BIBLE MEDITATION:
Psalm 80: 12; “Why have You broken down her hedges, So that all who pass by the way pluck her fruit?
ENCOURAGING WORD:
The verse that I just read was written about Israel. The first thing that we have to ask is this, why were the hedges of protection broken down? Israel was a nation that was divinely planted by God. They were to be His chosen people, but time and time again they had turned their hearts to idols and other gods. From the start, God had put a hedge of protection around Israel that could not be removed. Against all odds they were able to defend themselves against their enemies even when it looked as if they had no chance of victory. They were invincible. But because of their constant rebellion toward their creator, and chasing after other gods, they eventually lost that hedge of protection. The time finally came when God temporarily removed His hedge of protection. I say temporarily because Jesus prophesied that Israel would once again be brought back into their homeland in the later days were they would once again become fruitful and mighty in military strength. That prophecy became true when Israel became a nation once again on May 14,1948, just as Jesus had prophesied. Going back to the straw that broke the camel’s back was when Israel was trodden down by Titus Vespasian and the Roman Legion. The siege of Jerusalem of 70 AD was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus Vespasian besieged Jerusalem. Following a brutal five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple all the way down to the final stone.
But before that great and terrible day in Jewish history, we constantly read where the Jews had turned from God time and time again. Every time until 70 AD, God had heard their prayers of repentance and had forgiven them for their sins. The final straw was when they rejected their long awaited Messiah and hung Him on a Roman cross to suffer the most painful, horrific death known to man.
Just days before Jesus was to be crucified we read in Luke 19:42; where Jesus said, “saying, (To Israel) “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes”.
Jesus was prophesying that Israel would be destroyed because of their rejection of their Messiah as we read in Matthew 24:2; “And Jesus said to them, (The Disciples) “Do you not see all these things? (The Temple in particular) Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”.
The time had finally come when God would remove His hedge of Protection from the land that He planted, but like I just said, it was temporary, as we read in Romans 11: 25-27; “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”
The fullness of the Gentiles will be when the Rapture of the church takes place, then God will once again turn His attention to Israel for one more seven year period known to us as “The Great Tribulation” or “The Seventieth Week of Daniel.”
This is just a short history lesson on what happen to Israel when they turned from God to worship graven images and serve others gods. Why is this so important to us here in America, it is because we are on the same path that lead to Israels destruction. When America was founded, it was based on Christian principles. There have been many speeches from our founding fathers that is proof of our nation holding to Judeo Christian values. We read in the declaration of independence the following verse which is probably the most well-known sentence of the Declaration where it states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I could quote many words from our founding fathers that are clear evidence that America was founded on Judeo Christian principles, but here is just one example of what they believed. Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying “I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ." Society today is trying to discredit the truth of what was declared at the time when America was founded. They are trying to convince the younger generation that the founding fathers were not Christians, and the sad thing is, they are successfully persuading the youth of today that the history of America was all lies about how we were once a Christian Nation. Everything that I learned from when I was in school is not being taught today. They are trying to erase our nation’s history for obvious reasons, reasons which I will not get into at this time.
I truly believe that God had planted America to be “One Nation Under God” and for the most part, up until a few decades ago, we were living under what was written in The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and other valuable documents that our founding fathers had written and signed into law for our safety and protection against tyranny and oppression. When you look back in history at the time when America was founded, it seemed as if we were at war and fighting to preserve our sovereignty and independence against hostile nations quite often. Amazingly, we won every war that we entered, even when it looked like we had no chance of victory. Why do you think that was. I’ll tell you; it is because God put a hedge of protection over our once great nation, that no nation could penetrate. No one could defeat us as long as God kept us under that hedge.
As the years went by, we were victorious in every war including World War I, World War II, the Korean War and many others that we got involved in. A question that I need to ask is this, does anybody recall the first War that we lost? Does Vietnam come to mind? It should! Why do you suppose that was. Well, let’s take a look at what happened in American just prior to the Vietnam War. For starters, in 1962 we kicked God out of our schools and removed the Bible from each and every school in our nation. We legalized abortion and slaughtered millions of innocent babies who could not defend themselves. We passed many others laws that slapped God in the face. We turned our back on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the one who gave up this once great nation with the sole purpose of glorifying His name in everything that we would do. From that point on, things for America got worse and worse and we started on a downward path that would eventually take us to where we are today. I could get into statistics about all the evil that came to America in the last few decades, and even more so in the last twenty years, but I’ll spare the details at this time. One has to be totally blind not to see that something is drastically wrong in our nation.
We are at the point where Israel was, just before God removed their hedge of protection and allowed them to be destroy. We have crossed the threshold of insanity; we have gone way beyond the boundaries of common sense.
I’ve heard a prayer that was spoken by a pastor, whose name I will not mention because of possible violation of privacy. This pastor went on the say in his prayer, “We have lost our spiritual, equilibrium and inverted our values." And this pastor went on to say and I quote: “We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word, and called it pluralism, we have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyles. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed the unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionist and called it justifiable, we have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy, we have coveted our neighbors possessions, and called it ambition. We have polluted our air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression, we have ridiculed the time honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.”
A tidal wave of filth has been sweeping across America for quite some time now, crookedness, lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, divorce, murder, lust, drugs, and we say America is number one, well, she is, “We are number one in homosexuality, number one in radical feminism, number one in divorce, number one in the destruction of family values, number one in abortion, number one in political correctness and number one in occult humanistic New Age religion.” And then we wonder why all hell is breaking loose in America. God has removed His hedge of protection from our once great God fearing nation. I’ve heard it said that people believe that our nation is great because of gold, wealth, power and Wall Street. Well, I disagree, there is only one thing that made America great and that is Jesus Christ. We seem to have forgotten all that Jesus Christ did for us from the cross all the way to making America a great God fearing country.
The same consequences that happen to Israel back in 70 AD are on the near horizon for America, if, and I emphasize “IF” we don’t get on our knees as a nation and repent of our evil ways and call on God to heal our land.
We read this promise in 2 Chronicles, 7:14; “ if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
My friends, there is still hope because of this promise made by God, but the ball is in our court. Every day that we delay, puts us one more day deeper into the miry muck that we have created. I believe that our opportunity to be healed in America is coming to an end and we will see the same consequences that Israel had succumbed to. So, will we continue down this path of destruction, or will we turn to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, get on our knees and call out to Him for mercy. That is our only hope. Outside of that hope, we have no hope at all!
So, you can ignore all this and hope I’m wrong, or you can take seriously what I shared with you and get on your knees, turn to Jesus Christ for your Salvation, or you can go on living life like everything will be fine. If you choose the later, you will be cast into the most horrific time that the Bible speaks of as the “Great Tribulation”. Here is what Jesus said about this time and I’ll close with this Bible verse.
Matthew 24:21;“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
If you believe the Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God, then listen up, the time that Jesus spoke of is on the very near horizon. If you don’t believe that Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God, then you have much bigger problems than what is in the near future.
Once again, it is your choice, nobody can make that choice for you. Will you turn to Jesus Christ for your salvation or will you choose “The Lake of Burning Fire” for all eternity. Two choices, which on will you choose!
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