June 8, 2020 – Click here to listen
I was lying in bed this morning thinking about the mess our country is in and gritting my teeth. I began to imagine what it would be like to live without freedom of religion, speech, disbandment of police forces, not being able to own guns for protection. Should I move to some remote section of the country and build a bunker, or perhaps even move to another country? Then I reminded myself that God does not want me to worry and that He is working everything out for good. I should just rest in the Lord and keep the faith.
It helped . . .
I have lived through many periods of great distress in this country. I was a teenager living in Mississippi when civil rights demonstrations raged over integration and school busing. I was living in Memphis in 1968 when the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. took place and I stood on a balcony with some friends overlooking the downtown area and watched as black smoke rose from it. I was living in San Francisco most of the time that the Vietnam war demonstrations and riots were in full swing and later I watched as downtown LA was looted and burned during the Rodney King riots. I’ve watched the various women’s marches, climate control demonstrators, and others voice their displeasure and often hatred of our nation. And everyone remembers where they were that fateful day of 9/11 and the George Bush family Iraq war. Our country has been through the wringer and yet our flag is still there, tattered as it may be.
America the beautiful has survived the ups and downs of its short history of just 244 years. It remains the most powerful nation in the world and has historically enjoyed individual freedoms that are so enticing that walls have to be built to keep people out instead of some countries where they force them to stay in like Cuba.
I’ve been making my way through the Old Testament for my daily Bible study.
Currently I’m studying the book of Judges. I find many parallels to our culture today and the Israelites’ culture when Moses with God’s help freed them from bondage of Egypt and he passed it on to Joshua who claimed the Promised Land for them. God miraculously delivered them just as our brave men miraculously defeated the mighty British Empire and our founders, (many of whom were pastors) attempted to establish “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.” For the most part that is exactly what happened. Was it perfect? No . . . Is it perfect today? No . . . But show me any country anywhere on this planet that is perfect.
Alas as good times or really bad times descended upon the Jewish people they soon forgot about God. And God as a consequence withheld His blessings from them. It was an ugly pattern with the Jews in that they would soon forget about God and start worshipping the Canaanite gods in idol worship and engaging in temple prostitution, fertility rites, and child sacrifice. God’s response was harsh, and he allowed them to be overrun by their enemies and taken into bondage. Then He hear their cries of despair and would raise up a righteous judge who would rule for a few decades bringing them into prosperity and when he died, he would be replaced by an evil one and they would quickly descend back to their former ways with God’s wrath soon to follow again. The pattern just kept repeating until finally God had enough and allowed their land to be completely overrun and they were taken as slaves and scattered all over the world.
The real story was that they did not choose God-fearing leaders that honored God and the older people did not raise up their kids to know God, including His commandments, and the consequences.
Sound familiar?
The only solution to our dilemma as I see it is to repent of bad behavior and pray for God to heal our land, and to train our children to follow Jesus and not the world.
I had an interesting exchange with an atheist reader over the weekend who told me I was on the wrong side of every issue. He is so liberal you could get papers on him and he seems to truly hate Christians. I thought it interesting that he seemed to be all in on the George Floyd protests including the looting and arson, stating that it was just property. At the end of his nonsensical tirade he wrote something really blasphemous about God and Christians that is unfit to print, and I responded that by all accounts George Floyd was a dedicated Christian and it seemed hypocritical for him to be championing our deceased Christian brother on one hand and cursing all the rest of us and the God he loved with the other.
He didn’t respond.
As I’ve said for several years now, I cannot understand the liberal haters. I don’t know of a single Christian including me that does not mourn the loss of our brother in Christ George Floyd. I want to see justice performed as we all do and make no mistake those responsible will die in prison or be very old men when they get out. Burning down cities, looting, rioting and injuring hundreds of police is not going to make things better and anyone who thinks that is wrong. I urge you to pray to God and cry out to Him just as the Jewish people did. We are a sinful nation with racism and hatred still imbedded in too many white people but also too many black people. All races have elements of racism and disliking or hating someone due to the color of their skin. We also are faced with the horrible practice of abortion, illicit sex, drugs and alcohol, corruption, murder and violence just to name a few. It isn’t much different than what the Israelites became not that long after Joshua died.
God doesn’t tolerate sin forever and I urge everyone to repent as a nation and pray before His wrath reaches the tipping point. God who cannot lie has promised that if we will do so He will hear our prayers and answer them . . . If not, we can only pray that the rapture comes sooner rather than later.
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.