“Can the liberties of a Nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Thomas Jefferson

In Evangelical Christian circles there is an assumption, a given, that God must judge America for her sin, and soon. Billy Graham expressed this best when he said, “If God does not judge America He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Our sins have piled up to the point that we ask ourselves why God is holding back His judgment. Or, is He? Has His judgment already begun and we don’t perceive it as such yet? Consider this:

Since the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade we have seen the aborting of 60 million unborn children. That same court earlier ruled that prayer was unconstitutional in the public schools and since then we have seen the moral decline of our youth and the inroads of moral relativism.

As a nation we have “officially” removed God from our public consciousness. Nature abhors a vacuum and into that absence of Biblical faith we have seen the rise of innumerable “alternative religions” and “alternative lifestyles” that defy God’s truth and holiness. I have been a combatant in this particular arena for over 40 years and we are losing the battle.

The so-called alternative lifestyle of homosexuality was the reason God judged Sodom and Gomorrah, not because there were a lot of homosexuals in those cities, but because the culture and people sanctioned it. Now our own governments and schools are teaching tolerance of this perversion giving it an official sanction.

From the 60’s until now, sexual promiscuity, drugs, abortion, legalized gambling, blasphemy, pornography, hedonism, calling good evil and evil good, have become commonplace in our culture.

This is exactly the state that Paul addressed in Romans 1:19-32 saying people who refuse to allow God to inform their understanding of His world will reap the natural results of their sinful condition. God does not have to act in judgment. He can simply leave us to the consequences of our depravity. That is exactly what Paul said in Romans 1:24, “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:”

The moral corruption of our country is the direct consequence of refusing, as a nation, to acknowledge God. What used to be “common sense” is now un-common.

Examples from America and Israel

This failure to acknowledge God and His Word also affects the decisions of government. America has stood by Israel from the time of its rebirth in 1948. In the eight years of the Obama administration the supporters of Israel feared that our nation would turn its back on that State. And that means, according to the way God judges (Genesis 12:3 and Obadiah 15), it would also be a time of peril for America.

In God’s way of judging a nation, He gives ample warning first with the promise of judgment if repentance is not forthcoming. We saw this with the prophet Jonah who reluctantly took the warning of God’s impending judgment to Nineveh, a gentile city. The entire city heeded the warning, repented, and was spared God’s judgment. One hundred and fifty years later Nineveh had turned back to its sin and was destroyed. The ancient ruins of Nineveh exist today outside Mosul, Iraq.

God gradually moves toward judgment. First, He warns through His prophets in the Old Testament and His preachers in the New. Then He sends remedial judgments (Deut. 28), and if those are not heeded then he sends destruction either by immediate causes or by His neglect of that nation thus leaving it to its own decay. (Deut. 29:16-21 and Romans 1).

America is now in the position of ancient Nineveh. She has squandered the accumulated capital of a rich Christian heritage and God’s blessings on this nation.

Has America been warned? Do we, as a nation, not just we as Christians, know that God is angry with America? We are at a crossroads where the nation could repent like Nineveh and be spared, or fail to repent and be destroyed. The Corona virus should be seen as a wake-up call to repentance by all, Christians and non-Christians.

Israel is God’s Timepiece

Numerous Old Testament prophets foretold that in the “day of the Lord” when He brings judgment on the World, Israel, and specifically Jerusalem, would be a “burdensome stone” and all who “concern themselves with it” (i.e., attempt to divide it) would be destroyed (Zechariah 12:9).

I have counted 33 Old Testament passages where God said He would regather His people in their own land “in that day,” also known as the last days. Ezekiel 36:24-29, Jeremiah 31:7-11, Zechariah 8:7,8, and Isaiah 11:11 are clear that the world would witness the birth of a new Israeli nation, and make it the focal point of the whole world’s attention. This is expressed succinctly in Joel 3:2 which concerns Armageddon.

“I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat (the Kidron Valley), and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”

Since 1991 America has been attempting to divide the promised land, or as the policy is called “Land for Peace.”

Part of God’s “pleading” is in the form of warning judgments against those who would “part” or divide the land God gave Israel. From its re-birth in 1948 America supported the integrity of Israel’s borders but that changed in 1991 and held sway until the present. During the last three years of Donald Trump’s Presidency Israel has garnered more support and favor than from almost all previous administrations. But can this favor last?

In Madrid, Spain on October 30, 1991 George H.W. Bush announced a change in US policy regarding peace in the Middle East which became known as “land for peace.”

There is a Jewish saying that coincidence is not a kosher word. God is sovereign over the weather. Several students of prophecy began to notice a pattern of events when US policy went counter to God’s promise to Israel. The books they have written are listed here:

Eye to Eye by William (Bill) Koenig. Bill is a Whitehouse reporter. You can read his reporting at www.watch.org where you can also order his book. He personally handed his book to Benjamin Netanyahu.

As America Has Done to Israel by John McTernan. John is a former investigator with the Federal government. His blog is found at www.johnmcternaninsights@blogspot.com.

The Israel Omen by David Brennan. You can find his book at www.israelomen.com.

Each of these men have pointed out that within 24 to 48 hours of our government “making progress,” for the peace process, some catastrophe has hit our country.

Nine of the ten biggest disasters listed on FEMA’s website occurred within 24 hours of our efforts to “divide the land” of Israel. Exercise your own discernment of this partial list. Bill Koenig lists over 120 warning judgments to date in the latest edition of his book.

And as you read this list think of how tiny these disasters are compared to our present disaster, the worldwide virus lock-down and economic impact.

#1 – On Oct. 30, 1991 George H.W. Bush announced, at the Madrid Peace Conference, a change in US policy toward peace in the Middle East. The change was called land for peace. The US government was advocating the division of the land Israel “occupied,” between Israel and a future Palestinian State. At the very time Bush was delivering his speech the “Perfect Storm” flooded the Bush home in Maine with 30-foot waves.

#2 – On Aug 24, 1992 round six of the Madrid Peace effort began in DC. The Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed to the policy of land for peace. On that same day Hurricane Andrew struck south Florida causing $1.8 billion in damage.

#3 – From April 1993 through August 1993 a peace agreement was being negotiated that would cede part of the Promised Land to the Palestinians. During this same period flood levels were occurring in the Midwest that had not been seen in 500 years.

#4 – On January 17, 1994 President Clinton met with Syrian President Assad to discuss the return of the Golan Heights. On that same day an earthquake registering 6.7 hit Northridge, CA causing almost $7 billion damage. Why Northridge? Also scheduled that day, and in that area, was a gay pride parade that had to be cancelled.

#5 – On January 21, 1998 Prime Minister Netanyahu was rudely treated at the White House. Both President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright refused to have lunch with him. A few hours later the Lewinsky scandal broke in the media, which crippled the Clinton Presidency for the rest of his tenure.

#6 – On September 28, 1998 Secretary of State Albright finished the details of an agreement for Israel’s cession of 13% of Judea and Samaria. On that same day Hurricane George hit the US Gulf Coast and stalled. On that same day Clinton met with Yasser Arafat and Netanyahu to finalize the deal. After the meeting Arafat addressed the UN on the subject of declaring a Palestinian State by May 1999. As soon as Arafat left the country Hurricane George subsided. FEMA reported the total cost of damages at $2.25 billion.

#7 – On October 15 Arafat met for five days with Clinton and Netanyahu at the Wye River Plantation in Maryland, again discussing the cession of 13% of Judea and Samaria. On October 17 torrential rains and tornadoes hit southern Texas. The storms subside on October 22. Clinton declared that area of Texas a major disaster area. Damage was estimated to be over $1 billion.

#8 – On December 12, 1998 Clinton landed in a Palestinian controlled section of Israel to discuss the “land for peace” policy. On that same day Congress voted four articles of impeachment against him.

#9 – On May 3, 1999 Yasser Arafat was scheduled to declare a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital. On that same day the most powerful tornado ever to hit the US swept across Oklahoma and Kansas. Winds were clocked at 316 miles per hour. Clinton urged Arafat to delay his announcement.

#10 – During the week of October 11, 1999 Jewish settlers were evicted from the West Bank at the urging of the US in its land for peace policy. During the same week the Dow Jones lost 5.7% of its value in the worst week since 1989. On October 15 the Dow lost 266 points and a hurricane slammed into North Carolina. On October 16, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked the California desert.

#11 – On June 5, 2001 George W. Bush sent George Tenet to Israel to implement limits on the use of Israeli land. On the afternoon of that same day Tropical Storm Allison formed off the coast of Texas and moved ashore at Galveston and Houston. So much rain fell that it became known as the “Great Flood of 2001.” FEMA said the costs of the storm came to almost $1.4 billion.

#12 – On September 10, 2001 George W. Bush prepared to announce his plans for a Palestinian State. On September 11th,,, well, you know the rest.

#13 – On April 30, 2003 the “Quartet” (USA, Russia, the E.U., and the U.N.) kicked off plans for dividing off a large section of the Promised Land to make room for a Palestinian State. According to the Wikipedia entry for the first week of May, 2003, “There were 401 tornado reports in 19 states and 1 Canadian province. More severe weather broke out this week alone than any other week in U.S. history. The old record for most tornado reports in one week was 171 during the week of the May 1995 Tornado Outbreak Sequence.”

#14 – On August 23, 2005 the Israeli government completed the removal of Israeli settlers from Gaza. This was done under pressure from the Bush administration. On that same day Hurricane Katrina formed in the Atlantic and before the hurricane subsided it had resulted in the removal of a percentage of the American population from our Gulf coast equal to the percentage of the Israeli population removed from Gaza. The Bush presidency was never the same after Katrina and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke from which he never recovered.

#15 – During the week of July 23, 2007 Quartet envoy Tony Blair traveled to the Middle East to continue the peace process begun at the Annapolis Conference to trade land for peace. During that week the world financial system began a meltdown from which it was long in recovery.

#16 – On April 19, 2010 Israel celebrated its independence. The Jewish lunar calendar does not coincide with our calendar so the observance of their Independence Day, Passover, or any other Jewish holiday falls on a different day in our calendar each year. On the same day Israel was celebrating its independence President Obama announced that the US would not “automatically” support Israel in the UN. This was a fundamental departure from past American policy. On the next day the Deep-Water Horizon oil well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico creating the worst oil spill in US history.

These “coincidences” go on and on. The three authors named above have counted up to 120 such “coincidences.” At some point one must ask the following question, “Is God trying to get our attention?” If you remember Pavlov’s dog experiments you know that approved behavior is rewarded and disapproved behavior is punished leading to the dogs doing what Pavlov wanted. Even Pavlov’s dogs would have stopped trying to divide the land of Israel given the “day after” disasters we experienced.

Conclusion

Since the time of Adam’s sin, the physical world has been cursed. The Bible tells us that some of God’s judgments come in the form of natural disasters happening to a sinful people.

Whether a particular calamity is a judgment requires discernment and awareness of the timing, magnitude, and the witness of God’s Spirit.
If we fail to be discerning then we will necessarily miss God’s warnings and suffer the consequences.

We say, “May God bless America” and we mean it. But we may have seen His national blessings in our past. We may be living on the accumulated capital of past generations faith in God. Is this Corona virus a wake-up call to our churches, to Christians who have neglected to be discerning of our own errors? In King David’s day he was gathering his army and in 1 Chronicles 12:32 it says, “from Issachar, men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Do we, the Church understand our times and what we should do? I grew up in a time when the Bible was studied verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Today a few texts are just launching points for the sermon but the body of scripture goes neglected including all the cardinal doctrines of our faith.

Or, we may not have encountered God’s judgment yet because we have since 1948 been Israel’s greatest friend and God has promised to bless those who bless Israel.

I think the final thought is best expressed by George Mason, the Father of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. He said, “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins, by national calamities.”

By David Henke