Blasphemy

Take This Cup (2)

The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.

The LORD looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.

All have turned away,
all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
Psalm 14.1-3

You who live by many waters
and are rich in treasures,
your end has come,
the time for you to be destroyed.

The LORD Almighty has sworn by himself:
I will surely fill you with troops, as with a swarm of locusts,
and they will shout in triumph over you.
Jeremiah 51:13–14

 

 

Why would God decide to judge America? Is America really the only wicked nation of the world? Is it only in America that corruption, greed, violence, and hatred are practiced? Of course not. An old Chilean friend told me many years ago, “the man is the same everywhere in the world.” I was too young to know what he meant at the time. But as every God-fearer from Adam until now understands, all individuals regardless of ethnicity, culture, or education, have a propensity to sin, and when left unchecked that propensity becomes an outright plague. Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, the late Roman empire, the Mesoamerican cultures, Communist Russia, and Cambodia are all infamous examples of sin reaching its fullness. 

The new ideologues want us to believe that systems of oppression are the root of all evil — that all of life’s pain would simply vanish if we got rid of the oppressors and the systems they’ve built, and provided equity for the victims.

But the Bible never speaks in such terms. It identifies the heart of man as the root cause. If hearts aren’t changed, any other change is superficial, temporary, and pointless. It is our hearts that are the problem. As my Chilean friend had noted, the whole world is filled with people whose hearts are inclined to sin.

 

They Have Blasphemed

So why is God going to judge America?

 

Well, firstly let’s be clear, God is going to judge all the nations. On that, scripture is certain. But God had me specifically identify the USA.  The cup of God’s wrath that I was told to take and pass to the nations God identified, was first of all to be passed to the USA. Why? As I prayed about it I believe this is what God showed me. The reason judgement has been decreed first against the United States is because, of all the nations, they are guilty of blasphemy. What do I mean by that?

Blasphemy isn’t merely taking the Lord’s name and using it as a word with which to curse. That’s one kind of blasphemy, and you can find that in Leviticus 24.11. But there is a far worse kind. God explicitly lays out what it is in Numbers 15.30.

Anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or foreigner, blasphemes the LORD  and must be cut off from the people of Israel. Because they have despised the LORD’s word and broken his commands, they must surely be cut off; their guilt remains on them.

 

The outworking of this can be seen in lives of Eli’s sons who were, as priests to the Lord, the most visible representation of God to the world. The priests of Israel mediated God to the people. They were supposed to represent a holy God by mirroring God’s holiness. But Eli’s sons, though wearing the robes and turbans of the priests — that is, while appearing outwardly to be holy — were inwardly filthy and degenerate. And God says that by behaving that way while still presenting themselves as holy, “his sons were blaspheming God” (1 Sam 3.13, ESV).

Although the Hebrew word here is different than the one used in Numbers 15, the effect is the same: their hypocritical behavior has diminished God in the eyes of the people, and the result is that they have cursed him. Their blasphemous living actually results in a curse toward God – a kind of double blasphemy.

 

What has this got to do with the US?

 

Unlike any other people since biblical Israel, the USA was established as a nation where God’s name would be exalted. Yes, you were free to practice any religion without fear of persecution, but the people who settled the US established it before the Christian God and in deference and gratitude to him. Of the forty-five presidents so far, there have been only two or three who have not claimed to be Christian. There is no other nation that has explicitly claimed (and continues to claim) relationship with God. The honor of God was interwoven in much of its founding and, despite massive failures, a great deal of its history. Even today 65 percent of Americans still consider themselves “Christian.” 

 

And herein lies the problem.

 

God’s judgement will always fall (and always fall hardest) upon those who claim to represent him but who live lives of complete hypocrisy. By presenting themselves to the world as representatives of God, but living in flagrant opposition to righteousness, America’s leaders have blasphemed the Lord. Like the sin of the Amorites, their sin is now complete.

Where America’s foundation was once godly, or at least God-fearing, its now-proclaimed relationship with Jesus is simply a tool wielded for self-interest or political ends. When a nation’s leaders stand and publicly invoke the name of the Lord but quietly introduce laws that oppose godliness, undermine the family, and promote perversion, that’s blasphemy. When they claim to stand for the defenseless, but defend, enable, and promote the murdering of babies by the tens of millions, that is blasphemy. When they partake of the one body and blood of the Lord and all that it signifies, but sow discord, division, and hatred at every turn, that is blasphemy.

America was once a refuge from oppression and persecution. Just as God had delivered its people from political tyranny, injustice, and religious persecution, so it also served as a haven for those around the world fleeing oppression. But now the roles have been reversed. America is no longer a haven from evil and tyranny but has, itself, become what it once withstood. And so God’s role as guardian and one who brings justice for the widow the orphan, and the oppressed is also being reversed. The Protector is now the Avenger. The Savior has now become the Judge.

The sin America’s leaders have sown – and let me be clear, I’m not just talking about political leaders; I’m talking about corporate CEOs, bankers, social media influencers, unelected technocrats, those tasked to judge righteously like judges and district or state attorneys, TV personalities, heads of education, church leaders, and anyone behind the scenes trying to manipulate things for an anti-Christ outcome – the sin of these leaders is now reaching its fullness and bearing fruit. But the ultimate fruit it will bear will be their own destruction. Such is the nature of sin. Since they have chosen to give themselves over to it, they will be forced to reap its fullness.

And just as an aside, this is where I believe the difference between those ignorant of God and the truly wicked lies. The truly wicked are those who have given themselves over to sin. In OT terminology, they have “sold themselves to do evil.” They don’t just sin because they have the nature of Adam. They sin because they have chosen it, prefer it, want it, like it, have surrendered to it – utterly. They have been given the opportunity to change, and they have refused. These are the leaders of America and an increasing number of its people.

It isn’t merely that corruption, greed, violence, and hatred are practiced in America, it’s that they’re clung to, taught, and celebrated – firstly, by her leaders, but increasingly by a host of woke acolytes. America has become Eli’s filthy and degenerate sons. Outwardly holy, wearing the robes of Christ, but inwardly corrupt, eaten away by sin. Where once it surrendered to the conviction of the Spirit, it has now given itself over to do evil.

Numbers 15 says of them that “their guilt remains on them.” There are those who sin in ignorance. There are those who sin knowingly. And then there are those who sin defiantly. This last, is what the Bible calls the wicked.

Those who sin defiantly, that is, in knowing rebellion to God, have no means of sacrifice to remove their guilt. It’s not that Christ is insufficient for them but rather that they have been offered righteousness, yet have gladly preferred evil. In doing so, they deliberately revile the Lord and treat his word with disdain. There is nothing more that can be done, since they have rejected God’s offer of relationship. Their guilt remains on them because that is what they have chosen. So God declares, “I will completely uproot and destroy them” (Jer 12.17). How does God do this? By compelling his prophets to proclaim the word of judgement he has placed in their mouths (Jer 1.9-10).

 

They Have Broken the Everlasting Covenant

It’s not hard to see how they have despised the Lord’s word. God says I made humans, male and female; but they say that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man, that there are 52 genders and you can be any of them or all at once. God says, a man shouldn’t have sex with a man or another species; but they say, if you feel it’s right it must be good. God says woe to those who call evil good and good evil; but they say evil is good and good is evil, and then they teach that to the next generation.

 

But the passage also says that they have “broken his commands.”

How have they done that? And, anyway, didn’t that just apply to ancient Israel?

 

Actually, no. In Isaiah 24, (cf. Zeph 1.2-3) God prophesies judgement on the whole earth, and his reason for this judgement is because the people have defiled the earth, “disobeyed the laws,” violated the statutes, and “broken the everlasting covenant” (Is 24.5). What covenant have they broken?

The covenant is the covenant God made with mankind after the flood. Not just that it wouldn’t flood like that again; not just that we’d see pretty rainbows. The covenant involved an accounting from every person for the life of another person (Gen 9.5). Humanity was being held responsible for their violence – the violence that had led to the flood in the first place (see Gen 6.11-12).

What law has America broken? Well, there isn’t space to recount. But most significantly, they have broken the everlasting covenant. They have immeasurable volumes of blood on their hands. Wars. Coups. Assassinations. Political hits. Weapons sales. Abortions. Murders. Drug deaths. The “suicides” of those who know too much. And now, perhaps most deadly of all, a manufactured illness, followed closely by a magical gene therapy to fix it. America has found every way to kill imaginable. Deaths are expedient and people are disposable if the ends justify it. And all of this is done while wearing the robes and turbans of the priestly class.

But violence is merely the final working out of all other human wickedness, as the story of Noah reveals.

 

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time…. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind from the face of the earth.”
-Genesis 6:5

 

This is the point at which America’s leaders have arrived: every inclination of their thoughts is nothing but evil all the time. They are corrupt, their deeds are vile, as the Psalmist writes; there is no one who does good.

 

 

She Made the Whole Earth Drunk

But not content to do these things privately, America has promoted her violence and sin throughout the earth.

Babylon was a gold cup in the LORD’s hand;
she made the whole earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine;
therefore they have now gone mad.
-Jeremiah 51:7

 

Babylon was originally indicative of humanity’s self-sufficiency and its rebellion against God’s lordship. But as scripture progresses it becomes a symbol of everything that is opposed to God. It is the city that looks like the Kingdom of God, sounds like the Kingdom of God, but is, in reality, the anti Kingdom. It is the symbol of godliness inverted. The leadership of the USA, its government, its agencies, and its mouthpiece now stand in opposition to God. Not just in some things; not by ignorance of what God requires; but in every way; and with full knowledge of what they are doing. And they have made the nations drink their death-giving Kool Aid.

Because they have not kept their sin to themselves, but have promulgated proudly their filth and violence before all nations, encouraging those nations to similarly engage in their own sin, they will be judged before all nations and by those nations.

Although I don’t know with what weapons American will be judged, it is interesting that this passage in Jeremiah speaks of her judgement “reaching to the skies” and rising “as high as the heavens” (51:9). That could be simply metaphorical. Or, terrifyingly, perhaps not.

 

Time is Up

So, because America’s leaders invoke the Lord’s name;

because they claim to know him;

because they feign relationship with him but only wear the clothes of godliness;

because of the lies, the endless lies;

because they have continued to sin defiantly;

because they refuse to repent;

Because they have broken covenant with God

because outwardly they are whitewashed walls but inwardly ravenous wolves;

because they gave the world the maddening wine of their adulteries, proudly broadcasting their sin and encouraging other nations in it;

because of all these things and countless more, they will drink the cup of the wine of the Lord’s wrath.

 

Their leaders believe they will escape. They smarmily grin thinking they are immune to justice, that they are justice. But what they have not expected will befall them. What they have not planned will come upon them. They will be caught in their own snare and they will not escape. Every leg will be wet with urine and every face pale with terror (Ezk 7 & 21).

 

They think they will escape. But they will not escape.

To those Christians who have enabled this – Beware.

It will be the same
for priest as for people,
for the master as for his servant,
for the mistress as for her maid,
for seller as for buyer,
for borrower as for lender,
for debtor as for creditor.
America will be completely laid waste
and totally plundered.
The LORD has spoken this word.
-Isaiah 24:2–3

 

This is why America is being judged. If they had not pretended relationship, if they had outright declared their rejection of God, perhaps they would have been spared what is coming.

But because of their blasphemy, because none of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” (Jer 8.6), because of their prideful embrace of their sin, because of all these things …

 

… Time is up.

 

 

Shelter

But what of those whose hearts are turned to God? The judgement I have written about hardly seems selective. What will happen to the many who truly love God and worship him with the honor he is due?

I’ve prayed and cried for America these past months. Although I’ve pointed here to how much evil has come from that land, so much good has also flowed from Christians in America to the peoples of the earth. Americans are quick to be generous and kind, and they have a legacy of preaching, worship, and revival that is unrivalled in modern history. What of America’s seven thousand whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him?

This is what God has said to me at the times I have reminded him of his faithful ones there:

 

For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.
Ps 27:5 (NKJV)

 

As much as I wonder how this could be possible, I also trust him that it will be, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked (Ps 97:10).

 

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