Bible Study on Exodus 23, verses 20 to 33, part 4, America is being judged

 

World War One, the Jazz Age, the automobile, the sexual revolt of the 1920s, the triumph of evolution in science, the growing importance of the Entertainment industry all figured in to God’s judgment on the nation for its idolatry. As an example, where women who wore makeup were derided as ‘painted city women’ before the war, with strong suggestions of immorality, the demands by boys returning home that their women look like French girls has resulted in the fact that Christian women wouldn’t dare leave home without makeup on today. In addition, the lax morals produced by boys and girls being able to go off alone in a car and listening to Ragtime and Jazz watching Hollywood movies glorifying decadence was a chilling reminder that something was very wrong in America. We had the Great Depression, remember? Then, another devastating war and a so-called Cold War for 50 years pounded away at our families and our institutions. Look at today. Do you not doubt we are under God’s judgment? Look at Israel in Kings and Chronicles. Don’t you see America in every page? Ancient Israelites, like Americans, believed that they were special and by virtue of their exceptional place in God’s ordained world they deserved peace and prosperity, both of which were taken away over time for their idolatry.

Fundamentalism came about in the early 1900s because America, under God’s judgment, appeared to be descending into chaos and darkness. The King James-only movement came about in 1964 because fundamentalism had gone crazy with regard to its denial of the Bible we had in front of us. The problem, fundamentalists wrongly assumed, was non-Christians polluting God’s country. The actual problem was Christian idolatry and not venerating God’s word above our ambitions. This is how idolatry, in this case, worship of one’s country as a god on earth, can do horrible damage.

We are held to the same standard as everyone else and we have been found wanting. I refer you to the passage I quoted earlier from Romans, chapter one, again to find out why things are the way they are.

But, it must be said, unlike the Hebrews assuming control over an area of land the promise to Christians is an eternal inheritance. We don’t get a utopia here, a millennium without Christ’s physical presence, but we can get an awful mess.

It is interesting in Verse 28 how God promises to use creatures to drive out the inhabitants of the land He has promised to the Hebrews slowly. God has used many naturally occurring events as weapons. Remember the plagues of Egypt?

Compare what ancient Israel was to be with what America was to be to see a difference dispensationally. Israel was not to permit idolatry in its borders and was to drive out the idol-worshippers lest they pollute the Hebrew religion, which their existence did, as we can see by reading the Bible. America is a pluralistic nation with many different religious traditions or no religion at all. We cannot remove everyone from the land who does not believe exactly what we believe or how we believe, no matter how much you would like to do that. The Hebrews didn’t do that either, but it was their apostasy that garnered them God’s wrath.

I think it is important to realize that every Christian now is a type of the nation of Israel then, as the children of Israel then were a type of every Christian today. Our land is a spiritual land and our Canaanites are our sins. God promises us that He will drive out our sins if we obey Him as He promised the Hebrews He would drive out the wicked, child-sacrificing, bestiality practicing, temple-prostitute patronizing Canaanites if the Hebrews obeyed.

But, having said all that, I would go on to say that if Christians themselves would repent and turn from their sins and obey God in the best way they know how, believing His word, they would not be deceived by lying, gutless, and corrupt politicians and their land would not be given over to the perversion, violence, and decay that is so prevalent. God honors obedience, not obedience as defined by some fundamentalist whack-job preacher or evangelist who just wants to control them but obedience and righteousness as defined by the Bible. The problem with America is not homosexuals, left-wing demagogues, drug-dealers, or liberal judges. The problem with America is the faithlessness of Christians who regard the Bible as a type of Emily Post’s book on etiquette to be observed if convenient and who regard God as more of a concept or idea than a real, living entity who controls every aspect of reality from their living room to the edges of the universe.