This post is intended to expand on a Facebook comment that I posted earlier today. Concerning the Supreme Court's upholding of the Affordable Care Act, ("Obamacare"), another person observed that this would lead to compelling obstetricians and hospitals to abort infants. A subsequent comment said that God "will punish us for killing babies." My response to that was that I am convinced God is already punishing us and has been for some time. When President Clinton was first elected in 1992, with his well-known endorsement of special "gay rights" and abortion by choice, my initial reaction then was also that he would bring on America God's judgment. After a few months of further thought I revised my opinion to say that he was judgment. While remembering chapter-and-verse addresses in Scripture is a challenge, I firmly believe that God said clearly in the Old Testament that part of his judgment upon a nation can include who their rulers and judges are, how they rule, and if their integrity and wisdom should dwindle progressively, that could also be His doing. During the first part of 2001, instead of exuberantly rejoicing in President Bush's election, I felt led repeatedly to write to representatives in Washington that God's judgment might be impending. I cited how God let his children the Israelites live in bondage in Egypt for four hundred years to give more time for repentance to those in Canaan. Child sacrifice, male and female temple prostitution, and rampant indulgence were openly part of their pagan worship. (Imagine Rio's Carnival, or the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, going on continuously. Canaan was probably the prime "party destination" of the known world, as those places at those times are today.) Yet God gave them four hundred years - but it ended. I felt led to warn that America might also be on a "ticking clock" of unknown duration. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I no longer felt led to write any more such letters or e-mails. IMHO, far too many of us, be we Christians or non-Christians, assume that God has only one or two ways of dispensing judgment upon a nation. If none of those few things are happening, then He's not acting. Even a partial awareness of God's Word before Christ, (the "Old Testament"), should reveal that He has many more ways of judging a nation than just pouring fire and brimstone on it. He has ways of imposing it progressively so that those who know His Word and His ways will see it but those who are spiritually blind will not. I already have mentioned His warnings that He can put inexperienced leaders in place and take wisdom away from judges. He also discusses in more than one place that He can use the insects, beasts, birds and fish to harass a nation. He said that He would do this to the Canaanites to help Israel drive them out. Later, God said that He could in turn do the same to the Israelites, too. For years, there have been warnings from our scientists and our government agencies that invasive plant, animal, insect, and fish species are threatening and in places irrevocably altering our ecosystem. Highly-charged electrical barriers have had to be erected to keep giant ravenous Asian carp from spreading into the Great Lakes. There is now a debate whether they have already done so. Some of these invasive species are submarine shellfish or microscopic algae which come here via foreign merchant ships, in their ballast water. These can also cause problems. We have stories of Burmese pythons in Florida, one of which exploded itself by attempting to eat an alligator. Just because these invasions can often be traced to the careless release of unwanted exotic pets does not mean God has nothing to do with them. We are fighting a multi-front war against invasive species. As is usually true with a war on simultaneous fronts, we are losing. We need to pray for America, without question. But we need to pray for the right things. To pray against impending judgment from God is too little and much, much too late. In my humble opinion, of course, based on God's Word. We need to beseech Him to roll back the judgment He has made already. The things that we Christians believe are the reason for judgment are hardly diminishing, nor are they pointing at all in that direction. Like the Red Queen's Race, (as described by Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass"), it may already be requiring all the prayer we do now to keep things from becoming worse.
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