(Note; This message is rather long, it is recommended that you copy and paste to a word document and print it out for easier reading. I feel this is an important message to the church. It is directed mainly to the church in the USA, but includes the church worldwide).
We are facing a crisis in our nation that will determine its very destiny. This crisis is not just a political one, not merely a social one, and not just a rights issue. The crisis that is facing us today is a moral one. The moral issue that faces us today has been brought about not only by immoral political leaders who want God out of government, and not only by immoral people who will not recognize God as their sole creator and who vote in politicians who support their own personal agenda, but by an immoral moral (lukewarm) church that has fallen asleep and not taken the God given authority to take control of their world they live in. No political leader, may it be the president, a congressman, or any house of representative can solve this issue without the guidance from God Himself. So the crisis that faces us today is where do we stand with God? Our nation as a whole is at the brink of having God remove His blessing from us if we do not turn back to Him and soon.
We are facing a crisis in our nation that will determine its very destiny. This crisis is not just a political one, not merely a social one, and not just a rights issue. The crisis that is facing us today is a moral one. The moral issue that faces us today has been brought about not only by immoral political leaders who want God out of government, and not only by immoral people who will not recognize God as their sole creator and who vote in politicians who support their own personal agenda, but by an immoral moral (lukewarm) church that has fallen asleep and not taken the God given authority to take control of their world they live in. No political leader, may it be the president, a congressman, or any house of representative can solve this issue without the guidance from God Himself. So the crisis that faces us today is where do we stand with God? Our nation as a whole is at the brink of having God remove His blessing from us if we do not turn back to Him and soon.
We must now ask the question “What Have We Done”. We could apply it to many different aspects of our lives, our community, our nation and even the world. Watching a movie called “In My Country” portrayed what happened to the Afrikaans during the apartheid era. A struggle over independence and rights of the blacks and whites was emerging into a conflict of who was going to be in control.
This seems to be the relative problem that faces the world today. Who is going to be in control. Is man going to be in control or is God going to be in control? As the world heads for a battle of control each nation is faced with the struggle within themselves as to how to handle control of their own people when the world puts demands for extreme change within each of their boundaries. The movie depicts the native Africans (the blacks) faced with the injustice they suffered for years and how they were going to bring justice under their own rule. It was a matter of forgiveness and amnesty or just amnesty or no amnesty. The movie begins with a song of which the words “What Have We Done?” is sung over several times. It set the mood for the movie. That is the question we must ask of ourselves and of our nation.
Every nation during its existence on earth as a nation has had to or will face the problem within itself as how to handle its own injustices. The United States of America is reaching a point where as a nation they must face the injustices of many of the laws that have been passed to rule or control situations and or people. The USA was founded on Judea-Christian beliefs and became a powerful nation run by, for the most part, people who put their trust in an Almighty God and followed the principles set by the same God. These people were not perfect by any means, but did follow the principles set down by God Himself. Take the Ten Commandments for instance. When God gave these commandments to the Israelites He gave them as a permanent guide for their lives. As long as these commandments were followed all went well with the nation. There were many other commands given by God which the Israelites were to follow, but the jest of these commands were to have these people listen to God and follow His ways. When the commandments were not followed the nation suffered severely for it. When the USA was founded it was founded on these principles, the Constitution was established to protect the people from tyranny and injustice and allow the people to worship God freely without governmental interference, the government was to be an instrument of God to serve the people. The constitution was established with the Ten Commandments in mind and the principles of God as the guiding values for the people and the nation. In order for this to work all government had to be under God and in service to Him. The government was to take directions from God and help the citizens of a nation follow the ways of God. The government of our nation was not to supersede or replace God in any way.
I am interjecting the “Ten Commandments” here to make a point stand out a little clearer. Once, as written by God in its original form, and second, in a reverse form of which we seem to be headed or are already practicing.
First in the original form:
Please read them from the scriptures to get the full text and meaning. I have put them here in an abbreviated form. (Exodus 20:1-17)
1st commandment: “Thou shalt not have any other gods before me.”
2nd commandment: “Thou shalt not make any graven images (idols) and thou shalt not bow down and worship them.”
3rd commandment: “Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain”
4th commandment: “Thou shalt not forget the sabbath”
5th commandment: “Thou shalt not disrespect your father and mother and make a fool of them”
6th commandment: “Thou shalt not commit murder if you shall become angry with one another”
7th commandment: “Thou shalt not be unfaithful to your spouse and commit adultery”
8th commandment: “Thou shalt not steal and rob from other people”
9th commandment: “Thou shalt not tell lies and bear false witness”
10th commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife and home”
In the reverse form:
1st commandment: Thou shalt have other gods before me
2nd commandment: Thou shalt make graven images (idols) and thou shalt bow down and worship them (demon worship -- see 1 Corinthians 10:19-20)
3rd commandment: Thou shalt take the Lord's name in vain
4th commandment: Thou shalt forget the sabbath
5th commandment: Thou shalt disrespect your father and mother and make a fool of them
6th commandment: Thou shalt commit murder if you shall become angry with one another
7th commandment: Thou shalt be unfaithful to your spouse and commit adultery
8th commandment: Thou shalt steal and rob from other people
9th commandment: Thou shalt tell lies and bear false witness
10th commandment: Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's wife and home
Here are the instructions God gave the Israelites before entering the promised land. Keep in mind that a whole generation had to perish in the desert because of their rebellion against God. The Ten Commandments and all the laws and decress had been taught to a new generation of people and God expected them to follow His ways no matter what.
“These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to posses, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you.”
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord our God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
“Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.”
Deuteronomy 6:18-19
“If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.”
Deuteronomy 8:19-20
“And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”
Deuteronomy 10:12
Is it just me or have we forgotten our Godly values and principles? Have we turned so far from God that we no longer want Him to rule our lives for the sake of individual rights, freedom to do whatever we want? Does selfishness and greed take precedence over love and compassion? Are we so blind to the truth now that we cannot see the truth if it was staring us in the face? Have we gone so far to allow satan to control our lives through deception and lies, and have we given over to his ways so much that we are willing to sacrifice not only our children but our very souls for the sake of choice and freedom from Gods principles? Have we become so arrogant and selfish that we cast God out of our nation and lives and turn to listening and following the deceptive ways of satan by doing as Adam and Eve did?
The problem today for our nation is just who is going to be in charge. Who is going to rule this nation and who will determine which direction it should go. Should it be the politicians who are elected by the people, the judges who are appointed by the President, or will it be the values set forth by God when the nation was first established as a nation? If we could ask the question “What Have We Done?” back in time, in the beginning of this nation I believe the answer would have been simple. Maybe something like this; We have started a great nation founded on the principles and values of Gods Kingdom. A nation who is controlled by God through Godly men and women who kept their trust in God. A nation who knew their destiny and the values they wanted to live by and not forgetting in whom they put their trust. I am sure the forefathers could say back then that they have started something in which God was well pleased in, a nation that God wanted to happen and have men and women who would listen to Him and a government that was ruled by the very principles that God established for all His creation.
It seems that this nation has gone through a lot of changes throughout the centuries, some for the good of all and some that crippled the hopes and dreams of the masses. Somewhere along the line the values that this nation was founded on began to be weakened by greed and selfishness. God was beginning to be set aside for what man thought was more important, himself. As God was and still is being pushed aside by laws that promote one group or individuals over others or served to promote ideologies over Gods principles have put a nation in jeopardy of losing its God given freedoms. The question must be ask again today at this very moment in time, “What Have We Done?”.
Looking back just a mere fifty years and mapping out the direction this nation began to take with the removal of prayer from schools and the idea that there is a separation of Church and State should give us a good starting point as to not only why we are where we are today, but just how close we are to having the judgment of God fall on this nation. It doesn’t take a historian or a scholar to figure out that this nation is in trouble as Gods blessing is being removed from it. Lets take a brief look back in time and see just how far we have come in the past fifty years. Without getting technical on the exact dates we should be able to say without a doubt that we not only have turned our backs on God for the most part, but His bride, the Church or true believers have fallen asleep just before the wedding day and if the bride does not awaken soon it will be to late to make it to the wedding.
I believe that many of our problems began back in the late 50’s and early 60’s when someone said they were an atheist and was offended because they felt their rights were infringed upon over prayer in school. The Supreme Court judges seemed to agree and passed a law that made it unconstitutional for prayer to be in public schools. Since that time a lot of other laws have been passed by the supreme court to inhibit or push aside or do away with the rights of the Christian beliefs.
The right to abortion followed not to long after the removal of prayer. Women were given the right to choose whether they could abort their fetus or not. It did not matter that life was already started, it just mattered about a woman’s right. Instead of following guidelines set forth by God about the importance of every human being to God as one of His created beings full of His potential and purpose, the higher court decided that God’s guidelines did not matter. As of this date there have been millions of babies aborted in the name of choice or rights. We even got to the point that a partial birth abortion was being sanctioned by our courts, an abortion that literally killed the child just before the head was free from the birth canal, a sharp pick was forced into the back of the head of the baby into its’ brain. This was all done in the name of choice and labeled as a method to protect the mother from physical harm or injury.
Now that we have laws in place to protect certain individuals from hearing a praying Christian so they won’t be offended, and laws telling our schools that they cannot teach, mention or refer to God in their classrooms because they are a public school receiving government funds under the guise of separation of church and state, which is not in the constitution, we have a generation of children that do not know God but full of an evolutionary theory that has never been proven and in fact has been disproved by many leading scientist. I have always wondered why if evolution can be taught as a theory, then why can’t creation be taught as an alternative to evolution? The question must be asked more loudly today than at any other time, “What Have We Done?”
When God has been taken out of our classrooms, and the people have been restricted from learning about God as our creator, when our laws forbid us to even mention God in public and have a most true statement from old that was stamped onto our coins and printed on our currency being slowly removed, “In God We Trust”, we must ask ourselves again, “What Have We Done?”
When we see our schools wreaked with havoc and violence; When we hear our children take Gods name in vain and have no regard for the law, when we see our nation attacked by lawless people and we stand idly by and wonder what happened. Where are the parents that should be teaching their children right from wrong, and most assuredly teaching them the ways and values of God? Is letting our children make their own choices without guidance from their parents a wise thing? When society begins to accept the gay and lesbian life style as normal and allow this lifestyle to supersede God's guidelines for marriage as acceptable we must ask ourselves, "What Have We Done?" When we hear of perversion in our church’s and a falling of spiritual leaders and when we see our young held in slavery to drugs, sex and alcohol, and when we see immorality in our nations capitol and our elected leaders not held accountable for their actions that all else are held to, we have to ask ourselves, “What Have We Done?”.
When the Christian, the one who claims to be a believer in Christ and puts his/her trust in Him does not stand up and tell the truth about what is going on or does not speak out against injustice and immorality and does not mention Christ or God in his/her conversation, or is ashamed to be associated with Christ or His values, the Christian that does not set the example for his/her children of how God wants them to live their lives, the Christian who claims to know God does not stand at the front of the battle and wage war against the enemy, we have to ask ourselves again, “What Have We Done?”.
When we ask ourselves this question which can be asked in different ways; for instance, we could ask in a way that ask, just what have we done to help change the situation or what have we done to promote the injustices? Or we could ask in a way that we look back on what has happened already and ask what have we done. The latter is how I prefer us to look at where we are at this moment. Look at what has happened to this nation in the past 100 years and specifically at the last 50 or so years and see just how far this nation has fallen and ask in a very profound way “WHAT HAVE WE DONE?” By looking at it this way we may want to look at our own hearts and ask God that same question about ourselves. Ask Him if you have not been following His ways and obeying His commands, “What Have I Done?”
Only when Gods church (those who believe in Gods Son and gave their lives over to Him) humbles itself and realizes that the fault does not lie with anyone else but with us will God be able to bring healing to this nation. Only when we realize that we, the Bride of Christ, have let God down by not proclaiming His Gospel and doing what He has commanded us to do, and seeking His forgiveness will He be able not only to bring healing to His Church, but to our nation. We were created in His image and we are expected to let His image shine through us to the rest of the world. We can only shine when we have the redemptive power given to us through Jesus Christ the only Son of God. The scriptures are there for us to learn, study, and use as a guide through the journey we are on. If we don’t use His Word to guide us, then how can we expect to find our own way let alone try to direct the rest of the world to Christ.
These questions were asked at the beginning of Gods creation to Adam and Eve. The first question was ask after the fall of man, “Where Are You?” Which refers to the lost state of man that he just entered. The second question was “Have You Eaten From The Tree That I Commanded You Not To Eat?” This shows that man was confronted with his rebellion. The third question was “What Is This You Have Done?” This statement gives an indication as to what man has allowed to come into the kingdom God established through man. These are very serious questions and reflect as to what man was going to face because of his rebellion.
The question now is “What Have We Done?” This should be asked not only to ourselves, but should be asked to God in an attitude of humbleness, seeking forgiveness. Our nation can be turned around, but, it will only turn as God's church, the true believers in Christ seek Him first and seek His righteousness. We can cause the blessing of God to return to our nation as we return to God and put Him first in all that we do. Only then will God reach His hand out to us and bless us again. Let us not wait to long for not only is the salvation of this nation at stake, but our very souls. The scripture says that “We must awake out of our sleep for our redemption draws near.” God is not going to sit idly by and let a nation continue to remove Him from their laws and from their presence without some sort of warning. God does not break His word or allow a nation that once put their trust in Him to not abide by His commands and laws just because they were once blessed by Him. Israel found out that when they followed God they were blessed and when they rebelled the blessings of God were withdrawn.
When we, as a people of God, begin to take a back seat to the world and not take a stand for righteousness and justice we have for sure become a nation most miserable. When we, as a people of God, do not speak up for God’s righteousness and by our silence we allow the way of evil to infiltrate our ranks, we most assuredly have invited the wrath of God to fall on a nation that once trusted in Him. When we, as a people of God, begin to look at our own rights over the will of God, we for sure have forsaken the concept of “seeking God and His righteousness first”. When we as a people of God forget the instruction He gave us to “humble ourselves and pray” and find our time spent on television, recreation, work, and other ways of the world, we again find ourselves in a place that Adam and Eve found themselves being ask three very important questions. “Where are you?” “Have you partaken of the fruit that I commanded you not to?” “What have you done?”
It comes down to the fact that we are in a spiritual battle and it is not a matter of who wins because God has never lost, it is a matter of who’s side we choose to be on. We are either for God or we are against Him. Gods enemies are satan and his cohorts. We must realize that when God established His Kingdom on Earth, He established it through man. He Gave man an awesome responsibility to rule over His Kingdom. God allowed man to have control and would not supersede that control. Even though man had authority over earth, God had and always will have ultimate ownership and authority. God established the method to rule His Kingdom by going through man. God also established rules for us to live by and if we followed those rules He would bless us, if we disobeyed or rebelled, the blessings of God were removed. God has never changed and never will. He will be true to His word no matter what man does. God gave man a way back to Him through Christ after man rebelled and gained back the authority that Adam lost. We have a choice to either do things Gods way or continue to rebel. Gods word is clearly stated throughout the Bible, obey and follow my commands and live or choose to rebel and die. Again ask yourself this question, “What Have I Done?” Our nation is full of rebellious people; it doesn’t need anymore; choose life and follow the ways of God the Father.
We are still a strong nation and still have God’s hand upon us, even though it may be lifting; we still proclaim our Christian values for the most part, but we must realize that we must serve God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds. We must unite together as a Christian nation and proclaim the Gospel of Christ loud and clear, we must repent of our sins and lack of prayer. The scripture tells us plainly what God wants from all His people: “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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
May God bless this nation once again and may we all turn to Him in repentance of our sins, neglect, and rebellion.
