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HOW FAR, AMERICA? Poteau, Oklahoma
In meditating on this article, at first
we thought to call it, “Which Way, America?”
But the direction in which these United States
is heading is obviously the wrong one. Most every thinking person untainted with
liberalism is in agreement: that this country is headed in the wrong direction.
But let us not be too quick to blame Washington. We, the people, elect tyrants
to live high and lord it over us while passing out the bucks. The few who do
seem to oppose our liberties being taken from us are like the little Dutch boy
trying to stop the leak in the dyke by poking his fingers in the ever growing
holes. The liberal-leftist-entitlement-minded citizenry on each of the coasts
can be counted on to sway national elections in their favor: that means more
fiscal irresponsibility. So let us not ask “Which Way, America?” but rather,
“How Far, America?” How far will God allow our “American culture” to go before
He says, “Enough?” God does have a plan, you know, and history and the Scripture
both demonstrate that there are times when God puts a stop to sinful men in
their mad career of sinful pleasure. And that is basically what the
liberal-leftist-entitlement-minded agenda is all about: pleasure. Their
philosophy is “if it feels good, do it” and they are ever ready to supply
willingly unemployed citizens and illegals with tax dollars taken from hard
working folk. God certainly put a stop to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah and the
cities of the plain because of their sinful pleasure-seeking lifestyle. We tend
to agree with one preacher who said that if God does not judge the U.S. for her
approval of sodomy, He will need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah for judging
them for those same sins.
The Lord Jesus spoke of the conditions that
will exist when He returns to this earth – not at the rapture, but at His second
advent. In Luke 17:26-30 the Lord's words are recorded thus:
“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be
also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married
wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days
of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they
builded;
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained
fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in
the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
This passage is often referred to as “the Noah and Lot sign.” It pictures
humankind living without regard to God or His Word: given over to satisfying the
flesh. These United States are following in the path of both Sodom and ancient
Rome: sinful pleasures of all kinds and government provided bread and circuses
to satisfy the masses of unemployed who as a result vote and protest to keep the
leftist tyrants in power.
The Bible is clear:
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death,” (Proverbs 14:12). While we know of
no human government better than a democracy, the gangrene which eats at
democracy is this: “...it is not in man that
walketh to direct his steps,” (Jeremiah
10:23). A democracy, to function even tolerably well needs at least three
things: (1) an educated citizenry, (2) an industrious work ethic, and most
important of all (3) a moral compass: i.e., the Bible taught and followed. By
this last, the Bible, man is not left to himself to determine right and wrong.
Without the Bible America is like ancient Israel:
“In those days
there was no king in Israel: every man did
that which
was right in his own eyes,” (Judges
21:25). Accordingly, most Americans, right along with most professing
“Christians” live according to their wicked hearts. The total heredity depravity
of mankind is seen in man's continual departure from righteousness. God made
Adam upright, but our mutual father sinned and plunged the whole of his
posterity into bondage – a bondage which the flesh (sin nature) of man loves.
Because men love sin and utilize their wills to choose sin, they are deceived
into thinking their wills are free, but they are in truth as Peter wrote they
have, “...eyes full of adultery, and that
cannot cease from sin...” (2 Peter 2:14).
Their wills are bent toward sinning and so they are happy in their sins and
unable to cease from them. They do not want to cease sinning: not really. The
present condition of the people of these States is the result of at least two
things: (1) the absence of moral teachings from the Bible in homes and schools
and (2) the preoccupation of the people with seeking after pleasure. Do you, as
a Bible believer, wonder that teenagers and children go on killing sprees and
that parents do horrendous things to their infants and children? We have
educated people without the Bible. Humans are just animals. Evolution says so.
Killing a human being is no worse than killing an ant or a spider. Life is no
longer sacred: the prevalence of abortion in this country proves that beyond any
argument to the contrary.
The right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness” is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But a people solely
given over to pursuing happiness – solely given over to fulfilling the lusts of
the flesh – a people demanding instant gratification – will not stand for
principles of godliness nor long submit to a legal system based upon biblical
morals. They demand more and more and their addiction to the pleasure-drug
continues to grow. Sin is popular and has become acceptable in American culture.
And the rest of the world is not far behind us. Pastors, even many Baptists and
their “lambs” here in the U.S. prove they are not concerned with biblical
principles of godliness. They strip off their clothing for shorts and bathing
suits as well as immodest clothing worn even in the gatherings of God's supposed
people. There is little difference between the way the average Baptist dresses
and the fashion of the harlots whom they adore on TV. Baptists do not want to be
different: this translates that Baptists do not want to follow the Lord Jesus
Christ. But if you want a big church... “you gotta get with the times.” “Give'em
God and glamor!” “Sexy and salvation” are both possible: fleshly lusts and
eternal life can go together. This is the modern “evangelical” philosophy.
Baptists, right along with Catholics and Protestants, have succeeded in turning
liberty into license. Easy-believeism has no connection with practical holiness
because it has no connection with the gospel. It is a false gospel!
At the time of this writing, the United
Methodist Church is wrangling over whether or not to uphold the defrocking of
one of their clergy: a man who performed the “marriage” of his son to another
man. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. has by vote of her governing body voted to
divest herself of financial investments that benefit Israel. And a new poll of
the people living in these United States indicates that some fifty-two-percent
of us now favor same-sex “marriages.” (This writer insists on putting the word
“marriage” and “marriages” in quotes when used of religious or civil ceremonies
which supposedly join two persons of the same sex in some kind of ungodly
perverted “union.”) And the Baptists? Where are they? Probably about five years
behind the rest of the world. Already some Southern Baptist Convention Churches
have women “ministers” and the popular jargon is for preachers among them (and
their wives) to say, “we pastored in such-and-such a place for x number of
years, etc.” The Bible has news: God does not call women to preach or to pastor!
Neither does He call men and women to somehow “pastor” together. While we are on
the subject of God's calling, the Bible never indicates that God ever called any
man (or woman) to a “music ministry,” or as a “worship leader,” or any number of
modern Baptist innovations! Strange, is it not, that the truths in your Bible
are always throwing monkey wrenches in the best laid schemes of the religious
crowd! It is now the popular thing for “churches” to be “welcoming
congregations” - i.e., welcoming sodomites!
Is there a connection between what the
“same-sex-marriage” advocates are saying and doing and what the religious crowd
in America is saying and doing? We think both are instances of just what the
Bible said would come to pass. We are not so much concerned with recent
Protestant escapades. The Methodists and the Presbyterians are among the
daughters of the Harlot and are only behaving like what they are. The
Protestants may have cried “sola Scriptura,” but they never meant it and do not
follow only the Bible now. While there doubtless exist some congregations within
the Southern Baptist Convention who reject the claim, the SBC continues to boast
that they are the “largest Protestant denomination.” Let them be Protestants if
they wish. It is nothing of which to boast! But their untaught or falsely-taught
unregenerate membership has their flesh tickled: if they are big they must be
right! Hear this! Absolutely nothing good, came out of the Protestant
Reformation! The filthy Roman Harlot gave birth to her little-less-filthy and
slightly more attractive daughters who teach the same damnable doctrines of
baptismal regeneration and works for salvation. And most “Baptists” are running
a parallel course with their equally damnable doctrine of decisional
regeneration which is just another form of works for salvation. We think this
departure from the truth by the majority of Baptists cannot be anything other
than the prophesied apostasy of 2 Timothy 2:1-4:
“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon
shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as
from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and
that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God
sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”
Notice these things: (1) this prophecy speaks of the return of Christ to the
earth, not the rapture of His saints and her bridesmaids: (2) the Greek for
“falling away” is “apostasia” from whence our word apostasy: a willful departure
from the truth: (3) Paul clearly states that “the day of Christ” is not “at
hand,” i.e., there is a significant intervening time before Christ will return
to establish His earthly kingdom. If we understand the Scriptures aright, we are
in this time of apostasy even now. Later in this same epistle Paul states,
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse, deceiving, and being deceived,” (2
Timothy 3:13). This present apostasy is not being successfully opposed! It is
thriving and growing and shall continue to do so. And the pressure is constantly
applied to remain in fellowship with deviants from the faith.
“How Far, America?” Not how far will wicked
men go, but how far will God allow wicked men to go in moral filth and doctrinal
evils? Probably farther than you or I would allow! But certainly they will go no
farther than God has planned for them to go! We can be absolutely confident that
God is not concerned with time: rather He is concerned with His elect for we
read that the restoration of national Israel will follow that time when,
“the fulness of the Gentiles be come in,”
(Romans 11:25). In other words, God shall turn again to little Israel when His
elect from among the Gentiles are regenerated and sanctified to the point He has
predetermined. Then God will be acting in a different manner toward these United
States. Two things here: (1) sometimes folk will say that this last phrase
quoted means that “when the last elect Gentile is saved... etc.,” Our reply is
this: God did not take you to heaven immediately after your were converted so
what makes you so sure that God may not leave His last saved elect Gentile here
on earth for a while after they are born again? May He not leave them here
awhile to witness to the world and to experience that sanctification needed by
each of His sheep? (2) In turning to Israel God shall bring to pass the
“time of Jacob's trouble,”
(Jeremiah 30:5) which has absolutely nothing to do with Christ's congregations.
From the Book of Revelation we see that all the evidence points to the fact that
when God's end-time judgment upon this world begins, His congregations (made up
of principally Gentile peoples) will be with Him and not on the earth at all.
Always keep in mind the God-given outline of the Book of Revelation found in
chapter one, verse nineteen.
Matthew chapter twenty-four is a record of our
Lord's prophecy regarding the end of this age and the tribulation to follow. His
counsel to the disciples was as follows:
“...Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I
am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of
wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but
the end is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and
earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows,”
(Matthew 24:4-8). The Lord's words in this passage indicate that the danger to
the saints of God at this time is twofold: (1) being deceived: the Lord said,
“Take heed that no man deceive you,” and (2) “be not troubled.” These two
dangers – being led astray and being alarmed or frightened – are the dangers of
our time. Radio and TV preachers as well as some “big time pastors” and some not
so big ones are busy at this very moment leading people astray. Some of them
gain followers and make huge amounts of money off the alarm felt by most people
– i.e., the notion that America is heading in the wrong direction and that
things cannot continue long in this direction without catastrophic national or
even worldwide consequences. Recently at least one governor, Jindal of
Louisiana, has warned of the possibility of a “rebellion” and of a “hostile
takeover of Washington, D.C., to preserve the American Dream for our children
and grandchildren," (quote from Gov. Bobby Jindal's keynote address at a recent
Faith and Freedom Coalition event). But, lulled to sleepiness if not outright
sleep by our toys, treasures and pleasures, we Americans for the most part are
only vaguely uneasy about our Social Security, Medicare, and 401Ks.
Will some of us live to see such events as
Governor Jindal speaks? Possibly. Some would even say probably. In light of
these things, the Words of the Holy Ghost to Timothy are appropriate:
“But continue thou in the things which thou hast
learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them,”
(2 Timothy 3:14). These words follow those quoted above regarding the
proliferation of evil men and deceivers in these days of apostasy. What shall we
who believe in the absolute sovereignty of God in all things do? What shall we
do who hold to “mother-church daughter-church succession?” “Continue thou!” Stay
with the Word of God! Believe God's Book and practice accordingly! What better
advice can be given? Do not jump overboard when it seems the old ship of Zion is
about to be overwhelmed and the seas of apostasy and opposition are tossing her
about. Do not panic! Let us remain faithful to Christ and to the system of
doctrine taught in the Bible! In that we shall not err. God has not changed,
does not change, and will not change: why should we? |
