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Ythe rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:1-4)
The first Psalm is one which foretells, with absolute certainty, where the path of disobedience and sinful associations and behaviors lead. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” (Psalm 1:1) As is God’s most common approach, it contrasts the positive with the negative. Nothing in this world is all positive since such is a force and the negative is the complete absence of force, i.e., light and darkness, hot and cold, ordered or degenerate, etc.
God’s Word and Counsel has implications for nations as well as individuals. God need only say, “Blessed isthe nation whose God isthe LORD; andthe people whomhe hath chosen for his own inheritance.” (Psalm 33:12) The thoughtful person knows full well that the contrary rule of that proposition is the fact of any nation whose God is NOT the Lord is not blessed, but damned.
Owing to her Godly heritage, America has enjoyed the best fruits of life in her past prosperity (both material and spiritual) – to the honor and glory of God who has blessed us with His providential care and leading. Wherever God leads, there is joy and plenty that satisfies the soul. Worldly riches may not be the sign of His favor, but certainly any worldly riches will be dwarfed by His spiritual benefits.
Judah was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonians. They began that journey of captivity by “walking in the counsel of the ungodly.” They continued their intercourse with the ungodly by regular communications; and, now, they find themselves sitting down with the ungodly in their new and despairing home of captivity in Babylon. . . . “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” Deep remorse is the result of sinful lives that have led to hard bondage. All sin leads to bondage of one form or another.
Several decades ago, America came to a crossroads – one road led to the continued Godly legacy of the past, and the other to the licentious and ungodly path upon which our choice has set us. We, as a nation, are largely unrestrained by any sense of moral restraint opting for perversions in marriage, the murder of our innocent babies, and every manner of evil and corruption in government.
History has taught us that any nation, from the ages of antiquity, that embark on such a course will suffer ruin and devastation. That is the dark tunnel into which we have launched headlong since prayer and the Bible were removed from our public schools after having a place there for the first two hundred years of our national experience. When those two resources were taken from our youth, we have undergone a lawless and corrupting trend in society; and our youth are like ships without a compass. A decade later, seeing that we had no moral courage or backbone, a panel of black-robed infidels claimed the US Constitution allowed for the murder of innocent babies in the mother’s womb. All along, the mainline churches remained silent in the face of this emerging evil and, eventually, even became complicit with it. Now we stand in the face of national calamity and disgrace. I know of no other society in the world in which its citizens have acquiesced to such evil machinations.
The courts will always be as corrupt and inclined to wickedness as the people allow; and we have allowed this result in our national court system to overturn a glorious history of a godly people who have previously turned to God for their national guidance. I will quote a man whom I have often quoted before in the matter:
Power and law are not synonymous. In truth, they are frequently in opposition and irreconcilable. There is God's Law from which all Equitable laws of man emerge and by which men must live if they are not to die in oppression, chaos and despair. Divorced from God's eternal and immutable Law, established before the founding of the suns, man's power is evil no matter the noble words with which it is employed or the motives urged when enforcing it.
Men of good will, mindful therefore of the Law laid down by God, will oppose governments whose rule is by men, and if they wish to survive as a nation they will destroy the government which attempts to adjudicate by the whim of venal judges. - Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC.
Should we not consider those scoundrels who sit upon the Supreme Court and subordinate Federal courts to be ‘venal.’ When they disallow bible reading and prayer in school, the posting of the Ten Commandments anywhere on public grounds, and rule that murder of innocent babies is a good thing allowed? Of course, we have exception on the Supreme Court – Justices Clarence Thomas and Gorsuch, for example. But the exception should not be the rule in a Christian nation.
America is no longer at that long-forgotten crossroads. We have gone far down the path of perdition. We do have a remnant of true-blooded Americans scattered throughout the land many of whom have resisted the socialist indoctrination of their children by homeschooling, or a regimen of home teaching that counter balances the lies they are taught in public education. But the sources of evil have been allowed to multiply in many different directions. It has become a hydra—headed snake of such proportions that it is nearly impossible for parents to raise a child in the “way they should go” when they find themselves competing with graphically bloody and perverse movies, computer games, and social morons who have been raised in homes with no moral direction.
Is it possible to return to a people highly favored of God? Yes, it is always possible; but it is unlikely for a people who have stood idly by while the reprobates of sin have taken away their ruling principles. God has ways of awakening us which may be best left unsaid. There are all sorts of terrors that loom ahead that could jar the American people to awaken from their drunken stupor and return to sanity and righteousness; but these will be hard lessons to bear. Beyond any doubt, America faces the judgment of Almighty God else He must restore the salty ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. When the judgment comes, it will be for our good and not for our total destruction as a nation. Of course, that is my opinion based on my study of the manner in which God has acted in ages past toward His people.
I do not DREAD the coming judgment. In fact, I welcome whatever miseries the future holds for America if those will turn us back to those biblical principles which have traditionally been the underpinning of this formerly great land. God cares not how far we have traveled in the wrong direction. He only cares that we turn and head in the direction back to Him. The father of the Prodigal Son did not commune with his son while he was away in a ‘far country,’ But when that son turned and headed home to the father, that old father saw him coming at a great distance and RAN to me him where the sky met the horizon. And let us not forget what miseries forced the Prodigal to “come to himself” and return.
I am saddened to feel the need to write such a devotion as this; but I cannot stand by and watch the ruin of a great nation without uttering a single syllable in its admonition to return. This is the land of my fathers, and of my sons and daughters. How could I refuse to issue the warning?
Shall America finally hang their harps on the willows by the Rivers of Babylon and sing the sad songs of a defeated people, or shall we awaken to the approach of the enemy to our walls, shut our gates to the unrighteous, and wage such a defense as becomes a righteous nation? The power to do so lies within us as a people.
