Sunday, May 24

The End of America?


Okay, so you're a Christian. Odds are if you're reading this you're an American, where 85% claim to be "saved." There just doesn't seem to be a lot of agreement on what we're supposed to be saved from, or saved for, how we came to be saved, or why. But we're saved. You can bet on it.

So a Christian society endorses pornography, abortion, drunkenness, adultery, divorce-for-convenience, euthanasia, and all kinds of sexual immorality in degrees unparalleled since the fall of Rome, and brags about its "liberty." It even sits idly by as its leaders enact a new law giving pedophiles protected status that in the same stroke they denied their returning war veterans. Yet we indignantly wonder that other countries, despite lavish "foreign aid," don't love us unquestioningly. Do we even imagine that the fragrance of our religion doesn't utterly
gag the Almighty? Yet we're so sure we're all destined for eternal glory. We're Christians, after all! Well, let's not bet the farm on it. Or our old bug collection for that matter.

God had His witness in Sodom. "Righteous Lot" lived among the people as God's representative, but his desire to do business compromised his life, and he nearly died in their judgment. His wife did not even survive. Nineveh was, if anything, worse even than Sodom, but one unwilling prophet appeared on the scene to proclaim, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed!" Nineveh turned to God, and He held off His judgment.

Is there hope for this country? Will the US survive? Every lesson from history seems to scream to the negative. America has in the past been a savior to the other nations, pouring military and humanitarian aid into many nations to defeat dictators, to fight hunger, to help in education.
Lately this is being more and more off set by our role as the UN's pet bulldog in areas like the Balkans and the Mid-East. The humanitarian aid often "misses" areas that are in the worst need, and the education is more about self-worship and greed than anything useful or even honest. We think of Sodom as being some city-wide, full-time, romp, but the descriptions we see in the Bible could as well be about any city in this country. Where are the prophets? For over sixty years our recognised "prophets" have been clucking their tongues like an indulgent grandmother about, "not having God's best" when the Spirit would have them issue a call to repent from the sins that are destroying this nation, and each life in it, from the inside out.

These "prophets" tell us that a revival will come when God "sovereignly" decides to send one, so we sit calmly in our sinking boats, refusing to either bail or row, and assure ourselves that we are in God's will. God's will is not for the churches in America to founder and sink. He has given us everything we need to not only stay afloat but to rescue those drowning all around us, but we adjust our deck chairs and religiously mutter, "But that is God's job!" The Church is not preaching repentance, is not preaching righteousness, but is telling those drowning all around them that such things are only invisible legal fictions in the courts of Heaven. Can this nation survive if no preachers are even calling it to receive the life God has been trying to offer it? Can this nation turn to God if it truly believes that such a turn is only a matter of putting the right face on things? Nineveh heard their prophet, turned, and lived. Sodom compromised their prophet, and corrupted his message. Is there hope for America, or is this encroaching "secularisation" merely the darkness approaching as God withdraws His light?

The answer is up to us. "Ask, and you will receive, seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened." By His grace we are able. Let us not let it slip!

7 comments:

  1. Hi Robert!

    'Secularism' is the evil word today in Christianity. Indian mainline churches are dragging itself towards Indigenous worship which is nothing by Hindu-genius worship.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will likely be praying in faith and grace (Ephesians 2: 8-10). I will skip that t-shirt or anything like.

    The End of America? Could be soon(ish). In my latest I point out the military burned some Bibles.

    ReplyDelete
  3. on the receiving end here, my feeling is that I must question my salvation now. Because I have fallen SO many times in the same traps, I am not saved. I must not be a believer, since I do not live out my faith.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anon, far be it from me to rush out with panaceic bandaid response, to restore your "assurance of salvation," but rather thank the Lord for allowing you to wonder. The New Testament over and over warns us all to make sure, to confirm others, to examine ourselves, etc. So take this as the Lord calling on you to examine your own heart, and look to Him for forgiveness, for healing, and for strength for the journey. Follow Him, alone. He will never forsake you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. My hope is if He can forgive 70 times 7, then I should not get discouraged when i fall that many times. You get to thinking whether or not you can ever stop doing the same stupid things and finally become a pleasing child to God. If I focus on my past behavior then I am certainly a hopeless lost case. According to my own disoediant, self-serving life, I have never been His child. Yes, I am sorry for what I have done. I sincerely ask for forgiveness and His power to turn away the next time but then I find myseld doing the same D#MB thing again.

    ReplyDelete
  6. OK well there you go. You and your blokes are stuck on this too. Just admit it to me. Tell me I am a lost girl and I am a vessel fitted for destruction.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Not in the least, Anon! This is just a more involved, and likely personal, conversation than maybe can do so well on this slo-mo blog board. If you like, you can the contact me by the email, or skype me (Friarbob), or look me up on Facebook for a chat.

    But to get back to your last, would Jesus say for frail Peter to constantly forgive if that were out of His own character? Of course not- the whole plan of God's revealing Himself to us is to bring us to be .with, and like, Himself in love. Do we all tend to be self-serving? Of course! But by the cross of Christ there is a way out of that loop, praise be to God! I do look forward to hearing from you!

    ReplyDelete

So what's your take?