This may well be the most personal article I have posted. As a preacher, teacher, pastor, and ministry director I dedicate much of my life to the study of God’s Word. I love all Scripture, but I have a particular interest in eschatology, the study of end-times prophecy. In light of this, I truly believe it is a fact that we are living in the last days, and in fact the very end of days.
As I prepare the “Signs of the Times” update to share each Sunday morning with our church, I look at the condition the world politically, morally and spiritually. I see the conflicts which rage on every continent as man’s inhumanity to man demonstrates itself in all types of violence; consuming lives because of political differences, ethnic differences, moral differences, religious differences, or just plain old greed. In the Middle East, God’s chosen people, the Jewish nation of Israel, is surrounded by people’s who clamor for her to be wiped from the face of the earth, and finds herself increasingly abandoned by the United States.
Here in the United States of America we find ourselves internally in the same conflicts found in the rest of the world. As a result of the policies of this present administration, there is an increasing intolerance towards Christians, emerging class warfare because of an ever-growing economic divide, and escalating racial tensions on a scale not seen since the 1960s. The moral decay in this country rivals that of Rome under the emperors Nero and Caligula:
Abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, the legalization of mind-altering marijuana, and an entertainment industry in which pornography has become its largest money maker. We have a failing educational system which has embraced compromise and tolerance rather than exceptionalism and competition. Our schools teach our children that there are no absolute truths, no wrong answers, and that they are not personally responsible for their own actions.
The corruption within our national government has grown to epidemic proportions. We have a president who is ruling by executive order circumventing Congress at every opportunity, who routinely lies to the American people without repercussion or consequence, and an Attorney General who not only breaks the laws of this country but refuses to enforce them as well.
We have an EPA rife with internal corruption yet by executive order have been given unprecedented power, an NSA, again by executive order, which is spying on the American people, and an IRS which is being wielded like a bludgeon against conservatives by the president and Democrats in Congress. Under this administration the US military has been weakened while the DHS, the IRS, the BLM, the TSA, and other government agencies have been militarized as domestic security forces.
Early in his first term as president, Barack Obama stated that we were no longer Christian nation. Personally, I don’t believe we ever were. I do believe that this nation was founded on Christian ideals and principles and that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of our legal system. I believe that at one point in time the majority of the citizens of this country at least worshiped as Christians—whether or not they actually had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But, as far as I’m concerned, I believe the Bible clearly teaches that the only “Christian nation,” are those people who have accepted the free gift of salvation provided through the shed blood of Jesus Christ at Calvary, and who are described in Scripture as the body of Christ, whose citizenship is in heaven, and not anywhere in this world.
That having been said, I find great sorrow in the fact that few “churches” in America today are preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, they have become social institutions, or proponents of a word of faith prosperity gospel, or a humanistic self-help gospel, or are embracing the idea of the united inclusiveness of all religions, or some other form of theological error. Regardless, Ichabod, “The glory has departed”—has been written above the door frames of the majority of these “churches.”
I was born a citizen of the United States of America. I have loved this country, I have served this country, and I have helped to build this country. I grew up in a small town, played baseball and was a linebacker on my high school football team. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school, had prayer before ballgames, and sang the National Anthem. The doors on our homes were always unlocked, and our rifles and shotguns hung in gun racks in the back windows of our pickup trucks because we just might be going hunting after school.
I was a cowboy, tended cattle, hauled hay, and competed in rodeo. We had picnics on the Fourth of July and watched fireworks, celebrating the freedom we enjoyed living in this great nation, while all the time understanding that freedom isn’t free, and had been dearly paid for by the men and women of our military. I was proud to be an American, proud that I lived in a country where I could vote my conscience, vote for and have respect for those who would govern and lead our country, speak of and worship openly my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and instill in my family these same ideals.
But as an American, I have watched this country’s heart and soul destroyed from within. Liberalism and socialism took root in our institutions of higher learning, and has now usurped power in our government. This has resulted in the fact that we have been forced, in the name of compromise and tolerance, to exchange liberty for security and freedom for socialism. As a nation we have turned our backs on God, demonstrating the same sinfulness and wickedness found in the world in the days of Noah and Lot.
Repentance is no longer preached from our pulpits. Salvation has been replaced with self-help, and teaching of the Second Coming of Christ has been supplanted by Preterism. The majority of people in this nation no longer worship the God of the Bible, but instead worship at the altars of self, sport, entertainment, or money. In light of all of these things the question must be asked, is there any hope? Can America be saved?
As a Christian, as a blood bought born-again child of God, as a believer in and a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will tell you there is always hope. Hope that true followers of Christ, men and women with a biblical worldview, would speak up, be elected into office, and in other ways stem the tide of spiritual, moral, and political decay. However, as a student of Bible Prophecy, because I do not find the United States in end-times prophetic Scripture, I must admit I truly believe America’s time has passed. But, although I do not see a patriotic national revival, I still hold out hope for and am fervently praying for, a spiritual revival in America.
Once upon a time in America, we were a nation who at least honored God. Today that is not so, for we have allowed the enemies of God to gain a place of prominence in this nation. The enemies who trouble America are neither imported nor homegrown. We find that enemy identified in Ephesians 6:11-12:
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
We as followers of Jesus Christ must recognize that even though America may be lost, her people do not have to be. Our enemy is Satan, yet Christ Jesus has promised us the victory.
It is our responsibility, to share with the people of this nation and in fact the world, the truth of the gospel. We must tell them that Jesus paid their sin debt, and ours, at Calvary, and by their confession and repentance, making Him the Lord of their lives He offers them eternal life. And we must tell them of His return for His church, the body of Christ. We must do this because the Word of God tells us that this world is not going to get any better.
In 2 Timothy 3:1-5 Paul warns Timothy:
“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” Certainly this is a description of mankind today.
Once again I will tell you we are living in the last days. In Ephesians 5:16-17, Paul tells us we should be: “redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
What is the Lord’s will? It is His will that all men would accept His gift of salvation.
2 Peter 3:9 says: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
We must be sharing the gospel message of our Lord Jesus because:
Jesus is Coming Soon!
Until He comes to Rapture His church we need to keep praying for a spiritual revival that will not only sweep this nation but the world because:
Jesus is Coming Soon!
Long ago I adopted Ezekiel 22:30 as my life’s verse:
“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.”(KJV)
And, it is my prayer even now that God will make me that man, and continually work a spiritual revival in my heart and mind, so that I may continue to be the preacher, teacher, and leader servant that He wants me to be. I will also be praying for Him to revive the spirit of every Christian who has remained true to Jesus Christ, so that we might see many souls redeemed in these last days.
Will you join me in this prayer?
Jesus is Coming Soon!
Even So Come.
K.D. Tucker Whitaker DD, PhD
Rafter Cross Ministries