So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence,…..for your merchants were the great ones of the earth,
    and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.
²⁴ And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,
    and of all who have been slain on earth. Revelation 18 ESV

Without God, America cannot stand. Are we witnessing the final days of our country’s role as ‘City Upon a Hill’? Though there are still many of us who follow Jesus, America as a whole is post-Christian. The church’s job in these last days is to continue sharing the gospel until American Babylon is judged.

What started as a grand experiment in freedom and self-rule, has proven to be a failure. The expectation that, given enough freedom, the country would always flourish was unreasonable because freedom is not enough to save humans from self-destruction. We also need limits. And these limits need to be established by someone other than fallible humans.

God provided everything we need to know about how to live in his Word, the Bible. It can be summed up as ‘Love God and love your neighbor as yourself’ and ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ But we do not live in a perfect world. So God in His mercy gave us many details on how to rightly handle various situations that arise when people live in groups and families. If America had actually followed these instructions, we would still be shining our light to the world.

America was actually born as a result of a revolutionary spirit that had taken over the world. People everywhere were throwing off the restrictions of centuries of monarchies that were an unholy alliance of corrupt church leaders and royal bloodlines. The future looked bright! Reason and science were going to bring about a world of ease and equality! Religion was outdated. But a few people wanted to worship God in freedom.

But the American ideal of protecting freedom of religion had the effect of banishing God from the public conversation. People were told that religion was a personal thing not to be discussed outside of one’s own circle, which meant that doing the ‘right thing’ was up for human interpretation. Truth and moral absolutes have been gradually replaced by moral relativism and pragmatism as freedom was used as a way to justify any and every desire and decision. Being the land of the free also means that people are free to be immoral and godless as long as they follow the laws instituted by man.

Now we are at the point where religious freedom is being taken away. Believing in the truth of the Bible is now considered a mental illness at best and a thought crime at worst. Now instead of being controlled by corrupt religious monarchies, we are controlled by secular humanist progressive socialist democrats and corporate fascists. They both use all forms of media to brainwash and manipulate the public with both false promises of the glories of technology and abolishing human limits while using fear of climate change, pandemics, economic collapse and The Other to push through their mutual state-growth agenda. There is no God in this agenda.

It didn’t take that long really, less than 300 years. I wonder if we are at the point of no return and I confess that I think only a miraculous intervention by God can stop the implosion. The Constitution is barely breathing. We no longer have true separation of powers or government by and for the people. The ideological and economic divide seems irreparable. It feels like we are living in a rerun of Roman decadence.

How should the church respond? The Bible must continue to be our guide. There are just some things that Christians should not accept as normal behavior because they go against the teachings of the Bible, such as apostasy, sexual immorality, drugs, cults, child endangerment, false religions and idols, greed and dishonesty in business, and blasphemy. We should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers and we are quickly getting outnumbered and outvoted. I think Christians have to stop thinking that we are going to take over the government and turn America into an updated 50s family sitcom where all people are equal and treat each other with respect.

Evangelism must increase, not decrease, even as it is being denounced as bigoted. Outreaches such as food pantries and Vacation Bible School can reach many people. America is now the mission field. Surveys and church attendance show that people are leaving churches more than they are joining them, so we must be doing something wrong. People are not hearing why they need to be saved, how to be saved, and the cost of being saved. The false teachers of progressive and prosperity churches tickle ears and fill their pockets.

The church should be salt and light through it’s demonstrated love for God and people. It should serve and share the gospel. But the church has been drawn into ungodly cultural and political battles where the demand for social justice has silenced the truth of God’s wrath against sin. The early church did two things: preached and discipled the converts. I don’t see Paul or Peter doing any of the modern day social activism. Rather we must lead people to Christ so that justice and mercy becomes a response from their changed hearts.

However, evangelism is not the same as the social media debates between Christians and unbelievers which can have a very destructive effect on fulfilling the great commission of the church. Love means seeking the highest good of the other person. This requires patience, kindness, self-control, gentleness, and long-suffering. People notice when you refuse to argue just to prove you are right. A humble spirit is a powerful witness.

Don’t let your heart grow cold in these last days, brothers and sisters. Jesus is still the way, the Truth, and the life.

¹³ “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7 ESV