O America, Thou Hast Destroyed Thyself
There are some bearing a message these days that the fall of this country is soon to come. By a secular view, more than one voice has pointed out the dismal economic situation found here, while others have at times spoken of the nation's government and military woes. Then there are those among the church world who feel they have been inspired to preach this message, that the fall of America is coming. Dealing with reality, however, we can see this country has already reached a pathetically fallen state. True, the buildings are still standing; yet so they were in Sodom when the inhabitants of that city had sunken to extreme levels of ungodliness. In fact, is is very possible that new buildings were in the process of going up, for, as Jesus said, "They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:28-29) Thus, while the cities are not physically in ruins nor the economy totally on the rocks, yet surely the nation is fallen.
The whole world lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19)
Evidence of this fall is not hard to find; indeed, for many of us, citing examples of it is superfluous. Nevertheless, for the skeptic, it can be pointed out that the anuual homicide rate in this country is well over 20 thousand and divorce cases per years number more than a million; that literally tens of millions of Americans are alcoholics and/or given to drugs; that teen-age pregnancies are at an epidemic level; that the average American adult watches over thirty hours of TV per week while knowledge of the Scriptures is next to nonexistent, and that open sodomites are being appointed to positions of authority and becoming increasingly accepted by this society. Consider also all the blood being shed by means of abortion in this country (for money, of course), the mass number of men and women stealing others' wives and husbands, the alarming amount of sex operations being performed, and the multiple accounts of Catholic priests committing villainy with children.
Corruption in this country is ubiquitous; almost everywhere we look in America, unrighteousness abounds (1 John 5:19). Whether It be the educational system, the legal system, the governmental system, the businesses, the media, the medical profession or other institutions, it seems that practically every organization in this country at virtually all levels is overrun with wickedness. Of course, this is to be expected, since the unifying force and common goal of so many here is the "American ideal" or the "American dream," which is the epitome of greed, pride and the pleasures of sin.
"The Gentiles ... have given themselves over to lasciviousness" (Ephesians 4:17-19)
We do not wish to imply that America is a once righteous nation gone astray; rather it is more akin to a bad bunch of grapes gone rotten. The country has abased itself to shockingly new lows. We can compare its state to that of, say, around the turn of the [20th] century to validate this point. What were the issues of that time? There was some stir over the length of women's skirts; the New York Times referred to Coney Island in an 1890's article as "Sodom by the Sea," and in 1900 a woman was arrested in New York City for smoking a cigarette. Things like smoking, drunkenness, fornication, adultery and immodest clothing have, of course, become rather commonplace in American, but this is due to the fact that this society has become accustomed to ungodliness. The issues of today have to do with things like mass legal abortion, the legalization of drugs, whether the consenting age for fornication should be lowered or abolished, and other subjects not even worthy of printing. ("For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret." – Ephesians 5:12).
Even the church establishment, which theoretically is supposed to be a place for teaching and upholding Christian convictions, is in a very poor state (Rev. 3:17). Many used to preach against lascivious clothing, TV and other types of unrighteousness; but this sort of thing has become exceedingly rare. Without multiplying examples, one can safely say that there is hardly any sin listed in the Scriptures which is not being committed by at least some significant number of those who profess Christianity in America (consider 2 Timothy 3:1-5).
The true state of this country could be expressed by the phrase "enemies of the cross" (Philippians 3:18-19). They are forgetting God, and they are being turned to hell (Psalm 19:7). In fact, it is evident that America is following the same track as the one Sodom took. They began with pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness (Ezekiel 16:49 and Genesis 13:10), then gave themselves over to fornication and, when that became old, started to go after strange flesh (Jude 7). Surely we can see the same pattern in this country today.
"Thou has no healing medicines" (Jeremiah 30:13)
Some may feel that perhaps better leaders in government could put the nation on the right track; but we shouldn't kid ourselves. They have reasoned away in their minds the true Ruler, and with that accomplished, have done away with His rules. What remains therefore is what we see about us, and we shouldn't be so gullible as to believe that somehow American will ever turn and submit itself to Jesus in any real sense (Luke 19:14).
Soon Jesus will bring all this wickedness to a screeching halt. Many, as the Scriptures say, will be taken by surprise on that day, and will miss out on eternal life (Matthew 7:13,14,21-23). It is recorded that only the righteous, and righteousness, will be in that world, in His kingdom (1 Peter 4:18, 2 Peter 3:13). It is not our intent certainly, just to try to scare people; but rather we desire to be a warning for all, as our Savior was. (See, for example, Matthew 24:4, Mark 12:38 and Luke 12:15). If it means disconcerting some who would otherwise be at ease, so be it. Surely it is better to get alarmed now and to awake to righteousness (1 Corinthians 15:34), than to continue in the lazy daze so many Americans are in and end up confronting the day of judgment unprepared.
To many Americans, we are sure the foregoing message would be unpalatable in the extreme. In fact, some televangelist types might even consider it quite heretical to say the state of this country is well described by the passages Micah 7:2-4 and Hosea 4:1-2. Nevertheless, we are aware that our brethren in the Old Testament suffered considerably for speaking against the nation among which they lived. One prophet is even recorded to have fled to another country, and was brought back to be executed by the king for this very reason (see Jeremiah 26:20-23). So let us hold to our convictions in word and in deed, however unpopular they may be. Truth is not arrived at by majority vote.