by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #115 posted August 7, 2020, edited March 10, 2021.
Whether you believe it or not, (a) God exists,[i] (b) God created Universe and exercises sovereignty over his creation and his creatures,[ii] and (c) God hates sin[iii] and punishes sinful nations in this life[iv] and sinful individuals in both this life[v] and the next life – specifically on the “day of judgment.” [vi]
You are undoubtedly familiar with God’s rules for individuals, the Ten Commandments, which can be found in Exodus 20:1-17. I summarize them as follows:
01 – You shall not put any god or person above God himself.
02 – You shall not make and worship idols.
03 – You shall not use God’s name disrespectfully, as well as engage in blasphemy, obscenities, and profanity.
04 – You shall not neglect to keep the sabbath holy.
05 – You shall not dishonor and neglect your parents,
06 – You shall not murder others, including babies in their mothers’ wombs.
07 – You shall not engage in forbidden sexual behavior, such as adultery, bestiality, bisexualism, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, pedophilia, and transgenderism.
08 – You shall not steal.
09 – You shall not bear false-witness against others.
10 – You shall not covet your neighbors’ possessions or spouses.
Regarding nations, the Bible indicates that God “…made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (ESV Acts 17:26). Moreover, God instituted national governments to maintain order by creating and enforcing laws which prohibit behavior that he has identified as evil-doing, such as the ten commandments above. In fact, the Bible indicates that God intends governmental officials to be terrors to law-breakers who engage in such behavior.[vii] In addition, the Bible indicates that, if a nation starts allowing – let alone legalizing – behavior which God’s statutes proscribe, he ceases blessing it and starts cursing it (see Deuteronomy 28:15-67) .
What would a nation under God’s curses look like? Well, I have lived long enough so that my early years fell in the 1940s and 1950s and my twilight years are falling in the 2020s. From my perspective, I would say that such a nation would look like the United States today, which my parents’ generation would not recognize. Here is what I see happening:
Built environments are becoming increasingly inhuman as city planners work assiduously to replace local, friendly small-town neighborhoods with uniform, blocks of urban sprawl by allowing and even encouraging developers to tear down small, attractive, brick and stone buildings containing intimate, mom-and-pop shops and restaurants that have been there for generations and to erect large, glass & steel, apartment and office towers containing impersonal, corporate banking, fast-food, and retail outlets that can be found everywhere in the world.
Cultural decadence is becoming ubiquitous, (a) with architecture, dance, drama, drawing, literature, music, painting, and sculpture become increasingly decadent, dissonant, ugly, & unsettling, (b) with journalism replacing factual reporting with character assassination, fake news, & propaganda, and (c) with schools replacing education with social engineering, as well as inculcating in their students disrespect for the religion of their parents and the founders of our country, which holds that our Creator decides what is right and wrong, and respect for atheistic humanism, which holds that Mankind should decide what is right and wrong for himself.
Economic distress is increasing, (a) with the value of our currency plummeting, thereby causing price inflation, loss of savings, and increase in individual, corporate, & governmental debt, (b) with speculation in financial instruments replacing investment in productive enterprises, (c) with corporate raiders dismantling companies, selling off their assets, debasing the quality of their products, laying off their employees, increasing their debt to the maximum, siphoning off their cash, selling their stock, and then walking away from the crippled enterprises, whose quick decline and demise are inevitable, (d) with company owners and executives moving jobs overseas, reducing domestic operations to a minimum, and eliminating local tax payments and employment, which leads to the impoverishment of entire communities, (e) with massive increases in unemployment, and (f) with incentives to work disappearing as government transfers ever more money from productive citizens to welfare dependents.
Governmental dysfunction is increasing, (a) with federal, state, and municipal politicians enriching themselves with public funds, (b) with out-of-control spending at every level of government, (c) with burning, looting, & rioting in our streets, (d) with foreign immigrants being admitted who neither speak English nor have any experience with democratic republicanism and may even hate our country, (d) with tolerance of wide-spread theft by foreign agents of the nation’s intellectual capital in both the arts and the sciences, (e) with continuous involvement in costly and unwinnable foreign wars, and finally (d) with an ongoing invasion of foreign immigrants, many of whom are terrorists, and (e) with the rising threat of outright attack by enemy military forces using cyber and missile warfare.
Natural calamities are increasing in number and severity, such as air & water pollution, drought & crop-failure, earthquakes, grass & forest fires, insect & vermin infestations, ocean, river, & stream flooding, rain, snow, ice, & wind storms that devastate the land and destroy real property, and pestilences that strike at both humans and animals.
Infrastructure failures are increasing, such as bridges falling down, dams and water mains springing leaks, roads and highways crumbling, power-plants becoming obsolete, trains jumping their tracks, and tunnels imploding.
Social pathologies are proliferating, (a) with people alone and in groups exhibiting incivility, hostility, hatred, intolerance, & self-righteousness, (b) with criminals engaging in assault, battery, bribery, fraud, extortion, maiming, murder, & theft, (c) with addicts succumbing to alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, etc., and (d) with families collapsing under the impact of feminism, gender confusion, same-sex marriage, sexual immorality, and substance abuse.
For over a century, our nation has been turning away from God and increasingly disregarding his commandments Not surprisingly, it is now suffering from troubles of every kind (many of which are mentioned in Deuteronomy 28:15-67 to the point where I see it falling apart in plain sight. Nonetheless, the majority of us seem blind to what is going on – particularly elected officials in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, who have been diluting our laws and law-enforcement to the point that nearly anything goes. Worse, we have begun calling evil good and good evil, which can only earn us more woes.[viii]
Fellow Americans, we need to wake up! There is still time to reverse course, and the following verse tells us how to do so: : “…if My people, who 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 forgive their sins, and will heal their land” (KJ21 2 Chronicles 7:14). We need to become God’s people again, honoring him, obeying his commandments. and asking for his mercy, which is “abundant in loving-kindness to all who call upon [him]” (Psalm 86:5).
© 2020 John Holbrook Jr.
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[i] God exists in a tri-unity that consists of three divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (1 John 5:7).
[ii] God-the-Father designed Universe and wrote Universe’s script; God-the-Son made Universe and manages Universe in struct accordance with the Father’s instructions; and God-the-Holy Spirit energized Universe and breathes life into Universe’s flora and fauna
[iii] Deuteronomy 25:16, Psalms 7:11-13, 45:7.
[iv] Deuteronomy 28.
[v] Leviticus 26:14-30,
[vi] 2 Peter 2:9, 3:7, Revelation 14:10-11..
[vii] Romans 13:7.
[viii] Isaiah 5:20.