The US has been warned! Gasp!

Our good friend, Jason Lovelace over at Rapture Ready, has a dire warning for all of us in the United States. It seems the protecting hand of God is about to be removed! Gasp!

A Warning to the United States of America

* Cue dramatic music *

Dun, dun….dun!!!!

Key Scripture:

Judges 2.16-17 – Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not so.

So you’re saying that judges are whores who make judgments based on the teachings of the Wrong Gods. Got it.

The United States has long been a bastion of Christian ideals, religious freedom, and liberty.

As well as Jewish ideals, Muslim ideals, Buddist ideals, atheist ideals, and so on.

Everywhere U.S. Military Personnel have gone, fought, bled, and died, freedom has come on their heels, including the freedom to worship as one chooses.

Perhaps not exactly true all of the time, but it’s generally been the goal.

Unfortunately in these days of post-modernistic personal subjectivity, anything Christian has become more and more ridiculed, more and more marginalized, and seen more and more of Christian Freedoms curtailed n the name of Separation of Church and State.

Really? Where are the laws being passed against Christians, say making a Christian not competent to sit on a jury because of his beliefs? Or proclaiming Christians as heretics and thus torturing them all to death and taking their stuff? Or the SWAT teams stopping people from going to their church and preventing them from praying at gunpoint?

Could the USA be in God’s crosshairs for judgment?

No.

As Israel was judged, time and time again by God for her many trespasses, could God be warning the USA that such is coming to her?

Again, no.

The USA: Founded on Religious Freedom…

Like it or not, believe it or not, nor view it as really true, the United States of America was founded as a place where the worship of God was to be free.

Yes!

The second permanent colony in the USA was established specifically for the purpose of allowing the Puritans to worship God without the interference of the British Crown. In every subsequent colony, religious freedom, the freedom to worship God as one chose, was established. The freedom to worship God is also an inherent and unalienable right of all Americans, as written in the Declaration of Independence and established n the Constitution of the United States of America in 1789.

The first amendment was added in 1791, actually.

In the first two centuries of the United States’ existence as a nation, God was freely prayed to, Jesus Christ freely spoken of, the Bible freely taught, and worship freely allowed in the US Public forum.

Same as today!

Anywhere and everywhere one could travel in the USA, God – though not always followed nor obeyed, was, at the very least, respected.

And you have the right to respect your myths as much as you like. I don’t see the problem here.

Even early TV Shows, movies, and literature, even if God wasn’t mentioned directly, nor given the proper obedience, He was respected for being God, even in such characters as Otis the town drunk of Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show.

And if a TV writer wants to do that, he is perfectly free to do so. Also, and stay with me here because it’s important to understand this, if a TV writer does not want to do that he is also perfectly free to do so.

You see, that’s what freedom is. It’s the freedom to do stuff.

They Went a Whoring After Other gods…

A question: Is the USA still a Christian Nation?

I hope not. It never was, as per the founding fathers and the US Congress and it never has been since.

Is Christianity and Christian Values, and Jesus Christ, still the primary driving force in US Culture today?

Where they are contrary to freedom and democracy, I sure hope they aren’t.

Looking at American Mainstream Media, one can soon and easily see that the USA is no longer the home to Christian Values that she once was.

Yay!

Today, US post-modern culture continually mocks and marginalizes values that fly in the face of what is fun, desired, and looked upon as civilized.

Damning people to hell, torture, religious wars, and so on.

Fifty years ago, a woman who was found to be with child by someone she was not married to, was viewed as one with clouded morals at the very least. In these days, single mothers are the new heroines, supported and upheld as examples of undying courage, unparalleled strength, and models to others.

So we’re now supporting and helping these women instead of vilifying them? I heartily approve!

Single motherhood is just one symptom of a culture that has made sex and sexual desire one of its gods.

Or perhaps it’s that whole thing of perpetuating the species.

Another example is abortion on demand. In ancient Canaan, the god Molech required the adherent to sacrifice his or her (or their) firstborn child on the altar. In today’s world, more and more expectant mothers are sacrificing their unborn children on the altar of sexual freedom, convenience, and self.

Notice the difference between being born and not being born. That’s a significant difference.

More and more of the USA’s workforce and working-age population are sacrificing their values, their consciences, and their families on the altar of big money, corporate power, and/or financial success.

No. They’re sacrificing your values, your conscience, and your view of what they should have for a family.

It is easy to see that the USA is now a country where every other god under the sun is given privilege and place. Just as Ancient Israel under the judges, and later, the kings, which turned away from God, the USA has also turned away from the God of her forefathers.

The USA is a country where every god is given a place. We’re working on giving those who have no god a place as well. That’s what freedom actually means. It does not mean that your religion should have a special place of privledge.

Freedom To Worship or Freedom From Religion?

In 1962, the United States Supreme Court, in the landmark case Murray v. Curlett, made the decision to remove administration-sponsored prayer from Public School.

Yay for common sense, rational thinking, and helping religions stay clear of being dominated by the federal government!

Since that time, Jesus Christ and the freedom to worship his name have taken a long and hard slide downward.

This claim is true. Of course, Mr. Christ was elevated far above where he should’ve been, but there’s no argument that he’s dropped from that pinnacle.

Where even into the late 1950s and even into the `60s, God was at the very least respected in US society at large, the long slide that leads us to these post-modern 21^st century years now sees anything about God, any mention of Jesus Christ, and any quote from the bible ridiculed, mocked, and marginalized to the point that church by and large has become more of a social club than a soul-saving station.

I don’t see the problem there at all.

This is a fact that is most glaringly seen in mainstream media outlets. Hollywood rarely – if ever – presents the viewing public with anything that remotely uplifts the name of Jesus Christ.

If the people are clearly showing that the idea of your myth laying a guilt trip on them does not help, then perhaps you should listen.

Quite often in modern motion picture production, the villain is some crazed maniac who happens to claim being saved and quotes Scripture verbatim.

There’s a reason that this image is so believable. It’s because crazed maniacs show up every day quoting scripture.

In television, Biblical ideals – once revered and respected — are now mocked, decried as ancient and unnecessary,

True. We’ve figured out more about the world than ancient goat herders knew.

with only the old, the feeble, the mentally challenged, or the ignorant being portrayed as believing in such.

False. There are plenty of people who are young, not feeble, not mentally challenged, or not ignorant who are religious believers on TV. A brief jaunt through the channels, even if we don’t count the religious channels or specifically religious shows, will demonstrate this clearly.

More and more in radio and modern music, every kind of filth and sin is glorified,

There’s an odd story on this. Watch an episode of arguably the best demonstrator of this premise, the Jerry Springer Show and something odd shows up in every single episode. All those people who cheat on their spouses have sex with their dogs, deal drugs to their children’s friends, and so on are constantly hammered by Jerry’s audience.

If you want to know what’s bad to do, listen to the idiots on stage and watch the reaction of the crowd. They know that cheating is bad and they vilify the cheater. They know that dealing drugs is bad and they vilify the drug dealer. About the only thing they really get wrong is when they cheer the fights. That’s a problem across our society that probably should be addressed – our sanctioning of violence instead of questioning it.

while God is mocked, moral values defamed, and Christian values torn to shreds and cast out.

This would not be a problem if your God taught things worth learning, if your morals didn’t include killing and torturing people and Christian values didn’t include inciting hatred toward non believers.

Where homosexuality was once dealt with as a mental illness, it is now accepted even in many mainstream US Churches.

Good for them! It isn’t an illness and we shouldn’t vilify people for it.

Sex outside of marriage, once decried as totally sinful and immoral by the Church, now has seen some denominations declare that no matter what is done to teach them otherwise, teens cannot control themselves and have given allowances for sexual activity aside from marriage (mainstream media long ago cast aside sexual restraint and sexual purity as something unable to be accomplished [with the former] and only for spinsters and prudes out-of-touch with reality [for the latter]).

Good! Punishing people for violating rules that make no sense is…follow me on this one…a bad thing. It harms people without reason and tears apart families for no benefit. I know this is a difficult concept to grasp, so take it slow and sound it out: It is not a good thing to punish people who are not doing anything to hurt anyone else.

God has slowly been replaced by something else, and that something else is bringing forth wretched fruit.

Says you. Rational people disagree.

God is Still a Judge!!!

Who fails to show up to every court we look for him in. It’s annoying. If he wasn’t God, we’d have fired him a long time ago for failure to show up to work.

In these post-modern days, people who are exposed to or presented with their sins usually retort with, “Doesn’t Jesus say ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’? How dare you judge me?!?”

Which is odd since what you’ve been complaining about is people mocking and marginalizing Christianity. What the responder here is doing is accepting it and arguing within its framework. Staying in the framework of sin and judgment seems like a clear win for your religion.

I think a more rational response to your claim of sin is that we don’t choose to play by the rules handed down by middle eastern tribes wandering in the desert. Your religion invented sin and has done it’s level best to foist it on us – your religion can keep it.

Yet the fact of the matter is, these people go on their merry ways totally oblivious to the glaring fact that God will one day judge them, should they remain unrepentant of sin. The Bible is rife with example after example of the Lord God passing judgment and carrying out sentence against the children of Israel for turning away from him. Time and time again, after warning them through his word, through prophets, and through even miracles, God was forced to move his hand of judgment against Israel precisely because of their continual rejection of him.

And real life is curiously absent of confirming examples of this. We’ll stay in real life and you can stay in your fantasy world. It’s probably best that way.

History is further rife with nation after nation being reduced from golden-age glory to ashes of destruction because her people turned away from Jesus Christ, rejected the Bible, and changed from God to false gods.

* pulls up a chair *

Oh…do tell. I’m sure this will be good!

From Ancient Rome, which persecuted the church of Jesus Christ,

Didn’t Rome convert to Christianity, thus paving the way for it to flourish as a religion and then the whole empire collapsed?

I’m getting mixed signals here.

to the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which once boasted a queen who read her Bible and prayed daily (Queen Victoria) to a nation where Islam is gaining serious ground on the church

Aren’t you supposed to be talking about nations that rejected Mr. Christ and thus were smited by God? I’m not seeing the smiting that Britain has received.

(which has all but ceased in being the soul-saving station she was ordained to be centuries ago).

Stay on target here, man. We’re talking about nations getting hammered by God. That’s important stuff!

God still allows disaster when nations reject him; he still pulls his hand of protection away from countries – though historically Christ-loving – which have turned away from him.

Examples please. The ones above suck.

Conclusion – For the USA, It’s Just the Tip of the Iceberg.

Many in the United States of America asked this question after the September 11^th, 2001, terrorist attacks: “Is God Judging the USA?”

The answer is no.

For the USA, those terrorist attacks – as tragic and devastating as they were – were just the very tip of the iceberg. The judgments carried out on Israel, on Egypt, and on every other nation mentioned in the Bible as having turned away from God, are very graphic in nature, and such has yet to fall on the United States.

Good! And here I was thinking that you were proposing that the Christian God uses Muslim terrorists to carry out his smiting. I’m glad to hear that you backed off on that one.

For decades, the United States was the bastion of Christian Values,

As well as every other religion, as per above.

the haven for all those who desired to be free to worship God without Government interference.

That’s a great plan that we should stick to.

As stated above, however, all things Christian are now being herded into a corner and into an area of society that may well be the point of no return.

As demonstrated by those laws against going to church that were just enacted…wait a minute…that didn’t happen? Pardon me.

The USA has replaced the God of her Founding Fathers

Which was not the Christian God at all.

with the false gods of self, convenience, lust, power, sex, and greed. If we, as the citizenry of the United States, do not turn back to God, worse judgments – far, FAR worse – than what we saw on 9/11/01 will take place.

You’ll keep writing this kind of drivel?

God – as he has done with every other nation in history – will remove his hand of protection, and the USA will surely fall just as Rome and every other adanced, technological civilization has fallen when they rejected God.

So queue up the dramatic music again, eh?

Only a Holy Ghost Revival, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1800s, can possibly save the USA at this point. When Israel turned, she was saved, but when she continued down the path of idolatry and godlessness, she suffered. It will be the same for the USA if we don’t change out ways.

Prayer – Father, we need revival! Bring it to us, the USA, we pray, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

For thousands of years people have been inventing and praying to some god or another for protection and salvation. According to this very article, it hasn’t worked as God has still smited all of these nations, some of whom were directly responsible for creating Christianity!

A good operating definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. I’m just saying.