GOD BLESS AMERICA

America is not God’s chosen nation, as was Israel. God’s holy nation is the church:
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ….But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 4-5,9).

For believers, the question is not “Has God blessed America, but will he continue to bless it? God spoke to Israel, laying out the basis for receiving his blessings. Surely, the same conditions apply to America. “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever” (Jeremiah 7:5-7).

They did not repent and were carried away into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. The kingdom had passed to his son Belshazzar. He did not walk in the ways of his father, and God sent a message in the form of handwriting on the wall:
Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. 26 This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27 Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; 28 Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians” (Daniel 5:25-28).

Is the handwriting on the wall for America?
First, we must be careful not to presume to speak for God—10 righteous would have saved Sodom.
Second—and closely related, we must recognize that all in America are not morally bankrupt.
Third, we, the Israel of God, must recognize God’s battle plan.

IS THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL?

When kings became corrupt, the nations they ruled became corrupt. We might hastily jump to the conclusion that we should become politically active and elect righteous leaders, and then the nation will be good again. I affirm that it is the opposite in a democracy: When the people become corrupt, they elect corrupt leaders who will pander to their interests, and we become a nation ruled not by the people but by special interest groups. Some see the solution as Christians becoming a special interest group, but that is not the Jesus way.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16).

When we are salt and light, we are God’s faithful presence in the world. As such, God can use us to change our culture. The first-century church had no strategy for political power or cultural engagement. They simply went where they went as the people of God, and by Acts 17:6, they had “turned the world upside down.”

I do not know what the future holds and do not speak for God. All I can do is point to facts of the scriptures. First, God’s hand is always in history. Second, God has always required the same of every nation he blesses: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:16-17). Third, the kingdom that God set up in the first century is not established or maintained by political or military power but by the power of righteousness.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French scholar, came to our shores to study the source of America’s greatness. He wrote:

I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forest, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

And God will cease to bless her.