As the planet Earth has embarked upon another year of journey around the Sun, it is evident that today’s world system is in a state of expectancy for radical changes beyond proportions heretofore seen. With the recent presidential elections, “political correctness” in America is rejoicing over an authoritative voice that openly has arisen against the camp of theism. Such a sobering reality brings to mind the words of the sage of Jerusalem,
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler: Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. . . . Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning (Ecclesiastes 10:5-7, 16).
America today sits paralyzed in wonder over the fearful and alarming cries of economic debt. The sight and sound of such a debt is so staggering that the human mind cannot even fathom its reality. The trillions of dollars of past debt that have progressively haunted us for several years have—in just a few short weeks—become a faint memory, when compared to what the present tens of trillions of dollars of debt will overwhelmingly amount to by our day of reckoning. The independent mind may innocently inquire, “To whom do we owe this debt? Is it to Saudi Arabia? Or to China? Or to financiers who presently stand in the shadows waiting to reclaim both debt and usury from the next generation? Are we simply playing a risky game of monopoly where our play money is being printed as fast as the presses will run?” Whatever the case may be, the cloaked creditors are definitely somewhere awaiting their repayment day.
As the United States escalates into a fast lane of dissolution and destruction, there is another debt far greater than the economic one we are facing, and it too will have its day of reckoning. This debt is the overwhelming, ever-increasing, eternal debt of our national sins. Our moral debt has risen to enormous and alarming proportions surpassing the staggering sins of past nations. Is the United States where Babylon will be in Revelation 18:5, “For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities”? When historical Babylon had come under the malignant leadership of Belshazzar, God revealed His consummated anger against that wicked empire by writing one night upon the wall of a banquet room: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (Daniel 5:25). Mene means “it is numbered”; the doubling of the word was for the greater confirmation to note that the number of Belshazzar’s sins and days (both of life and reign) was full. Tekel reveals that God had weighed in a hanging balance Belshazzar’s Babylon and concluded there was no worth or weight to him; there was no value in Babylon. Peres means two things: “separated, divided, or broken” as well as “Persian.” First, the kingdom would be broken from Belshazzar, and secondly it would be given to the Persians. Following the separating of Babylon from Belshazzar, it would then also be divided between the Medes and Persians. Cyrus (a Persian) first took Babylon and then gave part of it to Darius, his son-in-law (a Mede).
The Handwriting on America’s Wall
In spite of liberal or conservative presidents, we are witnessing the dismantling of every principle our country’s forefathers gave us as a legacy. The leadership today believes it has political power to change the law of morality. We are witnessing the lines being drawn by the Federal legal system to reinterpret the law in the courts to do away with the principles of God. Marquis de Sade once spoke in a similar spirit:
The goal of humanism must be the death of God. Man will not be free until God is abolished, until there is total freedom to believe and live anything and everything contrary to the Bible.
Our country is aggressively pushing for this to be a reality. It is interesting to note that for a century and a half Sade’s writings were forbidden by every civilized country in the world. Even the corrupt French monarchy found him so dangerous, they kept him in prison. Although revolutionists worked for his release, when they discovered what he truly was, they also imprisoned him. Subsequently Napoleon did the same. In contrast, Sade is heralded in our country today as a liberator and champion of mankind, with his works openly published. Liberty is being more and more interpreted as freedom to sin.
Hatred and warfare against God will lead only to death; appropriately Nietzsche and Sade committed suicide. A very moving book I read some years ago was From Under the Rubble written by several Soviet Union Christians. One of the writers was a Soviet mathematician, Igor Savavich, who made the following observation:
Humanism and socialism seek the death of property, religion, the family, marriage, and finally the death of man. The revolution accomplished fully would amount to the destruction of man, the withering of all mankind and its death.
Another book that should be a warning to us is Samuel Warner’s writing The Urge to Mass Destruction. This contemporary psychologist observed the following:
What our modern age has become possessed with is the suicidal impulse for self and world. And so we have the politics of man’s destruction, the economics of mass destruction, religion of mass destruction—secular humanism. It follows the tempter, and says to God, “Thou shalt not touch us.”
We must not leave out the famous atheistic poet Percy Shelley, who was expelled from Oxford for publishing a pamphlet defending atheism in 1811. He stated, “Mankind had only to will that there should be no evil and there would be none.”
The generations have brought us to the longing to sin any sin without consequence; this is really the desired utopia of man. But for man to say there is no judgment or there is no hell will never do away with the reality of both judgment and hell. The brainwashing of the media, music, politics, education, lifestyle, art, etc. has brought the world to the desire to proclaim boldly, “Let God give us up; we will make us a name.”
I personally cannot envision America’s returning to its former roots of principle and God, but I do pray for America. I believe there has been so much mixture of error with religious truth by the modern American-religious manner that we as a country will never see the purity of the Gospel again. But I dare not look at our times hopelessly; for I see a remnant that is desiring to live right, to do right, to fight right, to be militant against the apostasy in all its forms, but seeking magnificence of spirit in the life. There is no hope for this world, for it is to be judged by God Almighty. I can no longer pray for God to “bless America,” for it would not be right to ask Him to bless a mess—to bless sin and apostasy. But we can pray for God to “have mercy” on America and for God to “save it from its terrible sins”—from the White House, to the Congress, right on down to the local citizen.
When Government Leaves God
An ideal view of government is given to us in Romans 13. We are called upon by the Apostle Paul to “be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Paul continues to unfold the principles of government in the light of what God intended for government to be to the people. Likewise, I Peter 2:13-17 gives us an ideal view of the government over the people. But what are we to do when government leaves God? What if it becomes an antichrist-like system oppressing its people? If this happens, then there are other passages of Scripture we must take into consideration. When the government becomes anti-God, as in Daniel 3 and Revelation 13, we must consider passages such as Acts 4:18-20:
And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
There is also Acts 5:27-29:
And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, Saying, did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? And, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
There must come a time in human history when God gives the governments and systems over to an antichrist system to prepare for the Antichrist’s coming. This will include the loss of the First Amendment of our Constitution. When that time comes (and it may easily happen before the Rapture of the saints), we must turn to Scripture to find out how to respond in such a government. We will need to draw from passages such as Daniel 1:8: “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank.” There is also the needed truth of Daniel 3:16-18:
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
As Christians, if we cannot satisfy the law of man by doing what it commands, then we must satisfy the law by yielding to its punishment.
The Christian cause has now become the prey in an “open hunting season” by the powers of the government and media. Only God knows what we must face before the coming of our Blessed Lord. But we must not allow the world to pressure us into change or compromise. If this happens, we lose the protection of God. We must dare to name the Name of Christ in this last, end-time generation. We must save ourselves from this untoward generation and rest in the Beloved, Who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy!
The National Debt of Sin
The nation described in the second verse of our national anthem is no longer the same nation we view today:
O thus be it ever, when free men shall stand / Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation! / Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land / Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation! / Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, / And this be our motto, ‘In God Is Our Trust!’ / And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave / O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
Our nation in its beginning believed in rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s (the government), and unto God the things that are God’s. But once a nation begins to leave the principles of God and His Word, there are providential laws which come into action amidst the mercies of God. Proverbs 14:34 declares, “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” When righteous principles are applied, the wellbeing of the most uncultured, barbaric of men will improve. But sin is a reproach to any people. Oh, what an enemy is an ungodly man to his country! Loudly he may speak of patriotism (and God may even use him as an instrument in that country), yet his life is contributing to the nation’s deepest reproach. This is why living right is so important to a country’s betterment. Psalm 9:17 states, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God.”
According to Romans 1:21, when a nation no longer renders praise to God, a multitude of destructive effects commence. God begins giving men over to the powers of self and its deadly sins (1:24, 26, 28). When sin abounds, Truth becomes a liability to those who desire it. According to Haggai 1:1-6, turning away from God will profoundly affect the economy of a nation: God will begin putting “holes” even in its “bags.” America has been known for its prosperity, yet we are in greater debt than any other nation. It must also be acknowledged that our debt even of money is because of our national debt of sin.
Sin’s national debt in America is astronomical in scope and effect on our economy. Think of the cost of employee theft, stealing within the government, shoplifting, the cost of security guards and security systems all over America. Add the cost of every automobile antitheft device, alarms, “the Club,” etc. Add it up and billions of dollars a year are literally consumed because of the sin of theft. Think of the cost of sexual sin to our nation. We support multitudes of babies born out of wedlock through welfare, day care, etc. Add to that the cost of fighting the diseases spread through fornication. AIDS medical research is overwhelming in cost in our country along with the cost of educating our citizens how to sin safely (“safe sex”), and of course, the multibillions of dollars to care for AIDS patients crushing our health-care system. Think of the cost of drunkenness to our nation. Consider what alcohol and drug abuse costs us every year through vehicular wrecks, broken homes, liver disease, sanitariums, drug wards, and treatment centers. Add to that the cost of lost work time and disability payments to thousands of able-bodied men because they say they have the “disease of alcoholism.” Add to that the cost of keeping people in prisons. An estimated eighty percent of men and women in prison were either under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they committed acts which caused them to be incarcerated or were doing wrong to get money for alcohol and other drugs. Again, the skyrocketing cost of health care is multiplied by the sin of drunkenness. And add to that the cost of taking care of families whose breadwinner is sick, dead, or in prison because of these sins. Billions and billions of dollars are added to our “national sin debt” by these sins.
Laziness on the job adds a great percentage of cost to our manufactured items. Men on the job are taught, “look busy while bumming” on the job. If a man works more than four out of eight hours he may be accused of being a “company man” and “stealing the overtime from the union.” With an honorable work ethic, how much more could be produced at lesser cost? Unions tend to protect laziness and inefficiency. This sin of laziness on the job and greed of many workers translates into billions and billions of added cost to consumers and increase to our national sin debt.
Think of the cost of greedy people with lawsuit-happy lawyers that add to our debt. This multiplies the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors, causes doctors to do sometimes unnecessary tests to cover their backs from lawsuits. This debt is passed down to you and me by increased health costs. Frivolous lawsuits, and the lawyers getting rich from them, drain billions out of our economy and cripple our criminal justice system. Who pays for the million-dollar settlements we hear about? We may think that the companies pay for these settlements, but in reality they are passed on to the consumer. Think of cigarettes and the cost that smoking has added to our health-care system.
Consider the trillions of dollars in cost to us due to bailouts for greed and thievery in corporations, banking systems, and insurance companies; the amount continues to climb for Washington’s “Pork Barrel Projects.” There is also the interest from credit cards that causes many Americans to pay 18 to 20 percent more for a product because of their covetousness and impatience to buy now and pay later.
Add the extra cost of more police to protect us while we sow murder and violence into our young people’s minds through the corrupt TV and movie industries. We must also include the billions of dollars spent by our governments on abortions, medical assistance for all of the sexually transmitted diseases, and the promotion for sodomy in all of its forms.
Conclusion
Oh, the list is endless of what is spent for all of our sins as a nation: trillions of dollars! Our national debt is our national sin debt! God’s Word speaks of a nation with economic problems:
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes (Haggai 1:6).
As long as sin flows like a massive filthy river through our country, there will be no way that the Democrats or the Republicans will be able to fix the national debt. It may be that we have gone so far as a nation in rejecting God in our living and turning to another Gospel in our Neo-Christianity, that America’s “wound is incurable” (Micah 1:9). Could we be in the preliminary days of the coming of the “foolish shepherd”? (Zechariah 11:15-17).
When it seems that all of hell is breaking loose upon us and our freedoms are being taken away one by one, may God the Holy Spirit empower us to remain committed to God’s Infallible Word and a consecrated life.
O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy (Habakkuk 3:2).