What was the result of all this? Isaiah put it in very stark terms,
Your country is desolate,
Your cities are burned with fire;
Strangers devour your land in your presence;
And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard,
As a hut in a garden of cucumbers,
As a besieged city.
Although Judah saw a restoration of godliness under Hezekiah, it was not to last. Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son, turned out to be the most wicked king ever to sit on the throne in Jerusalem. In 2 Kings 21:16 we read, “Manasseh seduced them [the people of Judah] to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel.”
What was the Lord’s response to Manasseh’s provocations? 2 Kings tells us that, because of what Manasseh did, the Lord said, “Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.”
We who live in the West in 2020 are in a position not unlike the men of Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah. As the heirs of the Reformation, the foundational event of Western Civilization, we have a Godly heritage, but one which we have largely cast behind our backs. Entire denominations – take the Mainline Presbyterian Church, the PCUSA, for example – where once the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone was preached and believed, long ago became synagogues of Satan where false teaching such as the social gospel, feminism, and homosexuality rule.
We murder our own children by the hecatomb in the abortion clinics. Birth rates are at an all-time low. Same sex “marriage” is celebrated. According to a Princeton University Study, “A spike in death rates due to alcohol and drug poisoning, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis,” has caused the mortality rate for white, working class American men to skyrocket in recent years to the point that the overall life expectancy for American men has declined for three years in a row. Despite the Bible’s clear teaching against it, both major American political parties are working overtime to bring the Monstrous Regiment to the U.S. in the form of a woman president. Our financial system is collapsing and appears unsavable. Our schools and universities are little more than training grounds for socialism, feminism, homosexuality, environmentalism and Critical Race Theory.
In short, Americans living in 2020 find themselves in a position not dissimilar to the people of Judah and Jerusalem some 2,700 years ago, on the precipice of disaster.
Is there any hope for America and the West, or is God done with us?
As this author is neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, sure predictions are impossible. But is it a stretch to say that, if we continue on our current path, America as a nation is done? The answer, it seems to me, is a resounding no. In fact, if we keep on our current course, barring the near-term return of the Lord Jesus Christ or a second Reformation, the collapse of America and the West is all but assured.
Even if American Christians, or those who currently claim to be Christians, en masse repented of their foolishness and unbelief today, an event which appears unlikely, as a nation we would still be in for a rough time. Too much damage has been done for too long to expect a quick and painless restoration of our civilization.
Perhaps a better question to ask than is there hope for America and the West? is this: Is there hope for American and Western Christians?
The answer is, of course. Even while excoriating Judah for its wickedness, Isaiah acknowledged there was a faithful remnant. “Unless the LORD of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.”
And just as there was a faithful remnant in Isaiah’s day, even so is there a faithful remnant scattered among the nations of the West in our own time.
And what is that faithful remnant to do? Is it called to save America or to save the West? As much as it pains me to watch my own nation disintegrate before my eyes, it is not my calling or the calling of my fellow American believers to save America. So what is our calling? Our calling is the same as the believers in Isaiah’s day or in the time of Christ. We are to salt and light to a dying world, one which will be destroyed and renewed at the coming of Christ. Our job is not to save the West, but to preach the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone. Our job is not to save America, but to love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbors as ourselves.
So does this mean Christians care nothing for their home countries? Far from it. The Lord told the Jews exiled in Babylon to “pray for the peace of the city.” If the Jews were told to pray for a foreign nation in which they were captives, how much more ought we to pray for our own lands in which we are citizens? In the peace of our nations we too shall have peace.
It has been the position of this writer that we in the West are in for tough times. This is not a new position, but one which he has held consistently for many years. Those who belong to Christ, although they will have a share in the tough times, are uniquely positioned to be able to do something about them. We are not called to be victims of our circumstances, neither are we called to run and hide. We are called to put on the whole armor of God and face our circumstances as men.
Who knows? Perhaps the Lord will relent of the destruction that seems headed our way. Perhaps he will not.
In either case, we Christians are called to be faithful to our calling. Let us, therefore, pray to the Lord for knowledge, wisdom and strength and get to work. Come what may, let us be found faithful to our Lord.
Lux Lucet 
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