& The True God of America is...

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9-11

8 The Lord sent a word against Jacob,

And it has fallen on Israel.

9 All the people will know—

Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria—

Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:

10 “The bricks have fallen down,

But we will rebuild with hewn stones;

The sycamores are cut down,

But we will replace them with cedars.”

11 Therefore the LORD shall set up

The adversaries of Rezin against him,

And spur his enemies on,

12 The Syrians before and the Philistines behind;

And they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.

For all this His anger is not turned away,

But His hand is stretched out still.

13 For the people do not turn to Him who strikes them,

Nor do they seek the LORD of hosts.

14 Therefore the LORD will cut off head and tail from Israel,

Palm branch and bulrush in one day.

15 The elder and honorable, he is the head;

The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err,

And those who are led by them are destroyed.

17 Therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men,

Nor have mercy on their fatherless and widows;

For everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer,

And every mouth speaks folly.

For all this His anger is not turned away,

But His hand is stretched out still.

18 For wickedness burns as the fire;

It shall devour the briers and thorns,

And kindle in the thickets of the forest;

They shall mount up like rising smoke.

19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts

The land is burned up,

And the people shall be as fuel for the fire;

No man shall spare his brother.

20 And he shall snatch on the right hand

And be hungry;

He shall devour on the left hand

And not be satisfied;

Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm.

21 Manasseh shall devour Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh;

Together they shall be against Judah.

For all this His anger is not turned away,

But His hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 9:8-21

This word was originally sent against Samaria, a nation with a biblical heritage; a nation that was to be later identified by pagan influences. It follows the "Unto us a child is born" passage which identifies Jesus as God Himself by calling Him "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Ultimately, only He is the ruler of the nations.
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Ten years ago today, on a Tuesday, I was in Africa. I listened via satellite radio as the twin towers fell, and as the world watched America struggle between fear and courage. 3497 people died that day in the attacks, and others followed in the days and weeks to come. Some (not all) were heroic. All were victims. I remember how surprised everyone seemed. I was not. Somehow, God gave me grace to understand. I didn't like it, but I was not surprised. We were being told something about ourselves.

Yet, we still have not learned the real lesson of that attack. However strong we are, we are vulnerable. However noble we think we are, we still give others reason to despise us. Our pride is at least as much as source of weakness as it is of strength. And, it is not our success that they hate. It is not our freedom. It is not our biblically founded heritage. They may envy these things, but they do not hate us for them. The sad truth is that most of what militant Islam hates about America deserves to be hated. We should hate it ourselves. We should hate it in love rather than violence, but we should hate it nevertheless.

Even after 9-11, our culture continues to mock the Lord, the true King of Heaven and Earth. We continue to kill millions of our own children each year. We continue to murder, kidnap, and rob each other. We continue to worship sports teams and movie stars more than we worship Jesus. We continue to allow and promote pornography and vice across our country. We celebrate pre-marital and extra-extramarital sex (fornication and adultery), homosexuality, having children out of wedlock, entitlement, drinking and the club scene, and the ungodly Hollywood/Rock Star culture. We continue in our personal pride and deprecation of others. We continue in ungodliness.

You see, what they hate is something deeper than our money or our leisure. I don't think they even know what they hate, but I believe they really hate our Blessing. And, they hate our blessing because we act like we deserve it rather than understand that it is our Blessing (something given to us as a gift by a gracious God) and not Our blessing (something we intrinsically deserve and are owed.) The blessing of a people is a gift, something that can be rejected, abandoned, renounced. America is no exception.

 America has been blessed, yet we mock the God who blesses us. We have been blessed, yet we are not the blessing we should be to others. We are blessed, yet we (especially under our current leadership) have turned our back on the descendants of Jacob. We are blessed, yet we remove prayer from the public arena, remove Christianity from the history we teach our children, define ourselves by consumption rather than by giving, and de-santify (trivialize) the image of God in humanity at every turn.

So, 9-11 should not have been a surprise. We deserved it. Not that those 3497 specifically deserved it more than the rest of us, but we as a nation deserved what happened that day. In fact, we needed it. We needed a wake up call. We needed to turn back to God. And, for a moment, it seemed that we would. I was so hopeful that we might actually turn back to our heritage in the Lord. (Perhaps I am still hopeful.)

But then sadly, like the Samarians, the majority of us continued to reject God. We looked at the rubble and thought to ourselves "we will rebuild with hewn stones;... we will replace them with cedars." Instead of humility and submission to God, we have responded in pride and arrogance of heart. Do we then expect God to turn away His anger and reward our rebellion? Do we expect Him to withdraw His hand?

But, this passage is about Jacob and Israel, not America, isn't it? Romans 11:21 says, "For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either." Should we expect easier treatment when we disregard the God who blesses us than Israel? What is the United States of America that it should think itself better than God's specifically, biblically chosen inheritance?

2 Peter 2:4-5 also says "For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;" Does our country reflect sin or righteousness?

We need to recognize that God allowed this to happen to us for our good: not so that we might be stronger in our own strength, but that we might recognize and remember our need for Him. We should not respond to 9-11 by becoming proud as the leaders of this people want us to do. It is wickedness which burns as the fire and in the end, we are the ones who will get burned. The people shall be as fuel for the fire. If we witnessed 9-11 and do not desire God's lordship in our lives and in our country now more than we did before, then we have missed the whole point. Even 10 years later, 9-11 should bring us to our knees, rather than to our feet.

They are building a monument. Perhaps it would have been better to leave the rubble alone. Perhaps then, we would remember with the proper attitude. Perhaps then we would heed the warning, humble ourselves, and continue to turn to the Lord, instead of continuing in the rejection of our Blessing.

So, here's where we insert the drum roll. The answer to the question is up to us.

& The True God of America is...

God Himself

or

America Itself

(Our Money; Our Pride; Our Leisure; Our Immorality)

1 Peter 5:6-9a: "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him."
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