The Judgment Of America?

It has become fashionable in some circles to claim that America has been judged by God and that we stand ready to fall into an economic depression and the end of America as we have known it.

This idea has come to me from many different angles, so many in fact that it would be easy to call it a consensus. Like Y2K a few years ago, many people are running scared for fear of what lay just around the corner, preparing for the worst and expecting God’s wrath at any moment.

I can remember looking for a voice of reason during the Y2K hysteria and finding very little. Famous preachers claimed they had received instruction from God and urged members of their congregation to store up to 2 months of food due to the economic chaos that was about to come. Churches from all over bought electric generators, stored food and in some cases, stockpiled weapons.

I knew one Pastor that sold his house, filled the basement of his church with canned goods, cancelled all bank accounts and moved his family into two offices in the church’s second floor.

I know, I know, that sounds extreme. Most did not sound extreme though as they told us that it was better to be safe than sorry and that God expected us to use wisdom “just in case”.

Fast forward to today. We have a myriad of voices claiming that God’s wrath is about to fall on the United States due to our sin, the prosperity Gospel and a whole myriad of other factors that people point to as being proof-positive that we are in dire straits. In fact, to take a dissenting opinion at this point puts you in the category of the “pillow prophets”, those prophets for hire that call out ‘peace and safety’ when there is none to be found. As if God’s prophets are only in the business of death and destruction and if you call for anything else, you can not be from God.

But God is always in the hope business, friends, always. I have been reading and listening to the words about the fall of America now for some time. And one characteristic has stood out above all others- they seem to actually want it to happen. There is a general acknowledgement among those calling for economic ruin that America will not listen until our system fails and depression sets in. The truth of this can be seen in Sierra Leone, which I hear is the poorest nation on earth. There the population is 60 percent muslim and 30 percent Christian and revival is present everywhere…oh wait, no it isn’t.

I wonder what the criteria is for God’s wrath. Because the things that the Doom Brigade say make us worthy of wrath can also be considered things that make us an ideal place for missionary work.

They say it is because of our sin but sin makes us an ideal place to preach the good news. After all, a place with no sin may be hard to convert, correct? Maybe it is due to our affluence as a nation. But there are more affluent places on earth that are further away from God than we are. Maybe it is due to our religious error. But we are the most diverse nation on earth, with thousands of different people groups coming here from all over the globe.

Maybe it is because America has failed to embrace their message and any place that rejects you must be wrong, correct?

America has left the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage of it’s fathers. We teach evolution and have taken prayer out of schools. We have legal abortion and have killed over 5o million unborn babies (Europe actually leads in this). We export a false message around the world, infecting churches in poor countries with greed. We have lost the true Gospel and have turned aside to lies instead. We meet in buildings and give our leaders titles. Sorry, that last one was just me getting caught up in the moment.

Those things can seem to be true and damning evidence, who can argue that? But do those things mean that God has given up on us and is ready to judge or do they instead mean that God has a perfect environment to send a group of people on fire for him to minister?

If America is too far gone there is only one place to lay blame, at the steps of our churches. You have failed to preach a Gospel capable of saving and instead you have perfected the art of comforting the 99. But the solution to the problem that my generation has inherited from those who came before us is not wrath.

Wrath means that the enemy has won, that a place has so little good about it that God must strike it from the earth. Limited wrath means, in America’s case according to the Doom Brigade, that God must take us from our place as a financial leader. Instead, the economic power base would shift to Europe- where they really deserve God’s blessing (sorry, my gift of sarcasm is on overdrive today). Not sure how that makes sense but whatever.

The issue that we have inherited is a church sick with apathy and complacency. We have inherited selfishness and me-centered message that can save no one. To combat this, we must avoid escapism at all costs.

This is what happened during the 60’s when everyone was so convinced that the end was near that they did nothing about the counter-culture- believing that it was a sign of the end so why fight it. We see why they should have fought today, don’t we?

Brace yourselves up like men! Who cares if it is judgment or not? Your job is to fight for the spiritual health of America, your job is to seek and save those that are lost, your job is to stand between the living and the dead- not put your head in the sand and say “I told you so…”

Revivals don’t happen where the church is on fire- they happen when interest in religion has died and needs to be revived. It happens on the verge of judgment, when we need a miracle or we will perish. It happens in a place like right here and right now.

And if no revival comes it is not because God did not care, it was because YOU did not care and so no true revival was ever sought.

-JC