The Fate of the Nation
Thus says the Lord, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3 NASB
Do – The division of ideology in American politics could not be more obvious—or more ridiculous. Obstructionist, argumentative, uncooperative, arrogant, exaggerated, unforgiving—all these come to mind when I think of the political environment today. Newsmen are constantly asking, “Why is there such acrimony when we are all part of the same nation?” I find the political-speak unsatisfying. But perhaps I am too much a product of my own age. Perhaps I should have expected all of this for some time. I think Jeremiah tells us why we have such a mess on our hands. God has written certain inevitable consequences into the laws of society. A society can only ignore them for so long before the very fabric of the civilization begins to deteriorate. As Lau says, “the prophet determines that government stability depends on social morality.”[1] It seems that we as a society have reached the point of no return with regard to the social laws of God’s universe.
- Do justice – recent reports rank the USA near the bottom of countries with equal opportunities for self-realization. We might quibble over the measurement, but any serious look at our society certainly demonstrates a lack of justice.
- Righteousness – since the Bible defines righteousness as alignment with Torah in relation to God, even a cursory review of American society shrieks disconnect here. The fact that American religious institutions lead the way against Torah should be enough to make us shudder.
- Deliver the one who has been robbed of power – Today’s legal environment seems to do just the opposite. Coddle to the one in power. Ignore the oppressed. On a national scale, we fail.
- Do not mistreat – The Bible lists those near to God’s heart. As far as I can tell, the stranger, orphan and widow have a very difficult time in this society. There are approximately 400,000 children in foster care in the USA. Perhaps we find solace in the fact that there are 60 million orphans in Asia, but what excuse is there for 400,000 in the richest nation on earth?
- Innocent blood – Since Roe v. Wade, almost 60 million children have been killed before they were born. They are the most innocent of all innocents. Did we think there were no spiritual-social consequences for this atrocity?
Jeremiah is right. We have the results. In Jeremiah’s time it led to Babylon. Do you think God changed the rules somewhere along the way?
Topical Index: social justice, American politics, Jeremiah 22:3
[1] Benyamin Lau, Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet, p. 80.
These things are hard to face. I really don’t want to accept these as reality and yet I “know” that is exactly what they are. I see Rome written all over this nations path and yet the train just keeps rollin.
Hardly anyone outside of this blog is even willing to consider Torah. Their church doctrine is simply not to be questioned. We have become a nation of people who cannot think for themselves any longer. We are afraid to question status quo.
The good news for me is that God knows His own. There is a future and a beautiful one at that for those who know Him and follow Him. Keep looking back and remember what has passed and use the examples God left for us to stay out of the trenches along life’s way or at least use em to locate the ladder to climb out and continue the journey!
Skip, the fear of the Lord is gone, and we are rewriting the rules. I mean, the Ten. Each and every one is being replaced by cleverly designed counterfeits; I am talking about the LEGAL system. I think everyone can see this when it comes to the abortion controversy, but the other nine are faring no better. It is already getting bad in the pot that is slowly boiling the frog, but it stands to worsen. The UN is way ahead of us in designing and forcing the rest of the world to follow these laws that directly or indirectly contradict the Law, and some of it is blatantly defying it, which is to say, if you want to obey the Law you are going to have to break the ones the world is currently seeking to enforce on a global scale. We think we will be ‘safe’ if we install a political reality that gives nominal lip service to God, but that is a dangerous fallacy, for the accepted idea of what God wants (or permits) is far from the truth. It is time to wake up and see that attempting to use ANY system of power devised on this planet, from ecclesiastical to social to political to change people’s hearts is just going to worsen the oppression.
Alexander deToqueville told us that the only reason a democratic republic was working in this country was because we ALREADY had a moral people who were subscribing voluntarily to a higher Law. That, we no longer have. There will be no earthly law devised or executed that will ever take the place of that.
We have lost the fear of God, and the churches are directly to blame for it, for we can no longer look to them to show us what love is; reason being that they are no longer demonstrating and upholding the great principles of the Torah which is the ONLY foundation for what love actually is, nor are they producing people who are willing and able to stand for the right against any and all systems that are not lined up with it. I am talking about the will for not only civil disobedience if necessary (and, no, that does not necessarily mean that if we break store windows and shoot people for the purposes of protesting a law change we are actually DOING the correct Law) but also the will to counteract the baleful results of oppressive worldly practices, legal or otherwise. I think it would be eye-opening to spend some time here on this forum actually talking about how Torah looks in practice in the way we interact with the larger society. What does Torah look like in action and in demonstration, as opposed to the systems of the world? Lining up to care for pregnant and unwed women and adopt babies is only a start.
I think the only reason that the world, from our political system to the UN, is having to devise law that attempts to correct immorality is because the salt and the light that are supposed to be leading the way in showing what that looks like is so foul tasting and dim no one can see what love is supposed to do in answer to the need for it. There is much more to do to correct the world’s misunderstanding of what love really is, for the world now sees the church largely as hardhearted and softheaded. Wonder why? “The sin of the world’s impenitance lies at the door of the church” (E.G. White The Great Controversy).
Fantastic post! Also love that Stephen Johnson brought up the excellent TW on A Revelation Of Worship, which fits right in. Right on!
Your analysis is a wholesale condemnation of the State of the Union but it could be applied to others as well.
Money can’t buy me love! By one analysis Germany, United States, China, India and Japan make up the top 5 of the Most Capitalist Countries of the World. None of them are in the top 10 of the Happiest Countries in the World that are occupied by nordic or nordic-like countries rounded out by the ANZAC duo and the Netherlands (U.N. report). The USA ranks 14th, Germany 16th.
There are many ways that you could tie these two reports together or separate them. Distributive justice might be a very good one. Yeshua preached it. Everyone needs a certain number of goods and services such as health, education, and welfare (housing, protection, defense) to survive. Distributive justice ensures that every member of society has a basic level of this regardless of how much work they have done. If this floor is established and there are no limits to the ability of one to acquire goods and services except for his or her own will, then distributive justice can be said to be present. The happy countries all have a reasonable level of this.
On this basis Germany would look to be the most successful country in the world. Maybe the Germans did learn something from being nearly destroyed twice in 30 years but where or where would the richest most powerful country in the world rank?
Torah is all about communal living. In the USA anything that contains “comm______” (fill in the blank space) is anathema. As for Torah, hmmm?
George, I meant it when I said that I want to explore what a true community looks like. You hit the nail on the head. HOW do people do community correctly? What conditions must be there “legal, social, etc.) for it to work? To the extent communism defied Torah, it did not work. To the extent it follows it, it does. If we were to design a theoretical community that worked, we would have to go back to the only time I have ever seen in earth’s history that it was perfected, and that would be first century A.D. We need to stop already, like Skip tells us over and over, reading into those communities our current church system. 99% of community is not which pew you sit in or when you pay your tithe; no, it is about who gets to use the toilet when and what needs to be done about the groceries and how do we keep the babies from getting sick, and, most importantly, how to keep people from fracturing over incidentals like what number God, is, for goodness’ sake! The community needs to stay together! Most important! Do we even know how to bring this subject up, or why we need to? The world is waiting with bated breath to see Torah in action, but it will never see it unless and until it can see a functioning community, in defiance to all substitutes for it, including that money. Wanna start?
I am happy to start Laurita. As you know during the winter we live in a trailer park in Florida but it is a trailer park with a difference. It was built 45 years ago as a community owned park by Air Streamers for Air Streamers, largely with volunteer labour. Today it has a net book value of more than $2M. and every service conceivable. More than 100 different activities are run by volunteers from Amateur Radio to Yoga including Fire/Rescue/EMS and church/biblestudy/choir/services by the nearly 1000 stockholder members but first we must SEE ourselves as community not individuals.
With the decline in Air Stream sales, SOBs (some other brands) were allowed a few years ago not without serious concern. I would not necessarily say that the level of volunteerism is directly connected to this but it certainly is not what it once was. You know how Air Streamers think. There is a difference in expectations for those who can afford services offered at any price and some people volunteer nothing at all but everyone pays a small price for this deficit each and every day and the beat goes on.
There is no doubt in my mind that the difference between the pursuit of “life, liberty and happiness” (read Greek ego) and small “c” communism (read Torah of good government, sh’ma), is the difference. How often can you hear on Sunday morning that God wants you to be rich, happy, succesful, have a good looking partner, well educated children, house(s) and car(s) just like me the preacher who brings you the good news of Jesus, if ONLY you believe? Maybe not today but tomorrow!
You and I both know this is false. Tomorrow never comes does it. We only have today to do it! We MAKE it come and we are the delivery boys and girls. Last night on 60 Minutes there was a story of one man teaching small town “hill-billy” kids in Mississippi how to play chess and how it can be applied to life experiences. Today they are champions. Tomorrow who knows what, but it can happen to anybody when we work as community and it all begins with the “I” in communIty doesnt it? JFK; – “ask not what…………….” we have lost. We hear; “only I can save America”, from u-no-who 50+ years later. There are two “eyes” in vision but they are blind and cannot see because they have no leader.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Love it. Lived in a 25 ft. Airstream in the marsh off White Chimney Cove above Darien, Ga. the year my 5th was born. The kids lived in tents and we moved the trailer around whenever the black water holes we dug filled up. Right idea! The kids never recovered from Camelot. They all knew it was the right way. I DO know that original community you refer to, and they were some of the very best people! My grandaddy, in his small pickup truck with plywood (beautiful murals of mountains painted on the sides, of course) sides and an oilcan stove in one corner, loved Winter Park, Fla community as he migrated there every winter. I have pictures of the campfires they would build and gather around to pick and sing in the evenings.
We should talk about how community functions (they who don’t work don’t eat, for instance). That does not play out well in ANY other context other than true community. Torah was written for these community tribal contexts,and if we want to see why YHVH commanded Noah and family not to coalesce in large cities and impersonal political groups, we would be a lot closer to understanding why community is the only design in which love optimizes results. I have been thinking a lot about this.
Gotta love those Airstreams! We lived in a larger SOB (lol) Avion afterwards and it just wasn’t the same.
Hello folks these trailer parks Airstream to be more precise sounds like the way to go. Lil Abri Fellowship Francis Schaeffer back in the day was the way. Not to be pessimistic but precise if you find a good church stay out of it because ____ _______ _________ _______ . Good solid persistent leadership he’s very hard to find. If Yeshua attempted it with 12 good man almost did it but what then. Further back Sodom and Gomorrah good parallel yet for one righteous left would you still destroy a nation.? What does it take a new king in town there’s a lot of squawk about what is going to happen some of it optimistic but how long until the bad settles in again? We overlook there are some things that have to happen before Messiah returns we can all Ponder or think together and agree on some even then patience love and faithfulness.
Forgot to add my thought a nation may not be saved but only a few faithful in it. I think it’s Ezekiel tells us or maybe Zechariah on the day of the feast but Nations will come up and celebrate to the Lord where does this fit in?
The last Nation to be saved went the way of the dodo when the Temple came crashing down to be replaced by a nation of one international community, the communal nation of non-secular faithful who hear and obey. They who get it and do it, live it! Those who don’t, won’t.
Good they also be known as followers o(f the way) of Yahweh
I understand what is being said here but I also have to point out the fact that compared to most countries we’re all pretty much in the same boat with out exception or comparably better. I’m in agreement that we will be judged as a nation.
Maybe I’m idealistic but I don’t believe it to be too hard too turn around the country but it just takes people to do good things. I think a few good men (and women) is all it takes. You start with working on yourself, then you start you start at your home and once you get that settled you worry about your local neighbor hood and invest into that and begin to move outward. You inspire, and you lift up along the process – but you worry about fixing yourself and your own home first.
But we’re America, the same country that gives the most humanitarian aid out of any country by a long shot and the same people that after 9-11 local government had to ask people to STOP GIVING because they received too much toilet paper and teddy bears. Sure we have some blemishes and room to improve but that’s how it goes. Baby boomers caused a muck on America when they stopped carrying the fire. Now it’s up to other generations to pick it up and carry on.
Hi Skip and others
Skip this is an international trend being introduced by empty political election promises.
As Laurita has pointed out when we introduce false principles into our daily governance we loose our fear for God.
When we loose our fear for GOD we soon loose our respect and support for his creation and each other…
Two years ago we touched on home based groups forming Yeshivas the supporting communities generally grow from these initiatives. The question is on what foundation will there built… Prophet and Apostle where Christ is the cornerstone while Yeshau be the building stones, or will we be repeating the same mistakes building on fashions and trends…
The call as by Moses in Deut 4 and 6 and reiterated throughout the books, prophets, writing and apostolic scripts.
Make the Torah the waterproofing protection for the foundation and the community should not fail…
Again Laurita asks teach the walk, Skip I trust you are trying by changing the thought pattern of the readers.
But are we forgetting the basic rule Hear and do do not consider consequences and or thoughts of others they will eventually follow.
Yeshau taught thousands as did his predecessors yet the truth is he ended his teachings with only 11 disciples left of which a few we do not read of after the crucifiction – what happened to these… Is that not the reality many will hear and initially follow but only 1/10 may continue and maybe one day communities will own all, share all and prosper together… (By the way the Chinese do sustain very well together – the rest is lost)
The Chinese secret is trusting on a single leader…