Perhaps

September 25

Many of us wonder as to the reason our nation has endured so many setbacks. We once seemed invincible but today we seem vulnerable to every sort of crisis. The pronouncements of our leaders seem weak and void of resolve. Our industries are relocating abroad. Our weather is unpredictable. On every hand, we seem to be taken unaware, without a plan or a purpose.

Perhaps we will find some insight into our dilemma by perusing the Holy Scripture:

Jeremiah 14:1-16

(1) The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts. (2) "Judah mourns, and her gates languish; they mourn for the land, and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up. (3) Their nobles have sent their lads for water; they went to the cisterns and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads. (4) because the ground is parched, for there was no rain in the land, the plowmen were ashamed; they covered their heads.


(5) Yes, the deer also gave birth in the field, but left because there was no grass.

(6) And the wild donkeys stood in the desolate heights; they sniffed at the wind like jackals; their eyes failed because there was no grass."


(7) O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for Your name’s sake; for our backslidings are many, we have sinned against You. (8) O the Hope of Israel, Savior in time of trouble, why should You be like a stranger in the land, and like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night? (9) Why should You be like a man astonished, like a mighty one who cannot save? Yet You, O LORD, are in our midst, and we are called by Your name; do not leave us!

(10) Thus says the LORD to this people: " Thus they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet. Therefore the LORD does not accept them; He will remember their iniquity now, and punish their sins."

(11) Then the LORD said to me, "Do not pray for this people, for their good. (12) When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence."

(13) Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’"

(14) And the LORD said to me, "The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing, and the deceit of their heart. (15) Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, whom I did not send, and who say, "Sword and famine shall not be in this land—'By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed!'

(16) And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; they will have no one to bury them—them nor their wives, their sons nor their daughters—for I will pour their wickedness on them."


The land is suffering but the people did not associate the trauma of their nation to the wickedness of their lives or with the deception that was being perpetrated upon them by their leaders. The people received the lies because they did not put their leaders to the scrutiny of God’s Word.

God blames the plight of a nation on the false leaders to whom the people listened; leaders who lulled the people into complacency, causing them to believe that all was well when it was not.

Do we see our own land in this situation today? We have leaders who are proponents of abortion and immorality; they fund terrorism and turn their backs on allies whose values parallel those of most Americans. The Bible states very clearly, “Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good,” Isaiah 5:20.

Can we long retain the blessings the Lord lavished upon us when we were a Christian nation from whose shores the gospel was taken to the far-flung corners of the earth? Can we hope to have the favor of Heaven when the law of the land, our Constitution, is abrogated and godless laws replace the godly law of our founding fathers?

Does this sound like foolishness? Have we come so far away from our godly Christian roots that we cannot ‘connect-the-dots’ to see the relationship between our fall from greatness and the poisoned ‘cool-aid’ of deception and lawlessness that we’ve been drinking!

All that is wrong with our nation lies in the realm of the SPIRIT! When our hearts are turned toward Jesus again, when we have repented of our sinfulness and sought the cleansing flood of Calvary to wash us clean, perhaps we will be like Sampson, who was given great power one last time to defeat a godless foe (see Judges 13-16).

Perhaps we can be useful to the Holy One on that great and terrible day when He comes to defeat the forces of evil and set the captives free.

Perhaps.