Like Button

Monday, February 10, 2014

God and America

"God bless America." That's the prayer, even from those who are practical atheists. You know those kinds. They're the ones that give lipservice to a belief in God but live like the devil. Even they want God to bless America. And, let's be honest, I'd like God to bless America as well. Well, sort of.

Eric Holder -- you remember him ... he's the guy who directed the Fast and Furious scandal of the government giving guns to cartels and then turned around to help lead the move to remove guns from Americans -- announced on Saturday that the federal government will expand the recognition of same-sex marriages (as if such a thing actually exists). He called it the civil rights movement of our time. Various states have voted to ban the practice -- California did it twice -- but the Supreme Court made it a matter of "equal rights" and there are now 14 states and Washington D.C. that allow it and lawsuits either ongoing or pending in almost all other states. Only 6 states remain with uncontested laws against the oxymoronic same-sex marriage concept.

Russia is in trouble with the U.S. because they have laws against homosexual propaganda and practices, so President Obama has seen to it that openly gay athletes and delegates have been sent to the Winter Olympics. "One of the things I'm really looking forward to," he said, "is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze."
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error (Rom 1:22-27).
Some have suggested that homosexual behavior is the bottom rung, the last of the evils people can produce. It isn't. Beyond the abandoning of men with women and women with men there is "a depraved mind' (Rom 1:28) that leads to a list of sins (Rom 1:29-31). The worst is when "they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, [and] they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" (Rom 1:32). They "not only do the same" but give "hearty approval".

Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived. As a nation we are demonstrating the exchange of God for the worship of the creature and have taken to ourselves the lusts of our hearts to impurity. As a society we have refused to recognize God and exchanged the truth for the lie and have taken to ourselves degrading passions and indecent acts along with the due penalty. As a country we are demonstrating the depraved mind with all manner of sinful practices that we not only perform, but embrace and encourage. It's the bottom rung of the sin ladder.

In Revelation 6 there is the account of the opening of the seven seals. There we read,
When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging ... those who dwell on the earth?" (Rev 6:9-10)
In my relatively short lifetime there has been a marked decay in the American moral fabric. Divorce, sexual promiscuity, drugs, growing hostility to the principles upon which this country was founded, attacks on religious freedom, the rise of feminism over males, the full embrace of homosexual behavior, the dismemberment of family and marriage ... the list goes on and on. Things are not getting better. God bless America? We may still want it and we may still pray for it, but I cannot imagine it happening without the judgment of God first. It's harder and harder for me to ask God to bless a nation that turns colder and more hostile toward Him. God plans for a Final Judgment of all people at the end but God judges nations temporally. Perhaps it's time for God to judge America, not bless her.

5 comments:

David said...

Pre-millennial believers have often wondered why America was not part of eschatology. Even when I was of that camp I knew it was because America would not be the power it used to be. It seemed quite clear to me that America would be judged and removed as a power player before the Rapture. While I no longer hold to the pre-millennial idea, I'm still pretty certain America will be judged before the end.

Stan said...

I feel badly for those who will be here for it, but I feel worse for the God whose name is being dragged through the mud.

Marshal Art said...

It seems far more appropriate, and wholly necessary, to pray to God for mercy for America, rather than blessings. We, as a nation, are hardly deserving of the latter.

Danny Wright said...

I saw a bumper sticker once that said "America, bless god".

Stan said...

Yes, the only reason we're still "in business" is God's mercy. At some point I begin to wonder if we've strained that mercy too far.

And I've seen that sticker, too. The fact that we won't indicates a large problem.