Judgment

Recently I sat with some fellow believers discussing the state of the world. Billy Graham's wife once said, "If God doesn't punish America, He'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." I heard the same sort of thing around the room. I, of course, had to disagree.

In Romans Paul talks about the human problem of sin. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth" (Rom 1:18). There's the problem. It's not "doing bad things" or "violating rules." It is suppressing the truth. It is, in fact, suppressing a specific truth -- "what can be known about God" (Rom 1:19). The primary sin problem is the failure to honor God or give thanks to Him (Rom 1:21). According to Paul, then, the rest of Romans 1 is a sequence of judgments. Notice the repeated phrase, "God gave them up" (Rom 1:24, 26, 28). From Paul's perspective the judgment of God for refusing to honor or thank God goes something like this. 1) We become stupid (Rom 1:21). 2) We indulge our lusts (Rom 1:24). 3) We descend into the world of unnatural sexual relations (Rom 1:26-27). 4) We surrender sanity and explore "all manner of unrighteousness" (Rom 1:28-32). Brothers and sisters, is this not a description of our current state of affairs? When you read this stuff, do you not feel like you're reading a newspaper? And as all these things get worse, do you not see that this is God judging America?

Don't be misled. America (and much of the "civilized world") is currently facing God's temporal judgment. Societies that were once governed by an underlying Christian morality have intentionally jettisoned that morality and are puzzled why values have declined. The things we all think are good -- kindness, virtue, caring for one another, etc. -- are harder to find and more outstanding when we do because, as a society, we have refused to acknowledge God, honor God, or thank God. It is at times like these that we need to be diligent to take the Gospel to the world, where "the world" in this context is in our backyards, our neighborhoods, our towns and cities. America may have once been a "Christian nation," but it is now a major mission field and we are the ones assigned the task. "Go, therefore, and make disciples ..." (Matt 28:18-20).