OK, I understand that the vast majority of us are pretty much at a point of tuning out anything that has to do with the words, “debt ceiling.” I know that I am. Yet what is happening currently is part of what God is doing in our world. Let me explain a little more by sharing a section of Scripture that I believe will shed a great deal of light on our problems. It is found in the wildly popular book of Habakkuk.
Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by his faith. Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man, so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples. Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him, even mockery and insinuations against him and say, 'Woe to him who increases what is not his— for how long— and makes himself rich with loans?' Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, and those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become plunder for them. Because you have looted many nations, all the remainder of the peoples will loot you— because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town and all its inhabitants. Habakkuk 2:4-8 Here we have Habakkuk warning of problems that are coming to Israel because of choices – moral choices that they have made. His first warning is not about budgets or spending bills – rather it is a warning against pride and not being right with God. He warns about those who give themselves to drunkenness – to being out all the time – and to an appetite that never seems to be satisfied, no matter how much he gets. These sins are at work – and lead to a “woe” statement God makes about them. Before I proceed to the “WOE” that is given I must comment on what has just been said. We have those in our government who think our greatest problems are economic. They fear the debt ceiling, the mounting debt, the lack of jobs, the anemic economy – and see these as the problems. But to co-opt a phrase that was used several elections ago – changing it for our current scenario, “It’s our morals stupid!” Now I am not a fan of using the term, “stupid” and have only done so for the point I am about to make. The core of what God says through Habakkuk has to do with the morals of the people of Israel – not their current economic plans and packages. We are going to have to wake up some day (the sooner the better) and grasp that our problems in America are moral ones. The economy is only a symptom of our malaise. The real problems have been moral – and have been building since the 1940’s or earlier. Really our problems have been building since before the turn of the century. But let me get back to the Habakkuk passage. The “WOE” that is given here is part of a song that is sung taunting this nation. The song, believe it or not, is about accumulating too much debt. The reason the debt is incurred is because the people of that nation want to make themselves rich with their loans. The problem that is presented is that one day, their debt will no longer be sustainable. Then their creditors will rise up suddenly and make their nation plunder. Then, on the back end of this song, we also learn that another reason God is bringing this down upon them is because they have filled their own land with violence and bloodshed. You see, our problem is not the debt – the debt is only a glaring symptom that is supposed to point us to the disease. The disease is pride, greed, a lack of self-control, a desire for excess, violence, and bloodshed. There is one thing I’ve not mentioned – even though it was mentioned in the passage. That is that they no longer live by their faith. Their faith is history – and instead their society now lives as a monument to consumption! The lack of any kind of moral fiber in the nation at large has led to this. They learned to live for their wants – their desires – and spent every penny they had and did not have to try to fulfill them. In the end, they were left still wanting – wanting more – and going in debt further to get more. But there were other problems – which were that they were also shedding blood in the process of living for themselves and their lusts. Let me comment very plainly on all this – and how Habakkuk speaks to the United States of America in our current situation. I know that what I am about to say will really upset some Republicans, fiscal conservatives, and Tea Party members. It really does not matter what financial plan is decided upon by our government leaders – because God is going to judge our nation for reasons other than an insufficient number of Republicans or Tea Party members in our government. By its policies and practices the United States of America has embraced grossly immoral positions. That is what God ultimately is dealing with – and it is those kinds of grossly immoral positions that have led us to the precipice today. Early this century, our society began to embrace sexual immorality. The flappers of the 1920’s shocked society – followed by more immorality through the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s – which was mostly hidden from the public. In the 1960’s what was hidden by one generation was openly embraced by the next. Their open immorality led to the growing experimentation with homosexuality in the 1970’s. In the 1980’s this perversion came out of the closet – and began to assert itself so that now – it is pretty much accepted as mainstream – and has even been legislated as normal by a growing number of states. God, sees such things this way – sex outside of marriage is fornication. Sex outside of marriage vows is adultery. Sex with the same sex is an abomination. What is truly sad is that these issues really aren’t even being debated much any more. The mainstream political agenda has left such things behind – and has decided that moral conservatism has run its course – lost – and has been left on the ash-heap of political discourse. God, on the other hand, has not changed His views – and is going to bring us under judgment for such things. In 1973 the infamous Roe v. Wade decision was made – and it became open season on unborn babies. Since that “Hitleresque” decision we’ve killed over 40 million babies. I say Hitleresque, because we’ve actually dwarfed that man’s genocide by over tripling the number of deaths we’re guilty of as a nation. Hitler did not do his genocide openly – but tried to hide it. Ours is done openly – legally – and at quite a profit to those who run the abortion clinics. But God sees it as the spilling of innocent blood. He sees it as violence of the worst order. We cringe at Hitler’s ovens, showers, and mass graves – yet we continue to burn babies alive in their mother’s wombs, chop them to pieces and vacuum them out, or just let them grow to full term and execute them by sucking their brains out of their heads. Yes, I know what I just wrote is shocking – and many in the Christian community may even criticize me for writing it. Problem is – they will not speak with the same passion about stopping it! I will make a prediction for our country. I hate to make it – because I love the United States of America. But unless we turn morally – it matters little what is done about the debt ceiling or the debt. Our problem is that we’ve left God as a nation. We are arrogant and do not grieve over sin. We don’t pray. We don’t weep over the wound of our people – a wound that may be incurable. We debate what GOP Senators and Representatives should be on the “super-congress,” horrified about whether they will support higher taxes or not. What we should debate is how to get the anemic church of God on her knees to avert judgment that is coming because of the millions of gallons of innocent blood that have been spilled on our land. How can we get ourselves first, then the true church in America to repent and fall on her knees? That is the ONLY issue that matters in this hour. God’s discipline for our nation has far more to do with a sinful church, a moral bankruptcy, and a lack of any spiritual urgency than it does any kind of debt or deficit deal. If you want to know the truth – God is far more concerned with a brokenness deficit among his people – than any monetary deficit in Washington. Until we are moved to action and concern about that issue – it matters little what we do about any other.
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I awoke this morning to the same news many of you did, that the enemy of our nation, Osama Bin Laden, has been killed by our armed forces. Just like all of you this news made me proud of our armed forces and those in our Intelligence Community who worked so hard to find and dispose of this mass murderer. I am grateful that this man is no longer out there plotting new and more horrific terrorist actions that seek to destroy innocent citizens. Now he is facing the judgment of God—not in the presence of 72 virgins, but in hell where all those who do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will face their eternal demise. I do not delight in this end for him – for I wish that he had come to Christ and had been saved as a result of hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now let me share something that may not paint so rosy a picture. I share this only because I have a bad feeling that all this will blind us to what is really going on—and was the whole reason for Bin Laden’s rise to prominence as an adversary of the United States. Many, in light of the recent events of Osama Bin Laden’s death, have viewed this as a tremendous victory for the United States. I even heard one commentator call this a sign that the United States is not on the decline. If that is how the majority of people in our nation see this, as a sign that we are now on the rise, they really don’t get why Bin Laden ever came on the scene in the first place. To help you understand where I am coming from I will take you to a section of Scripture that will help illumine us to God’s purposes in all this. In First Kings chapter 11 we read of how Solomon’s heart turned from the Lord. Solomon married many foreign women who in turn led his heart from following the Lord. He began worshipping other gods because of the influence of these women (something God warned of in the book of Deuteronomy). As a result of Solomon’s sin—we read the following in verse14. “Then the LORD raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the royal line in Edom.” It is wise for us to see that due to the sin of God’s people—GOD raised up this adversary. It was in fulfillment of God’s promise to discipline His people if they turned away from Him. Before we leave this chapter of Scripture it would behoove us to also look at verses 23-25 as well, “God also raised up another adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah. He gathered men to himself and became leader of a marauding band, after David slew them of Zobah; and they went to Damascus and stayed there, and reigned in Damascus. So he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, along with the evil that Hadad did; and he abhorred Israel and reigned over Aram.” Solomon and Israel had a problem on their hands. It seems that two people, Hadad and Rezon, were causing serious problems for Israel. When I read of Rezon’s actions, I see an eerie parallel to what we are experiencing today. Rezon had a “marauding band” of men who did evil in Israel similar to the evil that Hadad was doing. One might even see them as an ancient counterpart to the terrorists that are causing so much trouble today. Yet the part of this passage that causes me the most discomfort is the statement that God was the One Who raised up these two, might we go as far to say, terrorists. His reasons for doing so were that Solomon and Israel had turned from Him and turned to other Gods. They had turned to Ashtoreth and her sexually immoral worship. They had turned to Baal and the sexual immorality that attended his rituals. They had turned to Molech who required his followers to offer up their infant children as part of their worship. Because of these things God began to discipline Solomon and Israel. They did not listen – but continued in their ways – and the result was Israel’s demise. If, during that time, either Hadad or Rezon had been caught and killed, Israel would have rejoiced. They may have even broken into spontaneous choruses of “God bless Israel” on their streets and in the subways. Yet in spite of their adversary being brought to justice, they would have missed the whole point of God’s purpose in raising up such an adversary in the first place. God did not raise up these men to help Israel become more patriotic – he raised them up to wake up Israel and bring her to repentance. He wanted Israel to notice that they were no longer protected by God. This was because Israel had lost favor with God – DUE TO HER SIN. If these “terrorists” were killed – God would only raise up new ones because His purpose in all this was to bring Israel to repentance. No repentance and return to God – no end to the adversaries that would be raised up to get her attention. Now, let me take what has been said to this point and apply it to our current situation. What I am about to say will upset many. Let me state here that I am a patriot – and that I bleed red, white, and blue. But we need to face facts today – biblical facts. Our greatest enemy is not – nor has it ever been Osama Bin Laden. What is destroying the United States is not a terrorist or any group of terrorists. What is destroying our nation is the sin which we have embraced. We have turned from the Lord and turned to our own set of false gods. We have worshipped materialism, power, money, and sex in America. Since we have called ourselves a “Christian nation” (which I believe is accurate due to how our forefathers founded this country), we need to realize that all Bin Laden was to us was a manifestation of God’s discipline and call for us to repent and return to Him. Yes, Bin Laden is dead – but God can raise up a thousand more just like him to continue our discipline. The truth is that there are already thousands of other Radical Islamic terrorists who want nothing more than to destroy our nation and our way of life. But our problem is not Radical Islam either. It is our sin – it is our immorality – it is the murder of the innocents that we call abortion on demand – it is our embrace of homosexuality – it is the lack of God’s power, prayer, and passion for the gospel in His church. I am going to be bold enough to say that God did not allow Osama Bin Laden’s discovery and subsequent destruction so that we could sing patriotic songs and think that we’re back on the rise as a nation. My guess is that this will become clear in the next 6-12 months. During that time I fear that terrorism will rise and new attacks will happen on American soil. I fear that our financial system will continue to deteriorate if not collapse altogether. I fear that things like famine and plague may strike our nation in ways that we’ve never seen before. If we think that this has happened so that we can rejoice and celebrate without repentance and brokenness, without tearful confession of sin, without calls to prayer for revival in the church and awakening among the lost, we are doomed. This has happened to show brief mercy in the midst of God’s discipline. That discipline will continue if God’s desired purpose of repentance and return are not embraced in the church and in our nation. I will end this article by asking a question. With this event have we seen repentance among God’s people today? With this event have we experienced a greater conviction that our nation is on the wrong track morally and spiritually? With this event have we watched a turn from worshipping the gods of our culture, sexual immorality, homosexuality, and abortion to name a few, and a turn instead to the God of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as His message to the whole world? If we are not watching these things happen, I would strongly suggest that what we will watch is God, raising up an even more formidable adversary to continue His discipline until we do repent? May God bless America . . . with a repentant, broken, praying church who has returned to Him with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength. |
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