Will God Judge America (Part 6)

We Americans expect spiritual John Waynes to arrive on white horses during our nation’s worst times and rescue us from imminent disasters. This has often happened in the past when men, like John Wesley, George Whitefield, Charles Finney, Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, and others, have called America away from the spiritual abyss.

So, is there still some balm in Gilead for America?

Let’s look back at the events of the 2008 presidential election.

At the Democratic Convention in Denver, August 25-28, 2008, the party selected the two most radical pro-abortion candidates in the history of America as its standard bearers: Senator Barack Obama and Senator Joseph Biden. Both were Planned Parenthood endorsed candidates.

The Republicans countered at their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, September 1-4, 2008, with two pro-life candidates in Senator John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Governor Palin’s refusal to abort her son, Trig, a Down Syndrome baby, focused America’s eyes on the abortion issue.

Soon after the Republican convention, the polling data showed a dead even race between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin. This was a remarkable comeback for McCain who had lagged behind Obama in the double-digit percentage range for weeks.

McCain/Palin finally inched into the lead heading into the second week of the month.

Then, on September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. The following day, the Federal Reserve authorized an $85 billion bailout loan for AIG. Financial news swirled out of control until the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was enacted, which then established the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

With the bad economic news, Obama/Biden surged back into the lead and McCain/Palin wilted on the campaign trail. President Obama eventually won with a landslide victory on election night.

Spike Lee, film director and producer, later declared: “God Himself ordained the financial crisis to happen when it did in order to propel Barack Obama to victory.”

Lee’s words have haunted me over the last two years. Was he correct?

There’s no doubt in my mind the Lord could have held back the financial crisis until after the presidential election, but He didn’t. Why not? I wondered. After all, if the financial crisis had not hit, McCain could have been elected president and the Supreme Court’s balance could have been shifted to the right by now, with a better chance of Roe versus Wade being overturned sometime in the near future.

 

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19: 41 – 44)

 

Why did Jesus prophesy Jerusalem’s death warrant on the first Palm Sunday?

 … because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:44)

The Greek word episkope in verse 44 is translated into our English word visitation in most Bible translations. Yet, episkope does not imply a visitor stopping by for a friendly visit. Its true meaning suggests that God the Judge visits a nation, examining the people to determine whether they should be blessed or cursed by Him.

Yes, Jesus is the Prince of Peace, but He is also the stumbling stone and a rock of offense, whereupon people and nations stumble, falling to their doom.

Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD when a Roman army under General Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, killing over a million Jews in the process.

 

It’s now my sincere belief that the 2008 Financial Crisis was a plumb line event, which the Lord allowed to happen to discover how America measured up to Him.

Was America looking straight up to Him and His ways or was the nation tilted off center, leaning in another direction? What did the plumb line event reveal to the Judge?

Lou Engle, leader of the Call, stated it best: “In this election, we have bowed our knees to Baal and chosen prosperity over posterity.”

I agree with Engle and believe our nation failed the test. And I sincerely believe the Judge has signed America’s death warrant. It’s just a matter of time until the execution is carried out.

So, in retrospect, Spike Lee’s words proved to be accurate.

(An excerpt from New Wind Blowing by Larry Nevenhoven, Amazon eBook, published in 2008)

 

I wrote New Wind Blowing almost seven years ago, just after the historic election of an African-American man to the presidency of America. I believed then that we Americans could not repent enough to stop a massive Judgment of God from hitting America. Today, I believe it even more.

Maybe you disagree and even believe God will send us revival instead of His judgment. I hope you’re right, but can anyone really hope America will listen to a new generation of prophets who will speak messages of repentance?

I myself hold little hope this will happen and intend to spend little time on such an effort. Instead, I believe we Christians need to:

…strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus…(Hebrews 12: 1-2 Amplified Bible)

No doubt, the appointed course of the race that is set before us will not be an easy one and we must prepare ourselves for it. (An excerpt from New Wind Blowing)

(Conclusion. The full series can be read by clicking on Teaching Series above or here.)