broad daylight. The murder rate in large cities is growing
rapidly. Shop owners and larger
retailers alike are being forced to shut their doors because of the increase of
shoplifters. The thieves are emboldened
to steal up to $1000 worth of merchandise in some cities, knowing that it is now
labeled a misdemeanor. They know that
they will not be prosecuted. Our law
enforcement officers are in a difficult position. They are short-staffed, overworked, and frightened
that a wrong, split-second decision may ruin their lives and put them behind bars. No wonder many of them turn a blind eye to
situations that they would have readily taken action against a few years
ago.
We have entered a time when good is portrayed as evil,
and evil is portrayed as good. The
Prophet Isaiah spoke of such a time as we are now living in when he said, “None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth
for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and
bring forth iniquity…Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed
innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and
destruction are in their paths…Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth
justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness,
but we walk in darkness…And judgment
is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in
the street, and equity cannot enter…Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a
prey [puts himself in peril]: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased
Him that there was no judgment.”
(Isaiah 59:4, 7, 9, 14, 15).
Consider these words and think of how far our country has fallen.
It isn’t just America that is in trouble. The whole world is reeling under the effects
of sin! Sin is at the
heart of our difficulty. Putting a
different political party in power is not going to solve all of America’s
problems. The root of America’s problem
is not political; the root of America’s problem is spiritual. It is the same with every nation on
earth. Scripture tells us, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin
is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs
14:34). It is because of America’s and
every other nation’s sins that they have fallen into chaos and confusion. “…your iniquities have separated between
you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not
hear.” (Isaiah
59:2). Only Christ can fix what is wrong
in the heart of mankind. Those who are
His are waiting for Him to return the second time to judge the wicked and adorn
the righteous with salvation and eternal life.
In that day, all wrongs will be righted, and all rights will be
rewarded.
We must turn from our sins and cry out to God for
mercy. God is seeking to save souls, and
not nations. The truth is that there is
only one nation on earth that God speaks of as being “holy” and “chosen.” All others are doomed to fail in the
end. The fate of every nation will be the same.
The only nation that we should really be concerned with is the one that
the Apostle Peter mentions in 1 Peter 2:9.
He is writing to Christians when he says, “But ye are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, an holy nation,
a peculiar people; that ye
should shew forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into
His marvellous light.” Jews,
gentiles, barbarians, blacks, whites, Hispanic, Asians – all flow together to
form one Church, one Body, and one Holy Nation.
Those who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior have been
delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the Kingdom of God’s
dear Son (see Colossians 1:13). That
Kingdom is an invisible Kingdom, and one that is spiritual in nature. Jesus Christ Himself is our King, and to Him
alone do we owe our allegiance and our service.
The Prophet Isaiah saw this Kingdom and spoke of it when he wrote, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son
is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His
government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon
His Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice
from henceforth even forever. The zeal
of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:6, 7). In that glorious Kingdom there will no longer
be any hatred, bigotry, racism, division, anger, malice, envy, theft, or
murder. God’s people will flow together
as one, and there will be peace and harmony among all the citizens of that Kingdom.
Don’t be deceived: conservatism and Christianity are
not the same thing. Not everyone who
names the name of Christ is a Christian (Mark 13:5, 6; Matthew 7:21-23). In Jesus’ day there were two parties that
managed the religious-political issues of the nation. They were the Pharisees and the
Sadducees. They both claimed to know and
represent God, but Jesus didn’t follow or support either one. They were both hypocritical, and Jesus warned
His disciples to “…beware the leaven of
the Pharisees.” To follow such ones
would only lead to an inflated ego, pride, and arrogance, just like yeast puffs
up a lump of bread dough.
Christianity and the world do not mix. The Gospel demands a separation between the
two. Christians have been called to a
higher purpose. It is one which no political party seems in a hurry to
embrace. That purpose is to establish righteousness in our personal
lives, in our homes, in our churches, in our cities, and in our nation. It is for each of us to become shining cities
on a hill that penetrate the darkness around us with the love and light of
Jesus Christ. We have been called to be
ambassadors for Christ and to spread the Gospel message to the lost that are
all around us. A Christian doesn’t have
to travel to some far off location as a missionary in order to reach lost
souls. They merely need to lift up their
eyes and behold the fields that are ripe to harvest in their own neighborhood.
Like Abraham in the Old Testament, we have been called
to “…sojourn in the land of promise [temporarily
abide in this place as a foreigner until God’s promise is fulfilled], as in a strange country” for we are
looking “…for a city which hath
foundations [a heavenly city and a heavenly Kingdom], whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:9, 10). We are told not to love this world or the
things that are in the world, because the things of the world are only
distractions that divert our minds away from the righteousness and holiness of
God. The world is tainted by Satan, who
scripture calls the god of this world. God
Almighty has promised that the meek will inherit the earth when Christ crushes
the head of the serpent once and for all.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of
Heaven. No matter how good our laws or
prosperous our economy, we cannot create a heaven on the earth as it is today. This was Israel’s error. They thought Messiah would come and restore
their nation to a powerful force in the world that would rule over all other
kingdoms. Instead, Messiah offended the
rulers of Israel with the truth and was nailed to a Roman cross. We must understand that “…all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
(2 Timothy 3:12). The Prophet Ezekiel said,
“For I will take you from among the
heathen, and gather you out of all
countries, and will bring you into your own land.” (Ezekiel
36:24). God is drawing His people out of
every country in order to bring them
into the land that He promised would belong to Abraham’s seed one day. He was not referring specifically to the Jews
when He said this. We who have been born
again are the seed of Abraham by
faith in Christ Jesus. As scripture
says, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs
according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29). These words that Paul wrote were written to Gentile believers who were scattered
across Galatia.
Ezekiel continues his prophecy, saying, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you,
and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will
I cleanse you.” (verse 25). We, who
are Christ’s, have been cleansed by His blood and by the washing of the water
of the Word. All our filthiness and
every sin is purified by the Living Water that flows from the throne of God.
The prophet continues, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you an heart of flesh. And I will put My
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My
judgments, and do them.” (verses 26, 27).
The Lord has changed the hearts of all those who belong to Him. He changes our hearts from the hard, stony
one that we had before, and He replaces it with a pure heart of love and
compassion. God has also put His own
Spirit within us to enable us to walk in His ways and keep His commandments.
Ezekiel concludes, “And
ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be My
people, and I will be your God.” (verse 28). The nations of the world seek to conquer the
earth, but God has given it to those who love Him and wait for the
promise! He is purifying you and me
today so that we will be a righteous people who are worthy to inherit that
Promised Land one day. For now, God has
called us to “…be blameless and harmless,
the sons of God, without rebuke, in
the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in
the world; holding forth the Word of Life…” (Philippians 2:15,
16).
Paul exhorts us to “Set
[our] affections on things above, not
on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:2).
When Lot was leading his family away from Sodom and Gomorrah, his wife
couldn’t resist looking back longingly at the things that she was leaving
behind. She knew that God had pronounced
judgment on all that was there, but she wouldn’t resist. She was turned into a pillar of salt as a
warning to all who would be enticed again by the things that God has pronounced
judgment on.
The LORD has established the universe according to
certain principles and values. If these
principles are violated, then the harmony of things is disrupted, and the
overall balance is upset. When mankind
thinks he is wiser than the Creator, he invites all kinds of chaos into the
world. Scripture tells us that in the
beginning the “…earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Then the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters. And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light. And God saw
the light, that it was good.” (Genesis 1:1-4). From the chaos that was in the beginning, God
brought order and balance. He did this
by the moving of His Spirit, by the Word of His power, and by the Light
of His presence. In six days God set
everything in motion and gave the pronouncement over it all that “It was good.” In a single hour, mankind (through Adam
and Eve) managed to bring sin and death upon the world, give up the dominion
they enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. They
returned the earth to a different kind of chaos. It was then brought under the control of the
prince of the power of the air, Satan, whom the scripture refers to as the god
of this world (the world system, not the planet). Consider the downward moral spiral that
occurred between the time that Adam walked and talked with God in the Garden
and the time of Noah when “…GOD saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that He had made man
on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.” (Genesis 6:5-7). Mankind had chosen death over Life and
darkness over Light, and he had reaped the whirlwind as a result. America is fast approaching such a state. It is only the intercession of good men and
women praying in the Spirit that holds back judgment. They stand in the gap and plead for the souls
of their brothers and sisters just as Abraham interceded for Lot and his family
before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
We should pray for our leaders at every level that God
will give them discernment and wisdom, and that they will operate in the fear
of God. We should do this so that we may
“…lead a quiet and peaceable life in all
godliness and honesty.” (1 Timothy 2:1-4).
We must not take the freedom that we have to worship God in the way we
choose for granted. Even in America this
freedom can be taken from us suddenly.
Let’s redeem the time that we have and use it to reach out to the
lost. We should also fix our hearts and
minds more and more on the hope that is laid before us in the Scriptures. Nations and kingdoms will rise and fall just
as they have for the history of the world.
Our heavenly Father, however, has established a Kingdom that cannot fail
and He has prepared a place for you and me in that Kingdom. In that bright home we will rule and reign
with Christ forever. As the words of the
song by A. P. Carter and Albert E. Brumley go:
This world is not my home I’m just-a-passing through,
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the
blue.
The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
“Yea, all kings
shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him. For He shall deliver the needy when he
crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and
shall save the souls of the needy. He
shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their
blood be in His sight.” (Psalm 72:11-14).
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