America is in trouble. Big trouble. As a nation, we are dancing on a perilous precipice, teetering on the verge of destruction. Aside from the known threats of global terror, a Middle East meltdown, a soaring national debt, and the divisive spirit that has split our nation in two, our country’s very foundations are cracking beneath our feet. America is losing her soul. And it’s only a matter of time before the bottom drops out and we find ourselves in a free fall from which there may be no recovery. It’s a foreboding reality bearing down on us, and staring us right in the face.
For those of us Christians who love our country, this present state raises nagging, unanswered questions: What’s really happen- ing to our nation? What are the causes of our decline? How do we make sense of it all? Whatever happened to America the “Christian nation”? Where did we go wrong? Does the Bible say anything about our national condition? Are there Scripture passages that speak to our current situation? Can anything be done to turn us around? Or is it already too late?
There is no shortage of prophecy pundits who would sensation- alize the fact that we are living in the last days of the church age. And with these voices come a wide spectrum of interpretations and opinions regarding just where we are on the prophetic timeline, and more specifically, how the United States fits into God’s apocalyptic big picture.
America’s “Fault”
In what would be one of His last conversations with His disciples, Jesus Christ prophesied numerous earthquakes as a telltale sign of the end of the age and His soon return. Whether or not a cataclys- mic earthquake in the United States is included in that prophecy is unknown. We only know the potential for such earthquakes is, in fact, a reality.
But these days, it’s more than just earthquakes that are shaking and threatening our land. Millions across our country now sense that America is experiencing what can be described as “culture quakes.” Far from the geophysical disruptions shaking the physical ground, these upheavals weaken and undermine the very bedrock of our nation. The tremors from these seismic strains extend across state lines, reverberating and rippling into cities, towns, and rural communities.
Yours included. They produce deep fissures, swallowing up America’s character. And they are threatening to rip us apart…from sea to shining sea.
While many good people valiantly strive to restore our country to the principles and values upon which she was founded, we still seem to be losing this war. Like rising floodwaters, evil continues to surge while virtue and decency are slandered and silenced. It feels like we’re losing ground in an uphill battle. And the stakes continue to rise as the window of opportunity for victory diminishes.
Can you feel it?
The result of this cultural shift is that we now have a series of active “fault lines” crisscrossing the country. And with tremors being felt daily, it’s only a matter of time before the “big one” hits. Odds are you’re one of those who senses the hour is late, and that history’s clock is close to striking midnight. Despite skeptics’ objections to the contrary, Bible prophecy’s foreshocks are proving to be true after all.
Do you find yourself wondering how long we have before our country collapses? Have you felt the moral ground beneath you eroding away what’s left of our national character and identity? Has it become clear to you that a basic Judeo-Christian worldview, along with common-sense decency, are now becoming obsolete and unwanted? Are the words of the prophet Isaiah more specifically applicable to us now than at any time in our nation’s existence?
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
I believe there is evidence to suggest that our current condition shows symptoms of a nation on the brink of chaos and collapse. America is not merely slipping on a downward path. We’re landsliding toward destruction. And fast. We’re in a free fall … without a parachute. And like the rest of Americans, followers of Jesus Christ are dead center in the thick of it. We are caught in a dense, gravitational pull downward.
Declining Spirituality
Our government has yet to officially ban God and Christianity from the country. However, many of our nation’s leaders have sought to limit, and in some cases, eradicate completely the traditional biblical influence and spiritual fingerprint that once marked us as a nation. Both philosophically and practically, this fundamental transformation of America is being propagated and played out in the halls of government, colleges and universities, political parties, the court system, public schools, and local communities.
In a 2015 study of unchurched people, the Barna Research Group found that 25 percent of today’s unchurched adults are either atheistic or agnostic (Barna refers to this collective group as “skeptics”). About one-third of them have never once attended a church service.
But spirituality is also taking a hit among professed churchgoers. Less than half of Americans now attend church of any kind, and for those who do, it occurs infrequently.
Bottom line: As a nation, we are thinking less and less about God. We are God-less. And the fallout from this fact is eroding our foundations.
Decaying Morally
Perhaps nowhere is America’s decline more blatantly obvious than in the area of moral values and standards. What is openly practiced today would cause our parents’ generation
to blush in shame. But today there is no blushing, and there is no shame.
Opening Pandora’s Box
In June of 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision, saying same-sex couples had a “civil right” to legally marry. As expected, gay rights activists and homosexuals celebrated nationwide, flooding community courthouses where men married men and women married women.
With the legalization of homosexual marriage comes additional rights, including tax and health benefits. Naturally, this Pandora’s box of what the Bible defines as immorality, spearheaded by America’s highest court, also opens the door for other kinds of immorality to be legalized such as polyamorous unions (group marriages), men with boys (pedophilia) and even incestuous relationships.
After all, “Love is love,” right? We’ve also seen in recent years a rise of transgenderism, or people of one gender transitioning to another. Though this is logically unsupportable and medically impossible to achieve (a person’s DNA remains the same from conception to death), their mental perspective and self-perception can change as a result of one’s gender confusion.
So how have Americans responded to this gender identity explosion? Transgenderism and gender fluidity are now widely accepted, and those who dare to stand against them, question them, argue with them, criticize them or simply disagree with them are instantly branded with an identity of their own – homophobic, bigot or some other word connoting a hateful, repressive deplorable human being. There is even a concerted effort by the “gender identity police” to force heterosexuals to use “proper” gender-inclusive pronouns when referring to individuals who identify as the opposite of their birth gender or as a gender-fluid person. He/she are replaced with “zie, sie, ey, ve, tay, e.”
Another Crack
But when you exclude God and the Bible from a country’s laws and values, this is what happens. It’s another crack in the foundation of a nation, and more evidence of our decline.
America is decaying morally.Common sense and conscience are also eroding, as we are literally celebrating sin in the streets. From gay pride rallies, misguided mass gender protests, gang violence and looting, America is losing her mind as she embraces false narratives as truth and “fake news” as reality.
Our money still declares “In God We Trust,” but our actions argue to the contrary. A corrupted government and a morally bank- rupt population have joined together in removing much of God, His Bible, and His values from our culture. We vehemently deny that the Creator created the world, replacing Him with a preposterous, undocumented theory of origins that is force-fed to students in the classroom. The removal of prayer from schools in 1963 was merely emblematic of a greater strategy to devalue God Himself and His role in national life.
As a result, the Judeo-Christian God is now considered passé, out of date and unnecessary. It’s a new day in America, and there is no room for a faith that won’t allow us to do whatever we want.
The nation that denies and defies Him will ultimately collide with His reality and suffer the impact.
Because of our spiritual and moral deterioration, we have become a nation filled with self-absorbed people marked by incessant consumption, obsession with entertainment, and driven by flesh-fueled lusts. Moral relativism now rules the land, spreading like a demonic virus all the way to the highest offices in government.
We are officially a post-Christian society. In addition, economic peril looms around the corner, with unprecedented national debt and out-of- control spending by a bloated government that is endangering our standard of living.
Experts warn that these are among the glaring symptoms of a catastrophic system failure.
As Christians, we must respond to what is happening in our country. But we must do more than simply react. We must discern.
We cannot merely look at the state of our nation and world and scratch our heads, wondering what it all means and what to do about it, if anything. Instead, we must look to God’s authoritative Word for our wisdom and game plan.
Excerpt from The End of America?
By Jeff Kinley