We set aside a few minutes most Sunday mornings to identify connections between unfulfilled Bible prophecies and current news & events.
Today I want to suggest a way of answering the question, “Where is America in Bible prophecy?”
The OT book Jeremiah presents a universal principle regarding how God deals with all nations. “The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.”[1]
Is our great nation doing “evil?” If so, is it enough to bring “disaster” upon us?
There is a scale for gauging a nation’s evil. It is found in the first chapter of the NT letter to the Romans. God explains that there are three milestones a nation will pass on its descent into evil. Three times we read, “Therefore God also gave them up…”[2]
God gradually abandons a nation who willfully rejects Him because that is what they choose.
The first milestone is rejecting biblical morality. “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves…” Historians cite the 1940s and 50s as the beginning of the trend toward immorality in America. It began the drift to “the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 70s, which included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships. Attitudes towards contraception relaxed. Around 1960 the birth control pill played a significant role in normalizing sex outside of marriage.
Milestone #2 – “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”[3]
Homosexuality, especially its acceptance, has been spreading for several decades. It may not be PC or WOKE to say this, but when God says homosexuals receive in themselves the penalty, the AIDS epidemic immediately comes to mind. The first recorded cases in the US were on June 5th, 1981.
We are decades past the second milestone.
The next milestone, the final, is a potent, pervasive immorality that is “approved” by the majority of people. Sexual deviancy is taken to whole new levels. Examples to support it in our culture would be the sick revelations coming from Epstein Island & Sean Combs’ so-called Freak-offs.
At milestone three the majority of unbelievers are characterized by “a debased mind.” It means that they have no conscience, and that they are increasingly unable to apply reason.
The “debased mind” reveals itself when otherwise intelligent people pursue
outrageous beliefs & behaviors.
When you cannot define what a woman is… Or you encourage men who say they are women to compete against women in sporting events… Or you want to mutilate children without parental consent… Milestone #3 is fast-fading in your rear-view mirror.
John Adams’ comment upon the Constitution of our United States is appropriate here. He said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
It’s not hopeless! If we “turn from evil,” God will “relent” from our being torn down. And while it is true that God must bring disaster on a wayward nation, we know that He desires all to be saved.
Judgment always begins in the house of the Lord.[4] We ought therefore to be pursuing holiness. The Church on Earth, indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, restrains evil. We will be better at it if we pursue holiness.
Jesus promised to resurrect & rapture His Church prior to His Second Coming, and before the time of Great Tribulation would come upon the whole Earth.[5]
The resurrection and rapture of the church is presented as an imminent event. It could happen anytime. Right now, for example.
Are you ready for the rapture? If not, get ready, stay ready, and keep looking up.
Ready or not Jesus is coming!