Signs of God's Dealings

America is nine trillion dollars in debt. For those who normally don’t count that high and are not familiar with how much that is, a “trillion” is a thousand billion. That’s no small change. Ironically, 1.7 trillion of that debt is to Arab nations, 200 billion to China and 125 billion to Russia. Think about those nations for a minute.

Over two million houses are in foreclosure. Two million. A gallon of milk costs as much as a gallon of gas, and a gallon of gas is costing an arm and a leg. Add to that the incredibly bad news that we are not winning the war over cancer--over 2,300,000 Americans will get cancer in the next year, many of whom will be children, and you can see that we are in serious trouble.

ABC News recently published an article titled “More Than 60 Percent of U.S. in Drought.” We have become used to seeing onslaughts of floods, hurricanes lining up on our coasts, and killer tornadoes by the dozens ripping up the nation like there’s no tomorrow. And, of course, we are in a war that it seems we can’t win.

The above are all signs of God’s dealings with a sinful nation. If you find that hard to believe, read Deuteronomy 28 and see what God warned would happen to Israel if they forsook His Commandments and turned their backs on Him. Hold onto a pen and underline places where Scripture warns that they will get into financial debt and become the tail, not the head. Look again at the nations to whom we are in debt. Underline how God says that aliens will flood the country, or that their enemies will overcome them, or that disease will plague them.

When you hold your pen also hold on to your theology, because that chapter will destroy any image of God as being a celestial Santa Claus. He is a God of Justice and truth as much as He is of love and mercy. To have a mere one or two virtues of His character in your image of God, and to leave out the others, is to have an idol in your mind.

We are no different than ancient Israel. We are a nation that has forgotten God and created other gods before Him. He lavished His goodness upon us and we have blasphemed His holy name. Instead of honoring the God who gave us life, we have bowed before the golden calf of Wall Street (which is melting before our eyes). We have also embraced the foolish, unsubstantiated, unscientific theory paraded as the gospel truth called “evolution,” and when the blossoms bloom, mother nature is praised for what she has made. Our churches are filled with preachers who preach another gospel, portraying God as a divine butler.

As a nation, we have forgotten God. Almost. When there’s a tragic disaster and people are killed and property destroyed, insurance companies call it “An act of God.” Perhaps they have been reading the truths of Holy Scripture.

Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).