AMERICA IS A MESS

 AMERICA IS A MESS

 America is in a mess spiritually, morally, and politically.

How should we understand what is happening? Should our emphasis be one of trying to save America?

First, how does God view America or any nation?

“Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales.” (Isaiah 40:15)

Should we look to man to solve the problems in this nation?

“It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man” (Psalm 118:8).

“Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?” (Isaiah 2:22)

“Oh, grant us help against the foe, for vain is the salvation of man! With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.” (Psalm 60:11–12)

Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. ‘Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.’” (Jeremiah 17:5–7)

Should we look to politicians to solve the problems?

“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.” (Psalm 146:3–4)

Should we look to an army to solve the problems?

“The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.” (Psalm 33:16–20)

What is wrong with the nation?

To quote my good friend Ray Comfort, this nation could be summed up this way:

“The nation forgot the Lord their God who had blessed them abundantly, and had instead given itself to lawlessness, and slaughtering their own offspring in the womb. Therefore, the judgment of God fell upon them.”

In many ways, this fits with what God was saying to the people at the time of Hosea.

“The LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land.” (Hosea 4:1)

How then should we deal with these problems?

America or any nation is not going to last forever, but the souls of people will live forever. Surely our emphasis should be on seeing souls saved for eternity through salvation in Christ.

“This Jesus. . . . And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11–12)

The same God who spoke to Solomon about the people of Israel, is the same God who is watching over everything today:

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Yes, so many people in this nation, including many rulers (politicians, judges, etc.), have turned their backs on God. They have rejected God and his Word in the education systems. They have sacrificed millions of children to the god of self. They have rejected God in many ways through rejecting prayer, rejecting nativity scenes and crosses, and replacing the truth of God as Creator for the lie of evolution. (Even many church leaders and Christian academics have compromised God’s Word with evolutionary ideas.)

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (Romans 1:21–23)

How does God view the plans of rulers who reject him?

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, ‘As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.’” (Psalm 2:1–6)

Is America under judgment? This description in Romans chapter 1 certainly fits with what we are experiencing.

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:28–32)

What can we do? We need to tell the nations about the one true God and about the message of salvation that only he provides:

“Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.”

(Psalm 96:1–6)

And we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) for the souls of those who have rejected him.

And remember — there’s a raging spiritual war, but:

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” 2 Corinthians 10:4.

Ken Hamm