In the pages of the historical books of the Old Testament we read how God established a small government republic at the time of Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land, how that republic fell into corruption, and eventually devolved into a monarchy. We further read about how Israel hit its apex under kings David and Solomon, split in two under Solomon’s son Rehoboam, and the course of the two kingdoms, the Northern, sometimes called Ephraim, and the Southern, often called Judah. The Northern Kingdom declined and finally fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC. The Southern Kingdom under the Davidic dynasty declined also, though at a slower pace, and finally fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Why did the Northern and Southern Kingdoms fall? For that we need not rely on the conjectures of a historian. One of the great blessings of taking God at his Word in the Scriptures is that we receive knowledge as a gift from his hand. There no need to speculate about the reasons for Israel’s fall. God tells us plainly in his Word. The author of Chronicles writes,
And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy (2 Chronicles 36:15, 16)
Although the meaning of the passage is clear, there are several items worth pausing to discuss further. In the first place, God sent warnings. In Exodus 34, God speaks to Moses and says, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in in goodness and truth.” God is not some capricious caster of lightning bolts as some are apt to think of him. Had God ended the human race with Adam’s sin, he would have been righteous in doing so. But that’s not what he did. Rather, in sentencing Adam and Eve, he first announced the Gospel by which sinners would be redeemed. The history of Israel in the Old Testament is proof of God’s character, that he is gracious and slow to anger and compassionate. It was approximately nine hundred years from the time of the Exodus to the exile, and in that time the Lord never ceased to teach, to rebuke and to warn his people of the wrath to come if they failed to heed him. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was not some sudden, random outburst of divine anger, but the culmination of centuries of warnings on God’s part and rejections of the part of Israel.
In this passage, we see the reaction of the Israelites to the God’s warnings. They “mocked” his messengers, “despised” his words, and “scoffed” at his prophets. One of the principles we see in Scripture is that knowledge determines responsibility. Jesus spoke of the contrast between the servant who knew not his masters will and the one who did. Their punishments were different. The one who knew not the will of his master was beaten with few stripes, while the one who knew received many. It is a terrible thing to mock, despise and scoff at the words of God. Unlike many in our own time who see words as a small thing, God considers words of the highest importance. It was words that called for the existence of the universe. “In the beginning was the Word,” John tells us. We are told that by our words we will be justified and by our words we will be condemned. There is nothing more important than words. There is nothing more certain than a word from God. When he speaks, it is our duty to believe what he says. To reject his words is no small thing. It is unbelief which leads to death, not only to the death of the unbelieving individual, but even to the death of an entire civilization.
God is patient and slow to anger. But his patience is not infinite. It is not, as some may think, due to weakness or inattention that God delays his judgment. It is due to his gracious nature that he withholds judgment. But in addition to being gracious, God is also just. In the words of Exodus 34, he by no means clears the guilty but visits the sins of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation. We see this in passage from 2 Chronicles, where the author explains the result of Israel’s repeated rejection of God’s counsel.
Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans [Babylonians, auth.], who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand. And all the articles from the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his leaders, all these he took to Babylon. Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years (2 Chronicles 36:17-21).
It was under King Manasseh that God finally said “enough.” Manasseh was Hezekiah’s son. While Hezekiah was one of Judah’s greatest kings, his son did not follow in his footsteps, but, remarkably, seduced the people of Judah, “to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel.” At this time said the Lord, “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.”
This threat was finally made good in 586 BC. The walls of Jerusalem were leveled, the temple was burned, and the people were carried off into exile.
What About America?
So what does all this have to do with the current condition of these United States? Quite a lot. At its founding, America was a Protestant nation. One historian went so far as to say the John Calvin was the virtual founder of America, a statement with which this author would not argue. It was not the Renaissance, as many believe, but the Protestant Reformation that led the world out of medieval darkness. But where is the Reformation in America in 2020? It hardly seems to exist at all.
The mainline Protestant churches were long ago consumed by liberalism. In 2020, far from being salt and light in a dark world, they themselves have become endarkened and have become agents helping to spread darkness in this nation.
As Christianity has been abandoned by the churches, so too are the other institutions of society following them in collapse. Government, once limited in size and scope, has exploded in the one hundred plus years since the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th century. The Christian idea that government is a God ordained institution designed to protect our liberties has given way to the notion that government is a god, the dispenser of all things good and deserving of our highest loyalty.
Education from kindergarten through graduate school long ago was divorced from the Word of God and has become a force for spreading satanic lies.
Businesses likewise have become instruments of indoctrination, regularly forcing employees to sit through diversity and inclusion seminars which are thinly veiled Marxist indoctrination sessions.
It’s been a commonplace to denounce pop culture as a sewer for so long that many people have become deaf to it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Cardi B. is probably the most popular musical artist in America at the present. Her current hit song is so vile that it is inappropriate to even mention it by name. But she has become rich and famous through audio pornography to the point where she recently interviewed Joe Biden, the semi-senile Democratic presidential candidate.
American politics in 2020 is toxic to the point where one party, the Democrats, has openly declared its hatred from the majority population of this country, essentially promising to subjugate white Americans, many of whom are descendants of the nation’s Protestant founders, a regime of endless reparations as punishment for their supposed racism. Rioting, not mostly peaceful protesting, but outright violent rioting has become standard fare in many of our largest and most famous cities.
The Republicans, the ostensible opponents of the Democrats, are themselves deeply compromised to the point where they promote homosexuality, medieval religions (Romanism, Judaism and Islam), feminism, corporatism and big government welfarism.
Both parties tacitly support the predations of the Federal Reserve, which is daily robbing ordinary Americans blind to feed the scammers on Wall Street and in Washington.
Both parties embrace deficit spending. Neither cares a whit about America’s exploding national debt.
Both parties love unconstitutional and immoral foreign wars and empire.
The American family, it’s a mess too. Marriage rates are at record lows. But same sex marriage – a concept unimaginable to most people a mere generation ago – is now an accepted thing.
I could go on, but I trust the reader gets the picture. Much as Israel of the Old Testament, America has thrown away its godly heritage and has turned away backward such that in our eyes good has become evil and evil good.
Sometimes it concerns me that I write too much about civilizational collapse and the wrath of God. Shouldn’t I find something more enjoyable to write about? Sometimes I really think I should. But I simply cannot remain silent. I must speak. And with each passing week, it seems even more necessary to speak about it than before.
Americans are sleepwalking into a disaster, but few are the voices telling them the truth.
Is it too late for America? Will we be wiped clean as a man wipes a dish, to borrow the language of the Bible? Probably so.
But what happens to our nation ultimately is not the most important thing. This world is passing away. What matters is where you are going to find yourself in eternity. Is it going to be heaven or hell?
Jesus told his hearers, “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.” It is through faith in Christ alone that any of us has any reason to hope, either in this world or the next.
It’s very easy for us to be distracted by the pressing concerns of this world and forget the most important thing, what is our standing before an all holy God. For those in Christ, we can face the worst this world can throw at us knowing that we have a loving Father in heaven who has promised to provide for us in this life and will welcome us into a heavenly home when we die.
Not so the ungodly.
There’s an old saying that someone can be so heavenly minded that he is of no earthly good. This is false. In truth, unless we are heavenly minded, we’re going to be of no earthly good.
If Christians are going to be salt and light in this dying world and preserve anything of Western Civilization, the civilization of the Reformation, we must confront the evils of this world from the Scriptures, putting no trust in political conservatism or any other system that promises to overcome evil apart from Christ.
Lux Lucet 
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