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Surge Summary: To the degree America refuses to adhere to God’s revealed will for people and nations, the country is headed for trouble. The church’s response to the current spiritual climate will determine much of what happens – or doesn’t happen.
by David Lane
The average Christian’s ignorance of the Bible, in particular of the Old Testament, is one of the great tragedies of American Christendom. It is difficult to overstate the importance that knowledge of the Old Testament plays in the understanding of the New Testament.1 As A.W. Pink expressed it: “There is nothing trivial in the imperishable Word of God: everything recorded therein has a profound significance, if only we have eyes to see it.”2
Both Biblical illiteracy and secular anti-theism help explain the iniquity brought upon the American culture by the radically liberal, Mephistophelian Warren Court in 1963: the prohibition of the Bible being taught in public education. In essence, Satan eliminated the principal part of knowledge – fear of the Lord [Proverbs 1:7] – from public schools, thereby expelling Jehovah God from culture, in addition to sanctioning religious secularism as America’s official religion. By replacing trust in God for our daily bread with dependency on government, the State was elevated to divine status.
To believe in God is a religious decision and commitment. And so is not to believe. Taking into account that an estimated 65 to 80 million Evangelicals and 30 million Pro-life Catholic Christians apparently have chosen to believe, it is hard to understand why 40 to 50 percent of them not even have registered to vote, and hence never have voted. This is particularly problematic and detrimental in a Constitutional Republic, where the ballot box determines the moral, or immoral, trajectory of the nation.
Needless to say, the only way for Christians to be a viable alternative to the world is for them to be in the world, but not of it.3
Jewish Presbyterian missionary Adolph Saphir’s [1831-1891] observation that “there is no safety in distance from God” brings American Christendom’s lack of engagement even more to the fore. In the 20th century, the public square was forsaken in favor of a quiet retreat behind the four walls of the church building. Man, in contemporary America, has become his own god and moral arbiter.
Victor Davis Hanson [born 1953] is an American educator, military historian, and student of classical Greek and Roman literature, providing him with a clear view on certain aspects of human society and culture. From a Christian perspective, his opinion piece last month provided a clarion call for spiritual revival in America:
“We are $31 trillion in collective debt. The new normal is $1.5 trillion budget deficits. The military is politicized and short of recruits. We trade lethal terrorists for woke celebrity athletes as if to confirm our enemies’ cynical stereotypes.
“Our FBI is corrupt and discredited, collaborating with Silicon Valley contractors to suppress free speech and warp elections. We practice segregation and racial discrimination and claim we do not because the right and good people support it and, anyway, the victims deserve it.
“The country has seen defeat before but never abject, deliberate humiliation as in Kabul, when we fled and abandoned to the terrorist Taliban a $1 billion embassy, a huge, remodeled air base, thousands of friends, and tens of billions of dollars in military hardware – and hard-earned deterrence.
“The FBI has imploded. It has all but become a Third World retrieval and investigatory service for the Democratic Party. Its last four directors either have lied, misled, or pleaded amnesia while under oath.
“In 2016, the bureau with the Democratic National Committee sought to destroy the integrity of an election by fabricating a Russian collusion hoax. Its continuance and coverup ultimately required FBI agents and lawyers to alter legal documents, to lie under oath, to destroy subpoenaed phone data, and to outsource illegal suppression of First Amendment rights to Silicon Valley contractors. The nation now fears there isn’t anything the FBI might not do.” [The entire article can be found here: https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/11/our-parasitic-generation/]
Thankfully, American Christendom has arrived at its kairos. The flawed model of “butts in seats, massive budgets, and multiple buildings and campuses” as the measure of success has produced an infinitesimal, almost undetectable impact on the culture and a near invisible footprint in the public square. A completely different approach, modeled after Jesus’ ekklesia Kingdom assignment from Matthew 16:18, will be called for if America is to experience a spiritual re-awakening.
Inasmuch as secularists may maintain their denial or disavowal of His unending order, deriding, disregarding or discarding God will have its inevitable consequences.
Ancient Israel, in the words of A.W. Pink, “walked contrary – not to the eternal purpose of Jehovah, but – to His revealed will. They would not submit to the rules laid down in God’s Word, but in their self-will and self-pleading determined to have their own way; in consequence, they missed God’s best for them in this life, instead of His subduing their enemies, He allowed those enemies to subdue them; instead of providing abundant harvests, He sent them famines; instead of giving them pastors after His own heart, He suffered false prophets to deceive.”
Such is the situation in and the condition of contemporary America. Yet, praise be to God, with Gideons and Rahabs beginning to stand. A cloud the size of a man’s hand has appeared on the horizon. [1 Kings 18:44-46]
David Lane
American Renewal Project
- Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach.
- A.W. Pink, The Life of David.
- Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians.
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Image: Adapted from: Pink Sherbet Photography from USA – Free Bright Red House on Blue Sky in New England Creative Commons, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37312267
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