God Has Abandoned America and what we should do about it
America was founded and grew on faith in God and with hope in his unfailing love. And America was blessed for it. But America has all but abandoned God and, as a result, God has abandoned America. What does it mean and what should we do?
Settled by Christians seeking freedom of worship and consecrated upon faith in God, America’s history was founded and lived out by people of faith. And, in response, God blessed them. Through a revolutionary war, a civil war, two world wars, a great depression and in countless other ways, God blessed America in two main ways, namely, protection and provision. America grew to its position in the world under God’s protective grace. God protected America from outside forces, shielded it from disaster and provided a safe haven in times of trouble. And America grew in abundance with God’s blessing of provision. Great wealth and prosperity not only for America, but for Americans themselves. But Americans started moving away from God in the mid-2oth century, taking God out of their minds and hearts, and out of culture, even denying his very existence. And, decades later, in response to our rebellion, God has abandoned us, removed his blessings, leaving us to forage like a lamb among the chaos of the world.
The key we will look at is Romans 1:18-32, where the Apostle Paul describes the godlessness of the time and the state of the culture, when men and women, having suppressed the truth about God, had been given over by God to the consequences of their rebellion, resulting in all kinds of sin and, eventually, disaster. It strikes a remarkable parallel to the state of culture today. But before we look at that, let me provide a bit of foundation by first taking a look at the various forms of God’s wrath and, second, some examples of God’s wrath of abandonment in particular. Then, we’ll look at Paul’s account in Romans, compare it to what has played out in America and, finally, discuss what we should do now.
The Various Forms of God’s Wrath
There are five distinct aspects to the wrath of God. There is what we could call eternal wrath because it is the punishment that God brings upon unbelieving sinners forever in hell - that’s eternal wrath. And the Bible speaks often of that. There is also eschatological wrath, that is that aspect of God’s wrath that is released at the end of the world described by some of the Old Testament prophets, described by Jesus himself in the Olivet Discourse and clearly laid out for us in the book of Revelation (Revelation 6–19). There is also what we could call cataclysmic wrath, like a tsunami, a volcano, a hurricane, an earthquake, a plane flying into the Twin Towers resulting in thousands of deaths...cataclysms happen in this world. The Noahic Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are examples of God’s cataclysmic wrath - a reflection of the judgment of God. There is also what you could call consequential wrath. Consequential wrath is the sowing and reaping wrath - you live a certain kind of life and you set in motion certain forces that will produce judgment. The prodigal son made a choice to leave and came to ruin.
But there is one other kind of wrath - it is the wrath of abandonment. It is that wrath exhibited by God when, as a result of people turning against him, God turns His back on a person or a society. As when God removes His restraining grace, God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. And, let me be clear, God exhibits this wrath only as a result of people first abandoning him. God’s unfailing love is on those who diligently seek him, but woe to those who oppose him, they do so at the perilous risk of their future.
Examples of God’s Wrath of Abandonment
Let’s take a look at some examples of God’s wrath abandonment. Pay close attention to the fact that God’s wrath of abandonment is only after the people’s decision to first abandon him.
Judges 10:11-14 “But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!” This was after God had brought the people of Israel into the Promised Land through the leadership of Joshua, it remained only for them to occupy it, to displace the Canaanites and to cleanse it of paganism. But in Canaan, Israel quickly forgot the acts of God that had given them birth and had established them in the land. They lost sight of their unique identity as God’s people, chosen and called to be his army and the loyal citizens of his emerging kingdom. They settled down and attached themselves to Canaan’s peoples together with Canaanite morals, gods, and religious beliefs and practices. And so God says, you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. God had had enough with their rebellion and turned away from them, leaving them to the consequences of living in the world outside his grace. Just like he has done with America.
Psalm 81:11-12 But My people did not listen to My voice and Israel did not obey Me, so I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices.” As with America turning away from God, it started with the people first turning away from God - did not listen to My voice; did not obey Me. And, this term ‘gave them over’ is indicative of God’s abandonment, giving them over, which we’ll see in Paul’s account in Romans 1.
Hosea 4: 16-19 For Israel is stubborn like a stubborn calf; now the LORD will let them forage like a lamb in open country. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. Their drink is rebellion, they commit harlotry continually. Because of their stubbornness God says let them forage on their own. He gives them over. I mean look at that, isn’t that what we see today? Stubborn. Drinking rebellion.
2 Chronicles 2:5 You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak. This is from the story of king Rehoboam, grandson of King David, son of Solomon - After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the Lord. Because they had been unfaithful to the Lord, [without God’s protection] Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. With twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen and the innumerable troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites that came with him from Egypt, he captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem. What fate lies ahead of us?
So God’s wrath of abandonment is real. When people rebel, as we have rebelled, God will be patient with them for a while and give them opportunities to repent, but eventually God will give them over, as he has done with us, over to life outside his grace. Yet, his inclination is to bless people, he wants to be merciful. The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love (Psalm 33:18). When people genuinely seek him and honor him, his unfailing love is with them. That’s why our only hope is to repent and turn back to God.
How It Played Out In America, and beyond
Now, let’s look at the amazing parallel between our current culture and the culture Paul describes in 1st century Rome just following the time of Jesus. A time when Paul says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. God’s wrath was being revealed, just as it is today. It was a time of chaos and upheaval, much ungodliness and unrighteousness is evident, just as it is today. God’s wrath is being revealed in it. Paul described the situation in Rome, which lays out in a very similar chronology of circumstances as it has for America over the last 70 or so years. It is written in Romans 1:18-32.
In the first section (verses 18-23), Paul starts by describing the godlessness and wickedness of people, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. And, as a result, the wrath of God is being revealed. He goes on to say that everyone is without excuse in knowing God exists, that God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. He’s saying it’s obvious to us that God exists. We know it by Creation, by what exists. But, the problem is, men suppress the truth, a rebellion against God. And they justify it by believing false things in order to avoid being accountable to God and his law They don’t want God, they want to be God, it’s the oldest temptation in the book (…and you will be like God… Genesis 3:5). Then, to conclude the opening section, Paul drives the point home with phrases like - For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him; and their thinking became futile; claiming to be wise they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
So the problem starts when men and women suppress the truth. That’s what we’ve done. We have allowed anti-God sentiment to creep into our culture over time with voices for all kinds of godlessness. We’ve allowed ourselves to suppress the truth about God and worship other things. And we rationalize it in the name of compassion, tolerance, equity and the like.
The parallel between the 1st century Rome Paul describes and our current culture is striking in that both their falls to chaos followed the same three sequential steps. Starting with verse 24, you notice the word, ‘Therefore’, and that, of course, connects it to the prior passage, describing that God’s wrath is revealed because men suppress the truth. It goes on to describe the sequential steps that follow when men and women rebel and God decides to implement his wrath of abandonment. First, in verse 24, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies might be dishonored among them.” That’s the first thing God gave us over to - lust of the body to impurity and so that their bodies might be dishonored among them. When a society becomes pornographic, when the general character of a society can be seen to be immoral, this wrath is in effect. When man is abandoned by God, when a society is abandoned by God, he (it) operates only out of the passions of its own impure heart. It operates in the lusts of the heart, leading to impurity. First the lusts dominate the heart, leading to impurity and the bodies follow in most dishonorable ways. The heart is wicked and unrestrained and the body follows and you have a pornographic culture. For us, it all started with the sexual revolution of the Sixties, along with the Me Generation and drug culture. Those three things, working at the same time - open and free pleasure, compounded with an increased focus on self - started events in motion that would eventually lead to the destruction we see today. They may have seemed good at the time and some good has indeed come out of them. But, in the long term, they have had a devastating result. We went from putting the Word and law of God first, to putting ourselves first. And, since then, our society has become increasingly pornographic. The Internet is dominated by millions of pornographic websites to feed the insatiable lusts that dominate our culture. This is what happens when God gives them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…, their bodies are dishonored among them.
So, the first indication in a society of the wrath of abandonment is sexual immorality. And when you look at our society and ask, is it driven by sexual immorality? Is it filled with lust in the heart leading to impurity and the body follows in dishonorable behavior? The answer is yes.
But that’s just step one.
Step two is in verse 26. “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. So, here’s the second step...to shameful lusts, degrading passions. Now we’re not just talking about passions and lust, we’ve added shameful. And there’s a reference to God’s consequential wrath, in that they received the due penalty for their error – that’s AIDS and other forms of sexually transmitted diseases.
So look at a society. When you see a society that is pornographic, that is in to sexual immorality, fornication, adultery as a way of life, as a dominant way of life, which is not only in existence but approved and exalted in every way in the media, you know the wrath of abandonment is in operation. And then when a society also exalts homosexuality, lesbianism and the like, you know that it is sinking even deeper.
But there’s a third step which is in verse 28 - “Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer...here’s the third step...God gave them over to a depraved mind.” First the heart is rotten and the body follows, and then the mind goes. Reasoning is so corrupted and can no longer function. The moral law of God written in the heart has been literally stomped and replaced with cultural immorality. The conscience cannot function. And so, verse 28, “…they do the things that ought not to be done”. So immorality goes in every direction and now you can’t find your way back because the mind is so corrupt - a depraved mind. People don’t think right. People’s brains don’t follow the paths that they should. They advocate all the wretched things and depreciate all the virtuous things. And what flows out of this pornographic, homosexual, depraved culture? All evil...verse 29, “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Does this not sound like what’s going on around us today? Do you ever watch the news and ask yourself, “What are they thinking?!” It’s because they’re not thinking straight, they’re living within the context of the collective depraved mind of our culture. And, finally, verse 32, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death (it’s written on their heart in Romans 2), they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them”.
And there you have it. A clear description by the apostle Paul of why God abandons people and nations, followed by the sequential steps in the progression to abandonment and the consequences that come along with it. And anyone would be hard-pressed to argue that it doesn’t bear an absolute resemblance to the events that have unfolded over the last half century and more, and the state of our society today. God has abandoned us. And, don’t be fooled, this is serious stuff. We may have been under God’s blessings as a nation in the past, and that’s what you might want to see as normal, as it should be. That’s what we want to get back to. But we’re not any more. Of course, there are those of us within the nation whose lives are still being led by God, and whose lives God continues to bless and protect. But not as a nation. We’ve allowed it to get out of hand. And it happened right in front us as we sat back and did nothing to stop it. And now here we are.
So what do we do now? Where do we go from here? How do we turn God back to America? The answer is - we have to first turn America back to God. The way to return God to a nation is to first turn the nation back to God, and I’d like to suggest three keys to doing that: humility, repentance and prayer. Let’s look at a few instances when people found themselves on the outs with God and what they did to reconcile.
First, in 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear them and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” This is God telling the people that he his merciful. If they would humbly turn back to God, he will respond. And it starts with humility (If my people will humble themselves) and repentance and prayer (and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways).
Also, Daniel 9:3-19, Daniel’s prayer for forgiveness for Israel because they had sinned and turned against God. After an opening of praising God, Daniel spends extended verses confessing their sin, their wickedness and rebellion, Daniel appeals to God’s forgiveness and mercy - verses 16-17, “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. So, here again, repentance and prayer.
From the story of Rehoboam, grandson of King David, son of Solomon, in 2 Chronicles 12, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the Lord. And, because they had become unfaithful and abandoned Him, God abandoned them to invasion by Egypt. And when the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah who had assembled in Jerusalem for fear of being invaded, he said to them, “This is what the Lord says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.’” But, the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is just.” When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, this word of the Lord came to Shemaiah: “Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance. My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak. They will, however, become subject to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands.” (2 Chronicles 12: 1 – 8). We need to humble ourselves. It starts with a heart of humility, then, acknowledging our sins to God and expressing our desire to turn away from them, to turn and seek God, we communicate with God about it through prayer.
And Manasseh King of Judah, he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following detestable practices… The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God. (2 Chronicles 33: 10-13)
In 2 Chronicles 30: 9, King Hezekiah was a good king, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He worked to turn the people back to God and won great favor for himself and the people. He said, …the Lord God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him. So, we have to work at turning people back to God.
And finally, in Jonah 3:1-10, God responds to the repentant people - When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
The only hope for a society when God has given them over is to turn back to him. In humility, to repent and pray. Let us work at that for the restoration of our country and for the glory of God.
