We live in the last days. Every day that passes is a day closer to Christ’s Second Coming and the Last Judgment. In the meantime, God continues to execute judgment upon the earth, as he has done from the beginning. We reap what we sow both as individuals and collectives.
When a predominant number of people in a nation embrace God’s truth and believe the gospel, that nation will reap significant blessings. However, when a nation turns its back on God and the truth of his Word, it will encounter God’s judgment in a number of ways.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Galatians 6:7 (NASB95)
Abortion: The Shedding of Innocent Blood
Perhaps one of the easiest examples of how a nation can embrace a sinful lie is how the United States relates to abortion.
Since the Supreme Court Decision of Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973, we have regarded ourselves as a paragon of freedom and equality for women without batting an eye regarding the mass murder of over 60 million unborn defenseless babies. This has happened in the last 52 years, under the watch of the Baby Boomer generation! Consider that this number equals some estimates of the total number of lives lost in WWII! Let that sink in!
Will God ignore the treachery? Not if the Bible is true. According to it, God innocent blood cries out to God for justice. We see this in Genesis after Cain killed his brother Abel.
He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Genesis 4:10 (NASB95)
We see it again in the history of the kings of Israel. Manasseh brought down God’s judgment by killing innocent people.
Surely at the command of the LORD it came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, 4 and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the LORD would not forgive. 2 Kings 24:3–4 (NASB95)
God has not changed. He still judges sin. We should be appalled, ashamed, aghast, disgusted, and fearful of what God will do to such a people. The United States allows us to freely kill an unborn baby without legal consequences, but that does not mean we will escape the Judge of the whole earth, who is not fooled by our unjust laws!
It does not matter what man’s laws say. God’s law trumps human law and is the standard God will use at the Last Judgment.
Women’s reproductive rights is a euphemism for the mother’s right to terminate the life of the defenseless baby in her womb. That is murder, no matter how we slice and dice it. Whether or not we ever consented personally to an abortion, we all bear guilt as a nation since we are part of the collective.
We claim that the baby in the womb is not yet a human to make it easier to erase its existence. We used a similar argument to justify slavery and the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.
Dehumanizing those we enslave, oppress, and murder is an age old ruse.
We now look back with sorrow and shame as we contemplate our forefathers’ reasoning and actions. How will future generations judge us? More importantly, how will God judge us? God is the defender of the helpless and innocent. Should it not terrify us to think how deserving of judgment our nation is? And this is only one sin!
But most of us would rather not think about it. We prefer to live in denial and evade the truth. We may successfully refuse to take responsibility for this sin for a while, but we cannot evade the consequence. We will reap what we sow.
Evolution – Hiding God’s Glory by Suppressing the Truth of Creation
The hypothesis of evolution is a prime example of the suppression of truth, which is being done worldwide. The Bible teaches that God’s existence is clearly evident through observing of his creation. In other words, we have to be willingly blind to miss it.
…that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:18-20 (NASB)
By denying the existence of the Creator and his work, we attempt to free ourselves from any moral obligation to worship and serve God or keep his commandments.
If man evolved, we are accountable to no one for how we live our lives. We are our own god. No wonder this lie is so popular. It appears to give solid scientific footing to the desire to throw off God’s rule.
Transgenderism – Rebelling against God’s Sovereignty
Another lie that is sweeping our culture is that gender is psychologically determined rather than divinely ordained.
In other words, we are not limited to how God made us. We can choose whatever gender we want. The Bible teaches that God created us as he saw fit, which is male and female, which is determined at conception and permeates our being all the way down to the chromosomal level.
All of us come into this world with most of the really important factors already determined for us by God.
God sovereignly chooses for us our sex, intelligence level, physical strength, race, family, nation, looks, general health, etc. None of us chose to be born and none of us can stop the aging or death process. We cannot undo gravity or much of anything else God has built into his creation, much less our gender.
Nevertheless, many rebel against the idea of anything being predetermined by God and try to undo it.
Rather than accept how God made us, we want to change it. We can change our dress. We can surgically alter our bodies. We can inject unnatural levels of hormones, but we cannot change ourselves at the most fundamental level. Our chromosomes tell the true story.
We cannot change what God has created. We can only accept it or rail against it.
Is It Too Late?
America seems to have reached, and perhaps passed, a critical point in her history. As a nation, we have turned our backs repeatedly on God and his truth. We are locked in a battle for the soul of the nation.
Many of our nation’s leaders and influencers -the educational establishment, the main stream media, and Hollywood – are actively suppressing truth, and the American people seem to like it that way.
It is increasingly coming into question whether we are capable any longer of responsible self-government. We are being set up for tyranny. Many of our citizens now believe that there is no God, no absolute truth, no ultimate authority, no coming judgment, and no everlasting consequences for rejecting God and disobeying him. They (we) could not be more wrong! Those who believe there is no God are more than willing to surrender to a human or institution, such as government, which claims to provide what God alone can do. The suppression of the truth about God leads to idolatry.
Will judgment come to America or is it already here? I believe it’s here now. The only question is will it destroy us, or do we still have space for repentance?
Making the Decision to Pursue Truth
Truth seekers are fairly rare it seems. Sadly, the more comfortable we are, the more likely we will be unconcerned about eternal things. My own personal journey to God was a search for truth. I wanted to know if what the Bible says about Jesus and his resurrection is real or not. At one point, I called myself an agnostic, thinking that God cannot be known, simply because I had not yet come to know him. How ludicrous to make a judgment about God based solely on our own experience; yet, how common it is for people to suppose that what we think and have experienced determines reality.
Paul wrote that people grope about in their search for God. (Acts 17:27) Spiritually blind people fall all over themselves and unseen obstacles in their pursuit of reality and truth.
We cannot find God on our own, but, if we seek him, he promises that we will find him. He will make sure of that!
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8 (NASB)
What the Pursuit of Truth Is Not
- Seeking truth is not limiting ourselves to some predetermined position.
- It is not going to be found by going to ungodly sources, especially non-truth seeking groups.
- It not not necessarily something that will make us feel good or confident in ourselves or that will help us to fit in with the crowd.
- It’s almost surely not something that is politically correct.
What truth Is
- Even though Jesus is full of love, truth is always “cold,” in the sense that it is doesn’t care if it pleases us or not.
- Truth is often “hard” – something that won’t change no matter how much we wish it would, or how hard we try to make it change.
- Truth causes conflict. It will make our lives less comfortable, less convenient, and less agreeable to non-truth seekers. It cost Jesus his life.
- Truth will force us to abandon any of our current beliefs and understandings that are wrong.
- Truth sometimes will embarrass us by exposing our sinfulness, ignorance, or blindness.
Humility
The pride of man resists God and his truth. It comes up with all sorts of alternate versions of reality that will allow us to dodge truth and continue in our rebellion.
It takes humility to believe in God and in the truth of his words in the Bible.
Humility teaches us that we are created beings, not independent operators. Humility teaches us that unless we admit our need for God, we will be lost in the downward spiral of death and deception. It takes humility to admit we need help, and that help is found in Jesus!
The Terrible Day of the Lord
Imagine how the Nazi leaders felt as they faced charges at the post-war trials in Nuremberg, Germany! Some were unrepentant, but I imagine most were afraid and ashamed as their evil deeds were exposed and their sentences imposed. I imagine that many of them felt horribly guilty. Saying, “I am sorry” did not fix things. Justice was meted out. The Last Judgment will be even more terrifying and severe.
“For the day is near, Even the day of the LORD is near; It will be a day of clouds, A time of doom for the nations. Ezekiel 30:3 (NASB95)
At the last judgment our pretenses and shams will be stripped away and everything will be exposed in the clear blinding light of God’s truth.
What will we do on that day? Will there be any place to hide? Will there be any safe place?
The Only Safe Place
Jesus identified himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only way to the Father in heaven. (John 14:6) To him God the Father has committed all judgment. (John 5:27) He sees through all pretext and lies. No one can hide from his gaze. No one can escape his scrutiny. He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart as well as everything we have ever said or done. He knows what we did not do, but should have. (Hebrews 4:12-13)
Absolute truth is also absolute holiness.
His standards do not bend. His righteousness is inflexible. His justice is firm and fierce. His wrath will be released upon all those who reject the truth and refuse his mercy offered through the Gospel in Christ.
Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 (NASB)
How Will We Know Him?
But that is in the future, and this is now. We still have the opportunity of coming into the light of God’s truth about our sin and finding mercy. We also can know the judge as the one who said:
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 (NASB)
Or we can reject his generous offer of forgiveness and one day meet him as the glorious Son of Man coming in the clouds to judge all people, who will say to us:
…Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; Matthew 25:41 (NASB)
This is the same Jesus speaking to different groups of people. It’s our choice of what we will hear and how we will know him. Regardless, we will all bow before him. (Romans 14:11) Why not do it now willingly? Don’t wait until you are forced to cower before him awaiting his judgment and justice!
The Truth Will Set Us Free
Jesus wants to liberate us from death, destruction, deception, and sin. He said:
…“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32 (ESV)
Those who humbly and courageously pursue truth, no matter what, will indeed be set free, experience true joy, and know God and his mercy. They will see the God of all truth extend his merciful hand toward them with a smile of favor.
Jesus faced the truth about sin when he went to the cross.
Sin nailed the Truth of God to the cross and put him to death.
Sin resulted in God’s pouring out his wrath on the innocent Lamb of God who willingly took upon himself the just penalty for our sins. The Truth died that day to provide us with eternal life.
The only way for anyone to escape the same God’s righteous wrath against sin is to put his or her faith in what Christ has accomplished on our behalf and to pledge our loyalty and faithfulness to Jesus.
This is the only way to find safety. It takes courage and humility and faith. The path to truth is narrow and difficult, but definitely worth it!
For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:14 (NASB)
The society in which we live may be hell bent on going down the wide road to destruction, but we don’t have to join them!
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I believe that you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life and the only way to the Father. I ask you to forgive me for my sins. I deserve judgment, but I joyfully receive mercy from you, who took my punishment upon yourself. I deserve death, but I gladly receive eternal life from you. I deserve to be eternally cut off from God, but I happily accept my reconciliation to Father God through you. I confess that you are the risen Lord of Lords who is coming back again to judge all people. I thank you that I now can confidently look forward to that day because you have put me in right standing with God the Father. Thank you for giving me your Holy Spirit to live inside me forever and transform me on the inside. Thank you for setting me free! Help me to serve you the rest of my days on earth and forever in heaven. Help me to be a faithful witness to Jesus, a proclaimer of the Gospel, and a discipler of men. Amen.
