Does the Bible Mention Judgment of America?

December 3, 2017
taught by Ken McGarvey
First Baptist Church of Tellico Village, Tennessee

What has been America’s biggest wake-up call? Do you believe that there is a revelation about the Isaiah 9 judgments and their relevance to America’s past and future? Also, do you believe there is a pattern for God’s judgment on Israel being played out in America now, i.e. the mystery behind 9/11, the wars in the Middle East, the stock market. How does it affect us as Americans, as Christians?

     Wow! What a question, and what an assignment. Let me begin to carefully handle some generalizations from the Bible. First, I don’t believe America is mentioned or referred to anywhere in the Bible. I don’t believe in British Israelism, as presented by Herbert W. Armstrong and his son Garner Ted Armstrong, of the Worldwide Church of God. What ever happened to them, anyway?

     I am very skeptical of people who study prophecy and think that everything that happens in the world today is an omen of some kind. If you believe in dispensationalism, as I do to a certain extent, you believe God deals with mankind in different ways in different periods (dispensations) of history or future. Paul points out law and grace, and I would add innocence to the list, before sin entered the world. The time from the founding of the Church on Pentecost will likely be different from any time period after this age, when the Church is no longer here.

     There are many scriptures that point to the end times, the last days. The study of these is called Eschatology, the study of the final events of time. Although the seminary I attended placed quite a bit of emphasis on this, I did not and do not. I’m no expert; but as I see it, the Bible does not give prophecies directly for anything that happens during the Church age. It begins rather with the rapture of the Church. Anything before that is quite general. After all, the end times actually began with Pentecost, and we have been in them for over 2000 years.

     So how then can we apply things to America? Well, the whole Bible speaks to America, though not of America. Anything God says to nations about how they are to conduct themselves should apply to us. The only exception (and it’s a big one) would be the nation of Israel. Early in the Old Testament God made a covenant with Abram(who became Abraham), that he would make his descendants into a great nation which would be God’s own. The United States had no such beginning, and must never be construed as such. We are but another nation in the world. We are distinct in that our history is recent enough for us to know of our heritage.

     As we look at our history we like to call ourselves a “Christian” nation. But that, of course, depends on how we define Christian. If our founding papers had a box labeled “religion” they certainly would have checked “Christian.” When we think of the Pilgrims coming here to practice the Christian religion without the persecution they faced back home, we must remember that their persecutors were also Christians, and they came here as well, and settled in different places.

     Biblically, a Christian is a disciple of Christ. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. (Acts 11:26) A disciple is a student and follower. The name Christian has been much-abused and misused, but biblically does not simply refer to someone who prefers Christmas to Hanukkah or Ramadan. It refers to a true follower of Jesus Christ.

     But the adjective Christian refers to a lifestyle or life’s thoughts and actions that are consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament. We often refer to people’s actions as being Christian or not. We judge politicians, neighbors, in-laws and others (which we are not to be doing, of course) on whether their actions are Christian of not. And it’s pretty hard for us to be Christian in all of our actions. It is certainly not possible for a nation, a business or an organization to be Christian in that sense; however, an organization may set out with that purpose and do their very best to live up to it.

     With all that in mind, let’s look at how God treats and judges nations, and on what basis. When we think of God’s judgment upon a nation (or city) we often think of Sodom. What actually happened in Sodom that brought fire and brimstone from heaven to destroy it? And if you think you know, you may not know all of it. Here are a few references:

• Genesis 13:13 Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.
• Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave…
• Genesis 19 tells of two angels (in appearance as men) visiting Lot in Sodom. At night the men of Sodom came to the house demanding Lot send his visitors outside so the men could have sex with them (homosexuality and sexual assault). They were trying to break down the door when the angels struck them blind, so they could not carry out their plan. They angels then took Lot and his wife and two daughters away from Sodom to protect them from the upcoming destruction. When they were a safe distance away, the Lord rained down fire and brimstone on the city, destroying it.
• Please note that the city was not destroyed because of the attempted assault by the men of the city. In the previous chapter the angels had already approached Abram and told him of their plan to destroy Sodom. The wickedness of the city had already caused God to plan its destruction. What we saw with Lot was simply a manifestation of some of that wickedness.
• In Deuteronomy 29:16-28 Moses warns the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land that if they worship other gods in that new land, the Lord will destroy their land and make it like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will be because they left the Lord and followed other gods.
• In Isaiah 1:2-23 God pronounces warnings of judgment upon the nation of Judah for all their sins and iniquities. He calls them Sodom as He condemns them for continuing to worship him ceremonially with all their offerings and sacrifices, but failing to live up to his instructions. Specifically, he mentions their violence, corruption and neglecting the oppressed people among them, including widows and orphans. They got the ceremony right, but failed on the living.
• Then we have a lengthy allegory in Ezekiel 16, where the Jerusalem is described with her sister Samaria (representing the northern kingdom, Israel). Then later in the chapter, Sodom is said to be her younger sister. ⁴⁶ And your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. ⁴⁷ Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. ⁴⁸ As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. ⁴⁹ Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. ⁵¹ Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. (Ezekiel 16:46-51)
• In Zephaniah 2:9-10 God tells the Moabites and the Ammonites they will be destroyed like Sodom. There he says it is because of their pride and their opposition to the people of the Lord.
• Then lastly, Jude mentions the sexual immorality of Sodom, In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 7)

What I see in the Biblical mentions of the destruction of Sodom is pride, prosperity, oppression of the powerless and sexual immorality and perversion. Because it is our nature as humans to concentrate on the sins of others rather than ourselves, we have missed about half of that.

     It seems that much of the American church has missed the economic teachings of the Bible with regard to the needy. We’ll develop that in another lesson. But with regard to the destruction of Sodom, that is a major issue.

The Isaiah 9 Judgments and America
     The ninth chapter of Isaiah and the first part of the tenth describe God’s judgment on Israel and Judah. Their sins and wickedness are condemned, and their judgment described graphically. When God brought other nations to attack them, their response was one of determination to rebuild bigger and better than had been destroyed. Jonathan Cahn has written a book, The Harbinger, comparing this with the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and our response to it. It is a powerful argument, based on a study of historical facts.

     However, I don’t accept his conclusions for a few reasons. First of all, I learned in college and seminary to study the Bible through exegesis — pulling out of the Bible just exactly what the authors intended by studying the words and phrases in the original languages and understanding them within their immediate cultural, linguistic and total Biblical context. The opposite of exegesis is eisegesis, which is reading into the Bible ideas from contemporary society or even our own imaginations. Mr. Cahn is putting his own ideas into the scripture to make a point (and sell books and make money). This, of course doesn’t condemn anybody for making money writing books, but the sensationalism of the book is inconsistent with traditional scripture exegesis and is avoided by careful Bible scholars.

     The more common approach is simply to ask whether God still judges nations, and, if so, on what basis. Searching through history we see nations rising and falling all over the world. Sometimes they have been conquered, other they have collapsed through mismanagement, moral weakness, lack of care, etc. We can read in the OT prophets the rise and fall of a few nations at the hand of God; but it’s pretty difficult to tell without a God-ordained prophet to what extent God’s hand has been upon the others. But there are messages in recent years by a few self-proclaimed prophets telling us why God may be punishing America whose proclamations don’t have much scriptural support.

     Rather than claim some Biblical authority and make proclamations, let’s just see from the Bible some of God’s expectations of nations. When the OT prophets pronounced God’s judgments upon nations, what were the factors that led to that condemnation?

     As I read them, I see four major things: idolatry, violence, rampant sexual immorality, and oppression of the weak and powerless (the poor, widows, orphans, strangers, children). These have nothing to do with ceremony, but rather actions. As Jesus said, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. ⁹ They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. (Matthew 15:8-9)

     I don’t know how many years Sodom was such a sinful city before their destruction, but Israel rejected God for over 200 years before he destroyed them. Judah lasted over 225 years until God’s judgment fell, and they were taken into captivity in Babylon.

Oppression
     Our society was built from the beginning economically by the oppression of natives, killing millions and taking their land from them and by kidnapping Africans and making them slaves to build our economy. A vicious Civil War was fought to preserve or eliminate slavery, resulting in at least 620,000 deaths from both sides.

Violence
     For at least 200 years, America has been considered a particularly violent society by most Europeans. Today the rate of violent crimes in the U.S. is higher than any European nation, though much lower than many nations in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Immorality
     It’s very difficult to determine rates of sexual sins for a society or a nation, but I would expect we’re in the competition. Though the Bible soundly condemns homosexual activity, most of its sexual sin warnings are about heterosexual relationships, as is most of our sexual sin, simply because only a small percentage of people are homosexual. If you consider Jesus’ teachings on sexual sin, which include lust, the pornography industry and pop culture in general live off of lust.

Idolatry
     The fourth sin category, idolatry, is also rampant in the United States. Although ceremonially we claim to worship God, society rather revolves around money. It is the highest consideration of business, government, child-rearing, marriage, and most of the rest of life. In Jesus’ day the love of money was also a big problem. He spoke about it often. So did Paul. And James. They all warned against greed, against riches, against the desire for more. America may or may not be the most greedy nation in the world — it doesn’t matter. But our love of money is a great offense against God, and against the Gospel message of Jesus.

     So if God would choose to destroy America as we know it, we’d better be willing to accept it and to understand the many reasons why he might. And if by his grace he chooses to allow us to continue on as we are, we ought to be thankful and repentant. We are not God’s chosen people. We should not be all caught up in the preservation of the United States, but in the ministry of the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

     We are not the only Christian nation by any stretch of the imagination. Our commitment to Christ is not greater than that of dozens of nations, some of which you may not have even heard of. The average Christian in the world is not American or white. God’s kingdom is much greater than most of us even imagine. It is multi-cultural, multi-language, multi-color, like heaven. Our vision is way too limited. Don’t be afraid of globalism, as the Gospel teaches it. We must have a global vision for the work of God and for his kingdom.

Previously mentioned scriptures with the Lord’s message to Judah:

Isaiah 1:10-17 (NIV2011) ¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah! ¹¹ “The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the LORD. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. ¹² When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?

      ¹³ Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. ¹⁴ Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

     ¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! ¹⁶ Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. ¹⁷ Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Isaiah 1:21-23 (NIV2011) ²¹ See how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her— but now murderers! ²² Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water. ²³ Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.