Is America headed
for Divine judgement because of its disregard for human life and its contempt
for the most vulnerable among us? Consider what just happened in the state of
New York. Legislators approved the killing of unborn babies right up to the day
of birth and then stood and cheered when it was announced that it had passed.
The law also removed
protection for an infant accidentally born alive during an abortion. In other
words, even a live baby outside the womb can be killed. Adding insult to
injury, the governor ordered the World Trade Center tower to be lit pink to
celebrate this law that will inflict untold suffering and death on countless babies.
Since abortion was
legalized in 1973, over 50 million innocent babies have had their lives snuffed
out because someone considered them an inconvenience.
Will God wink and
turn a blind eye to this holocaust and disregard for innocent life?
America’s Founders
Believed that God Judges Nations
America’s Founders
believed that God judges nations as well individuals—that He judges individuals
for personal sins and nations for national-institutional sins. This was the
basis for much controversy at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when
accommodation was made to the southern slave states for fear that a successful Union
could not be established without their involvement.
The Great Awakening
(1726-70) had unleashed anti-slavery sentiments, especially in the North, as
the revivalists purposely reached out to blacks, both slave and free. As a
result, when the separation
from England came in 1776, several states, including Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York immediately
took steps to abolish slavery—something they could not do under George III.
Founders, such as
Benjamin Franklin, released their slaves and began to advocate for abolition. Most
Founders had come to agree with John Adams who said,
Every measure of prudence . . .
ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the
United States. I have throughout my whole life held the practice of slavery in
abhorrence.
Nonetheless, at the
Constitutional Convention, the majority was willing to cut a deal with the
southern slave states to gain their participation. Some of the Founders, however,
such as such as George Mason, saw this as an ungodly compromise with evil and
vehemently protested.
Mason, who is called
the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” warned of Divine judgment if the slavery
question was not settled then and there. He declared,
Every
master is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven upon a
country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next
world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects,
Providence punishes national sins by national calamities (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 9-100.
Thomas Jefferson
issued a similar warning, for it was in the context of the continuance of
slavery in America that he warned,
God who gave us life,
gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we
have removed their only firm basis, a
conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God?
That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my
country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep
forever (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 10).
Was the Civil War God’s Judgement for National Sin?
Many see the Civil
War with its widespread destruction and excessive loss of life as the
fulfillment of the warnings of judgement issued by Mason, Jefferson, and others.
The destruction of property and the loss of life was truly apocalyptic.
Estimates of the loss of life range
from 625,000 to over 700,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. By
way of comparison, in WWII 50,000 American soldiers lost their lives. In the
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan less than 10,000 Americans have died. More
lives were lost in the Civil War than in all wars combined from the American
Revolution through the Korean Conflict.
The magnitude of the loss is
amplified by the fact that the United States population at the time was only 31
million. This would be comparable to 7 or 8 million Americans losing their lives
today. Add to that the fact that this war—the most devastating of all wars--was
fought on American soil.
It was truly a devastating time. The
wounded and maimed were everywhere. Weeping could be heard in homes throughout
America. In many homes both father and sons were missing. Hardly a family could
be found that had not lost multiple family members.
Mercy Precedes Judgement
Four years before the onset of the
Civil War a great prayer awakening engulfed America. Churches, halls, fire
stations, and auditoriums throughout the nation filled with people wanting to
pour out their hearts to God. It seemed that a spirit of prayer came upon the
entire nation.
Charles Finney, the great revivalist,
said that people preferred prayer meetings to meetings where preaching was the
central activity. He said the attitude seemed to be, “We have heard preaching
until we are hardened; it is time to pray.”
At the height of this revival it was
estimated that 50,000 people were being converted to Christ every week.
Although its greatest impact was the fall and winter of 1857-58, it continued
into the War and, no doubt, saved the nation from total ruin.
The Reason for the Prayer Awakening
Some have suggested that the Prayer
Revival of 1857-58 was an outpouring of God’s mercy preceding national judgment
for the national sin of slavery—that it was God giving the nation an
opportunity to deal with this sin and thereby avoid the coming judgment.
Others would emphasize that the
revival was God’s way of strengthening and preparing the nation for the
terrible time of suffering it would endure through the Civil War. In their
excellent book, FIREFALL: How God Has
Shaped History Through Revivals, McDow and Reid write,
The Prayer Revival laid the
foundation to give spiritual resources that would help the nation survive this
conflict. Roy Fish notes that one of the major functions of the great awakening
of 1858 had to do with its preparation of the country for its fratricidal war
which clouded the horizon” (Hyatt, TheGreat Prayer Awakening, 34-35).
Abraham Lincoln Considered the Civil War a Divine Judgement
President Abraham Lincoln believed
that the War to be an expression of Divine judgement on the land. He made this
clear when he issued a proclamation for a national day of “humiliation, prayer
and fasting” for April 30, 1863. Writing in the midst of the War, he declared,
And
whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence
upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in
humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy
and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy
Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose
God is Lord:
And,
insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this
world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now
desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our
presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole
people (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 36).
How Judgement Can be Averted
With the rejection of God and truth
in our culture and such contempt for life in the womb, can America presume that it
will avoid judgement from God?
This judgement does not come by God
thundering directly from heaven, but by Him allowing the consequences of human
choices to unfold. Both Scripture and history teach us that God, as the moral
governor of the universe, providentially allows people and nations
to suffer the consequences of their own deeds, when they refuse His grace.
Both history and Scripture also teach
us that the future of America rests squarely on the shoulders of the professing
Christians of this nation. This is borne out by the words of Jesus in Matthew
5:13 where He compares his followers to salt, warning that if salt loses it
saltiness—that quality of tartness and pungent flavor that gives it its value—
then it becomes useless.
You are the salt
of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is
then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
One of salt’s most important
qualities that made it valuable in the ancient world was that of a
preservative. Salt resists corruption and spoilage. Salted meat lasts for long
periods of time, even in warm weather, and before refrigeration, this made it
especially valuable.
But salt that has lost its pungency
and strength is no longer of value and is discarded, trampled underfoot by men, Jesus said. This reminds us of what may
have happened in Russia in 1917.
I cannot document this, but some
years ago I heard a lecture in which it was said that the very weekend the
Bolsheviks took control of Russia, the largest church in that nation was having
a conference to determine whether a cloth should be used on the communion
table. They lost their saltiness and became trodden underfoot by an atheistic
communist regime.
Here are five ways the American
church can be salt and thereby restrain the moral corruption around us and
avert Divine judgement.
1.
Do
not compromise Jesus as the only way to God (John 14:6).
2.
Be
committed to God’s word as the ultimate source of truth (John 8:31-32).
3.
Love
the praise of God more than the praise of men (John 12:43).
4.
Refuse
to be conformed to popular culture (Romans 12:2).
5.
Speak
the truth in love and stand for life (Ephesians 4:15).
I would also encourage you to follow
the lead of Vice-President Mike Pence and begin to pray for another national,
spiritual awakening throughout our land. Since its inception, God has
graciously sent such awakenings at critical moments in our nation’s history. In
II Chronicles 7:14 He has promised to do it again, If My people . . ..
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