Jeremiah 18:1-17
On August 22, 1787, George Mason (1725–1792), Father of the Bill of Rights, made this statement during the debates of the Constitutional Convention –
“As Nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins, by national calamities.”
I believe Mason was right! I further believe that for many years God has been slowly withdrawing his hand of blessing on this nation. Now, it seems apparent to me that God has begun to judge this nation. Look at what’s happening to America in recent years. Today is the fourth anniversary for the 9-11 terrorists attack that took the lives of nearly 3000 of people and cost billions of dollars to clean up and repair the damage. Billions more are being appropriated to try to prevent another attack.
Then there was the anthrax scare that took several lives and huge sums of money are being spent to counter more of the same. The Post Master General has said, “The anthrax attack will cost the United States Post Office billions of dollars in lost trade and the implementation of a screening and sanitizing system.”
Western wildfires, covering a third of the nation, have destroyed homes and taken the lives of several fire fighters. Again, the cost has been in the billions of dollars and creating untold hardship for thousands of people. Others are seeing floods and mudslides wash away their homes and diminishing their hopes for the future. In other parts of the nation droughts, are drying up crops and incomes. The stock market has dipped to a dangerous and freighting low and causing thousands to lose their life savings and removing much of their income. Last year, 6 hurricanes did billions of dollars of damage to towns in Florida and surrounding states.
Who can forget the latest calamity of biblical proportions — Hurricane Katrina. I have heard reporters make that statement numerous times over the past the days. To be sure, the devastation is unbelievable and it will be months before we know how many were killed and years before homes and businesses can be rebuilt. But, what you might not have known is that homosexuals had planned a huge Southern Decadence festival… replete with tens of thousands of men and women engaged in public nudity, prostitution, illegal drug use and destructive public S & M sex. According to WorldNetDaily, “Hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans just two days before the annual homosexual ‘Southern Decadence’ festival was to begin in the town.” I ask you. Could it be that God is judging America?
For the first 150 to 175 years, America’s culture had a respect for God, His Commandments, His principles, and for His people (see Psalm 36:1-4). Our government, our courts, our schools and colleges, and our leaders made rulings and decisions based on Biblical principles, but that all started changing about 50 years ago. All of those solid Biblical principles that were the foundation for our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and highly regarded for nearly 200 years are now being maligned, ignored, litigated and judged unconstitutional. The teachings of the Bible are deemed as being unacceptable and even harmful by unbelievers and God haters, and it is increasingly being ruled that it must be excluded in the public forum. The atheists, humanists, hedonists, homosexuals, ET Al harangue that Christians are bigots, hate mongers, homophobic, puritanical and intolerant and must NOT be allowed to express their offensive views in public. These heathens rage that the Bible and its teachings even corrupt the minds of people and make them intolerant of others. (I think Psalm 2 really applies to today). We should be intolerant of sin and evil (Psalm 97:10; 101:3)
Christian friends, when Israel turned away from God, God would send prophets and messengers to worn them to repent from their wicked ways, reject idolatry, and repent of the worship of foreign gods. When they would not heed His messengers there came a time when God would allow them to reap the consequences of their sinful ways, and He would send judgment upon then in various ways. We see this in 2 Kings 17:12-20.
Some Christians are wondering why all these bad things are happening while we have a President who says he is a Christian and reads the Bible regularly. It is certain that President George Bush is much less hostile to Christianity and more in line with Godly issues then Al Gore or John Kerry would have been. By anyone’s estimation his moral character is far beyond that of his predecessor, Bill Clinton. But why is so much bad stuff happening when George W. Bush is President? The liberals would have you believe that it is all George Bush’s fault, when that is not true. Study your Old Testament carefully. As most students of the Bible know, God’s judgment comes on a nation years after the crime, in some cases hundreds of years. For instance, God postponed His judgment on the nations of the earth for 120 years in the days of Noah (Genesis 6:3; 1 Peter 3:20).
I believe America has reaped the prosperous harvest because of the Christian seed sown by our Godly forefathers. But, for the last 30-60 years generations have been sowing evolutionism, secular humanism, relativism, amorality, immorality, political correctness, hedonism and Multiculturalism into the culture. The harvest from that seed has been growing up and now we are beginning to reap the harvest. Should we be surprised that God would judge our nation in light of Galatians 6:7-8 “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
With this thought in mind, I pose this question to you… Is not America deserving of God’s Judgment? Is America deserving of Judgment?
Consider these facts. According to reports published by Paul Scott’s syndicated column, one million two hundred thousand (1,200,000) abortions took place in the United States last year. Even more shocking, is the information that the government financed between 222,000 and 278,000 of these abortions. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) furnished these figures.
I agree with the Baptist preacher E. L. Bynum who said, “I maintain that this (abortion) may be one of the greatest crimes in the annals of human history. This may be a crime so dark, a sin so black, that nothing can stay the hand of God’s righteous judgment upon America.”
Let’s consider some other statistics…
Homicide and incarceration are the highest of any industrialized nation. Ten times that of Japan, Sweden, Ireland, and the Netherlands.
Crime increased by 371% since 1960, with Juvenile Crime up 920% since 1985, the highest in the world.
Divorce quadrupled in the last 30 years, making the U.S. the world leader. Divorces among professed Christians are slightly higher than those who do not profess to be Christians.
Teenage pregnancies also quadrupled in the last 30 years (more than a million a year) making the US the Western World leader.
American is the voluntary abortion leader in the world.
America is the illegal drug use leader of the world.
America is the illiteracy world leader among industrialized nations, with our National Educational Standards among the lowest in the world.
While I do not claim to be a prophet, I think that any student of the Scriptures can see that God hand of judgment is moving on America. The proverbial “chickens” are coming home to roost. Because of abortion, homosexuality and many other sins against God, this nation is beginning to reap what it has sown. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34. The “entitlement” attitude, the deplorable drug addiction, appalling alcoholism, the profusion of pornography, widening crime wave, utterly abominable homosexual movement, the push for same sex marriage, and the anti-God, anti-Christ attitude of multitudes in our nation today signal that the nation is RIPE for Judgment. Turn to Psalms 50:22 “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Has the tearing in peaces begun in America? I think it has.
I believe that judgment has begun. Did you hear that they expect natural gas prices to be up as much as 70% this winter? Fuel oil is expected to rise 30% and electricity 15%. These along with the high gasoline prices may soon evaporate the American dream and turn it into a nightmare.
Now back to the question I posed earlier — Is America deserving of Judgment? The answer is regrettable yes! God will not be mocked!
Do not confuse what I am saying. I believe America is still the greatest nation in the world. However, remember that there was a time when Israel of the Old Testament was also a great nation. That was when they were following the Lord under the leadership of Joshua, David and Solomon. But their greatness crumbled when they decided to ignore God and worship other gods and idols. America is now at that point. In the beginning, our nation respected God, honored His Word, and hated idol worship, and refused to encourage and invite the worship of any religion except that of the Bible. But that is not so today. We are now encouraging and inviting the teaching of Secular Humanism, New Age, Islam, multiculturalism, and various cults in many of our public schools and colleges, all in the name of diversity. The “powers that be” in our country are tolerating and promoting any kind of philosophy or religion at the expense of the true God of the Bible. The Scripture is clear. Exodus 20:3-5 says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
God’s promise to Israel was that blessing would follow them where ever they were if they would continue to obey him. He said in Deuteronomy 28:13 “And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:” However, He also said if they would “not hearken unto his voice” curses would come upon them and overtake them.
Most of us know the story of Israel well and how they became a “stiff neck people” and paid a heavy for it. Is it possible that our nation is standing where stiff-necked Israel stood (Jeremiah 17:23)? I believe that is where our nation is today. And I believe unless we repent as a nation and turn back to God that we can expect to see more judgment at the hand of God. As believers we must live righteously, evangelize boldly and pray fervently for a revival in our land.