No amount of "winsomeness" is going to change our fate, ladies and gentlemen. You can't save this nation.
Let me explain why that isn't as hopeless as it sounds.
For too long, American churches have adopted one of two approaches: Retreat into tradition, most of which has little to do with God's kingdom (Matthew 15:7-9), or try to be "seeker-sensitive." The first group hopes to bolster its ranks by maintaining order and stability in the seas of a changing world, while the second hopes to bring in new waves of recruits by watering down the theology to be more palatable to the modern American.
Neither approach has worked.
When I was in college, I was a leader in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Part of their motto is to see "world changers developed." I recently had lunch with the staff member who led the chapter while I was there and talked about how many of my friends at that time have not only fallen away from the faith, but marched straight into the arms of darkness.
Some of the women who were once small group leaders are now lesbians and/or transgender.
One student leader now lives with his boyfriend overseas.
Another was convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman.
Countless more are living lives that look completely indistinguishable from the world, filled with divorce, adultery, greed, drunkenness, and hatred.
It wasn't surprising to hear him say that only a few of us seem to have remained dedicated to Christ.
These weren't random kids with church backgrounds who just threw off their shallow faith for college partying. These were the kids who were leading a Christian group on a secular campus. These were the kids who attended missions training conferences, walked around campus doing evangelism, led small group Bible studies, and in many cases, launched their careers in ministry.
Even the leaders of the Christian student groups have fallen away.
Many articles and books have been written on the reasons for this. American Christians are desperate to explain the exodus toward darkness.
The hot topic of the past year or so to explain this has been the retreat of the church from the public square. American church leaders are so zealous about remaining out of "politics" that they confine their metrics of success to baptisms and Bible study groups instead of making their communities, cities, and nations look like Christ (you know, that thing Jesus commanded in Matthew 28).
So many Christians have bought into the odd lie that "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" doesn't extend to government. Instead, many pastors preach lessons on moral therapeutic deism that enable people to live comfortable lives ... that have no impact (lasting fruit).
Yes, they want people to be world changers.
Yes, they want them to preach the Gospel in their workplaces and communities.
Yes, they want to stop the evildoer and rescue the oppressed and help the hurting.
But if shaping the world to look like the Kingdom of God inevitably leads to voting a certain way or making certain laws, suddenly these same church leaders say "Christian nationalism" must be avoided!!
You can't have nations that reflect Christ without constitutions and policy that reflect the glory and commandments of God. If you convert a whole nation, then say we need to be careful not to impose our faith in the making of laws, you hand that nation over to Satan.
But even this is inadequate in explaining why America and the West is coming to both a violent and whimpering end.
This still puts the reason for our decline in our hands. If we could just pull together enough Chads to rise up and take public power out of the hands of the godless woke cultists, we might be able to save our nation. This implies that we could chart our own destiny and prevent our collapse.
But no such thing is possible.
Is God sovereign or not?
Do you, oh lady or gentleman, think that even with our combined effort, we can overcome the rot of sin that's tearing our society apart?
No politician or policy is going to save us. Only God can do that. But God doesn't always show compassion. Sometimes, he hardens the hearts of a people so that they will be "always seeing but never perceiving" (Mark 10:11-12, Isaiah 6:9-10).
'What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy. For the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth. So then, he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.' - Romans 9:14-18
God wants us to seek Him (Acts 17:26-28, James 4:8), but also, none of us can possibly find God unless he draws us in. From Jesus himself:
'No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.' - John 6:44
This word "draw" also means "to drag." You cannot find God, let alone get to know Him, let alone teach that to your country, let alone create laws to govern that country, unless God literally drags you toward Him.
(👆 God's irresistible grace pulling me into His kingdom)
If our countryman are not turning to Christ, it is therefore because God is not dragging them into repentance, but patiently storing up His wrath to judge us when America comes into the fullness of her sins.
There is a reason America's founders so often spoke of "Providence."
Consider two quotes from George Washington:
'May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land — whose Providential Agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent Nation — still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.' - 1790 letter to a Hebrew congregation in Savannah, Georgia
'Glorious indeed has been our Contest: glorious, if we consider the Prize for which we have contended, and glorious in its Issue; but in the midst of our Joys, I hope we shall not forget that, to divine Providence is to be ascribed the Glory and the Praise.' - 1783 letter to Reverend John Rodgers
Washington, like most of the great men of his time, knew full well that the fate of nations is decided by God and God alone.
He credited God with allowing the American Revolution to succeed and bore the weight of the duty that came with that knowledge. He knew, like his peers, that America and her Constitution would only persist if they continued to remember and honor God.
Ancient Israel provided them with a template for this belief. Psalms 106 says, "They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons."
And the consequence was that God "abhorred his own inheritance. He handed them over to the nations; those who hated them ruled over them."
For those who remain faithful to Christ: There is only one thing that will save us now. God does not need America or the old wineskin of the West to display his glory. He has hardened the hearts of this nation and it will be destroyed unless He relents.
'Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.' - Psalm 51:9-10
Even when David fell on his face before God, refusing to eat as he prayed desperately for forgiveness, the child he had conceived in adultery still died. But God did restore David, and because of this act of humble repentance, we still talk about him as a pivotal figure in world history today.
There is no hope for America apart from God.
But hope is never found anywhere else.
I'll leave you with this quote from Washington from a letter he sent on October 27, 1777, when the Revolution looked doomed to fail.
I flatter myself that a superintending Providence is ordering everything for the best, and that, in due time, all will end well.
