The United States is facing a desolate time. The COVID-19 pandemic still rages, the President who supported the sovereignty of America, the freedom to worship as we please, the freedom to bear arms, the freedom of speech, and the right to life of the unborn has been supplanted by those who distain all of those rights, and supplanted in a manner that casts grave doubts that the majority of American voters actually voted for them. Anger, depression, and fear reign supreme as virtually half of all voters are being systematically silenced by those who have seized power.
For the Christian and for the Jew, this will be an especially trying time. Some members of Congress are openly anti-Semitic and members of the ruling Party have repeatedly discriminated against Christians and Jews, trying to bar them from freely practicing their religious beliefs.
What has happened to this country? And what happens now? The answers to the questions can only come from a clear understanding of scripture, from how God has dealt with his people in the past, and what is coming in the future.
Following the rule of King Solomon, the people of Israel broke into two kingdoms, Israel to the north with Samaria as its capital, and Judah to the south with its capital in Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC and its people dispersed throughout the world. In 586 BC, the Babylonians carried off most of the kingdom of Judah, destroying Jerusalem and the Temple. In 1 Chronicles 5:25-26 we read of the start of the Assyrian invasion:
“And they (the Israelites) were unfaithful to the God of their fathers, and played the harlot after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, this is, Tiglath-Pileser kin of Assyria. He carried the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh into captivity.”
So the captivity of the Israelites, completed 10 to 20 years later by king Hoshea of Assyria, came as punishment from God because His people had abandoned their love and worship of Him in order to worship the idols of the people who had once inhabited the Canaan land.
But God never punishes without warning and without offering a way of escape to His people. In Jeremiah 6:6-7 God warns the people of Judah that He has spoken these words to the Babylonians:
“ For thus has the Lord of hosts said:
‘Cut down trees,
And build a mound against Jerusalem.
This is the city to be punished.
She is full of oppression in her midst.
As a fountain wells up with water,
So she wells up with her wickedness.
Violence and plundering are heard in her.
Before Me continually are grief and wounds.’
But then, in verse 16, comes the means of escape from the desolation which was about to descend upon them:
“Thus says the Lord:
‘Stand in the ways and see,
And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,
And walk in it;
Then you will find rest for your souls.’
“Ask for the old paths where the good way is, and walk in it.” That is the message that must resonate with us now. In this, the most Christian country in the world, the “city on a hill” giving hope to the world, we have lost our way. We no longer follow the old paths, for there are those who scoff that the old paths are old-fashioned, no longer pertinent to modern life in this technological age. Sadly, the percentage of adults who call themselves Christians has fallen from 78% in 2009 to 65% in 2019. Those who claim no religion at all has risen from 17% in 2009 to 26% in 2019. Is it any wonder that we kill our unborn and lie and cheat when a full quarter of adults have no moral compass?
Here are some other frightening statistics about that 65%:
68% of all evangelical churches, which make up about a quarter of all Christian churches, have less than 100 in attendance on a Sunday morning, including children. Half of that 68% have an attendance of less than 50.
Only 12% of young people aged 18-24 identify as evangelicals.
44% of all Americans have no idea where they will go after they die, but only 2% of them believe they’ll go to Hell.
A person attending every service in an evangelical church for two months straight would have less than a 10% chance of hearing the words “Hell” or “redemption,” two of the most important Christian concepts.
More than 20% of evangelicals say they are not sure that Heaven is a real place.
68% of all churchgoers believe that everyone will go to Heaven. And therein lies the problem!
Like the Old Testament Jews, we have turned from the old ways. We have, in many churches, embraced the idea that a woman may choose to kill her unborn child, that a man may marry a man or a woman marry a woman despite the Bible verses that emphatically teach against this, that the rights of an individual supersede the laws of God, and that God is only a God of love and not also a God of righteous anger.
62% of Americans believe that the Coronavirus is a warning to humanity to change the way they live, and perhaps, given the way that God has dealt with his people in the past, they are right. And for Christians and Jews, the coming years under this new administration may also stand as a warning to us that unless we return to the old ways and walk in the old paths, things will only become worse.
When God through Jeremiah warned the people of Judah:
“Thus says the Lord:
‘Stand in the ways and see,
And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,
And walk in it;
Then you will find rest for your souls.’
The verse ends with these words:
“But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”
And then destruction came.
Let us not be like the Jews of old. Let us heed the warning of God and return to walk in the good way. Then, and only then, will we be saved from the Barbarians!