Are We Willing To Give Up Our Idols?
"Some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God" (Psalms 20:7).
God never let the kings of Israel own a stable of horses. Horses in ancient times were a means of transportation, to be sure, but more so, they were a preparation for war and armies, of pulling chariots and taking warriors into battle. God wanted to be the strength of His people. He wanted to be their fortress and deliverer. He wanted to drive out the enemies before Israel. They were not to depend on horses and an army or their own might. He was to be their only God whose commandments they obeyed. Those words are found time and again in Israel's Old Testament history, psalms and prophets.
God wants to be the same protector for His people today. Contrary to what the world does and believes, the strength of the original United States was not in her military or economy. It was in the God who brought the Puritans to the shores of Massachusetts in 1620 and their Mayflower Compact with God. Her strength has been in the Gospel preached and lived in her churches, organizations and families founded on His word. It has been in the national days of prayer and reliance on the God of Israel.
Sadly, the United States has drifted away from God ever so slowly. The Industrial revolution transformed the population from being one of agrarians to city folks with mechanization of more and more tasks. Two world wars exposed our nation to the ways and wiles of other world powers and nations. Following WW II, the US enjoyed prosperity and generously shared that wealth with war-torn nations. But prosperity became too comfortable.
Her youth rebelled against the double standard they witnessed in government, religion and the home. The drug culture seized the minds and hearts of college students who threw off the morals of the Bible for free love in all its forms. In 1963 Madalyn Murray O'Hair began a suit against the city of Baltimore that eventuated in the throwing out of the Bible and prayer from public schools.
The Ten Commandments were challenged next as having no place on public properties and in our courts and were destroyed. Next came striking down the right to life with Roe v. Wade in 1973...and it's been down-hill ever since!
While it may be true by today's standard that the US must have a strong military in today's world, a much truer statement would be that the US must have a strong living faith in the God of Israel for protection from herself! Her enemies would not be able to withstand the forces of heaven that would surround our nation if faith in God was the true fabric and entrenchment of our society and people.
The patience of God gave way to warnings during recent decades: the various terrorist attacks against our nation and/or its individuals, the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the monetary crash of 2008-9, the increasing frequencies, costs and intensities of natural disasters...none of these has worked to permanently turn our nation's heart back to God as our only means of defense and our singular worship.
As professing Christians we are more and more embroiled in the culture. We eat more and expect exotic and unusual foods to be part of our daily fare. We want the best-equipped cars, boats, mattresses, carpets, clothing, jewelry, houses, bank accounts, and technology in business and our personal lives. We continuously want more and better. On and on it goes.
The Church's trust---her heart's love---is in her things, her blessings, her stuff. God says in Jeremiah 2:13:
"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."
Farther on He says:
"For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, 'Arise and save us'" (v. 27).
Unless God's people truly forsake their idols: the things in which they trust, the objects science and technology have made a part of our ordinary life, and turn their faces to God again in humble obedience and trust, America can expect only judgment and calamity. COVID has been awful, but far worse is coming if God's people do not destroy their idols, repent and turn their faces toward God in worship and adoration.
Currently-blessed prophets say that the greatest revival the world has ever seen is yet to come! Might that mean that the bottom must drop out of everything in our culture and society so that there are no idols to cling to? That all of them will fall and crumble? The Church has always demonstrated that she thrives and grows when she's persecuted. Is all this bound to come to America as the only way God can free His people from what ensnares her affections? What a fearful prospect!
It is up to us...right now. Do we forsake our idols now...or must much worse come to free us? The choice is ours. There's not much time to make the switch! It is up to us!