So the hits just keep a-comin’…
Sure, ISIS, Ebola and the like are inherently horrifying and all, but it’s the way in which these threats are understood and handled by our “leaders” that just seems to amplify the tragedy and terror in…well…a sometimes comically awful sort of way.
Has this year not been one incredible run of “if you don’t laugh you’ll cry” moments?
And is the ongoing decision of American leadership to continue to allow flights from Ebola-ravaged regions – even after we’ve had the plague begin to spread here as a result – not just about the most insanely stupid course of action imaginable in this context?
Most reading this would probably agree with that assessment. At the same time, most Americans – including most professing Christian and conservative Americans, would completely disagree with what the Word of God tells us is going on here, and why it is happening.
And this is perhaps the most comically tragic part of the whole wild, wacky, and surreal program.
If the church in America was filled (or even just mostly influenced by) biblically literate, mature Christians, we would know not to be surprised at the insanity of importing Ebola via airlines because we would understand the nature of God, man, judgment, and wrath. We would understand Romans 1, and we would understand its clear application to 2014 America.
Instead, it seems as though the more God punishes America – the more clearly His wrath rolls over us – the more professing Christians (most of whom claim to be “conservative”) are inclined to double down on the very worldview that got us to this point in the first place. American pride and a fanatical devotion to Christless conceptualizations of everything from freedom and liberty to education and economics become more and more our rallying point as we fall deeper into darkness under the righteous judgment of a holy God.
We want the GOP to nominate and elect a Savior. We want another Ronald Reagan much more than we want Christ the King.
That is what’s known in deep theological terms as, “really bad”.
And really dumb.
Yet here we are: The black comedy of the ages; a culture so consumed by its proud rebellion against God that we are up for even the most openly idiotic “answers” offered to any problem.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. ~ 2 Timothy 4:3-4
While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:3
Our ears itch for the worldly “solutions” offered by our favorite Christ-dismissing political, economic, and educational “experts”. We love and follow them because they have the answers that work “in the real world”, or so they tell us and we soooooo want to believe. They are our idols and they are leading us to exactly where we want to go: Away from the Lordship of Christ in practice.
And by “we” in this context, I mean the professing Christian church in America.
God makes plain that He is very much inclined to use plague, drought, wicked leadership, and the sword of an enemy to bring about His judgment upon a proud, rebellious people. He presents this truth again and again in His Word. And while many professing Christians seem to grasp and agree with that biblical concept in its general application to present day America, they tend to have little to no interest in seeking its application in detail.
And why?
Well, for a reason that we can all relate to: It challenges us to repent of our idolatry. That sort of thing never has and never will go over well with proud men and women – and “conservative Christian” America is full of them.
We want to blame Barack Obama and progressive leadership for everything, when, in fact, we are to blame for their being appointed our leaders as one of many judgments upon us for the professing church’s rebellion against God. They are our leaders and we are in this mess because we have abandoned the Gospel and Great Commission as the essential core of every realm of culture and civilization.
The Church that has been called to “make disciples of all the nations” and teach them to do all that Christ has commanded (see: Matthew 28) has become dominated by faux believers who go to bible studies, sing in choirs, and participate in various churchy activities, but have no appetite whatsoever for the Great Commission. They openly oppose the application of Christ’s Word as the guiding authority in all that we do right here and now.
There are so many passages that we love to rip out of context and claim as our lucky rabbit’s foot of the moment. Few are more (ab)used in such a manner than the well-known passage from 2 Chronicles:
. . . if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)
But most who wave that verse around have no intention of doing what it commands to save this land from the unfolding judgment of God against it.
Instead they cling to pride and follow the “leaders” (on the right and on the left) who have and will always lead them away from the Person of Christ as the only real solution to every problem they claim to want resolved.
If only we had a Republican President, these things wouldn’t be happening…
If only we had a Republican Senate, we’d be so much better off…
If only…well…you get the picture.
This is the stark raving madness of Romans 1 judgment on full and open display…by way of those who are very much prone to claim Christ and Christianity.
They seek after their political and economic “prophets” as they always have and always will, until and unless God sets them free of that self-serving slavery through the supernatural Gospel of Jesus Christ. Those prophets promise “peace, peace” and “prosperity, prosperity” if only they will keep on following them.
They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,”
says the LORD. ~ Jeremiah 6:10-15
There is no true, lasting peace or prosperity to be found down the path that they even now would lead us down.
It is our sin in enabling them that has now brought us to the point of collapse on every front.
[Tweet “Of course #Ebola is airborne. It flies in from Africa all the time. Welcome to Romans 1 America.”]
We are imploding everywhere under the weight of our pride-fueled rebellion, and nothing sums up the insanity of our situation quite like the airborne Ebola that we knowingly invite into our own land as yet another clear sign of God’s judgment upon us.
May He grace us with broken repentance and one last chance at restoration through Him…while there is yet time…and before we become any more comically tragic.
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© 2015 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.
Soli Deo Gloria!