A Nation That Knows Better

Jesus had some pretty stern words for a few cities in which He did miracles and taught yet they still did not receive Him as Lord and Messiah. He implied that they were without excuse because they new better than to continue in unbelief because of the great works He did in their streets and marketplaces.  It makes me wonder about our own nation and the lack of excuse that we have for our society today. We allow blatant sin, sin of the most perverse types.  Rebellion and rioting are becoming all to common in our streets. The violence and crime in our cities only seems to grow and intensify each day. Our politicians are corrupt, and weak because they operate from a philosophical foundation that tries to be morally neutral.  No such philosophy exists and moral relativism and "political correctness" fills the void created by such an attempt. Our marriages are ending in divorce and families are broken and in disarray.  The very foundations of what make us America are breaking and being threatened with crumbling, as we continue to sin our freedoms away in the sight of God.

The heartbreak is that we know better.  Our nation was founded on a worldview that was firmly grounded in the Christian faith and the Bible. The thirteen colonies at one time were in similar conditions as we are today. There was much sin and corruption all along the east coast as the colonies were taking hold in this new land. Drunkenness was a major problem, as was sexual immorality. Prostitution was common and as a result STD's were afflicting many who descended into that lifestyle. There was crime and violence all along the coast, and things were looking very bad for those who had settled here. But God had mercy and through the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitfield and others, a great religious revival began to break out. People were gripped with the realization of their sins against the Almighty, and a wave of Holy Spirit repentance swept through the colonies. Drunkenness dried up, the prostitutes disappeared, crime went way down and peoples lives were impacted into a new standard of holiness and view of reality. But most significant was that this revival and christian world view created the atmosphere and mindset that allowed our founding fathers to conceive of and cultivate the principles that would soon form the Declaration of Independence, and the principles that would become the American form of government, and our Constitution.   This revival is the background, the soil out of which our nation grew. We know better than to do what we are doing now.

People say we are in a post-christian age, and perhaps to some degree we are. But we are not totally ignorant of the gospel and of our christian roots. The culture in which we live still witnesses to what God has done for us. Our hospitals, charitable works, the way we responded in the wake of recent hurricanes to help our neighbor, all bear witness to our beginnings as a christian nation. Even today the smallest of towns has at least 2-3 churches and larger towns have several so that people can worship in their chosen denominations. Bookstores, television programs, radio, internet,  all are used by God to remind people of the source of our life and the blessings we have witnessed and received.
Yet, we are like the cities Jesus sternly warned. We  know better. We are a nation that has gone backward, and we know better, but do it anyway. It doesn't have to be. Let's you and I begin today to turn our heats back to God. Perhaps God who saves by many or by few, will again have mercy and pour out His Spirit of repentance and heal a nation that knows better than to be this way and to do what we do.