End-time Ponderings

A Different and Liberating Perspective
About Impending Judgments on America

By Jim Croft

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear pulpiteers pronounce with assurance that America is on the brink of devastating judgments. Mystifyingly, some diehards do so with a deranged gleam in their eyes. It conveys that they will somehow feel cheated should their prognostications fail to come to pass. Such are like the dumb blond who was angered when her husband told her that he had contracted the SARS virus while away on business. “You insensitive oaf. Didn’t I warn you for the past two years that something terrible would happen to you if you kept that lousy job? Don’t expect any sympathy from me. You have received what you have had coming for a long time.” “Darling, you are missing the point. SARS is a highly contagious airborne virus. If I have it, you and the kids have it too.” Should the kinds of woes that are incessantly predicted actually come to pass, saints and sinners alike will suffer the consequences.

I have good news for planet earth. If 2000 years of preachers’ track records are indicators, there is little need for panic. More often than not, nothing happens. That has never discouraged those with prophetic aspirations. With no apologies to make amends, they reshuffle their doom-and-gloom decks, deal out another hand and poise like poker-sharks to rake in the chips from the gullible.

About now, you might be mumbling to yourself. Let me relieve your inner questions. I want you to read this article in its entirety. Yes, I do believe that God is going to bring horrendous judgments upon this planet and its inhabitants who reject the Gospel and torment the saints. It will happen after the Great Tribulation.

The final and most intense period will be as the seals are opened and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse start galloping throughout the earth. The wars, earthquakes, pollutions of the seas, stellar events and the collapse of the world’s economies that occur at that time will be unprecedented. They will be of an entirely different species than the cyclical patterns that have come and gone throughout the centuries. Unlike all previous calamitous events, they will most definitely bear the authenticity of God’s wrath. (Rev 6, 2Th. 1:4-10)

Beforehand

I also believe that He will first enact purifying judgments on His Church. The results will be awesome. With every ounce of conviction in my being, I believe that His glory will manifest through His people. Before He returns, every nation will see His spotless Bride exemplifying His power and nature throughout the earth. (Mat 3:11-12, Eph 5:25-27, Hab 2:14)

However, I do not think there is any biblical support for the concept that He will judge the nations of the New Covenant era in the same manner that He did those of the Old Covenant era. Under the Old, Israel was His sole holy nation. If they sinned, He judged them through adverse agricultural conditions and the oppressions of foreigners.

In this present-day the Church is His sole holy nation. Unlike Israel, it is not located in a precise geographical location. It is scattered among all nations. Every fellowship is an embassy for the Kingdom of God. Believers are the Lord’s ambassadors who are responsible to spread the good news of the Kingdom and issue passports for heaven. If they fail to exemplify His benevolent and righteous image, He will isolate them for judgments that will not necessarily befall the unconverted. Post the Great Tribulation; God will pour-out His wrath upon all who persisted in troubling His saints.

Primary Peeve

The concept that I cannot accept asserts that national disasters are judgments from God and that His people’s behavior can avert and invoke such. Many wonderful believers fully concur with the concept in question. It is my conviction that they have been errantly conditioned to do so. My exhaustive studies of the Bible; the histories of nations; revivals/Church history; and many stats on the histories of wars, genocides and natural disasters etc.; have led me to a perspective that is in direct opposition to that of many sincere Christians. Basically, in regard to the Epoch of Grace, I see no objective evidence that episodes featuring any of those things have heretofore borne the benchmarks of God's judgments.  The following is my perspective. My prayer is that you will find it enlightening and liberating.

Remember

As you read there is something that you need to keep in mind. The Epistles of the New Testament were addressed to Christians rather than unbelievers. There are certainly things in them that are of benefit to the world. Nonetheless, the admonishments in them are directed solely at the churched. This is important, because much of the errant theology that I am attempting to unravel was gleaned from the Epistles. Some clergymen make a habit of threatening the unconverted with the penalties that Christians will incur for disobedience. The unsaved that remain in that condition are surely eternally ill-fated. However, they should not be expected to behave like circumspect believers until they have received the heart of the Lamb.

In the Beginning

When God created all things every conceivable event that could occur under specific conditions were within the equation. His overall intention for good to befall mankind was preeminent, but the possibility for evil things to happen was also within the framework of creation. (Gen 1:34) This does not indicate that God is inevitably personally involved as the immediate, onsite initiator of evil events. It solely implies that He, as the Creator, inserted factors into the scaffolding of His creation wherein it was possible for bad things to occur.

Man was created with the capacities for direct communication with God and free volition. His body and mind were designed for eternal life. His mental and bodily functions were programmed in a manner that enabled man for optimum productivity in performing his God-given tasks. Disease, death and the probability for the elemental forces within creation to resist man’s efforts for productivity were as of yet nonexistent. The original couple’s fall into the deceptions of Satan and sin carried catastrophic penalties.

In regard to the potential for wars, natural disaster and plagues the consequences of man’s rebellion were horrific.

• The spirit of man died instantly and he became sinful by nature and prone to instigate murderous wars. (Gen 2:15-16)
• Genetic codes that had formerly been flawless were altered and man’s immune system became susceptible to sicknesses and plagues.
• The negative influences extended into the elemental forces of nature. The earth became stubborn in yielding crops. (Gen 3:17-19) Earth’s watering system that had previously been subterranean was relocated to the atmosphere. (Gen 2:5-6, 7:11) This facilitated environmental conditions wherein everything from draughts through violent storms and flooding could occur.
• All of these penalties fell outside of God’s original love-driven, benevolent intentions for man and the world of nature. For this reason the Spirit of the Lord instills the redeemed and all of creation with groans of yearning for the coming of His promised restoration of all things. (Rom 8:19-23, Act 3:21)

Consequences

Here are the approximate regional numbers for that which has befallen man as a result of the fall during the past 2000 years. It includes deaths by wars, natural disasters and plagues.

• Asia – 329,502,000
• Europe – 318,747,000
• Americas & Caribbean – 58,000,000
• Africa – 53,950,000

The Market is the Market

Perhaps the most frequent disaster that I’ve heard Christians predict for the past 63 years is the collapse of America’s economy. Needless to say, their vehement forebodings have proved erroneous. There are strong indications that the market behaves somewhat like nature’s cyclical events. At times, things can be predicted and at other times the formulas fail. I think that we would all be wise to take a hint from Jesus. When speaking about the end-times He offered the parable about the brokers who were given varying amounts of capitol to invest for their Master. (Mat 25:19-31) It is clear that He expected them to make a profit on the funds that He had entrusted to them. This infers that the world markets will remain intact through the Great Tribulation. Interestingly, He rebuked rather than commended those who played it safe for fear of losing the funds.

My good friend Bob Rowland and I often discuss spiritual matters while enjoying our obsessive-compulsive golf outings. Before coming to the Lord he made millions in the commodities market. He now makes millions for others as a hedger for a firm that sells currency and commodity options worldwide. He is an expert in investor psychology.

He has learned to become adept at flowing against popular opinion. His reasoning has implications for the popular opinion amongst Christians that the economic “skies are falling”. “All professional traders use the Theory of Contrary Opinion. It basically says that the majority is always wrong; they rush to buy the tops and rush to sell the bottoms. It's just human nature to act in such a predictable way. Surely it's something old "Slew-foot" knows about us and uses against us. Jesus himself alerted us about the principle when discussing how the majority would get end-time signals backwards. He said "no one knows the time" and that it would come "unannounced and unexpected". (Mat 24:36, 50) Yet, over the 2000 years since that divine wisdom, the opinion about the event being predictable and/or its warning signs being imminent have surfaced again and again, perhaps even more so in recent years.”

“The Contrary Opinion Theory says that speculative bubbles, popular delusions and madness, when faded will prove profitable. Economic history has proved it correct. John Maynard Keynes, the renowned economist warned, "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent". The great gift from Matt 24 and 25 to the wise is to expect popular error and don’t believe it. Since only the Father knows the day and hour; wasting time and energy on end-time exactitudes and various prognostications plays into you know whose playbook.”

Implications

God is not the direct author of the wars, famines, plagues, droughts and storms that hit Christian and non-Christian nations alike. Those pertaining to natural disasters are cyclical in frequency and random in relation to strike zones. There are no indications that the fervency of God’s people prevent national calamites, or that the lack thereof causes such. God frequently harbors believers and their properties from coming to harm, but does not always do so.

Exhibits A

Conservative pastors often thunder from their pulpits about how God is going to target America’s homosexual communities for annihilating judgments. Prophets and clergymen from here and yond predicted that 2004’s Hurricane Ivan was to be God’s judgment to destroy infamously homosexual Key West and Miami’s South Beach.

A pastor friend of mine lives in Key West. His Christian in-laws begged him to flee the impending judgment and to take refuge in their home in Pensacola, Florida. When he didn’t comply they angrily stated that they would send body bags for his family. The storm bypassed Key West and South Beach. Its volatile eastern circumference devastated Pensacola. The home that was to be my friend’s refuge for his family was obliterated. This example would be comic with irony, if it were not such a tragic representation of God is Gonna-Getcha Theology.

An insight about Pensacola flies in the face of the assertion that Christian fervency averts disasters. Beginning in the mid-90s and continuing into 2001, Pensacola was the site for a massive harvest of souls for Christ. It was one of the largest and longest running revivals in the history of Christendom. Just about every evangelical fellowship in the region that was later struck by Hurricane Ivan unified to help the host church. The revival’s primary theme was repentance. It is estimated that over five million Americans participated. In addition, aside from their inaccuracy, the prognosticators were silly with presumptions. Apparently they thought that all homosexuals are dumb and poor; too dumb to evacuate danger zones and too poor to afford storm and homeowners’ insurance.

Inquires were later made about why God had skipped the decadent homosexual communities of South Florida and struck primarily heterosexual Pensacola. It was the usual hyper-religious cop-out of those who refuse to own-up-to blunders. “The Christians of Key West and Miami prayed hard enough to avert the storm. The believers of Pensacola angered God by allowing the revival of repentance to wane and therefore He smote them with the storm.”

There are two important items that they conveniently overlook. The Christians of the Pensacola region certainly prayed that the storm would not hit them. Since God is not a respecter of persons, it seems illogical that He would heed the prayers of one group and reject the prayers of another. If the God “who changes not” was actually the initiator of Hurricane Ivan, He has undergone a significant change. Jonah was embarrassed that God had given the heathen Ninevites a heart for repentance. Jonah wanted Him to smite them. God told him that He had relented because of His concerns for the welfare of the sinners and livestock of Nineveh. (Joh 4:1-4, 11) It is strange that God would not remain steadfast and be disposed to show the same degree of concern for the people and livestock of 2004’s church-going people.

Furthermore, most of those who believe that God currently employs storms to judge people also embrace another faulty concept. It dictates that God will not send His blessings to a nation that has decadent governmental leaders. The huge Pensacola revival that blessed millions of Americans began during the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton.

Pivotal Texts

To a generous degree, I believe that misperceptions about what are and are not God’s judgments come from misinterpretations of two sets of interrelated verses. We must all remember that it is possible for even conscientious Christians to fall into deceptions.

• Matthew 24:6-8 And wars will break out near and far, but don't panic. Yes, these things must come, but the end won't follow immediately. [7] The nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. [8] But all this will be only the beginning of the horrors to come.
• 2 Peter 3:4 This will be their argument: "Jesus promised to come back, did he? Then where is he? Why, as far back as anyone can remember, everything has remained exactly the same since the world was first created."

How It Works

It is interesting to consider the manner and rapidity with which misperceptions can subtly set-in. Any alleged increase and/or frequency of any of the signs mentioned in Mat 24:6-8 are perceived as unique to the final generation. It is presumed that the presence of harsh weather patterns, earthquakes, famines, wars and so forth, are the beginning of the end of life on earth as we know it. It is presumed that any generation that exhibits anything akin to those signs is the final generation. Such is a miscalculation.

Actually, most of those signs were cyclical before the First Advent of Christ and continued in that mode after His ascension from the Mt. of Olives. There was a slight bump in the cycle when a famine hit Israel in Apostolic times and when the Temple was destroyed in 70AD. However, most of those signs are not significantly more prevalent in the Twenty-first Century than they were in former centuries. If anything there has been a decline in famines and plagues.

Nervous in the Service

The words of Jesus never inferred that there would be an increase of those things before the Great Tribulation. Jesus was encouraging us not to be frightened, as these things are merely the beginning of sorrows. The beginning of the sorrows began the moment that man fell into sin. The calamitous events that were cyclical prior to Christ’s resurrection continued after His ascension and will continue to do so until His Second Advent. His admonition was that we should not be shaken by the occurrences of such in diverse locations.

Let Logic Work .

Storms and droughts occur in uninhabited regions just as they do in populated regions of the earth. There are masses presently living in areas that had no inhabitants in Jesus’ day. The calamities that would have formerly devastated only wildlife are now harming people. Thus more incidents are being reported from a greater diversity of locations. Modern communication technologies expose us to a multiplicity of horrors each and every week. (Eccles. 1:18, Dan. 12:4) In the days of the Apostles, years might pass before anyone would learn about the numerous tragedies that had occurred in remote regions of the earth.

This phenomenon spawns the accusations of 2Pe 3:4. We think that because we hear about volumes of things happening that it necessitates that there has been an increase of such things. Therefore, we prophesy that “the sky is falling” again and again, one generation after another.

Worn-out

Saints and sinners become exasperated about the false alarms. They begin to see that nothing significant has ever happened in successive generations, regardless of the forebodings that were issued. They observe that the signs come, take their tolls and then abate. Afterwards, most aspects of life continue as normal and the literal, physical presence of Jesus is nowhere to be found. This begets cynicism in sinners and in many hype-worn saints. The cry that the wolf is coming has been sounded for too many false alarms. Many previously enthusiastic believers become weary and withdraw from fellowship. They simply don’t have the energy to endure another round of much-ado-about-nothing. Errantly and tragically they presume that things will always be as they have always been. They dismiss legitimate admonitions about the Great Tribulation as simply another round of false prognostication hype.

Motivations

What is it that motivates Christians to become inordinately obsessed with concerns about end-time judgments? My suspicions may rattle you. Hopefully, such will not offend you. It is possible that they are being manipulated by a manifestation of the very spirit that they are warning everyone about—the spirit of the Anti-Christ.

The Anti-Christ has not yet demonstrated his direct personal influence in the earth, but since the days of the apostles, spirits of antichrist have been in the world. The Apostle John warned us not to believe every spirit because there would be many false prophets that would be anointed by spirits of anti-Christ. (1Jn 4:1-3)

The most common setting in which Christians are likely to encounter false prophetic revelations is not in the world per se. It is rather in the context of church services and the Christian media. The prefix “anti” of the word “anti-Christ” can mean “in place of” as well as it does “against.” The word “Christ” is defined as “the anointed.” Therefore, a reasonable expanded definition of the word “anti-Christ” might read, “one who is operating in an anointing that is a substitute for the true anointing.”

This is my paraphrase of what John was saying in 1Jo 4:1-3: ‘Be careful to use spiritual discernment when others are giving messages that they claim are from God. Many who offer revelations are actually being inspired with false prophecies through spirits of anti-Christ. However, do not be anxious about these matters because the One who dwells in you is greater than the spirits of anti-Christ that are in the world.’

The King James Version says that the people of God would be under the influence of the Anti-Christ for a period of time and that he would “wear down the saints”. (Dan 7:21-25) That is precisely what inordinate preoccupations about end-time issues do. I have personally known more than a few precious saints whose nerves were worn to a frazzle with concerns about supposed impending judgments on our country.

This crafty scheme of Satan lays the groundwork for the real Anti-Christ to appear on the scene and begin his reign with little opposition. Some saints will be so devastated by the fruitlessness of their previous predictions about the “sky falling,” that they will be too tired and embarrassed to sound another alarm. Others will have become so accustomed to the cry of wolf that they will be nonchalant about the possibility that the real wolf is on the prowl. Thus they may not register any alarm until they are actually in his jaws.

Hold on Johnny

There is another factor that compels today’s clergymen to pronounce judgments on the nations in which they reside. They perceive themselves as modern-day John the Baptist. Just as he pointed his boney finger at ancient Jews, they think it is their place to do the same to the citizens of their respective countries. Big problem; the Church has prophets, but they don’t flow in the same function and anointing as Old Testament prophets.

The Old Testament prophets prophesied to Israel and its surrounding nations. Those were Religious-State governments. This means that the clergy and the governments functioned hand-in-hand. That line of prophets ended with the death of John the Baptist, as he was the last prophet to wield the authority to chasten nations effectively. (Luk 16:16) Other than Islam’s clergy-ruled governments, the world has no functional Church-State societies currently. Christianized nations have governmental rulers that are elected by the public. Even those who happen to be Christians do not have license to establish policies based solely on their personal religious views. They must legislate according to the consensus of the secular voters as well as the spiritually-minded voters.

Genuine New Covenant prophets are God’s gifts to the Church, not to the world. Their function is primarily to speak edification, exhortation and comfort to believers. In addition, they often give prophetic direction to churches. From Acts through the Epistles, there is not one example of Church prophets addressing the general public with denouncements on the unconverted for their sins and issuing threats of imminent forebodings on the world. Perhaps they knew better than to expect the unsaved to behave like those whose hearts have been transformed by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 disciples did not prophesy condemnation on the general public. They drew a crowd for Peter by prophesying about the wonderful things that God had done and was about to do. At times, New Testament prophets spoke to the churches about events that would be occurring in the world. The utterances were so reliable that on one occasion the Jerusalem fellowship began to prepare for an impending famine. By comparison, it is painfully evident that today’s want-to-be John the Baptist guys have yet to flow in that measure of authoritative accuracy. It is hard to find any of their broadly proclaimed predictions that actually come true.

Judgments

There are specific reasons for not equating present-day calamitous episodes as synonymous with God’s judgments under the Old Covenant and those of the New Covenant pertaining solely to the Church and/or its members. Unlike the disasters that have hit the nations of the unconverted over the past 2000 years; God was personally involved in the judgments on Israel and the Church. God now deals with the Church like He once did Israel. He isolates aberrant fellowships and gets up-close-and-personal. There were two types of judgment under the Old Covenant.

• The first had an utterly supernatural dimension that is lacking in that which many call God's judgments today. IE The serpents that bit the hundreds of thousands of Jews who complained in the wilderness; the earth swallowing those who sided with the sons of Korah’s rebellion; the catastrophic destructions of Sodom, Jericho and post Jonah Nineveh’; and the instantaneous premature deaths of Herod, Ananias and Sapphira; are all in a different league from today’s disasters. The three cities cited are gone. Christians of this current era would be hard pressed to produce documentation for any so called modern judgments that remotely resemble the flavor of those cited.
• The second form of judgment was not as dramatic. It employed natural disasters and the devices of opposing nations to bring about repentance. Under the Old Covenant there were two ways in which to alleviate threats of God’s impending judgments. If the people repented before such ensued, the threat was lifted.
• If they refused, the prophesied wars and/or agricultural calamities were enacted. The sufferings were not alleviated unless the Israelites called out to God in repentance while in Israel or as dispossessed captives in foreign empires.  Whenever they did, their land was healed and they were restored to it. (2Chr 7:13-14)

Both of these dynamics are missing from the contemporary calamities that so many preachers label as judgments from on High. Most every nation has a history of all types of devastations from famines to wars and plagues. By all appearances such occur at random, regardless of a nation’s spiritual condition. Under the New Covenant there are no conclusive proofs that the prayers of God’s people always preempt the potential for such to strike. Furthermore, there is no evidence that any Christianized nation has been healed to the same extent that Israel was through the repentance of pre-Christian era Jews. Nations that have been hit with disasters have recovered and have progressed in nearly every dimension of national life. The dynamics that are most often lacking are repentance and righteousness.

Indian Trouble

The experiences of America’s first settlers from Europe punctuate that godliness does not guarantee freedom from horrendous troubles. Those who founded the Jamestown Colony were ardent believers. They unquestionably had a sense of divine destiny as they prayerfully embarked for the New World. Nonetheless, nearly all of them died by starvation and sickness within the first year. Between 1607 and 1624 a total of 14,000 people settled in Jamestown from present-day UK. As of 1625 there were only 1m130 settlers in Jamestown. Most of them perished via starvation, diseases and skirmishes with the Indians. Those who didn’t perish fled back to the UK.

Those who remained in the colonies carried the Gospel’s mandate that compelled them to envision bringing the teeming masses of pagan Native Americans into the Kingdom. That became problematic. The diseases that the settlers brought to the New World repelled rather than attracted those targeted for evangelization. The Indian population was reduced from 5,000,000 to 250,000 by the year of 1900. In contrast, armed conflicts between the two groups produced only 58,000 Aboriginal casualties.

Here is the enigma. Modern prophets assert that the prayers and repentance of the faithful will alleviate the potential for that which they errantly label as impending judgments. The problem is Christian, pagan and secular societies alike, normally return to routine life after such events within reasonable periods of recuperation. They do so without anything akin to entire nations/cities turning to God. If such events were truly God’s judgments, none would recover without massive repentance.

Take France - Please

Take France, Britain, and Germany after the devastations of World Wars I and II.  None had appreciable, long-term revivals that brought about permanent national changes.  Yet, America struggles to surpass those nation’s present-day standards of living; health benefits; and educational programs, etc. etc..

Persevering Chinese

Here is a phenomenon for you. China has had a Christian presence since approximately 1850. It grew fairly strong and there were some remarkable revivals until the Communists takeover in 1949. The Chinese Church under persecution has grown at an impressive rate to this very day. Most everyone would admit that Chinese Christians are intense in fervor and exemplary in evangelization and prayer. However, here are just a few of the things that happened to that nation during its first 100 years of having a Christian presence.

• 1850-61 - 30 million deaths in Taiping rebellion.
• 1876-97 - 50 million perish in famine and 5 million in plagues.
• 1928-37 – 4 million die in civil war, a flood kills 3.5 million and a drought takes 3 million more.
• 1946-50 – Communist takeover kills 2.5 million through civil war and Moa slaughters 50 million in democide and countless millions were believers.
• 1950-2005 – China blooms into a super-power militarily and economically and its Church continues to grow at an astronomical rate in the midst of ongoing persecutions.

Swiss Enigma

Switzerland has had an absence of troubles, even though its Church is not nearly as circumspect as China’s. It could be argued that Switzerland has a Christian heritage that eclipses America's.  Currently, they are as wicked as we are in every department from abortion to pornography; have less than 20% of the population attending church at anytime for any reason; and don’t have a national prayer movement that remotely approaches the proportions of ours per capita. Yet, unlike China, they have been exempt from most every form of calamity for the past 100 years. Swiss unemployment and inflation rates are among the worlds lowest and its per capita income ranks with the highest.

Telltale Factors

Perhaps you are beginning to discern that there is no direct correlation between national adverse events and the activities of circumspect believers. Evangelization taking place in a nation and the presence of mature Christians do not guarantee that it will be exempted from wars and natural disasters.

In addition, there are some interesting stats about the events that Christians have called judgments during the past century. In comparison to past centuries, there has not been an appreciable increase in wars during this century. The bloodiest wars for individual nations took place in former centuries. China’s Manchu War left 20 million dead and its Taipang Rebellion took 30 million lives. In contrast, during the Second World War, Germany had a mere 5.5 million military and civilian casualties. The accompanying Holocaust against European Jews killed 6 million, of which only 130,000 were Germans. Curiously, famines and plagues have declined. To date, Aids pales in comparison to the devastations of the Black Plagues and the Spanish Influenza that hit Christianized Europe centuries ago. The former took 175 million lives in two sieges. The latter killed 21 million in a single year.

Ponderings

These factors are puzzlingly contradictory. Do they infer that God is a respecter of certain nations in spite of their sins; and a disrespecter of others regardless of the spiritual fervency of ever-increasing numbers of its citizens? Or do they indicate that applying the Old Testament’s modes of judgment to the Christian era is a mistake? Do the contradictions give some hint that there is something amiss with assertions that God is going to judge specific nations prior to the Great Tribulation? I am persuaded that the evidence shows that the answers to the latter two questions are, yes.

Why? The past 2000 years of horrendous man-spawned and natural calamities have done little to nothing to change the spiritual climates of nations. None-to-date have had any semblance of the degree of divine authorship that inevitably bears fruit.

Appropriate Focus

Now if you want to assert that the Lord is going to shake/judge the House of God in specific nations; that is a different matter. (Heb 12:25-29, 1Pe 4:17) The Bible and history bear witness; He has and He will.

• T he seven churches of Revelations must not have repented. They are gone. Islam ran them over by the 10 th Century. They did the same with most of other churches of antiquity that stretched from Israel to Morocco.
• The Russian Orthodox Church held hands with the decadent czars for too long. It ceased meaningful function for nearly 70 years during Communism’s reign.
• How did these things happen? Those churches stopped being the type that Jesus said that He would build; the kind that the authorities of hell cannot prevail against. If He is not building a church, those who attempt to are laboring in vain. Praise God. He has never withdrawn His promise. Every nation will have His kind of churches functioning in glory before the Anti-Christ is revealed and the subsequent Second Advent of Jesus.

America

Personally, I don’t think there is strong proof that America has ever been a holy nation in the same sense that Israel was in Old Testament times. We have continuously exhibited the same type of societal woes that put Israel under judgment. Yes, we have had the wars and natural calamities that some call judgments. None have borne the fruits of authentic judgments from God. None of them have ever led to a massive state of national repentance. The majority of people who flocked to churches after the 9/11 Islamic Terrorist attacks were mourning the fallen. They were not repenting. This is borne-out by the fact that church attendance dropped drastically by the end of 2001.

Space does not permit, but there is evidence that the revivals that we have had were preparations for rather than preventatives against troublesome times. If you want to tell me that God is going to judge the American Church and that it risks sinking into oblivion, I can say Amen. I’ll gladly bark at the Church. My posture is to do everything that I can to assist the process of Jesus presenting Himself with a glorious American Church.

Inappropriate Focus

On the other hand, I believe it is foolish to bark at American citizens who are unsaved and unchurched. American people on the whole have never acted like His people in the various ways dictated by the New Testament. Only isolated segments of the American Church have intermittently behaved as real Christians. Why should we tell the majority of America’s people who are yet unsaved that God is going to judge them when He has told us that He will judge the House of God first? (1Co 5:9-13, 1Pe 4:17)

The unconverted are in eternal trouble and need salvation. Like all of the nations that I have cited, they can pull through the temporal troubles up until the seals are opened, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse begin to gallop and God’s true judgments of wrath are executed. Nations always have. Why should we badger people to act like Him when we don’t act like Him? It is the American Church that is racing towards a season of temporal troubles/testings. God will use people to purify us. It is highly unlikely that He will enact turmoil’s that bring harm to the lives, properties and finances of the unconverted in order to get at His Church.

Big Oops

It could be problematic for the Church to continuously tell sinners that God is going to judge this nation unless they straighten-up. The failure of prophesied events to happen and/or quick recoveries from troublesome periods without the activation of national repentance cause the unconverted to view us as nonsensical. This could easily invoke unnecessary and premature persecutions of the Church. The Bible speaks that when true end-time persecutions are enacted many saints will be scandalized and depart from the faith. (Matt 24:9-13) How much more so is this likely if we are persecuted because of our own silliness rather than for the sake of righteousness? If that occurs, some believers will backslide because they were conditioned to believe the wrong things about the end-times by faulty theology. Unquestionably, one of the reasons will be because God didn’t do what they had been conditioned to believe that He would do. Another might be that the things that they had prophesied for others happened to them while unbelievers seemingly got off Scott-free.

A Challenge

I challenge you to do two things:

• Read everything from Acts through the Epistles and study how the disciples spoke to and about those who were as yet unconverted. Keep in mind that the Epistles were written to Christians and not to the unconverted per se. Paul clearly stated that it was not his or our job to judge the fornicators and extortionist etc. of the world. I think that you will discover that the way the Apostles preached to the Gentiles from heathen backgrounds was much gentler and appealing than the austere manner in which they at times addressed those who were Christians and/or those from Jewish backgrounds. The unconverted were addressed in an ambassadorial persuasive manner. The converted were often scolded like unruly kids. We would be wise to follow suit.
• For those who are diehard proponents of God is Gonna-Getcha Theology, I double-dog dare you to read a book by Richard Abanes. It is titled, End-time Visions: The Doomsday Obsession. It traces the Church’s embarrassing history of false prognostications. It can be purchased and shipped from the Amazon.com used book department for under $10.00. Abanes is a co-pastor with Rick Warren of Saddle-back Church who wrote, The Purpose Driven Life.

Conclusion