Last week, we talked about three purposes for which God blessed America from the time of its founding. However, Scripture is clear such blessings are only promised so long as our sin does not bring God’s judgment in their place.

As the prophet Isaiah warned:

Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lᴏʀᴅ; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him (Isaiah 1:4 NIV).

The prophet said to God: “The nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste” (Isaiah 60:12). And David testified, “The Lᴏʀᴅ sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness” (Psalm 9:7–8).

Since God testifies that “I the Lᴏʀᴅ do not change” (Malachi 3:6), we can know that any sins he judged in the past are sins he will judge in the future.

So, what are some of the sins that have led nations to experience that judgment in the past? While not an exhaustive list, we’re going to discuss four such sins mentioned in the Bible that are of particular relevance to America:

1. Disobedience to his word
2. Immorality
3. Idolatry
4. Materialistic greed

However, judgment is not where the story ends.

How America will be blessed

The Bible clearly teaches that God will bless those who position themselves to receive his grace. His word proclaims, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12). Solomon noted, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

Moses instructed the children of Israel prior to taking the promised land that if they would “obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 11:13), he would provide all they would need (vv. 14–15).

His covenant with them was clear:

If you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you. (Deuteronomy 11:22–25)

Consequently, if they would “faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today,” they would experience his favor, prosperity, and protection (Deuteronomy 28:1–14).

Following the conquest of Canaan, Joshua assured the people that God had given them the land because “you have been careful to keep the charge of the Lord your God” (Joshua 22:3). And he exhorted them to “be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you” so that they could continue in the blessing of God (v. 5).

The rule of Asa is another example (2 Chronicles 14). The king “did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God” (v. 2), removing idolatrous altars and commanding the nation to “seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to keep the law and the commandment (vv. 3–4). Consequently, “He had no war in those years, for the Lord gave him peace” (v. 6). When an Ethiopian army of a million men later came against him, he “cried to the Lord his God” (v. 11) and “the Lord defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah” (v. 12).

The psalmist declared,

Not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me. But you have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us. In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever (Psalm 44:6–8).

When a nation falls into sin but repents, they can still experience God’s favor: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

How America will be judged

After warning the Jewish people of the judgment that would befall them if they turned against God in disobedience, the Lord assured them that if they would “return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you” (Deuteronomy 30:2–3).

In fact, God is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). This is because he “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

One day we will stand with “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). In the meantime, God is working to lead all nations and their people to himself that they might be reconciled to their Father and experience his best.

Just as God presented ancient Israel with the choice between life or death, obedience or defiance, he has granted each of us the same choice today (Deuteronomy 30:19). And America will be either judged or blessed, in large part, according to which choice its people make.

How is your circle?

Over the next four weeks, we’ll look at each of these choices in turn, examining both why God singled these sins out as particularly worthy of his judgment and what it would look like for our nation to choose life instead. But, as we do, remember that when the state of our nation feels beyond the pale of God’s redemption, his call is to make sure you are right with him before moving on to anyone else.

When the evangelist Gypsy Smith was asked about his strategy for revival, his answer was to take a piece of chalk, draw a circle around yourself, get on your knees, pray till everything inside that circle is right with God, and then revival will be upon us.

How is your circle today?

Faith of the Founders

Patrick Henry and the Necessity of Religious Tolerance

Patrick Henry (1736–99) is best known for his speech on March 23, 1775, urging Virginia to raise a militia for the Revolutionary War. He concluded with words that have echoed through the generations:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

However, Henry was also a devout follower of Christ in person and in public. In his Last Will and Testament, for example, he wrote:

This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.

On his deathbed, he observed that he was “much consoled by reflecting that the religion of Christ has, from its first appearance in the world, been attacked in vain by all the wits, philosophers, and wise ones, aided by every power of man, and its triumphs have been complete.”

At the same time, Henry was adamant that his new nation embrace religious tolerance for people of all beliefs and none.

One reason was practical: If America established a single religion, those who professed any other faith (or none) would be less inclined to immigrate to the New World. In 1766, he wrote: “Much learning hath been displayed to show the necessity of establishing one church in England in the present form. But these reasonings do not reach the case of this colony. . . . A general toleration of Religion appears to me the best means of peopling our country.”

However, his deeper motivation was philosophical. Henry was (according to many historians) deeply involved in crafting Article XVI of Virginia’s declaration of rights:

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.

He therefore helped author laws protecting pacifist Quakers and Mennonites from being compelled to serve in the militia. He was an early—and rare—friend to Baptists as well, anonymously paying the fees to release the Baptist preacher John Weatherford, who had spent five months in jail for his beliefs.

Patrick Henry’s work in leading Virginia to guarantee “the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience,” arguably laid the foundation for the guarantee of religious freedom enshrined by his fellow Virginian, James Madison, in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

The freedom by which I am able to write these words—and you are able to read them—is a rare possession across the annals of human history. Billions of people today live in nations where they have little or no such liberty.

Let us therefore thank Patrick Henry for championing the cause of “liberty or death,” not just for our nation but for our souls.

 

Denison Forum