The Christ in Prophecy Journal

America’s Final Years (Part 1 of 3)

Donald Trump’s campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again!” He claims he can do that because he is “The Great Deal Maker.” He promises to create jobs, stop illegal immigration, bring American corporations back home and rebuild our military.

It sounds great, but there is no way he can succeed. The reason is simple. We as a nation have turned our back on God. We are in the process of thumbing our nose at the very One who made our nation the greatest one the world has ever known.

The Origin of a Slogan

The “shining city upon a hill” has become a darkened slum whose light has gone out.

The characterization of America as the “shining city upon a hill” has been traced to the Puritan leader, John Winthrop. He used the phrase in a sermon he delivered in 1630 on the ship Arbella while it was en route to the New World. He told his future Massachusetts Bay colonists that their new community would be “as a city upon a hill,” that would be watched by the world. It was one of the earliest examples of what would come to be known as the concept of “American Exceptionalism.”

The concept proved to be true as God poured out His blessings on the fledgling new nation. America became a shining example of freedom, prosperity and hope. People came from all over the world seeking an opportunity to escape from tyranny and poverty. And Americans responded to their blessings by sending out Christian missionaries all over the world and by printing and distributing Bibles in many languages.

As the 20th Century dawned, we became the “Arsenal of Democracy” as we came to the rescue of Europe in World War I and then fought in both Asia and Europe during World War II to defend the world against German and Japanese Fascism. By the end of the Second World War, we were the dominant power in the world.

But at the height of our glory, we took our eyes off God and began to revel in the pride of our accomplishments. The decade of the 60s proved to be the turning point as we thrust aside God’s Word and launched a sexual revolution. The free grace of God was surrendered to the free love of Man. Then came the plague of homosexuality which ultimately led to the abomination of same-sex marriage.

The Judicial Assault

Meanwhile, our Supreme Court became determined to secularize our nation. Whereas the Court had ruled in 1892 (in the case of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States) that “this is a Christian nation,” in the last half of the 20th Century, the Court made several crucial decisions designed to put a wall of separation between Christianity and society.

Prior to the mid-20th Century, the ruling principle had been separation of church and state, in the sense that there could be no official state church. But the Court suddenly began to interpret the Constitution to mean there must be a separation of religion from the state. The crucial decisions were as follows:

  1. Engel v. Vitale in 1962 — The Court outlawed prayer in the public schools.
  2. Roe v. Wade in 1973 — The Court legalized abortion.
  3. Stone v. Graham in 1980 — The Court outlawed the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools.
  4. Lawrence and Garner v. the State of Texas in 2003 — The Court struck down anti-sodomy laws and thus legalized homosexual behavior.
  5. Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 — The Court legalized samesex marriage.

The Court, in effect, declared war on the Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation which is the reason we became “a shining city on a hill.” The clear intent of the Court was made plain in its declared reasoning for outlawing the posting of the Ten Commandments:

If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will induce the school children to read, meditate upon, perhaps venerate and obey the Commandments. This is not a permissible state objective under the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Unbelievable! The Ten Commandments have served as the cornerstone of Western civilization and law, and yet our children are denied exposure to them on the basis that they might obey them!

It is illuminating to consider the fact that ever since prayer and the Ten Commandments were banned from our schools, our educational institutions have become jungles of violence.

One Nation Under God by Jon McNaughton

“One Nation Under God” by Jon McNaughton.
Read the detailed explanation of every aspect of this remarkable painting.

Rampant Apostasy

Meanwhile, The Church began adapting to the paganization of our nation as it sought the approval of society. So-called Evangelical leaders launched the Emergent Church Movement which is designed to bring about a Second Reformation by abandoning the authority of the Bible, elevating the importance of feelings and denying the existence of absolute truths.

Concurrently, the Seeker-Friendly Movement sought to downplay the offensive nature of the Gospel by camouflaging the Church as a social organization designed to provide entertainment and social services.

The overall result was the abandonment of biblical preaching in favor of warmed-over inspirational talks from the Reader’s Digest. Church members were rendered biblically ignorant, and thus they became sitting ducks for all sorts of apostasy. Before long, Christians were embracing homosexuality, same-sex marriage, gambling and even abortion. And churches began to ordain practicing homosexuals and persons who did not even believe in the deity of Jesus.

In summary, the Church got in bed with the world, and it ceased to have any meaningful impact on society — all of which contributed to the acceleration of the secularization and paganization of our society.

The irony is that none of this seemed to placate the haters of Christianity. In fact, as they witnessed Church leaders giving in to their demands, they lost all respect for them and started accelerating their demands. Whereas the Judeo-Christian faith had always been the foundation of American society, by the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, it had been abandoned in favor of a Humanist and Hedonistic culture.

In the second segment of this series on America’s final years, we’ll discern if biblically this nation has reached the tipping point.

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Dr. David Reagan

Dr. David Reagan is the Founder and Evangelist Emeritus of Lamb & Lion Ministries. He is a life-long Bible student, teacher, and preacher and he led over 45 pilgrimages to Israel. Dr. Reagan was the host of the radio then television program Christ in Prophecy for nearly 40 years.

6 CommentsLeave a Comment

  • Donald Trump will never replace God as the healer of America but the alternative is Hillary who will finally flush America down the toilet for good. She is evil in the flesh. At least Trump has promised to support and defend Christians. There is no choice. Jesus in not on the ballot!

  • “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

    Jefferson seemed to have a rather unorthodox, and not necessarily Christian view of God. However, he got this one right. The context of the quote is slavery, but its truth goes to the core of our national rebellion today. My God, in His mercy save us from our sins, and from ourselves.

  • Is God’s arm to short, to turn around this apostasy? NO. This is turning from God is created by an out of control government, and God is fully capable of crushing it where they sit, in pride and distain for the people. They have forgotten that we are the children of God and they have put their finger in our eyes. If they work for us, then they work for God. But their God has become mammon, and they will burn with the fires of hell, as they thumb their noses at God. These politicians were suppose to be taking care of business and yet they’ve been lining their pockets, with God’s money. They thought they were stealing from us. Yet they were stealing from God. So when God says, vengeance is mine, yes it’s all yours God.

  • I can’t understand why people keep bringing up issues like defunding Planned Parenthood. What people don’t understand is Planned Parenthood is just one of many abortion providers taxpayers pay for. When my congressman, Justin Amash, didn’t want to single out PP and defund them but wanted to defund all abortion clinics the republican leadership responded by saying,”we don’t want to go overboard now.” I remember when Bush won and had control of both houses and we never stopped funding abortion clinics. Many ask the question Why Trump? My question is,”what’s the difference between a democrat and a republican? Now, many Christian leaders are coming out of the wood work trying to get Christian voters to support Trump because if Hillary wins the sky is going to fall, I’ve got disappointing news for those Christian leaders, it’s already fallen. This country has gone past the point of no return.

  • We have two people running for office.Both of them are not good for America. One dealing with the KKK and saying he`’ll make USA great again. The other one want to make a Muslim her vice president if she wins and have sold top USA secrets to other countries like the Muslim Countries setting us up to get killed. What it all boils down to is this everything is being set up for the Anti-Christ.

  • Your comment that Trump will not succeed is too definitive. A better comment would be is that it will be difficult for Trump to succeed because of the following reasons. Only God knows how things will turn out. After all, Trump’s election was due in a large part to the religious vote. As Trump gets more and more into his presidency, I see him turning more and more to a Christian attitude.

    None of us know what life will be like in 8 years. All my wife and I can say is that we trust in God and have seen his presence in our lives.

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