A Gloomy Day-After Independence Day

It's the day after The Fourth of July and I know so many people who are sad about the situation of America, see our cherished history and institutions being trashed in various ways, wondering if the nation is even going to survive.

There are calls for prayer for the nation of course, and some groups and individuals do pray for the nation. Perhaps God is hearing, though it doesn't seem so. Things seem to be getting worse rather than better, but of course they might be a lot worse if people weren't praying.

Still, you have to ask why things seem to continue to go from bad to worse. When I ask that question and pray about it the answer I keep coming up with is that the churches are out of favor with God, and not until the churches reform will our prayers be heard for healing the land.

The famous call to pray for one's nation in 2 Chronicles 7:14 is often quoted to exhort Christians to pray for America, but not very often are the conditions in that verse emphasized enough.

2 Chron 7:14 If my people, which 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 will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

When we pray for America how many of us humble ourselves? Do we even think about what that means? How about fasting as a start? How many do that? What about turning from our "wicked ways?" Do we even think we HAVE any wicked ways to turn from? My impression is that most Christians just blithely pray that God would bless America without even thinking about meeting these conditions.

This exhortation was God's answer to Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the newly built temple, after it had been hallowed to God's purposes.

The passage goes on:

15 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. 17 And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments; 18 Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel. 19 But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; 20 Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. 21 And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house? 22 And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.

Our temple today is built up of living stones, God's people themselves. We are God's house. We know He will never forsake or abandon us if we hold in faith to His promise of salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, but what if we stray from His teachings? Can we believe we are saved by grace and think it's OK to ordain women or homosexuals to preach? Or are those only the really apostate churches that are no longer God's anyway? Didn't Jesus threaten to remove the lampstands of those churches which had strayed too far?

There are many questions like these that should be asked. I think before we can expect God to hear our prayers for the nation we need to pray first that God would show us where we are out of His will and set ourselves to reform, both personally and corporately in His churches.

I really am convinced that women's not covering our heads in church, and maybe outside of church as well, has shut us out of hope for the nation. I really do, and it's very sad because it's hard to think of this requirement being widely accepted any more by anyone in the churches. It's treated as trivial and it's rationalized and interpreted away by so many respected leaders. Could it at least be asked that people pray that God would show them the truth about this? That's where we need to start anyway, FINDING OUT where we have gone wrong with God so we can reform. We can only find out through His Holy Spirit; thinking alone won't get us anywhere.

I also suspect strongly that the widespread acceptance of the modern Bible versions that really are based on corrupt -- even heretical -- texts, and translations that have been done by men of liberal persuasion who reject much of His word, MAY play a part in this too. I wouldn't dismiss the thought lightly, people, but I know getting a serious hearing for this is not very likely.

These of course are my own hobbyhorses that I've been pursuing in my blogs. Don't take my word for any of it, but DO go read the many references I've given to these subjects; let THEM tell you.

But I'm sure there's more. Any capitulation to liberalism or feminism in a church needs to be confronted. It may be subtle, not easily recognized as a problem.

Or personal sins too. A pastor or elder or deacon who has been divorced? Or compromised teaching about divorce and remarriage? That sort of thing. These things are not just sins, they're actually false doctrine that promotes sin.

I get a sinking feeling thinking about all this. I see so many ways we are out of God's will lately, and so many ways I don't think Christians want to deal with any of it, but rationalize it away, dismiss it as legalism, or otherwise insist that it's not a problem and so on.

If only people would at least pray for light on the subject, ask God to show us where we may have gone wrong as His people. Pray through the Sermon on the Mount asking if we're REALLY obeying Him, perhaps. Anything along these lines would be a huge beginning.

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Later. I'm going to stop reading about feminism, which is only depressing anyway, a real horror story and a BIG reason why the nation is in the pits and some churches have gone desperately wrong as well, and reread some Leonard Ravenhill. He wrote a lot about why we aren't having revival and he wrote a book with the interesting title, America Is Too Young To Die. I think that's the direction I need to go right now.

Not politics, not prayer, not seeking revival. We need light on our sins and repentance.

Some time ago I pretty much gave up on politics. I used to get involved, posted quite a bit on various political issues, especially the rise of Islam that we've seen even after they attacked us on 9/11. That in fact was one clue that events aren't making any sense, that things are out of control and no matter what we do to raise the alarm about dangers to the country the dangers seem to increase.

Finally it really came home to me in truth that it's all in God's hands. I mean, you "know that" but usually you don't REALLY know that so you go on looking for political solutions anyway, at least doing what you can to get the word out, until you REALLY know it. I was even saying the truth before the truth really came home to me: the reason the nation is in so much trouble, the reason nothing we do is working, the reason the forces of destruction keep on bulldozing their way over everything the country once stood for, is that God is judging us. You can't fight God. If God has set His face against us there simply are no political solutions.

So I became more focused on understanding all the ways the nation is under judgment. At first the obvious looms largest: abortion is a big one for instance, the push for "gay rights" another. But then you start wondering how legalized abortion happened anyway, how we got so far down this road to perdition. Oh you can identify causes here and there. Marxist influences loom large and they got very big in the 60s, and those of that mentality are now in power. But really, how could all that have happened so easily? Why have those who oppose it been so helpless to do anything about it? Now on top of Marxism we have Islam increasing in power. Terrible paradoxes.

But the fact that we are falling under leftist and anti-Christian influences means the church had already been effectively silenced. For that to happen at all means the country had already lost its Christian identity. Certainly God judges all nations, pagan and Christian, but "judgment begins at the house of God" and that now seems to me to be the place we should be putting all our attention. I think we have to face that it's the church that has let down the nation. All we seem to do as Christians is complain that the nation does what unbelieving nations are likely to do under the influence of fallen human nature. We complain about the legalization of abortion, we complain about the push to legitimize homosexuality, and so on. We complain and we do what we can to combat such legislation. But as I'm saying here, it isn't working. The church has no clout any more. Hatred of Christianity is getting very strong. "Hate speech" laws are closing in against us. The question is "Why?" Why is the church so powerless?

Sometimes I'll just figure that it's time Christians in the West experienced the kind of persecution Christians all over the world have experienced for millennia. And persecution is good for the church too. It sifts the wheat from the chaff like nothing else. And it strengthens true believers in the spiritual powers we need to make a difference in this world. And if we can't get any further than that in our understanding, at least that's some kind of progress in the right direction.

But we COULD be asking WHY it's happening this way, why we've lost our spiritual power in this world. We should stop blaming it on nonChristians. We should stop pursuing the hopeless route of politics, the life of the flesh, of the fallen human nature, and focus exclusively on God who is the source of everything we need to make a difference. Oh we pray too, of course, but something is just not right, our efforts are just not accomplishing anything. Our focus is wrong. We helplessly watch while more and more dangerous things come against our nation. We get Obama for instance. People seem to have lost their ability to judge things rightly altogether. The nation is acting like the mythical lemmings rushing to certain death.

So I've pulled back from all that in the last few months. My focus is now on trying to understand where the church has gone wrong. I keep finding various ways it has gone wrong that need correction before God might smile on us again, what Biblical principles we have been violating. I have to suppose I've only started to recognize just a small portion of what's been wrong, and keep seeking more light.

I sincerely believe that the fact that women stopped covering our heads some time back in the early 20th century is one reason God has turned His face from us. That's a violation of His Creation ordinance and an insult to Him.

I also have been coming to believe that the proliferation of Bibles based on untrustworthy Greek and Hebrew texts that came out of Liberalism and Rationalism of the 19th century has eroded our spiritual power. There are some hints that make me shudder to think about, that on a supernatural level the expunging of so much of God's word by heretics has actually erased names from our Book of Life.

I suspect that the decline in modest dress is also partially involved, which is why I've got a blog laid out to pursue that topic when I get around to it. And I still haven't got around to thinking through the topic of nonresistance, or Jesus' command not to resist evil, which the church has certainly violated even sometimes to the point of a near-idolatry of military force. Violence of any kind against enemies is utterly contrary to the Spirit of Christ, who told us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek. We're to die to ourselves, and literally die if it comes to that, not kill or threaten anyone.

Where are the "rivers of living water" the Lord Jesus promised believers? I've also spent quite a bit of apparently futile time on seeking revival. We aren't going to get revival until we have reformation, until we recognize where the church has been going wrong and repent of it.

Leonard Ravenhill was a man of God who knew God's power, and yet he prayed and prayed and prayed for revival, and wrote books exhorting Christians to seek revival, as the greatest need of our time, but he died without seeing revival and we've seen no revival since his death either.

We aren't having revival because we haven't faced our sins yet. We haven't even identified them. We aren't even looking for them. I was disheartened to find out about Ravenhill how much support he gave to Billy Graham, Graham who is a notorious supporter of the Roman Church and devoted to a destructive ecumenicism. I was further disheartened to find out that he didn't definitely oppose the Bible versions although he did seem to believe the KJV is the best. A W Tozer also fell for the versions I believe. I think these things may be a clue to why Ravenhill died without seeing revival. Ravenhill and Tozer were great Christian men with a prophetic bent. If they could be deceived, what makes any of us think we can't be?

God will not bless His people if we have such sins in our midst. Even the best of our Christian preachers seem weak and ineffective these days, sometimes even defending people and ideas they should be confronting instead. We need to wake up and consider that yes indeed we CAN be deceived. We CAN be taken in by clever wolves among us. Who the wolves are is not all that easy to identify. We have to ASSUME that we have many things wrong and submit our beliefs to God's light a lot more often than we do so that He can lead us out of our error. THEN maybe we can hope to have revival. But I don't think we can hope it at all in our present state. A.W. Tozer said that if we did have revival in our present state -- he was writing over forty years ago and it's worse now -- it would be the worst possible thing because it would confirm us in a multitude of errors. He said it better than that but that was the basic idea. But really God won't give us revival anyway in our current state, which is a great blessing. There will be counterfeit revivals of course.

Oh Lord help us. Wake us up. Show us the paths out of our present darkness. Lead us to understanding and repentance and restore us to Your favor that we might overcome our paralysis and have the rivers of living water You promised us.

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I know this is just a long ramble, but I hope it's coherent enough. I suppose as usual I may come back and make changes after it's posted to clarify this or that, sorry for any confusion.