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Hello my dear “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This is a very special weekend in our world.
Consider for a moment how different our world would be if the United States of America had failed in its fight for independence, or had divided permanently in the Civil War, or been conquered in either of the two great World Wars?
While every nation is unique, no other nation in history, has had more global impact than America. More foreign aid, financially and in agricultural products and humanitarian personnel, has gone from America to help the starving, and disadvantaged of the world, than from any other nation in history.
More people have come, from all over the world, to study in American Universities, than to any other nation. No nation has sent more of its military forces to defend the freedom seeking peoples of the world, than America. No nation has shared more scientific research or medical advancements with the world. No nation has welcomed more refugees and immigrants, from the farthest corners of the world, than America.
And finally, but most importantly, it has been from the United States, over the past 150 years, that more missionaries have gone to the world, and more technological advances have take the Gospel globally, especially to the unreached peoples of the world, than at any other time in history and from any other nation.
Truly God has blessed America and led America to be a great blessing to the world in amazing ways! On this weekend we must ask. . .Why?
Perhaps because so many of American founding leaders were God honoring men and women who made sure America’s founding documents and founding principles were based on God’s Truths. Perhaps it’s because many of America’s first, major Universities were established as God honoring institutions to produce Pastors and Missionaries. Perhaps it’s because no other nation prints “In God We Trust” on its currency? Perhaps because America has so many patriotic songs and poems and founding documents which call Americans to honor God?
Perhaps because the American Pledge of Allegiance calls every American citizen to acknowledge God’s Lordship over their country when they say we are “one nation under God”? Perhaps because on top of the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, is the inscription “Laus Deo”. Which means, “Praise Be to God”! Perhaps because of the spiritual “Great Awakenings” in our history, which have often came at very strategic times in American history. Perhaps because of the power of the Church, God’s people, who have tried to live as God’s people, holding back the advancing tide of evil in America.
So as we look at America today, oh my what a dramatic change!! What happened?
In the post-war reconstruction of the 1950’s, Hugh Hefner launched a sexual revolution with a men’s magazine called “Playboy”, and the horrific pornography industry exploded in America. Since that time no nation has produced and globally exported more porn than the USA! In the 1962 court case Engel v Vitale, prayer was removed from public schools in America. The violence in the 60’s assassinated President John Kennedy, his brother the Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Racial tension exploded in the “Civil Rights Movement” and Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered. The Vietnam war was launched in the 60’s and the moral revolution continued its downward spiral in public awareness through daytime TV. Only in recent days have we seen national turmoil as we saw in the 60’s.
Since 1973, more than 60 million unborn babies have been LEGALLY slaughtered, before birth in America, due to the Roe vs Wade court case which legalized abortion in our nation. More recently, of course, has been the homosexual revolution, same gender marriages, and the transgender movement bringing legal chaos to our God given sexuality in America, and from America spreading that distortion to the world.
In the past I’ve recommended Dr. Albert Mohler as perhaps the most prominent voice of Biblical perspective on the decline of our society through his daily podcast “The Briefing”, and his book: “We Cannot Be Silent; Speaking truth to a culture redefining sex, marriage & the very meaning of right and wrong“ and just this week, his brand-new book: “The Gathering Storm; Secularism, Culture and the Church.” A link to Dr. Mohler’s ministry and resources may be found on the resources page on our “Walking with Jesus” web site. I urge you to give serious consideration to this man’s work, as I believe it is Holy Spirit inspired and he is a strong prophetic voice of God’s truth in our day.
We must always be very careful when looking into God’s dealings with Old Testament Israel and drawing direct comparisons to our day and other nation of our world. God had and still has, a unique relationship with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons, the people of Israel. However, I believe God’s dealings with Israel can be very instructive to us in America today, because of how America was founded, 244 years ago this weekend, and many of the things I mentioned earlier.
I invite you to consider two very significant portions of God’s Word this weekend. First, on the remarkable day of King Solomon’s dedication of the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, in 2 Chronicles 5, the Ark of the Covenant between God and His people Israel, was brought into the Most Holy Place of the newly constructed Temple. Then in chapter 6, King Solomon prayed a remarkable prayer of dedication over both this great Temple and the people. Then in chapter 7 God responded…“When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the Temple. The priests could not enter the Temple because the glory of the LORD had filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the Temple, they knelt down with their faces to the ground and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD… (2 Chron. 7:1-3)
It was a powerful, dramatic, miraculous, historic moment. No one present would ever forget it, or ever be the same after experiencing this. A short while later, 2 Chronicles 7:12 says “The LORD appeared to Solomon at night and said, ‘I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a temple for worship. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or I command locusts to devour the land, or I send a plague among My people, 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
You’ve read it and heard it many times, I’m sure. Please notice God is watching HIS people, in every land, and will respond to the repentance and humility and prayer of HIS people. We should not expect wickedness to be anything other than wicked. People in whom their sin nature rages with unbridled passion, think and say and do very wicked things. It is their human, sinful nature! When they repent, they are saved by God’s grace and transformed by His glorious Holy Spirit.
But when we, God’s people repent and we seek God’s face in desperation, then God’s response is REVIVAL which restores their relationship with Him and sometimes God unleashes His mighty healing, restoring power on the nation! Down through history such revivals have resulted in dramatic changes in society around the world, at least temporarily… bars close due to lack of business, prostitutes have no customers, police and courts have no law breakers to deal with. It happened in 1857-1859 in some parts of America, and in 1904 in Wales and some parts of the UK for instance. Could it happen again? YES!
Look next at God’s warning for His people Israel: “But if you (God’s people) turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, I will uproot Israel from My land, which I have given them, and I will reject this temple, I have consecrated for My Name.” (2 Chronicles 7:19,20) God spoke this about 970bc. In 586bc the Babylonian army invaded, destroyed Jerusalem, and burned this great Temple to the ground. Repeatedly God had sent prophets to warn His people that they were floundering spiritually, they were caught up idolatry and immorality. But the people rejected those prophets and their warnings, and so God did as He had promised and God sent King Nebuchadnezzar, and Jerusalem was demolished.
Among those taken as POW’s by Nebuchadnezzar from Jerusalem to Babylon, were Daniel and Ezekiel, and God used both to continue speaking His truth, both to the Kings and to the people. In closing today, I invite you to read Ezekiel 36:16-36 which are amazing prophetic promises of God concerning why He had allowed the destruction of Jerusalem and why He was going to miraculously bring His people Israel back to Jerusalem and enable them to rebuild their Temple of worship. That promise of God was fulfilled in 516bc and it is recorded for us, in detail, in Ezra 1-6.
On this 4th of July weekend, where-ever you are in our world, as you read those verses, I urge you to give serious consideration to the moral and spiritual decline of America, and ask yourself what lessons should be learned from what God did with His people Israel, when they did as America has done and is doing in their systematic, continual rejection of God. And then I urge you to spend some time praying this weekend, asking God to help you see the recent American journey through His eyes. What will the Holy Spirit of God lead you and me to do?
To help you consider all this… watch this powerful rendition of “America”, and don’t turn it off as the song ends, there’s something special at the end!
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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