Lost Blessings

Dear Brethren,

These United States are blessed with riches as no other nation has ever been blessed.  Somehow, our nation’s prosperity continues to flourish and for the most part, we continue to enjoy peace on our soil.   However, as students of God's word, we realize that the proverbial handwriting is on the wall.  How long will it be before God removes our blessings?

We have been blessed as a nation, not because of our own wisdom and power, but because of the promise that God made to our father Abraham.  For more than a century we have been the richest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth - and continue to be - but not for much longer.

Among all of these blessings, the dream of our founding fathers of a nation “under God” is being forgotten.  God, Himself, is being rejected.  Few people actually believe that the American experiment, initially established on God and Law, will come to an end.   Fewer still, remember that God blesses a nation for the purpose that it will be an example for all other nations to look to Him, the true God.  From the beginning of our relatively short history, America should have adhered to the instruction that was given to Israel as they entered the original promised land.

“Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.  Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

"For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?  And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?"  (Deuteronomy 4:5-8)

Israel lost their lands to invading armies because they were not “a wise and understanding people.”  The same exact thing is about to happen to America – for the exact same reason.  We don’t believe it will happen to us any more than Judah believed that their fate was linked to that of northern Israel.

"Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not...And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart..,"  (Jeremiah 3:6-7,10)

Jesus Christ warned us that this would happen again in our day!  He cautioned us not to become lax in our Christianity and fall into that same sort of complacency that Judah did.

“Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.  Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.  But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken;  The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers." (Luke 12:43-46)

Not only has America not heeded the warning – God’s Church has also fallen into the same self-absorption.  We have lost the sense of urgency we once possessed and become “willingly ignorant.”  It is almost as though we were saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”  (2Peter 3:4-5)

Things are not the same as they have always been.  Look at the signs of the times: None call for justice in America, national debt is out of control, and the world is in turmoil.  No one, it seems, has a solution for the terror problem.  The European Union is about to consider Turkey's membership.  Parts of the former Soviet Union are beginning to call themselves, "European."  The USA is trying to police the "nuclear" world.  How fast could we see “Peace Keeping” armies surrounding Jerusalem?

“And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.” (Luke 21:20)

Events could shape up to biblical proportions overnight!  Remember, they are coming to pass as prophesied.  Be warned, we will not know the day or the hour until they have come to pass.  Check your Bible – no one, not even God's people, ever fully understood what God had clearly prophesied – until after it had taken place.  We must be living examples of Christianity if we are to be counted worthy to escape all these things that will soon come to pass.

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Sermon:  "Absalom Part 1"  
Sermon:  "Absalom Part 2"  

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