God appeared in a dream to King Solomon 20 years into his reign, after he spent seven years building the Temple and 13 more constructing his own palace. Though spoken to Israel, the content applies particularly to people benefitting from God’s Presence in their lives and societies.
For Israel it included both PROMISE and THREAT. Promise if they remained faithful to God. Threat if they didn’t. Only the threat remains in place for America and western culture because, in turning from God in Christ, we no longer inherit the promise. Scripture everywhere demands that human repentance precedes God’s help. Since nothing that’s being written about COVID-19 and race tension makes any references to God’s word, no repentance is expressed by our nation, God’s wrath awaits us. We may not observe God’s holiness, but he defends it at all costs. We may not consider our immorality worthy of correction, let alone condemnation. However, since God considers human MORALITY-GOODNESS no better than a woman’s menstrual cloth, Isaiah 30:22, how much harsher does he condemn our wickedness! Since we can call on God for help only in a state of repentance—a state that DOES NOT characterize America—we must prepare for God’s judgment—a sentence first felt by Christians, as I Peter 4:17-19 says. And why first on Christians? Because Christ made us responsible for preserving life from corruption, and we haven’t. He made us responsible for evangelizing the lost, and we’ve failed. He’s made us his welfare agency and community care-center and we’ve turned the tasks over to government. He ordered us to be powerful spiritual warriors in each generation, and we instead cower in fear of opposition, etc. And now, with societal dysfunction everywhere, and opposition to Christ rising in culture, we expect Jesus to remove us by Rapture when life falls beyond repair? But did Joshua and Caleb escape the 40 wilderness years when they stood strong for invasion of Canaan while the 10 spies quailed before the Canaanites? No. Did Christians in the Roman Empire escape the troubles attendant on all its citizens when barbarians surged over the frontiers in the second and third centuries? No. Did Ezekiel and Jeremiah elude exile when God sent unfaithful Israel to the Tigris-Euphrates valley and the remnant fled to Egypt? No. Why then should we expect God to rapture us from break-up conditions in America that will become more savagely difficult? When we have failed to be Christ’s light on a hill and salt of the earth? End Part I
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