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Is There Hope For America?
"At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them (Jeremiah 18:7-10)."
The prophet Jeremiah reveals the welfare and future of nations ultimately resides with the decrees of Almighty God. Nations are preserved or dispossessed by their fidelity or infidelity to God's moral standards (Deuteronomy 28). In other words, there is a direct connection between the spiritual and moral condition of a nation and the subsequent consequences that befall a people.
All societies rise and fall based upon the morality of their laws. All morality finds its basis in religion. If the Christian faith is weakened as we see in America today, then the morality that undergirds the laws of the land become destabilized. The results are predictable. There will be a progressive breakdown of law and order, which leads to the collapse of society.
As spiritual darkness, chaos, and confusion flourishes in this lawless condition, mental ignorance and physical poverty follow in its wake. Of course, the opposite rings true as well. Spiritual enlightenment leads to stability, mental discovery and abounding prosperity. Keep in mind, a lot that passes for spiritual enlightenment spread by false religions, cults, and vain philosophies of men are nothing more than Satan masquerading as an "angel of light." It is a false light that has delusional affects upon men and nations as they are "carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Ephesians 4:14)." Only Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the true light that shines into man's darkened world to set the captive free. John 1:4 plainly states, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men."
Founding Father, George Mason, known as the "Father of the Bill of Rights" was deeply aware of this divine connection. As a result, he refused to sign the United States Constitution as it did not abolish slavery and sufficiently curb the Federal Government's power from infringing on the rights of States. He strongly condemned the slave trade, detested paper money and disliked the idea of a strong, centralized Federal Government, fearing it would usurp the sovereignty of the individual States. It was these apprehensions that prompted Mr. Mason to call for the passage of the Bill of Rights. Obviously, Mr. Mason would be rolling over in his grave watching the power grab of our federal government today. The blob in Washington DC continues to devour the private sector at the expense of State's rights and "We The people."
Addressing the sin and crime of slavery at our founding Mr. Mason stated:
Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven upon a country. 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.
One would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to notice the mounting national calamities that increase with frequency and intensity with each passing day. We stand in awkward amazement and feel a sense of futility as everything we hold near and dear seem to be spinning out of control. There is a part of us that wonders "Is There Hope for America?" Will our nation survive or are we destined to go the way of every other empire that collapsed morally from within and was devoured by pagan hordes from without.
In the study of history, both scenarios have played themselves out. Sometimes God judged disobedient nations to restoration and other times, He judged them to annihilation. The jury is still out as it pertains to America, though we would be foolish to dismiss the latter judgment out of hand. All the signs that accompanied the fall of Rome are being repeated in our day.
Dr. Carle Zimmerman in 1947 wrote a book called Family and Civilization. His studies encompassed the root causes, which lead to the decline of civilizations and empires. He discovered eight patterns of domestic behavior that signaled the demise of a civilization:
1. The breakdown of marriage and rise of divorce.
2. The loss of the traditional meaning of the marriage ceremony.
3. The rise of Feminism.
4. Increased public disrespect for parents and authority in general.
5. Acceleration of juvenile delinquency, promiscuity and rebellion.
6. Refusal of people with traditional marriages to accept their family responsibilities.
7. A growing desire for and acceptance of adultery.
8. Increasing interest in and spread of sexual perversions (homosexuality) and sex-related crimes.
Clearly, these disturbing trends are thriving under our watch. Yet, throughout American history, our nation has overcome troubling times. During our founding, skepticism imported from the French Revolution attempted to capture our universities. Infidel clubs were organized as Thomas Paine's Age of Reason spread throughout the land like wildfire. Paine, who enjoyed much success and admiration from his countrymen due to his publication of Common Sense, used his fame to seduce America with his Age of Reason.
Many knew at the time, left unchallenged, it would lead America to the "Age of Infidelity." One man, by the name of Elias Boudinot, deeply concerned about his daughter and the youth of America being targeted by this publication, wrote a refutation. His letter to his daughter grew to become a book called The Age of Revelation. Mr. Boudinot correctly recognized that America was being tempted by Mr. Paine to exalt the flawed reason of men over against the revelation of God. Mr. Boudinot therefore proceeded to take on every skeptical notion perpetrated by Paine and handily demolished them. Thankfully, our nation born of Christian conviction, faith, and principles swung somewhat safely back to her heritage.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, in the famous Gettysburg Address, wondered if our nation would survive during his time of woe. He stated, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
America was tested to its core and as Mr. Mason warned, God judged our nation over the sin and crime of slavery. 600,000 men died to finally end this violation of liberty. In some ways, we recovered, although, not fully. The case can be made that the Union victory, which led to the Reconstruction period paved the way for the federal tyranny that exists today.
Regardless, Americans of every stripe wonder what will become of our nation as it pertains to our current distress. Is all reason to hope gone? Are we doomed or is there a possibility Americans will dig down as in times past and recover themselves to secure a future and a hope for their children and grandchildren?
Though I will not presume to state for a certainty that will be the case, but "all things are (still) possible to them that believe (Mark 9:23)." God may relent of the disasters planned for America, if we would but humbles ourselves and meet His righteous conditions. Isaiah 60:1-3 proclaims:
Arise shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
Isaiah 60 affords us some insight into difficult times, where evil, tyranny, and darkness appear to rule the day. In context, darkness is covering the earth and gross darkness ill-affects the people. It is at this critical juncture that the heavens speak; light shines, glory manifests, and those entrapped by the darkness, both rulers and citizens "come to thy light [and] brightness of thy rising."
Like a master jeweler, the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners used a black backdrop to shine forth His light and glory in the earth. Most of the great treasures God has wrought for the benefit of mankind came through the furnace of affliction. God told Pharaoh, "And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth (Exodus 9:16)." In this case, God used the bondage of Egypt and the hardened heart of Pharaoh to deliver His people and exalt His holy name throughout the earth.
Most Christians do not realize that our possession of the New Testament and the great creeds of the church were forged in times of great darkness. As the early church struggled with persecutions from without and heresies from within, it challenged and inspired the faithful to hammer out the New Testament canon and the creeds that upheld the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and a host of other Christian orthodox doctrines that we take for granted today. If it wasn't for Gnosticism, Montanism, Arianism, Epicureans, Stoics, Judaisers and host of other philosophies threatening the purity of God's Word, the church would never have been driven to defend the faith (Jude 3). In these cases, as darkness was covering the earth and threatening the church, the light of God's truth was forged and established in the earth.
Isn't it interesting that many Americans under the current distress are reevaluating what it means to be an American? Many are studying our founding documents and rediscovering the Christian faith that inspired our Founding Fathers to endure the trials, which produced the freest and most blessed nation upon the face of the earth. Case in point, just recently Glenn Beck, a Mormon no less, recently highlighted the revivalist, George Whitfield, on his TV program and unapologetically proclaimed that apart from the English preacher, George Whitfield, and the Evangelical Christian faith that he preached, there is no Revolution and no America. Now millions of Americans are hitting the history books to rediscover the important role this man of God played in the founding of America.
As America looks back to find our rudder to guide our nation through these tumultuous times, Obama providentially is at the helm. Without a doubt, he is the worst and best thing that has happened to America in a very long time. It is worse merely because he is the personification of all the ideologies that have been growing like a cancer to remake America in her enemies' image. It is the best time as Americans are now forced to dig down deep and find out what we are made of. It is forcing us to ask the important questions like who are we? What do we believe and why are these beliefs important in a really dangerous world?
Throughout redemptive history, God has allowed sinful, rebellious man to demonstrate the folly and the idolatry that leads to dissolution. Providentially, He uses those times to reveal our desperate need for our Savior, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from ourselves and the sins that so easily beset us. In Israel's day, the prophet Jeremiah declared, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts (Jeremiah 2:19)."
In other words, man can only go so far without God. As life becomes unbearable and we begin to experience the severe consequences of living life as though God did not exist and act as if His moral laws are not relevant, there is a hope that we will finally break, humble ourselves and turn back to God. For He alone has the power to hear from heaven, forgive our sin, and bring healing to our land, if we meet His conditions (2 Chronicles 7:14).
To summarize this point, I'll conclude with Romans 8:20 which states:
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For years, I wrestled with God trying to understand how man could derive from vanity a hope for our fleeting lives. The answer is found in the fact that when man committed high treason against the majesty of heaven and fell, not only was sin, death, hell, and the grave introduced into this poor-fallen world, but futility became king and we as God's creatures became its loyal subjects.
God's Word says that He allowed this wretched state for a hope. It is this blessed hope that each and every one of us must grasp lest we perish individually and as a nation. And what is this hope? Simply, life doesn't work without God. We can't live as we should apart from His revelation. Man cannot properly fit into God's world, if we rebel against our Maker and exclude Him from our lives. The hope is we will eventually see the utter futility of living without the knowledge of God and humbly return to Him through the merits of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus declared, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4)." Let us repent therefore of dealing falsely with our God in America. Let us forsake the vain philosophies that have deceived us and return to the truth of God's word. It is the only source that can secure our lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and provide the hope America needs to overcome our current distress.
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