What Happens When a Nation Spirals into Darkness?

What Happens When a Nation Spirals into Darkness?

Have you ever seen a sports team collapse in a game? The players were doing well, then one thing went wrong, then another, and before you knew it, the game had become a disaster. Everything unraveled.

More serious, have you ever seen someone’s health collapse? One day they seemed to be fine. The next day, they experienced some unusual pain and tiredness. The following day, total exhaustion. Then, the terrible diagnosis from the doctor. Then, debilitating sickness and death. It is tragic to behold. 

Yet there’s something far worse.

I’m talking about when a nation collapses—morally and spiritually. When a culture spirals out of control. When restraint is all but gone. When good becomes evil and evil becomes good. When shameful things are celebrated and holy things are denigrated.

This is what we are witnessing in America today. Our country is spiraling out of control. Our culture is unraveling. Darkness is being heralded as light.

We are reaping the fruit of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which began with an explosion of promiscuity, and then led to the loss of the sacredness of marriage, then no-fault divorce, then the epidemic rise of pornography, then the redefining of marriage, then the redefining of gender. What’s next?

We’ve moved from homosexual activism to transgender activism, to the point that girls who complain about biological boys sharing their locker rooms are called transphobic and bigoted. 

Just a few years ago no one would have believed we would have descended into such cultural madness.

It used to be taboo to engage in a public, homosexual relationship. Today it is taboo to voice any disapproval of such relationships. To do so could cost you your job.

And this unraveling has occurred with startling speed, to the point that in 2008, Sen. Barack Obama had to lie about his views on same-sex “marriage” in order to get elected president. By 2012, he could fully support it, and by 2015, it was the law of the land. What a dramatic, extreme and sudden cultural shift.

But this was just the tip of a very large iceberg.

One minute, it was shameful for a man to present himself as a woman. The next minute, Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner was named Woman of the Year. The minute after that, you could be fined on your job for “misgendering” someone.

Yet this too was part of a larger social decline.

Radical feminism, another aspect of the sexual revolution, has come into full bloom. Masculinity itself is now toxic. The patriarchy must be overthrown. Men themselves are evil. And the ultimate women’s “right” is abortion.

No longer is it enough for abortion to be “safe, legal and rare” (as once formulated by President Bill Clinton). Women need to shout their abortion, and Heaven help the man—like Justice Brett Kavanaugh—who might be perceived as a threat to that sacred “right.”

We’re also witnessing a dramatic drop in professing Christians, going from roughly 85 percent to 75 percent in one decade. 

A recent Pew report indicates that “20 percent of U.S. adults (32 percent under 30) now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, marking the highest percentage of such adults—often called ‘nones’—of any Pew poll to date.”

And where does that leave us today? As I noted in “Saving a Sick America,” “In the late ’50s to early ’60s, Annette Funicello was a popular, young female star singing songs like ‘Pineapple Princes’; today it’s Miley Cyrus, singing songs like ‘Wrecking Ball’—in the nude, riding a wrecking ball, on her music video.”

Or consider this: When Hugh Hefner published the first edition of Playboy in 1953 he didn’t even put his name on it, lest it flop and he be blackballed. Today, the average age for first exposure to porn is as young as 8. How do we recover from this? And what about the judgment of God?

It is true that America does not have the same kind of covenantal relationship with God that ancient Israel did. 

The Lord did not appear to America on a national level, as He did to Israel, and call us to follow His laws and statutes.

But even in the Old Testament, God judged pagan nations based on universal ethical commands. Will He not judge us?

And what of the principle expressed in Proverbs 14:34, which states, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people”? Doesn’t this still apply in every era, to every nation? And what of our strong Christian roots?

The bad news is the frightening rate of our moral and cultural unraveling. The good news is that many believers are waking up to the urgency of the hour and seeking God earnestly. They are also taking a stand, pushing back against the radical left in their children’s schools and fighting for the next generation. And as radical abortion laws are passed in one state and a governor defends infanticide in another, the pro-life movement is rising up like never before.

America truly hangs in the balance, and the words of the Prophet Joel have never been more relevant: “‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?” (Joel 2:12-14).

Our nation is falling apart at the seams. Only the Lord can make us whole. The hour is late—but not too late. How will we respond?  ©2019 Michael L. Brown

 

Dr. Michael L. Brown is the founder and president of Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, and host of the daily syndicated radio show “The Line of Fire.” For more from Brown, visit askdrbrown.org.

The Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

Photo: AP

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