JUDGMENT, Devotion for 13 September 2017 Anno Domini

God gave mankind only Ten Commandments, and provided a corollary set of two laws that summarize the Ten by imparting a most necessary ingredient to the obedience to God – LOVE! “ Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,  Master, which is the great commandment in the law?   Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40 (all scripture quoted is from the King James Version)  Some have argued that these two stipulations to the Law somehow modified the Ten Commandments, or changed them. Not so! They made obedience to them even more rigid. Something was ADDED thereto, and that was LOVE. First, we must love God. This is evidenced in our keeping of the first table of the Ten Commandments. Then we must love others as evidenced in our keeping the second table. How simple is the government of God in advancing these Ten Commandments and not a thousand laws instead!

In a simpler age of our nation, there were more than two million Federal laws on the books. Today that number of laws would be profoundly higher. Justice always suffers when laws proliferate in a nation. Legality of action becomes confused and the practice of enforcing ‘select’ laws against political opponents become commonplace. We have reached that point in our American government; and justice is denied some, and for others, laws are enforced to favor the friends of the political rulers.

But our God is a God of Justice. He is also a God of mercy, grace, and clemency to those whom He claims as His elect people. But God still exacts justice in all cases of sin. It was to satisfy the Law of the Justice of God that Christ came to pay the penalty for the sins that we deserved to suffer and die for.

Often, the Children of Israel were rebuked by God for their careless disobedience to God. He sent prophets to warn them. They rejected the prophets, and killed some of them. He brought famine and draught upon His disobedient people; yet, they continued in sin and a spiraling spiritual decadence. He gave them over to bondage for a time. Once freed from that bondage in Babylon, the old Israel never regained her former grandeur in government of man, or of their Lord. Finally, following the crucifixion of our Lord, Israel was finally and completely conquered and Jerusalem sacked and burned around 70 Anno Domini. There was not left a stone standing upon the other of the Temple.

Of one thing we can always be certain – that is the JUDGMENT of God on an apostate people! He may send Godly ministers to warn the people, followed by a gradually escalating series of tragedies revealing His hand of Judgment. At any point in this matter, the people of God have available to themselves the mercy and grace of God if they do as commanded in Chronicles: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)  But there comes a point in time at which judgment becomes assured. As in old Israel, the innocent suffer with the wicked as will be the same case in the modern Israel of God.

In 2007, a great storm struck the southeast of the United States. It spawned a tornado that destroyed the high school in Enterprise, Alabama. I was present at the school when the storm struck killing eight students. As the storm struck, some of the administrators moved under their desks for shelter and began praying to be spared. That was the right thing to do; however, these same administrators forbid the children in public schools the benefit of prayer to protect themselves from such grave calamities. I mentioned that God had been disinvited from every public forum in America and, therefore, we have no right to expect God to protect us in places from which He has been exiled. There was an avalanche of backlash to my letter – mostly from sweet-talking ministers. They said that my comments were nonsense, and that God did not send tornadoes to kill innocent children. Of course, I had not said that. I said that we have no right to ask God’s protection in places from which He has been denied entrance.

It is quite noteworthy to observe the natural catastrophes that have beset America since denying public prayers, and allowing the murder of innocent children in their mother’s womb. We lost our first war during this era – Vietnam. Victory was won by our troops on the battlefield, but that victory was forfeited by political intrigue and big money interests.

Look at the shambles and degradation to which our social order has been lowered. We imprison more of our citizens than any other industrial power. Our children do not know God. They wander in a moral morass the likes of which we have never before witnessed as a people. They are addicted to drugs, immoral sex (including the disgusting practice of homosexuality), alcoholism, deranged music and language, etc. The streets of our cities are filled with beggars, homeless people, criminals, and the decay of formerly alabaster structures. Our monuments honoring our past are being destroyed by fascist-minded rebels paid for by the enemies of freedom.

Please remember the Twin Towers of New York (WORLD TRADE CENTER) which represented the ultimate in our economic stature. In two hours, these were brought to ruin before the eyes of the world. Men “Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come…. And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!… And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.” (Revelations 18:10,16,19)  The entire city of New York, indeed, every state of a Godless land, can likewise be destroyed in ONE HOUR if God deems it needful.

The destruction of the pride of New York, I believe, was an early warning to America. I am reminded of similar warnings given to ancient Israel: “And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.” (Isaiah 30:25) “And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.” (Ezekiel 26:9) “A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.” (Zephaniah 1:16)  “I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant.” (Zephaniah 3:6)

We must look, too, to the natural disasters besetting our country – forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. Many simply disregard as irrelevant the fact that a large so-called ‘gay’ pride (homosexual) parade was scheduled for Monday in New Orleans following the Friday in which the city was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2005). The parade did not take place just as surely that no parades happened in Sodom after Lot and his daughters were driven out of that sinful city. We are continually being subjected to whirlwinds of judgment resulting in great floods and loss of life and property. Hurricane Harvey has just passed through Texas and Louisiana leaving a trail of ruin in its path. And just this past weekend, another storm of unsurpassed intensity – Erma – has laid waste to the Florida peninsula leaving flood waters and ruined hopes behind. These may be the incidental tides of nature, but they seem to come on us at a time when our morals have sunk to the lowest level of any nation on earth today.

God has often used such natural phenomena to both awaken and to destroy a people and nation. “For they sow the wind And they reap the whirlwind The standing grain has no heads; It yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.” (Hosea 8:7) “The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished In whirlwind and storm is His way, And clouds are the dust beneath His feet” (Nahum 1:3) “Behold, the storm of the LORD has gone forth in wrath, Even a whirling tempest; It will swirl down on the head of the wicked.” (Jeremiah 23:19)

Well, friend, if you have read thus far, you know what meaning I have attached to the biblical prophecies; and you have read many relevant verses as well. It may be true that I have misinterpreted the will and intent of God for our nation, but, then again, I may have read His Word aright. If God does delay, or foregoes, the punishment of America for her wickedness in the modern day, why would He make such an exception when He has executed judgment on so many others of the past for the same sins?

America, turn away from the dark path and turn to the former light that led us on from our primitive founding as a nation among the nations of the earth.

 

 

By |2017-09-14T14:33:43+00:00September 14th, 2017|Blog|Comments Off on JUDGMENT, Devotion for 13 September 2017 Anno Domini

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