In a recent post, I spoke to the Biblical admonition found in Psalms 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget God.”
America has forgotten God. It didn’t happen overnight. Our 16th President faithfully raised the warning when he said that a nation (1) Cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift; (2) Cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong; (3) Cannot help the small man by tearing down the big man; (4) Cannot help the poor by destroying the rich; (5) Cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer; (6) Cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than our income; (7) Cannot further brotherhood by inciting class hatred; (8) Cannot establish sound security on borrowed money; (9) Cannot build character and courage by taking away a person’s initiative; and (10) Cannot really help people by having the government tax them to do for them what they can and should do for themselves.
Those wise words from a highly esteemed leader of a nation that was at war with itself should be heard and heeded yet today.
But centuries before Lincoln penned the aforementioned principles, another wise sage wrote something that will be universally true as long as time lasts. Job, in a discourse that overflows with emotion, having lost every earthly possession by a Satanic blast; and having been ill-advised by his wife to “curse God and die”; and having been falsely accused by the three men in the world that he thought were his friends, burst out with 10 profound, timeless truths that God governs His creation by, world without end:
- “He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: He enlargeth the nations and straighteneth them again.” (Job 12:23) God is sovereign over all and rules with an unseen hand in all the affairs of men, nationally and personally. Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Italy, Germany, England—a long line of once world powers have “bitten the dust” of history. (That unseen hand spared former president Trump from certain and sudden death at a political rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, PA.)
- God works powerfully and irresistibly to arrange and rearrange the stage of history. Job 12:14: “Behold, He breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: He shutteth up a man and there can be no opening.” (Example: Richard Nixon’s rise to and fall from power; elected by a landslide to a second term in 1972, he left office in disgrace in August of 1974. God tightened up the screws on a powerfully corrupt administration, and many of Nixon’s cohorts ended up in prison.)
- God uses draughts, floods, and natural calamities to shake the nations. Job 12:15: “Behold, He withholdeth the waters and they dry up: also He sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.”
- God uses truth or even error to accomplish His divine purposes. Job 12:16: “With Him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are His.” (For instance, the wicked shenanigans of Joseph’s brothers…”But as for you, ye thought to do evil against me, but God meant it unto good.” Gen.50:20.)
- Lawyers and judges are His pawns. Job 12:17: “He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.” Who would not agree that many fools today sit on judicial benches, calling good evil and evil good?
- Kings and princes are not beyond His reach. Job 12:19: “He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty.”
- Men of great renown will not be able turn around the nation against whom the Lord in judgement is set. Job 12:20: “He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.”
- Powerful politicians and rulers are no match for His might. Job 12:21: “He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.”
- God ultimately exposes all evil plots of darkness. Job 12:22: “He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.”
- Men of great power will be brought low under His mighty hand. Job 12:24,25: “He taketh away the heart of the chief people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light, and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.”
Job’s message in response to His “miserable” friends is as pertinent today as it was when he first spoke it thousands of years ago. America is bleeding, and the wound could be a mortal one. But there IS HOPE!
Not, however, in social or political or economic reform, but in soul-scraping repentance! God can and will once again bless America, but only when “my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (II Chr. 7:14)
“Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.” (Psalm 9:20)
YOU and GOD 