They didn't wear red ball caps at the time but the message was strikingly similar.....'Make Israel Great Again.' Gone was the glory of the Israel of their 'founding fathers.' From time to time a man would appear who started a revolt.....a Tea Party of sorts....but the establishment would put an end to each and every rebellion.....except one. It is thus natural to want to restore a nation that has collapsed from greatness whether it be Israel or Athens or Rome or America.
There is a popular mantra today that I would like to rebut. I heard this phrase as recently as two evenings ago at a Christmas concert....."America is the greatest nation ever on the face of the earth"....or words very similar. Surely you've heard it multiple times. Limbaugh, Hannity, they all say it at one time or another. I'm with them to a certain point but Israel when faithful and led by God was the greatest nation ever on the face of the earth.....not America. Brothers and sisters...we do agree on this.....or do we?
Had Israel not divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah....and had they remained faithful to go God....not Assyria nor Babylon nor Persia nor Rome would have ruled over them. America split into to two 'kingdoms' also. As I wrote in the January 2013 post that I added below....."The Democrat Party (populating the metropolitan areas) fell first, taken over by Progressives and then Communists. The Republican Party (everywhere else) fell next, taken over by political machinery without a soul."
Well, the Israel of old was no more. God's purpose in Israel had reached its fulfillment.....for the time being. Nearly 2000 years would pass until it would even be a nation again. Both Israel and America need to return to their God....which is the same God. Greatness should not have been our primary goal in America....mercy should have been our goal. Until we hang that red ball cap up for good and petition God....as did Samson......for one last feat of strength....we will be on our own.
The Bible was once an American's most valuable possession. Today it is either an artifact, a talisman for prosperity, or a rather large and bulky ticket one must have in their possession to enter heaven.....should heaven really exist. In reality it is the Omnipotent God's Word to fallen man, the greatest treasure on earth, which brings the greatest joy, draws forth the most ardent love and applies a devastating guilt followed by a torrent of mercy that elicits praises upon praises for mercies undeserved.....all given because of faith, faith alone....in the One who took our sins to a tree on Calvary. If my words seem overly pious or even syrupy, might I suggest that there may be an underlying cause for your hesitance to shout praises yourself; or if the Bible does not literally captivate you as God's very Word to you, you must find out why!
There is a popular mantra today that I would like to rebut. I heard this phrase as recently as two evenings ago at a Christmas concert....."America is the greatest nation ever on the face of the earth"....or words very similar. Surely you've heard it multiple times. Limbaugh, Hannity, they all say it at one time or another. I'm with them to a certain point but Israel when faithful and led by God was the greatest nation ever on the face of the earth.....not America. Brothers and sisters...we do agree on this.....or do we?
Had Israel not divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah....and had they remained faithful to go God....not Assyria nor Babylon nor Persia nor Rome would have ruled over them. America split into to two 'kingdoms' also. As I wrote in the January 2013 post that I added below....."The Democrat Party (populating the metropolitan areas) fell first, taken over by Progressives and then Communists. The Republican Party (everywhere else) fell next, taken over by political machinery without a soul."
Well, the Israel of old was no more. God's purpose in Israel had reached its fulfillment.....for the time being. Nearly 2000 years would pass until it would even be a nation again. Both Israel and America need to return to their God....which is the same God. Greatness should not have been our primary goal in America....mercy should have been our goal. Until we hang that red ball cap up for good and petition God....as did Samson......for one last feat of strength....we will be on our own.
The Bible was once an American's most valuable possession. Today it is either an artifact, a talisman for prosperity, or a rather large and bulky ticket one must have in their possession to enter heaven.....should heaven really exist. In reality it is the Omnipotent God's Word to fallen man, the greatest treasure on earth, which brings the greatest joy, draws forth the most ardent love and applies a devastating guilt followed by a torrent of mercy that elicits praises upon praises for mercies undeserved.....all given because of faith, faith alone....in the One who took our sins to a tree on Calvary. If my words seem overly pious or even syrupy, might I suggest that there may be an underlying cause for your hesitance to shout praises yourself; or if the Bible does not literally captivate you as God's very Word to you, you must find out why!
The following post is political and temporal yes, but only in as much as we are citizens of a nation who God blessed for a purpose, which may very well have completed its course.
All Is Lost....Or Is it.....January 2013:
It was heroic at times and trying at times but always set apart by a common creed....life as an American in these United States of America. God blessed this endeavor from the beginning as pilgrims left their homelands where tyranny had enveloped even the church, and they saw this new land of America as a new beginning for them and an extension of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the new world. The long distance from the heavy hand of the king of England encouraged them to see beyond being merely a colony or an extension of England to being a nation unto themselves.
Liberty is a powerful force, and freedom empowers one to reach beyond what would otherwise be available. In the mid-eighteenth century, after the First Great Awakening, the Gospel began to wane as great political minds filled the void and and a secular government.....that nonetheless proclaimed its dependence upon God.....came forth. Economic growth followed as the frontier was conquered but we faced an enormous stumbling block, the separation of two peoples in two different geographic areas over the issues of state's rights and slavery. God's heavy hand of judgment came upon a nation that had forgotten who had bestowed upon it its blessings. We turned to Him momentarily but a brand new frontier of industrial growth drew us away again only this time our educational institutions followed. An already weakened church was at the time under full scale attack from European theological liberalism. God's judgments now began to come upon the entire world in wars and economic collapse. We retained the sense of being American, of being free and of having liberty and defending the liberties of others while the Gospel went throughout the world.....and then we hit our peak.
We were the most powerful nation on this earth both economically and militarily. We had a creed that bound us together as Americans. We had heroes and causes and confidence. There's a scene in the classic Marlon Brando film The Wild One where a girl asks the young Brando what he was rebelling against. His answer was "What do you got?". This became the hidden mantra of the 60s generation....my generation. Everything was available to us and little of it was good. America found itself in smaller wars, trying to do what it had done before the mantle was gone. We were then a lost generation when a former 'B' actor in Hollywood revived the memory of that which was good in us but the rebellious generation of the 60s had produced our college professors and they in turn trained our media, the source of most information and news. Our creed that once bound us together was being hacked away at. We were not not only ignoring our heritage, we were attacking it, ashamed of it. Old heroes are old news. Heroes today are created for a purpose irrespective of what they might have done....good or bad. We were no longer "one" as a people but groups, each one out only for themselves.
God had watched all of this. The Billy Graham evangelical became the Ralph Reed evangelical which ultimately became the Karl Rove evangelical. (and today is the make America great again evangelical) Our pulpits, no longer capable of preaching Christ, preached whatever they thought would bring people in. The Democrat Party fell first, taken over by Progressives and then Communists. The Republican Party fell next, taken over by political machinery without a soul. Our country essentially lies in ruins, the demolition notice just hasn't been served. Yet most of the people party on, but that's not unusual, for history is replete with empires that fell while its people were oblivious to its nearing demise.
All is lost! Or is it? From the vantage point of observation and reality it is. Common sense and truth are utterly impotent in the postmodern mind. The blessings of capitalism became the god of capitalism and then a scourge of globalization. Our culture is in shambles. We have disasters ahead and we may as well know it beforehand. Fill in the blanks on what they might be. God's hand had departed from us long before we even heard the name Barack Hussein Obama. If His will is to awaken us one more time it will not be within a political party but over all the land and upon all those who suddenly see what we have done....and who we have become....a people who have forsaken their God. Should God open our eyes and revive us, there is no power on earth that can stop it. Those on the outside will utterly abhor what they see happening.
This is our hope. It always has been our hope. Apparently we have to reach bottom to see this and we are not there yet. May God have mercy upon us once again and do so entirely for His glory alone.
