The United States of America

Chapter 9

What I am about to share with you is not something easy to write about because we, as a nation, have been blessed beyond our wildest imagination over the 80 some years that I have lived. I can remember times when gasoline was 29 cents a gallon. I used to take mom to the A &P and for $20.00 we would have 6 or 7 large bags full of groceries. I can remember hearing people say, Every since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL or DAMN in it.

When we were in high school on date night we would go to the movies and would see basically clean movies with little or no sexual implications or cussing. Our TV programs were all family orientated. There were no abortions allowed and very little pornography existed. There was no internet, no computers, no color TV, no FM radio and no stereo FM in our cars. There were no cell phones, no McDonalds, and no Burger Kings.

At the same time jobs were not easy to find. Minimum wage was less than a dollar. I can remember telling my wife when we bought a brand new 1963 Bonneville convertible that it would probably be the last new car we could afford.

After I got out of college, I could go anywhere in the US and get a decent job. And things began to rapidly change almost on an exponential curve. We sent a man to the moon and the research it took ended up giving us all kinds of new inventions.

I have lived to see America become the most blessed nation ever to exist on this earth. This was a direct result of a promise of God to Abraham when He said, "In thee all nations of the earth shall be blessed." Gen.18:18 And Jacob passed it on to Joseph's two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. One of them was to become a league of nations and the other was to be a great nation. As a result the British Empire was born and later the United States of America. However, we in the USA have become as Israel did in the past and we slowly forgot that because God was faithful to His promise is the reason we have been blessed.

In America's greatest moments there was always sin, and in its worst moments, greatness. However, in the middle of the twentieth century we began officially removing God from our national life. We abolished prayer and Scripture reading in our public schools. We began removing the Ten Commandments from public view and banning it from our unwelcome unless for the purpose of mockery and attack. That which had once been revered as sacred was now increasingly treated as profanity. You say, "Well, I didn't take part in doing these things!" Neither did I but we just sit back and didn't do anything about it! We are the ones that need to repent for doing nothing. Repentance means that we turn around from doing nothing and do something.

As God was being taken from American life, idols came in to fill the void. Idols of sensuality, idols of greed, of money, success, comfort, materialism, pleasure, sexual immorality, self-worship, and self-obsession. The sacred increasingly disappeared and the profane took its place. Our nation forgot its foundations, its purpose and its calling. The standards and values it had long upheld were now abandoned. What had once been known as immoral, is now accepted. Our culture was corrupted by the corrosion of sexual immorality, growing continuously more crude and vulgar. A wave of pornography began penetrating our media. The same nation that had once been dedicated to spreading God's gospel to the nations now filled the world with the pornographic and the obscene.

We gradually have become tolerant for everything opposed to God. We have become tolerant for immorality and a growing intolerance for the pure. We allowed other religions that didn't recognize our God to come into our country and build their temples and establish their customs and we said nothing all because we didn't want to offend them. Appeasement became our motto. Therefore, innocence was ridiculed and virtue was vilified. We allowed our children to be taught sexual immorality in our public schools while the Word of God was banned. We had a tolerance that put the profane on public display and removed nativity scenes from public sight.

Ten years after we removed prayer and the reading of scripture from our public schools, because we didn't want to offend some one, our leaders legalized the killing of our unborn babies. The blood of the innocent has now stained our collective hands. As a result, America is in danger of judgment!

Someone will say, "But if God were to send us a message today calling us back we would listen!" Would we? I remember way back in the late 70's taking a bus load of Christians to Washington DC to a Christian rally, Washington for Jesus, to call the nation to repentance. The media coverage was this,

"Religious leaders present included: Pat Robertson", Jerry Falwell, William Bright.Demos Shakarion, Pat Boone and Benson Idahosa. Although the event was ostensibly non-political, speeches and statements during the 1980 rally outlined many of the early points of the agenda of the religious right. It was during this time that many national leaders of the Christian right unified in their political stances against Homosexuality, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, increasing divorce rates, and the women's liberation movement.

Did our national leaders repent?

What about 911?

No enemy could have ever have succeeded in attacking our main land. America was the most blessed nation to ever exist in this world. Our blessings was shielded by a powerful hedge of spiritual protection. Our founders had foretold, if our nation followed the ways of God, it would be blessed, not only with prosperity and power but also with peace and security. However, if America turned away form God, this hedge of protection would be removed.

On that fateful day of 9/11/2001 most of us can remember what we were doing when the shocking news came out that we were attacked in New York City when two commercial planes hit the World Trade buildings and a commercial plane had hit the Pentagon Building in Washington DC. How could this have happened to the most powerful nation on earth with the most sophisticated defense system ever built by man?

The answer is really very simple. God pulled back His shield of protection because we, as a nation, refused to repent! Repent means to turn around and go in another direction. We were heading toward His judgment because of our refusal to repent.

Someone says, "Why would God allow such a thing to happen. There were a lot of Christians in those building and a lot of Christians were killed trying to assist those people to get out of those buildings."

When calamity came to ancient Israel, both the righteous and the unrighteous were touched by it. Both perished alike. The judgment was on the nation but the innocent and the righteous also perished in those calamities.

Someone said, "Where was God?" We drove Him out of our schools, out of our government, out of our culture and out of our public squares. And yet, He was there with all the countless others who would have perished that day if not for the turns of events that saved them.

How did we as a nation respond to this event? We responded to the calamity as if it were only a matter of security and defense and nothing more. We responded in an act of defiance. We declared that we would strengthen our national defenses and fortify our walls of protection. There was no pausing to ponder whether there could be anything of deeper significance behind this attack and if God was trying to tell us something!

Then came the second warning. Seven years after 911 the American economy collapsed, triggering a global economic implosion. Behind it all, and all that followed, was something much deeper that economics. The explanation for an economic collapse are endless. No one factor stands alone. You can go back in time as far as you choose to search for causes, but the second calamity must be effectively born out of the first and out of the nation's response to that first calamity. Our mind set was that we will rebuild our walls and fortify our defenses so as to become invulnerable to future attacks. This would include the establishing of the Department of Homeland Security, the launching of a global war against terror, and two conventional wars abroad, one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq.

However, there were consequences for doing this. The campaign to strengthen Americas national security and defense would require massive expenditures. The War on Terror and the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq would add multiplied billions of dollar to the federal budget. Funds and resources that otherwise would have been used to strengthen the American economy were now diverted and drained away from investments. The war in Iraq would impact a surging of oil prices, further draining the nation's gross domestic product. The massive amount of governmental spending in support of the nation's War on Terror would lead to the skyrocketing of the national debt, further draining its economy. And beyond the financial consequences, what America began in the wake of 9/11 would end up further dividing the nation.

Because of our failure to repent and change our nations failure to recognize the signs of the time and stand up for our Christian beliefs, God has once again lifted His hedge of protection and we are faced with an even greater plague, the coronavirus, that has effected the whole world. We cannot expect the Lord to protect us when we sit back and allow our nation and the world's attempt to rebel against the Word of God because we don't want to offend anyone. Well, what about how we have sit by and allowed the world to offend our Lord and Savior?

We Christians, in America, have become so blind and passive and have neglected to discern the evil that has slowly infected our nation with heathen religion because we don't want to offend someone. Freedom of religion does not mean that you can come into our nation and show total disrespect to our God and Father! We are a Christian nation and if you don't like that you can leave, but you will no longer have the freedom to bring to our nation the devil worship and set up your alters to satan!! You will no longer have the freedom to spread your evil and teach in our colleges and universities your evil ways and disrespect our constitution!

The great Apostle Paul said in Eph. 5:1-17 (NIV)

"Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should but rather thanksgiving. No immoral, impure or greedy person, such a person is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient Therefore do not be partners with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." "Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is."

There are many prophecy's that warn us to repent and turn around and what is going to happen if we don't. God raises up His prophets to warn us that we are heading in the wrong direction. God loves us and as any good parent does not want to see us continue to be disobedient to Him.

Along with theses warnings the Lord is telling us that if we obey Him there will be the greatest outpouring of His grace and power to His children that the world has ever witnessed which will result in multitudes coming to Him. It will result in Him being able to send His Son to come get His Bride who is prepared and ready for Him. A glorious Church who is an equal to His Son.

However, if this generation refuses to repent and seek the Lord, this will not come about until this generation passes on. Just like it was in the days of Moses. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that the year of 2020 will determine the future of our generation. You know longer have time to make your decision. Chose you this day which way you want to go.

I have confidence in you that you will make the right decision and what a glorious year this will turn out to be. May I used John Kennedy's statement. Ask not what your leaders intend to do, but what do you intend to do?