September 19, 2007

THE FATE OF AMERICA

In approximately 605 BC, God pronounced judgment on Jerusalem and Judah by allowing Jerusalem to be destroyed and Israel to be taken into captivity by the Babylonians. The prophet, Jeremiah, had been warning the people for some 23 years to repent and turn from their sin. They refused. They ignored his warnings. God sent other prophets who also warned the people to turn from their evil ways and turn back to him. Again, they refused. By the time Babylon was finished the whole region would become a wasteland.

Lamentations is a chilling book to read. Listen to just a portion of it:

Judah has gone into exile

following affliction and harsh slavery;

she lives among the nations

but finds no place to rest.

The roads to Zion mourn,

for no one comes to the appointed festivals.

All her gates are deserted;

her priests groan,

her young women grieve

and she herself is bitter.

Her adversaries have become

her masters;

her enemies are at ease

for the Lord has made her suffer

because of her many transgressions.

Her children have gone away

as captives before the adversary.

All her splendor has vanished

from Daughter Zion

Her leaders are like stags

that find no pasture.

During the days of her affliction

and homelessness

Jerusalem remembers all her

precious belongings

that were hers in days of old.

When her people fell

into the adversary's hands

she had no one to help.

The adversaries looked at her,

laughing at her downfall.

Jerusalem had sinned grievously;

therefore, she has become an object of scorn

All who honored her now despise her.

The Lord has rejected all the

mighty men within me [Jerusalem]

He has summoned an army against me

to crush my young warriors,

The Lord has trampled

Virgin Daughter Judah

like grapes in a winepress.

How the Lord has overshadowed

Daughter Zion with His anger!

He has thrown down Israel's glory

from heaven to earth.

He has abandoned his footstool

in the day of His anger.

Those slain by the sword are

better off than those slain by hunger

who waste away, pierced [with pain]

because the fields lack produce.

The hands of compassionate women

have cooked their own children;

they became their food

during the destruction of my dear people.

The kings of the earth

and all the world's inhabitants

did not believe

that an enemy or adversary

could enter Jerusalem's gates.

[Yet it happened] because of the sins

of her prophets

and the guilt of her priests,

who shed the blood of the

righteous within her.

Jerusalem and Judah, God's chosen people-Israel, had repeatedly rebelled against His laws and refused to obey Him. They had taken up pagan practices. They had defiled the Temple. They had become wicked and immoral, refusing to follow Him. They had become idol worshippers. God warned and He warned and He warned. He pled with them to repent, to turn away from these evil practices, to follow Him and to obey. They refused. So judgment came to Jerusalem and Judah. 70 years of captivity! Jerusalem destroyed.

So.............what will happen to America? Reading these passages in Lamentations, one cannot help but wonder "How long, Lord? How long before you will judge America for her sinfulness?"

Sodom and Gomorrah were "exceedingly wicked". God wiped them off the face of the earth.

Other nations as well have suffered destruction down through history. I once heard it said that Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, commented that if God did not judge America, He would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!

I have lived long enough to see a HUGE moral decline in our culture. One only has to look at one sit-com on television and compare it to an "oldie but goodie" like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER or I LOVE LUCY to see the difference in a nutshell! Some may laugh and call those old shows "old fashioned". But many also call God's Word out of date and out of sync with today's society. Yet God says His Word never changes. It is the same yesterday, today and forever more. His laws have not changed.

Will America fall like Jerusalem? Will she be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah?