As each year goes by, social commentators, and Church leaders analyze American culture and conclude that something is wrong. Nostalgia calls America back to a time when children could play outside without fear of being shot, kidnapped, or killed. There was a time when whole families celebrated special holidays together. There was a time when people gathered around a common table for meals, said a prayer of blessing over the food, and engaged in wholesome conversation. There was a time when the radio stirred the imagination, and not just conversation, and when TV shows were decent, and wholesome. So where did America go wrong?
One finger can point to the rise of theological Liberalism in our seminaries and denominational churches. They have not helped America stay on a moral course. It is impossible to listen to the Bible being assaulted, questioned, denied, and set aside as being culturally irrelevant, and expect to maintain a strong moral compass in society. The deity of Christ has been questioned. The virgin birth has been laughed at. The bodily resurrection of Jesus has been dismissed as an urban legend, because of Liberalism.
Another finger can point to the promotion of Darwinism. It is taught in the public schools of America that man is a product of time, plus space, plus change. He is not a special creation of God. Man is said to be a grown up germ that emerged from a primordial soup. There is no human dignity that distinguishes man from apes.
Some people point to the rise of relativism, and postmodernism to explain the cultural rot at the core of American society. Once, professors in colleges taught there was ultimate truth. Once, the quest for students was to discover truth. Then, the paradigm shifted. The current guiding philosophy of society is that one view is to be valued as another because there is no ultimate truth that can be known.
Then, there is the removal of prayer from schools. This came about after the meaning of the First Amendment was slowly made through a number of court cases over several decades. An atheistic woman name Madalyn Murray used her son Robert as a pawn in a court case to remove prayer from the school system in the name of separation of church and state (Murray v. Curlett, 1963). She prevailed, and America lost its spiritual compass. Not a single Christian organization had filed a brief in support of school prayer.
While all of these observations are valid, people must return to the Garden of Eden to find where we have gone wrong, not only as a nation, but as individuals. It is in the Garden of Eden the discovery is made that the fundamental problem is that we do not believe the Word of God.
Eve did not believe the oral word of God, and America has stopped believing in the written Word of God, the Bible.
The Bible says of itself that it is God-breathed. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16).
The Bible is not merely an interesting Book. It is the Word of the Living God. The world, and the Devil does not want people to believe the Bible, or even to read it. That is one reason the Bible, and all forms of Christianity are banished from our schools and official government buildings.
The ungodly know enough about the Bible to know that it will condemn those who are lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, and unholy. The Bible condemns those who are without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
Here is where America has gone wrong. The nation has gone astray, not in lack of knowledge, but in lack of moral accountability. The nation condones what the Word of God condemns.
If we can agree what is wrong, and where we have gone wrong, then there is hope. A correction can be made, individually, and nationally.
Simply put, we can begin to believe God again.
We can believe God when He says we have sinned.
We can believe God when He says that despite our sin we can know redemption.
We can believe God when He says He will conform those who love Jesus into His image.
We can believe God that He will heal our land.
“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” (2 Chron. 7:14).
When God heals our land, America will secure her boarders and be safe again. Drug traffickers will be arrested. Pornographers will be put out of business. The sex slavery industry will cease to be supported. People will become sober.
When God heals our land, Americans will stop lying to one another. Homosexuals will stop pretending they are gay, or happy people, when they are not. Nor are they moral people. Americans will stop lying about being transgender, and affirm that God has made men and women, male and female. Young people will no longer be confused as to who they are, and what role they are to perform in life.
When God heals our land, government will stop overspending. Presidents will stop lying. The FBI, CIA, and NSA will tell the truth. Politicians will become statesmen, and stop being political party hacks.
When God heals our land, Christ will be exalted. Worship will be engaged. The Bible will be esteemed. Prayer will return to the school. Political correctness will cease. The silly theory of Darwin will be formally and universally rejected. Liberalism will be banished from the college campuses. The news media will report the news. News reporters will stop being advocates of a Liberal ideologue. Basic rational education will replace the idiocy of the Common Core curriculum.
When God heals our land, marriage will be engaged for life between a man and a woman. Children will not be slaughtered in their mother’s wombs. The body parts of aborted babies will not be sold on the open market. Planned Parenthood will disappear into the pits of hell from which it was spawned. Wholesome TV shows will be produced, and family movies with traditional values will be made. The vile and degrading rap music industry will disappear. Wholesome music that lifts the soul will be created.
When God heals our land, history will be taught as it happened, without the deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. Patriotism will replace multiculturalism. Truth will replace relativism.
When God heals our land, people will embrace justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).