June 12, 2024 • 45 mins
Welcome to "Current Events and Christian Expectations." In today's episode, we delve into the pressing question: Is God judging America? We kick off with a reading from Matthew 24:29-30 and explore various scriptural references to understand the divine judgment of nations, particularly America.
We discuss prophetic insights, historical events linked to solar eclipses, and scriptural warnings about ignoring God's signs. With examples from history and recent events, we examine how nations, including America, might already be experiencing divine judgment.
Through the lens of Isaiah 19 and other biblical passages, we identify signs of judgment, such as confusion among leaders and societal chaos. We also reflect on the role of Christians in these times, emphasizing the importance of living godly lives and hastening the ultimate revival—the return of Jesus Christ.
Join us as we explore these themes and seek to understand God's expectations for nations and His people. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking discussion that encourages us to keep looking up and living faithfully.
And for your listening pleasure - the link to the Johnny Cash song mentioned located here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYvKWFGB0iM
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the judgment of America.
We'll lead off with Matthew 24, verses 29 through 30, and we'll have many other
scriptures that we reference and read today.
And of course, we'll put those in the overview.
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But with the question before us, is God judging America? America.
Let's just dig right in. And good day to everyone out there in the podcast world.
Questions often asked, is God going to judge America? Well, he judges all nations.
This is throughout the Bible.
But as far as our country is concerned, we can make the case,
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not that we want to, but that it's already happening.
What do I mean by that? Well, here is a article from WorldNetDaily back on February 19th.
And the headline is this, Solar Eclipse to Mark the Beginning of Judgment Upon America.
Pastor Mark Biltz of the El Shaddai Ministries is sharing his insights into
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the upcoming solar eclipse that will take place on Monday, April 8th, 2024.
End of quote. Well, of course, that's already happened, right?
Yes. But let's fill this out, what else he's got to say.
He goes on to say that many times solar eclipses have happened in connection
with significant events on Earth.
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And we don't deny that. For example, quote, says the article,
With a bit of research, Biltz discovered that a solar eclipse took place in
1948, the year Israel declared itself a nation.
And again in 1967, when Israel emerged victorious from the Six-Day War and unified Jerusalem.
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With a little more research, he discovered another solar eclipse in 1492,
the year that the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal.
Remarkably, a partial solar eclipse appeared above both Rome and Jerusalem in 67 AD.
One year later, Nero committed suicide, and in the year 70, the temple in Jerusalem
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was destroyed by the Romans.
My response is, well, yes, but I don't know what that means or how that proves
anything about judgment on America.
Eclipses, as best I see it, are not mentioned in the Bible.
Well, people will quote this from Matthew 29, 30, and 36, which shows up in
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other places. It's apocalyptic language.
And listen to it as Randy reads it.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and
the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes
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of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds
of heaven with power and great glory.
But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father only.
It's interesting that they don't, eclipses aren't mentioned.
There's earthquakes famines pestilences wars
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wars but but no no eclipses
no we have joshua's top in the sun and things of
that sort but this passage here this apocalyptic passage from matthew 24 deals
with a one-time event remember jesus says no one knows this day or when the
sun's going to go out so to speak yeah well then it's not an eclipse different
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than because he clips you can predict them in advance,
and et cetera, but this cannot be predicted, so it's not an eclipse.
From the scriptural standpoint, that is, what does the Bible say is a sign,
Jesus makes this the sign that Rome, because that was what this eclipse he mentioned
was all about, would destroy Jerusalem, and it would be this,
Luke 21, verses 20 through 24.
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But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.
Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are
inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it.
For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.
Alas for women who are pregnant, and for those who are nursing infants in those days!
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For there will be great distress upon the earth, and wrath against this people.
They will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive among all nations.
And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of
the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Yes, this passage deals with the first coming of Jesus, and Jesus makes it very
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clear in Luke's presentation that armies are going to surround Jerusalem.
Breath is going to be upon the Jewish people, and they will be scattered by
the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations.
And then this, Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the
times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
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Well, they're still being trampled. Well, and this Luke 21, 20 through 24,
that was referenced to 70 AD. So it's past.
It's past. It's history. It's past. It's history. Yeah. The future is,
in other words, what will be a sign of Jesus coming back when the Gentiles are
no longer trampling Jerusalem underfoot.
I mean, you can deduct that from the passage.
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Israel in the land, which was made out, it was a big deal back in the 40s when
this happened, and everyone thought Jesus will come in the next 40 years, which he did not.
Israel is back in the land is not a fulfillment. It could be preparation for
the fulfillment, for the end of Gentile rule.
And when that happens, Gentiles will no longer rule, but God's people will rule
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the earth, both Jews and Gentiles together, those who are the followers of Jesus,
since that is what we find in Scripture.
A basis for this podcast will be the patterns found in Scripture concerning
judgment of Gentile nations as our guide, not eclipses.
So, will God judge nations, even ours?
One thing is certain. The time of the Gentiles ruling over God's people will end.
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Listen to Revelation 5, 9 through 10. And they sang a new song, saying,
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain,
and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
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Okay, in this quote from Revelation, we go from the time he ransomed people,
that's the cross, the effect of which is still ongoing.
And what will be the result of that, that we will have a kingdom,
we will be priests toward God, and they shall reign on the earth,
which is a pretty clear statement.
In fact, Paul picks up on that. Listen to this from 1 Corinthians 6.2.
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The background is the church of Corinth is having all kinds of factions and
fightings, and they're going to secular Gentile courts to solve their problem.
And Paul says, don't do that, because this is practice for you within the church
to settle your own problems because 1 Corinthians 6.2.
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is
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to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
So people ask, what does all that mean? I don't know, but I know it means this,
that the saints are going to judge the world. And it's going to happen on the earth.
Yeah. It says on the earth. On the earth. Yes. They shall reign on the earth. Yeah.
So for the rest of this podcast, let's start with a large overview and then narrow it down.
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First of all, as to judgment of nations. Psalm 9, 17.
The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
Absolutely. Now, maybe one day we'll do a podcast on, what about all those verses
in the Psalms that says the nations will come and worship God,
and you find that revelation.
But that's for another time. Right now, we're just talking about the judgment.
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And judgment is always a precursor to, finally, the mercies of God.
But we're concentrating on judgment in this podcast. cast.
And this, Psalm 9, verse 17, that truth holds for all nations through all time, as we will see.
And this would be especially true for our nation, founded on the Judaic Christian
foundation, which is currently clearly forgetting God.
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And the Psalm says, nations that do that will be turned into Sheol.
They're going to be dead. They'll be dust.
Listen to Psalm 105, verse 7. He is the Lord our God.
His judgments are in all the earth. Yeah, that's an ongoing thing.
Out of the Old Testament and the New, God is always making judgments.
We may not be able to discern where all these are happening.
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But that they're happening should be confessed and admitted.
And that's present tense. That's present tense. That's not past tense. Yeah.
So there's not a time when his judgments are not in the earth.
Keep in mind, and this is very important, God is not in his essential nature,
or as theologians like to say, in his ontological existence.
He is not an angry God. He is centered in his essence in holy love,
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whose patience is phenomenal.
Psalm 30, verses 4 and 5.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.
For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Right. One of my favorite verses in the book of Psalms, anger for a moment,
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but favor for a lifetime.
In the long run, we find God's wrath brief compared to his favor for us and
eventually for the world, because you know a new world is coming.
Wrath, keep this in mind throughout the Bible, wrath refers to this world,
the land of living judgments.
This is not about hell or post-mortem judgments. That's another category.
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This is about what God will do to planet earth at various times, has done it.
We see that in the Old Testament with Babylon, with Assyria and what he's doing now.
Doesn't deal with what's going to to take place after there is death.
Psalm 103 verses 8 through 10. The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
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He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our
iniquities. And we can rejoice for that.
And for those of us not up on early English English vocabulary, chide.
Yeah, chide and tarry. Yeah, get mad at and get after and rebuke and all that.
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Well, if God were a person who kept his anger, he would have quit with no one
in the family. That would have been the end of it. True.
And there are times when judgments become a necessity. They become necessary.
Listen to this from Isaiah 26, 9 through 10. My soul yearns for you in the night,
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
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For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness, he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty
of the Lord. That's an interesting statement from Isaiah.
When God's judgments are in the earth, and we have already seen that they are,
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they're doing something.
And this is one way in which finally people can learn righteousness.
But if he doesn't make judgments, then the wicked, as the book of Ecclesiastes
says, just keep on thinking they're fine, they do their thing.
If he doesn't learn righteousness, then a judgment of the worst kind is going to come.
The point of the beginning of judgments, which is what we're looking at here
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with our country, is to repent so you forestall the consummation judgment of a nation.
Listen to what Paul says in Romans 2.4. Or do you presume on the riches of his
kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant
to lead you to repentance?
Right now we're saying God's kindness. And is that so we can indulge?
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No, it's so we can repent.
That's the story of God's kindness. And that's a judgment of his kind as well.
That's important for people to hear, I think, out there is you think that it's
God's going to judge you, God's going to condemn you, and that that is what
makes people turn to good.
It's not. It's God's goodness and his kindness that turn on. Exactly.
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So we should not indulge ourselves if we say, well, and the psalmist,
you catch, you know, in the words of the wicked, you know, he doesn't see what we're doing.
We're getting by with it. You get that from the psalmist on a regular basis.
But that's God's patience.
You know, in Psalm 50, God says, I didn't judge you yet thoroughly,
you know, obliterate you, and you thought everything was just fine.
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But when judgment comes, it'll be so fast, you can't do anything about it.
Yeah. And so that's why we don't want to indulge in our wickedness as a country,
because it will finally hit. So-
And we are to learn, therefore, from the scriptures and from the providence
of God, and especially the leaders of government, and that's a focus point for this podcast,
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the leaders of government need to learn that God judges nations for their sins,
and they are held, the leaders, they are especially held accountable.
We're going to have a quote here from Daniel 5.
Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, is the king. He's seen the handwriting
on the wall. It has disturbed him and shook him up greatly.
There's a great Johnny Cash song with that. That's right. Yeah,
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that's right. I'm familiar with it.
And so he was having a banquet using
the utensils from the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, and it's a blasphemy.
And so God writes this thing on the wall, and Daniel tells him it means you're
done with it. You're over. It's gone. on.
And he's a prime example of a leader who didn't learn from God's patience with
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him that he should have done better.
So, listen to this. This is from Daniel 5, verses 20 through 23.
First part, and then verse 30.
But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt
proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him.
He was driven from among the children of mankind, and his mind was made like
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that of a beast, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys.
He was fed grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,
until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind,
and sets over it whom he will.
And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this,
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but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, And the vessels
of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords,
your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them.
Right. So, in other words, Daniel rehearsed to him, this is what your granddad did.
He lifted himself up in pride, and he suffered a great judgment personally and
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was like the wild beast for seven years.
Then he came to his senses and acknowledged that God was God and was restored.
And Belshazzar, you being in the family, you know this story.
He says, you, his successor, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew
all this. In other words, God's been patient with you.
Why haven't you taken this example to heart? What happens is in then verse 30.
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That very night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed. Yes.
So God makes an example of Nebuchadnezzar. He judges a government leader for others to take heart.
The example should have had the same effect on Belshazzar as if he went through it himself.
But no, not following these examples, God gives judgment upon the leaders of the world.
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What does God expect from nations? And clearly, as we will see,
this expectation continues into the second coming of Christ.
What God expects of people and government, all the way from the Old Testament
to the end of the New Testament and the return of Jesus.
So listen to Psalm 33, verses 6 through 9 as a setup for this.
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By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth and all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap, he puts the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand
in awe of him, for he spoke and it came to be, he commanded and it stood firm.
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Yes, the call to fear the God who is the creator of all things is still constant.
It is still ongoing up to the second coming of Christ as you move into the New
Testament. That hasn't changed.
All the world is called by the prophets of old and ultimately by God himself
through his prophets and through the scripture, through the word and through
his providence to fear him.
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So the people of the earth are called first and foremost to worship the creator
of heaven and earth right up to the second coming. And in fact,
the book of Revelation authenticates that, Revelation 14, verses 6 and 7.
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to
proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.
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And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour
of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth,
the sea and the springs of water. So that goes out to the whole earth.
And you say, well, you know, will angels do that? I'm just telling you what the text says.
And I think unless you have reasons to change the text, you go with it.
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Somehow, by way of an angel, it's communicated to everybody.
The hour of judgment has come. It's here. So worship the creator.
Worship the creator. Do that. Start there. So, from the beginning of history
to now and yet to come, there's no excuse for the people of earth not recognizing
and giving glory and thanks to the Creator.
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And especially this is so of the purported leaders of the nations.
Listen to the verses of Psalm 33, 10-11, which follow right after those verses
that Randy just got through reading.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
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And so these plans, the counsel of the nations, the plans of the peoples, where do they come from?
Is there a popular poll, democratically administered? No, no.
It comes from the leaders of the said peoples and nations who don't follow the counsel of the Lord.
This is the counsel that they give to their people.
And so people follow their leaders. And if they're rebellious,
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then the people are going to be rebellious. The people are going to be rebellious. Yeah.
Recognize God and give him the glory. That's the thrust of the Old and New Testament.
Everybody is to do that. There's no exception.
This is clearly laid out in Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is pivotal in the book of Psalms.
First two Psalms open up the Psalms and lay the groundwork for everything that
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follows, which can sooner or later be brought right back to Psalm 1 or Psalm 2 in some fashion.
And this Psalm 2 explains why there's so much emphasis in the Psalms and in
the prophets about the nations, especially their leaders, and the need of the
leaders to recognize and glorify God.
Now, listen to the Psalm now. Now, this psalm is quoted, by the way,
in the New Testament, Book of Acts, Chapter 4. It's alluded to elsewhere.
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Psalms 2, verses 1, 2, and 3. Why do the nations rage in the people's plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds
apart and cast away their cords from us.
Right. So what do the kings, the rulers, the government leaders of nations say?
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Rebel. We rebel. We don't want God in our government. We don't want that.
And of course, the end result is they will face a judgment if they don't repent.
So, what are some of the signs that a nation is being judged before final judgment falls?
In other words, throughout Scripture, God sends prophets to nations.
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Jeremiah wrote letters to Babylonia and other places, and you find Jonah going
to Nineveh. And so there's ample precedent for God warning people and saying,
listen, this is what's going on in your country, and it's wrong, and you need to repent.
And so there are signs, whether it's prophetic words, natural disasters,
which clearly are an act of God sometimes.
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Or rulers who have lost their senses because they have rejected God's word,
and so they no longer have a sound mind.
Nebuchadnezzar stands as the primary example throughout the Bible as an example of that.
He literally lost his senses because he wouldn't recognize God Most High as
creator and ruler of all people.
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So it's because of these signs that they're ignored that judgment finally falls.
And when it falls, then it comes as such a surprise because nobody was tracking
the signs when they were occurring, okay?
So, we're going to use a passage from Isaiah 19, using Egypt as our model,
because Egypt undergoes more than one judgment in the Old Testament. Good example.
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And this is how a Gentile nation is judged.
This is how most Gentile nations, in fact, have fallen, if not all of them.
I don't have the history of all of them. But the ones I know,
you can certainly say this, that their leaders, because they ignored God,
became incompetent in the worst kind of ways to rule.
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All right. So listen to this. We're going to start with Isaiah 19, the first two verses.
An oracle concerning Egypt.
Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt.
And the idols of Egypt will tremble
at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight against
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each other, and each other against their neighbor, city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.
Okay, notice, first of all, with Egypt, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud.
Now, that's apocalyptic imagery, which you can find in Psalm 18 with David,
when he says, God came down from heaven on a cloud with his chariot of fire
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and all that and rescued me. You can find it in Matthew 24 that Randy read earlier.
Behold, I'm coming on the clouds of glory, a time of judgment and salvation.
Revelation 1-7, John says, Behold, He comes on the clouds of heaven,
glory, and all eyes will see Him.
And prior to that, people will be against one another. There'll be divisions
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of the worst kind, Egyptians against Egyptians.
And we might say, well, why Egypt here? Well, Egypt was judged during the time
of Moses, and it's not learned to recognize yet the highest God,
but continues in rebellion at this point in Israel's history.
So from a Gentile nation that was judged by God, we learn how the leadership
of a given nation is afflicted with their own bad judgments,
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which in fact come from God that he He pours out on them before the final great judgment comes.
So God waits to see if their foolish decisions finally rebuke them.
They come to a conclusion that they need God. And that does happen sometimes.
Nebuchadnezzar did it. Yeah. So it can't happen.
And peoples can repent. And people can. Like Nineveh. Like Nineveh.
Yeah. Absolutely. Or is judgment finally going to come?
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Do the people want a nation that is clearly falling into chaos to continue? Or will they repent?
That's the question. Look at Isaiah now. Listen to it. 19, verse 3.
And the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
and I will confound their counsel, and they will inquire of the idols and the
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sorcerers and the mediums and the necromancers.
And we had a podcast a while back which dealt with our government's involvement
already, believe it or not, in things occultic. Yeah. But here's one that- Witchcraft or witchcraft.
Witchcraft or witchcraft. Yeah, that was the title of the podcast.
Nancy Reagan and astrologer Joan Quigley are involved in this.
This is called How Nancy Reagan Let Her Astrologer Control the Presidency.
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This is an article from the New York Post not that long ago,
back in 2021, back in October.
And listen to the quote here from this.
Days after a bullet pierced the body of President Ronald Reagan on March 30th,
1981, and I remember that well, his distraught wife, Nancy, got a call from
longtime Hollywood friend, Merv Griffin.
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I remember him. The TV host told the first lady that star charts drawn by San
Francisco astrologer Joan Quigley, a mutual acquaintance, had pinpointed March
30th as a dangerous day for her husband.
Oh, my God, Nancy gasped. I could have stopped it.
All right. So let's just stop the quote right there. By the way,
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if you remember, Lincoln had astrologers and seances in his dominion as well
with his wife, but she was trying to contact her dead child.
This is about getting a strong agenda to run the government,
okay? That's not a good idea.
Lena that, I don't know what her husband thought about that.
Not good. Isaiah 19, 4. And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of
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a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord God of hosts.
Yes. Eventually what's going to happen if we don't repent is we will be given
over to a hard master. Well, that's how nations fall, is it not?
You know, the barbarians took over Rome. And we know one of the great themes
of Roman history is that they fell from within because cause of a moral failure.
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So, as a result of their spirit being emptied out, that is the Egyptians,
and therefore being devoid of sound counsel to guide them,
they'll be subjected to a hard and fierce master, which historically turns out
to be Assyria, which was indeed the worst kind of master they could have come under.
Is America's fierce master already on the scene?
Some people say, well, Russia, I don't know about Russia.
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China, yeah, China is eager to rule, very eager. Listen to this.
This is from the Epoch Times.
This is from an article by Darren Taylor, June 9th of this year.
And it's a long one. I just picked out the parts that I think are important.
So listen up. Quote, the Chinese communist regime has annexed media spaces across Africa,
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severely restricting citizens' access to fair and accurate news,
while allowing Beijing to spread anti-American messaging at will,
according to separate research completed by two authorities on China's activities on the continent. it.
Xinhua, and I may not be pronouncing that right, it's X-I-N-H-U-A,
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China's top state media organ, answers directly to the Communist Chinese Party's
propaganda department. Remember that word propaganda.
Xinhua is present in all but out of 14 of Africa's 54 counties,
out of 54 counties that Africa has countries, they're in every one of them except for 14.
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It has 40 African bureaus, It's more than any other media agency on the continent.
And it is staffed by almost 1,000 people, mostly, of course, who are Africans.
Now, back in my day, the Voice of America was big, and it was everywhere.
And Voice of America was big in Africa one time. Now they're down to just one station.
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The Voice of America has one bureau left. And what is the purpose of Voice of
America? Well, from the American viewpoint, to spread good propaganda.
Okay? That's what it is. When there's good propaganda, there's bad propaganda.
One Voice of America member has said this, quote, to hear from African journalists
that they're being offered big salaries from the Chinese, well,
we can't blame them. They have families to feed.
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All right, end of quote. So what do we draw from this? Most journalists are
African, and America's influence is disappearing, and China's influence is pervasive,
running through Africa.
Propaganda always precedes revolution. Propaganda precedes revolution.
We learned that, some of us still remember it, from the Nazis because the propaganda,
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you know, and there was a great The Triumph of the Will, a movie made of it
was shown in all the theaters over in Germany.
Well, you have a generation that grows up. The generation that grew up post-World
War I is what founded the Nazi movement, you know. And you look at the generation
in Africa that's being raised up to not like America.
Right. In a few years, they're going to be in the positions of power.
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They'll be in the positions of power. Less than a generation.
And they will be with the people who have blessed them, which is the Chinese.
So, propaganda is everything, and it's everywhere, especially Chinese propaganda.
So, that's something to think about. Now, look at Isaiah 19,
verse 11. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish.
The wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
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How can you say to Pharaoh, I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings?
Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the
Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
Yeah, what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
Zoan, of course, is another name for Egypt and they become their counselors,
(29:20):
the people who advise the leaders.
They've become stupid, stupid.
And you know, and the funny thing is, funny not ha ha ha, but funny bad.
I can still remember because I remember watching the tape, the video of that
after first, when President Obama was in office and they had this big bill and
(29:41):
stack, it looked like it was like two foot high and Nancy Pelosi made the comment, well.
People would complain they hadn't a chance to read it. She said,
well, we have to pass the bill before you can read it. Now, everybody took this
as a joke, and yeah, that's Nancy.
People, that's stupid. I mean, recognize it for what it is.
Otherwise, we're going to have trouble. And the verse 12 that Randy went on
(30:02):
to read, where are your wise men?
Let them tell you what they might know, what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
In other words, as they are doing their stupid counseling, God is already planning to bring judgment.
So, look now, Isaiah 19, verse 13.
The princes of Zion have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded.
(30:25):
Those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made Egypt stagger.
Wise counsel in any government, past or present, is the foundation of good governance.
Look at Lincoln and the wisdom he had, and they still write books about the
wisdom he had for governance and how to work, how to actually govern a country.
But now, such counsel shakes the edifice of our government.
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The whole USA is shaken in some fashion.
It gets worse. Isaiah 19, verse 14.
Confusion reigns. There is no one to give wide counsel, nor is there anyone
(31:09):
who could carry it out if they had it. All you have to do is look at the latest
Israeli-Hamas war and how we have flipped back and forth three or four times
of that as if we don't have a position.
The problem with the war in Ukraine, the recent anti-Semite demonstrations on
the college campuses and the inability to address it, the border disaster,
and a coming podcast at some point, the schadenfreude of everyone.
(31:33):
One, once Trump got convicted on those crimes, so-called, and it will be determined,
I guess, later whether or not they're so or not.
But the point I'm making is the left just rejoiced in that because he's their enemy. That's obvious.
And there's a lot of literature in the Bible that says, don't do that.
Never rejoice when your enemy goes down. In fact, there's a whole book in the
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Old Testament called Obadiah, which deals with that.
So, confusion. The drunk searches under of the streetlight because he can see better there.
Rather than in the dark where he lost his money. It's an old vaudeville joke.
When God confuses those who are supposed to be wise, they look in vain for answers.
And so, Isaiah 19, verse 15. And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or
(32:19):
tail, palm branch or reed may do.
In other words, from the leaders all the way down to the people at the bottom,
from the highest to the lowest, there'll be a failure to include God in the
plan, and that becomes the plan of failure.
Think of the decline of law and order in the last 20 years in this country and
cop killings. And we've done some podcasts on that.
(32:40):
Here's one, and I could take the next 20 hours just reciting these from the past few years.
Here in Tennessee, there was a young lady named Jillian Ludwig,
a New Jersey first-year student at Belmont, and then a fellow named Shaquille
Taylor, who was out and about, shot a gun and killed her.
The district attorney's office did not prosecute this man earlier.
(33:03):
The DA's office told station WSMV4 that he was found incompetent to stand trial.
And we just recently did something along those lines with Robert Herr's interview
with President Biden and said, yes, yes, he did these things,
but he's an old man and he's incompetent because he's got no good memory, you know.
(33:24):
That seems to be a kind of thing now, confusion, having no sense and making
sure nobody else has sense so you can, whatever.
It's just craziness. Listen to this quote. This is from November 8th of last year from that station.
Quote, this is an issue that WSMV4 chief investigator Jeremy Finley highlighted
(33:45):
just two weeks ago in WSMV4 investigation.
How is it that people deemed mentally incompetent keep getting arrested for
crimes and are released packing to the streets?
Yes. And that's it's not happening here in Tennessee. And you could go through
the states and everybody's got a story. And that's the real insanity.
And leaders have become fools. some people will
(34:08):
say we need to follow and it's a
good passage second chronicles 7 verses 14 through 16
if my people who are called by my
name 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 now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made
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in this place For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever.
My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
Now, I've heard this quote a lot as the answer to our country.
But keep in mind, who is this being applied to? It's applied to Israel.
Notice what God says. My eyes will be opened, my ears attentive to the prayer
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that's made in this place, which is Jerusalem at the temple.
Temple, for now I've chosen and consecrated this house, the temple,
that my name may be there forever.
My eyes and my heart will be there all the time. Where did Daniel turn when
he prayed three times a day? He turned toward the temple in Jerusalem.
And so, this is addressed to historic Israel, not the USA.
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If we applied it to the USA, then it should be all of we who are Christians need to be repenting.
And if we've been placing our hope in politics to save America, we should be repenting.
Listen to this from Psalms 146, verses 3 through 6.
Put not your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no salvation.
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When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his
God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever.
Once again, notice the faith is in first and foremost, God is our creator because
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as creator, he rules over the nations.
They're not redeemed. And there are nations that are unredeemed,
but he's the ruler, so it comes from his creator status.
And so Israel understood that. So they made sure they first and foremost said,
God, you made us. You created us.
Before we go any further, whatever else you've done for us.
So, however, there is a nation that is explicitly called to glorify God and has been so redeemed.
(36:23):
And that's us who are Christians. 1 Peter 2, verse 9.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
A people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Yes.
The language that would be applied to Israel is now applied to the church made
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up of Jews and Gentiles, chosen race, the world priesthood, a holy nation.
And our purpose is to say God's called us out of darkness into his marvelous
light and we bear witness to that.
But what about America, our homeland?
Well, listen up. 1 Peter 2 again, verse 11.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of
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the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Yes, we are sojourners and exiles on planet earth.
And of course, we might think of our problem with the borders and a lot of exiles
coming across the The border's there.
This world is not my home. Yeah. And so we're in that category,
according to the Bible, in some sense.
We are sojourners and exiles. We don't have a stake in that sense in America lasting forever.
(37:35):
This world, including the USA, is not my home. I'm just a passing through.
Remember, Jesus says the meek shall inherit the earth.
And when's that? Listen to this. 1 Peter 2, again, verse 12.
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against
you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
(38:00):
A day of visitation, the return of Jesus.
And if we live a life that bears witness to the Lord, that is a good deed.
We may have words or other acts to add to that, but certainly living for God is an act itself.
And as Peter says, that is what we need to be doing right now for our country.
It's just being Christian, live up to our calling.
(38:22):
So, should we pray for a revival? Well, as for me and my house,
we're not against praying for revival. I would never say you shouldn't do that.
But I do ask this, what do the Scriptures tell us to do?
Is there explicit place in the Bible, especially the New Testament,
where it says, you know, pray for revival?
It does. It says we should pray for the ultimate revival, and that's where our priorities should be.
(38:46):
Here are the top three seeking the ultimate revival Scriptures that we need to pay attention to.
First of all, Matthew 6, verses 9 and 10. This is, of course, the Lord's Prayer.
Number one, pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth. Wouldn't that be the greatest
(39:10):
revival of all, the greatest thing to happen?
Here's our political solution and the call for the greatest revival.
It's funny that we allow something that is a temporal experience,
a revival, revival to completely always keep us from the ultimates of scripture
that we're supposed to be primarily praying for.
And by the way, just because the person you voted for to get into the presidency,
that's not the time for revival.
(39:32):
That's not a revival. We have another podcast called Political Solution Delusion
that answers some of that as well. Exactly. Yes.
So Jesus tells us to pray this. And since he talks about daily bread,
it's a kind of prayer, whether repeating repeating the Lord's Prayer or putting it into your own words.
We should regularly be praying for God's kingdom to come on earth so things
(39:55):
will be like they are in heaven. It'll be heavenly.
So, number two, here is Peter's solution for revival as well.
2 Peter 3, verses 11 through 13.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you
to be in the lives of holiness and godliness,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord,
(40:16):
because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved,
and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn?
But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
All right, the destruction of planet Earth at the return of Jesus and its restoration,
and out of it coming a new heavens and new earth, which leads us finally into
(40:38):
the final stage of that in the book of Revelation.
But pick up on verse 12. He said we should be living Christian lives,
holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening, meaning this kind of of life
actually hastens the coming of the day of God.
Because why? Because we should be awed of what God's going to do on that day.
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And according to his promise, we are waiting, and our waiting should be the
hastening. So that's the number two.
So there's a paradox of faith there. As we wait, we hasten.
Somebody say, well, how do we hasten the coming of God, the coming of the Lord?
The prayer that Jesus gave us, Peter points out our lifestyle, all right?
Missions, supporting missions. Now, some of you probably have not heard about China's.
(41:26):
Growing evasive influence around the world. And that's why I did that one for
Africa. We could do lots more.
But there's also a flip side to this. You know, I've mentioned before,
we support a mission to the Muslims in Africa.
Got a letter this past week from the team that works down there.
And they have, not only do they do good works, they put in wells,
they build buildings, they help people learn how to plant, but they have evangelism
(41:49):
missions and they have schools for children.
We're in a place there, and they're located in Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso. so.
And in Ghana, the letter was addressing their school in Ghana.
They continue to pick up more and more Muslim children from Muslim families
to be educated in their Christian setting because the Muslims don't have anything to educate their kids.
(42:10):
And he says, they've noticed that they get a great education.
And of course, they also hear about the love of Jesus. So I thought,
well, you're never going to hear that on the news. So we got to get that in the podcast.
But the fact that Muslim Muslim people in Africa, which shows us we should not
have an animus against Muslims, have enough,
I don't know, goodwill toward these Christians to say, we see that these kids
(42:32):
turn out good. And so they've been sending their kids to the Muslim school.
Contrast that with our schools, which are continually having more and more and
more trouble. So it's the same situation in Haiti, you know,
Hope for Haiti's Children.
Right. That is supported as well.
Well, you know, the gangs and the entities behind the rioting and everything else,
(42:56):
they at least see the goodness as what's coming from those Christian schools
and support it and want the Christian school as gang members' kids going to their school.
That's excellent. Yeah. Yeah. So supporting missions is a great way to hasten the day of the Lord.
And, number three, number four.
This from John, after seeing all the great and disturbing visions and judgments
(43:19):
of the book of Revelation, here's what John has to say about this in the very
last two verses of the Bible, Revelation 22, 20, and 21.
Number three. Number three. He who testifies to these things says,
surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. And so ends the book of Revelation.
(43:41):
John says this after he's seen all these judgments, because people want revival,
they don't want judgments.
But the greatest revival will only come through the judgments of God, one way or the other.
Surely I'm coming soon. And John says, Amen, come Lord Jesus.
And my translation has an exclamation point. There's none in the Greek,
of course, but I think it's proper to put it there.
So to pray the Lord's Prayer, to really strive to hasten the return of Jesus
(44:03):
by how we live, and having seen all the judgments, we read the book of Revelation
that prepare the way for Christ's return.
Turn, and then to shout out a final plea like John did, having seen all that,
Lord, come, because yes, it's disturbing sight to see those judgments,
but we know on the other side of that, everything will be great.
So we got to be involved in these things. So when the great day of visitation
(44:24):
comes, as Peter says, there'll be those, hopefully us, if we're here when that
happens, that others have seen the deeds of what we've been doing,
and they will glorify God right along with us when that happens.
That's an untold story that you don't hear often from the second coming.
And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, thanks, Jim. We've got a lot to think about and perhaps you have questions or comments on it.
(44:48):
And to that end, please send us your questions or comments to events and expectations
at gmail.com or simply post your question in the comments on the podcast on
your favorite platform.
This has been Current Events and Christian and expectations.
And until next time, keep looking up.
Music.
(00:08):
Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the judgment of America.
We'll lead off with Matthew 24, verses 29 through 30, and we'll have many other
scriptures that we reference and read today.
And of course, we'll put those in the overview.
(00:30):
But with the question before us, is God judging America? America.
Let's just dig right in. And good day to everyone out there in the podcast world.
Questions often asked, is God going to judge America? Well, he judges all nations.
This is throughout the Bible.
But as far as our country is concerned, we can make the case,
(00:52):
not that we want to, but that it's already happening.
What do I mean by that? Well, here is a article from WorldNetDaily back on February 19th.
And the headline is this, Solar Eclipse to Mark the Beginning of Judgment Upon America.
Pastor Mark Biltz of the El Shaddai Ministries is sharing his insights into
(01:17):
the upcoming solar eclipse that will take place on Monday, April 8th, 2024.
End of quote. Well, of course, that's already happened, right?
Yes. But let's fill this out, what else he's got to say.
He goes on to say that many times solar eclipses have happened in connection
with significant events on Earth.
(01:39):
And we don't deny that. For example, quote, says the article,
With a bit of research, Biltz discovered that a solar eclipse took place in
1948, the year Israel declared itself a nation.
And again in 1967, when Israel emerged victorious from the Six-Day War and unified Jerusalem.
(02:00):
With a little more research, he discovered another solar eclipse in 1492,
the year that the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal.
Remarkably, a partial solar eclipse appeared above both Rome and Jerusalem in 67 AD.
One year later, Nero committed suicide, and in the year 70, the temple in Jerusalem
(02:21):
was destroyed by the Romans.
My response is, well, yes, but I don't know what that means or how that proves
anything about judgment on America.
Eclipses, as best I see it, are not mentioned in the Bible.
Well, people will quote this from Matthew 29, 30, and 36, which shows up in
(02:42):
other places. It's apocalyptic language.
And listen to it as Randy reads it.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and
the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes
(03:02):
of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds
of heaven with power and great glory.
But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father only.
It's interesting that they don't, eclipses aren't mentioned.
There's earthquakes famines pestilences wars
(03:24):
wars but but no no eclipses
no we have joshua's top in the sun and things of
that sort but this passage here this apocalyptic passage from matthew 24 deals
with a one-time event remember jesus says no one knows this day or when the
sun's going to go out so to speak yeah well then it's not an eclipse different
(03:45):
than because he clips you can predict them in advance,
and et cetera, but this cannot be predicted, so it's not an eclipse.
From the scriptural standpoint, that is, what does the Bible say is a sign,
Jesus makes this the sign that Rome, because that was what this eclipse he mentioned
was all about, would destroy Jerusalem, and it would be this,
Luke 21, verses 20 through 24.
(04:07):
But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.
Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are
inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it.
For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.
Alas for women who are pregnant, and for those who are nursing infants in those days!
(04:32):
For there will be great distress upon the earth, and wrath against this people.
They will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive among all nations.
And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of
the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Yes, this passage deals with the first coming of Jesus, and Jesus makes it very
(04:53):
clear in Luke's presentation that armies are going to surround Jerusalem.
Breath is going to be upon the Jewish people, and they will be scattered by
the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations.
And then this, Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the
times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
(05:13):
Well, they're still being trampled. Well, and this Luke 21, 20 through 24,
that was referenced to 70 AD. So it's past.
It's past. It's history. It's past. It's history. Yeah. The future is,
in other words, what will be a sign of Jesus coming back when the Gentiles are
no longer trampling Jerusalem underfoot.
I mean, you can deduct that from the passage.
(05:34):
Israel in the land, which was made out, it was a big deal back in the 40s when
this happened, and everyone thought Jesus will come in the next 40 years, which he did not.
Israel is back in the land is not a fulfillment. It could be preparation for
the fulfillment, for the end of Gentile rule.
And when that happens, Gentiles will no longer rule, but God's people will rule
(05:55):
the earth, both Jews and Gentiles together, those who are the followers of Jesus,
since that is what we find in Scripture.
A basis for this podcast will be the patterns found in Scripture concerning
judgment of Gentile nations as our guide, not eclipses.
So, will God judge nations, even ours?
One thing is certain. The time of the Gentiles ruling over God's people will end.
(06:19):
Listen to Revelation 5, 9 through 10. And they sang a new song, saying,
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain,
and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
(06:41):
Okay, in this quote from Revelation, we go from the time he ransomed people,
that's the cross, the effect of which is still ongoing.
And what will be the result of that, that we will have a kingdom,
we will be priests toward God, and they shall reign on the earth,
which is a pretty clear statement.
In fact, Paul picks up on that. Listen to this from 1 Corinthians 6.2.
(07:02):
The background is the church of Corinth is having all kinds of factions and
fightings, and they're going to secular Gentile courts to solve their problem.
And Paul says, don't do that, because this is practice for you within the church
to settle your own problems because 1 Corinthians 6.2.
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is
(07:24):
to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
So people ask, what does all that mean? I don't know, but I know it means this,
that the saints are going to judge the world. And it's going to happen on the earth.
Yeah. It says on the earth. On the earth. Yes. They shall reign on the earth. Yeah.
So for the rest of this podcast, let's start with a large overview and then narrow it down.
(07:46):
First of all, as to judgment of nations. Psalm 9, 17.
The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
Absolutely. Now, maybe one day we'll do a podcast on, what about all those verses
in the Psalms that says the nations will come and worship God,
and you find that revelation.
But that's for another time. Right now, we're just talking about the judgment.
(08:07):
And judgment is always a precursor to, finally, the mercies of God.
But we're concentrating on judgment in this podcast. cast.
And this, Psalm 9, verse 17, that truth holds for all nations through all time, as we will see.
And this would be especially true for our nation, founded on the Judaic Christian
foundation, which is currently clearly forgetting God.
(08:30):
And the Psalm says, nations that do that will be turned into Sheol.
They're going to be dead. They'll be dust.
Listen to Psalm 105, verse 7. He is the Lord our God.
His judgments are in all the earth. Yeah, that's an ongoing thing.
Out of the Old Testament and the New, God is always making judgments.
We may not be able to discern where all these are happening.
(08:53):
But that they're happening should be confessed and admitted.
And that's present tense. That's present tense. That's not past tense. Yeah.
So there's not a time when his judgments are not in the earth.
Keep in mind, and this is very important, God is not in his essential nature,
or as theologians like to say, in his ontological existence.
He is not an angry God. He is centered in his essence in holy love,
(09:19):
whose patience is phenomenal.
Psalm 30, verses 4 and 5.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.
For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Right. One of my favorite verses in the book of Psalms, anger for a moment,
(09:42):
but favor for a lifetime.
In the long run, we find God's wrath brief compared to his favor for us and
eventually for the world, because you know a new world is coming.
Wrath, keep this in mind throughout the Bible, wrath refers to this world,
the land of living judgments.
This is not about hell or post-mortem judgments. That's another category.
(10:03):
This is about what God will do to planet earth at various times, has done it.
We see that in the Old Testament with Babylon, with Assyria and what he's doing now.
Doesn't deal with what's going to to take place after there is death.
Psalm 103 verses 8 through 10. The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
(10:24):
He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our
iniquities. And we can rejoice for that.
And for those of us not up on early English English vocabulary, chide.
Yeah, chide and tarry. Yeah, get mad at and get after and rebuke and all that.
(10:47):
Well, if God were a person who kept his anger, he would have quit with no one
in the family. That would have been the end of it. True.
And there are times when judgments become a necessity. They become necessary.
Listen to this from Isaiah 26, 9 through 10. My soul yearns for you in the night,
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
(11:10):
For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness, he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty
of the Lord. That's an interesting statement from Isaiah.
When God's judgments are in the earth, and we have already seen that they are,
(11:31):
they're doing something.
And this is one way in which finally people can learn righteousness.
But if he doesn't make judgments, then the wicked, as the book of Ecclesiastes
says, just keep on thinking they're fine, they do their thing.
If he doesn't learn righteousness, then a judgment of the worst kind is going to come.
The point of the beginning of judgments, which is what we're looking at here
(11:51):
with our country, is to repent so you forestall the consummation judgment of a nation.
Listen to what Paul says in Romans 2.4. Or do you presume on the riches of his
kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant
to lead you to repentance?
Right now we're saying God's kindness. And is that so we can indulge?
(12:14):
No, it's so we can repent.
That's the story of God's kindness. And that's a judgment of his kind as well.
That's important for people to hear, I think, out there is you think that it's
God's going to judge you, God's going to condemn you, and that that is what
makes people turn to good.
It's not. It's God's goodness and his kindness that turn on. Exactly.
(12:36):
So we should not indulge ourselves if we say, well, and the psalmist,
you catch, you know, in the words of the wicked, you know, he doesn't see what we're doing.
We're getting by with it. You get that from the psalmist on a regular basis.
But that's God's patience.
You know, in Psalm 50, God says, I didn't judge you yet thoroughly,
you know, obliterate you, and you thought everything was just fine.
(12:56):
But when judgment comes, it'll be so fast, you can't do anything about it.
Yeah. And so that's why we don't want to indulge in our wickedness as a country,
because it will finally hit. So-
And we are to learn, therefore, from the scriptures and from the providence
of God, and especially the leaders of government, and that's a focus point for this podcast,
(13:18):
the leaders of government need to learn that God judges nations for their sins,
and they are held, the leaders, they are especially held accountable.
We're going to have a quote here from Daniel 5.
Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, is the king. He's seen the handwriting
on the wall. It has disturbed him and shook him up greatly.
There's a great Johnny Cash song with that. That's right. Yeah,
(13:38):
that's right. I'm familiar with it.
And so he was having a banquet using
the utensils from the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, and it's a blasphemy.
And so God writes this thing on the wall, and Daniel tells him it means you're
done with it. You're over. It's gone. on.
And he's a prime example of a leader who didn't learn from God's patience with
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him that he should have done better.
So, listen to this. This is from Daniel 5, verses 20 through 23.
First part, and then verse 30.
But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt
proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him.
He was driven from among the children of mankind, and his mind was made like
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that of a beast, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys.
He was fed grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,
until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind,
and sets over it whom he will.
And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this,
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but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, And the vessels
of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords,
your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them.
Right. So, in other words, Daniel rehearsed to him, this is what your granddad did.
He lifted himself up in pride, and he suffered a great judgment personally and
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was like the wild beast for seven years.
Then he came to his senses and acknowledged that God was God and was restored.
And Belshazzar, you being in the family, you know this story.
He says, you, his successor, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew
all this. In other words, God's been patient with you.
Why haven't you taken this example to heart? What happens is in then verse 30.
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That very night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed. Yes.
So God makes an example of Nebuchadnezzar. He judges a government leader for others to take heart.
The example should have had the same effect on Belshazzar as if he went through it himself.
But no, not following these examples, God gives judgment upon the leaders of the world.
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What does God expect from nations? And clearly, as we will see,
this expectation continues into the second coming of Christ.
What God expects of people and government, all the way from the Old Testament
to the end of the New Testament and the return of Jesus.
So listen to Psalm 33, verses 6 through 9 as a setup for this.
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By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth and all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap, he puts the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand
in awe of him, for he spoke and it came to be, he commanded and it stood firm.
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Yes, the call to fear the God who is the creator of all things is still constant.
It is still ongoing up to the second coming of Christ as you move into the New
Testament. That hasn't changed.
All the world is called by the prophets of old and ultimately by God himself
through his prophets and through the scripture, through the word and through
his providence to fear him.
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So the people of the earth are called first and foremost to worship the creator
of heaven and earth right up to the second coming. And in fact,
the book of Revelation authenticates that, Revelation 14, verses 6 and 7.
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to
proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.
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And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour
of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth,
the sea and the springs of water. So that goes out to the whole earth.
And you say, well, you know, will angels do that? I'm just telling you what the text says.
And I think unless you have reasons to change the text, you go with it.
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Somehow, by way of an angel, it's communicated to everybody.
The hour of judgment has come. It's here. So worship the creator.
Worship the creator. Do that. Start there. So, from the beginning of history
to now and yet to come, there's no excuse for the people of earth not recognizing
and giving glory and thanks to the Creator.
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And especially this is so of the purported leaders of the nations.
Listen to the verses of Psalm 33, 10-11, which follow right after those verses
that Randy just got through reading.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
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And so these plans, the counsel of the nations, the plans of the peoples, where do they come from?
Is there a popular poll, democratically administered? No, no.
It comes from the leaders of the said peoples and nations who don't follow the counsel of the Lord.
This is the counsel that they give to their people.
And so people follow their leaders. And if they're rebellious,
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then the people are going to be rebellious. The people are going to be rebellious. Yeah.
Recognize God and give him the glory. That's the thrust of the Old and New Testament.
Everybody is to do that. There's no exception.
This is clearly laid out in Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is pivotal in the book of Psalms.
First two Psalms open up the Psalms and lay the groundwork for everything that
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follows, which can sooner or later be brought right back to Psalm 1 or Psalm 2 in some fashion.
And this Psalm 2 explains why there's so much emphasis in the Psalms and in
the prophets about the nations, especially their leaders, and the need of the
leaders to recognize and glorify God.
Now, listen to the Psalm now. Now, this psalm is quoted, by the way,
in the New Testament, Book of Acts, Chapter 4. It's alluded to elsewhere.
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Psalms 2, verses 1, 2, and 3. Why do the nations rage in the people's plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds
apart and cast away their cords from us.
Right. So what do the kings, the rulers, the government leaders of nations say?
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Rebel. We rebel. We don't want God in our government. We don't want that.
And of course, the end result is they will face a judgment if they don't repent.
So, what are some of the signs that a nation is being judged before final judgment falls?
In other words, throughout Scripture, God sends prophets to nations.
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Jeremiah wrote letters to Babylonia and other places, and you find Jonah going
to Nineveh. And so there's ample precedent for God warning people and saying,
listen, this is what's going on in your country, and it's wrong, and you need to repent.
And so there are signs, whether it's prophetic words, natural disasters,
which clearly are an act of God sometimes.
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Or rulers who have lost their senses because they have rejected God's word,
and so they no longer have a sound mind.
Nebuchadnezzar stands as the primary example throughout the Bible as an example of that.
He literally lost his senses because he wouldn't recognize God Most High as
creator and ruler of all people.
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So it's because of these signs that they're ignored that judgment finally falls.
And when it falls, then it comes as such a surprise because nobody was tracking
the signs when they were occurring, okay?
So, we're going to use a passage from Isaiah 19, using Egypt as our model,
because Egypt undergoes more than one judgment in the Old Testament. Good example.
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And this is how a Gentile nation is judged.
This is how most Gentile nations, in fact, have fallen, if not all of them.
I don't have the history of all of them. But the ones I know,
you can certainly say this, that their leaders, because they ignored God,
became incompetent in the worst kind of ways to rule.
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All right. So listen to this. We're going to start with Isaiah 19, the first two verses.
An oracle concerning Egypt.
Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt.
And the idols of Egypt will tremble
at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight against
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each other, and each other against their neighbor, city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.
Okay, notice, first of all, with Egypt, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud.
Now, that's apocalyptic imagery, which you can find in Psalm 18 with David,
when he says, God came down from heaven on a cloud with his chariot of fire
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and all that and rescued me. You can find it in Matthew 24 that Randy read earlier.
Behold, I'm coming on the clouds of glory, a time of judgment and salvation.
Revelation 1-7, John says, Behold, He comes on the clouds of heaven,
glory, and all eyes will see Him.
And prior to that, people will be against one another. There'll be divisions
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of the worst kind, Egyptians against Egyptians.
And we might say, well, why Egypt here? Well, Egypt was judged during the time
of Moses, and it's not learned to recognize yet the highest God,
but continues in rebellion at this point in Israel's history.
So from a Gentile nation that was judged by God, we learn how the leadership
of a given nation is afflicted with their own bad judgments,
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which in fact come from God that he He pours out on them before the final great judgment comes.
So God waits to see if their foolish decisions finally rebuke them.
They come to a conclusion that they need God. And that does happen sometimes.
Nebuchadnezzar did it. Yeah. So it can't happen.
And peoples can repent. And people can. Like Nineveh. Like Nineveh.
Yeah. Absolutely. Or is judgment finally going to come?
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Do the people want a nation that is clearly falling into chaos to continue? Or will they repent?
That's the question. Look at Isaiah now. Listen to it. 19, verse 3.
And the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
and I will confound their counsel, and they will inquire of the idols and the
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sorcerers and the mediums and the necromancers.
And we had a podcast a while back which dealt with our government's involvement
already, believe it or not, in things occultic. Yeah. But here's one that- Witchcraft or witchcraft.
Witchcraft or witchcraft. Yeah, that was the title of the podcast.
Nancy Reagan and astrologer Joan Quigley are involved in this.
This is called How Nancy Reagan Let Her Astrologer Control the Presidency.
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This is an article from the New York Post not that long ago,
back in 2021, back in October.
And listen to the quote here from this.
Days after a bullet pierced the body of President Ronald Reagan on March 30th,
1981, and I remember that well, his distraught wife, Nancy, got a call from
longtime Hollywood friend, Merv Griffin.
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I remember him. The TV host told the first lady that star charts drawn by San
Francisco astrologer Joan Quigley, a mutual acquaintance, had pinpointed March
30th as a dangerous day for her husband.
Oh, my God, Nancy gasped. I could have stopped it.
All right. So let's just stop the quote right there. By the way,
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if you remember, Lincoln had astrologers and seances in his dominion as well
with his wife, but she was trying to contact her dead child.
This is about getting a strong agenda to run the government,
okay? That's not a good idea.
Lena that, I don't know what her husband thought about that.
Not good. Isaiah 19, 4. And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of
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a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord God of hosts.
Yes. Eventually what's going to happen if we don't repent is we will be given
over to a hard master. Well, that's how nations fall, is it not?
You know, the barbarians took over Rome. And we know one of the great themes
of Roman history is that they fell from within because cause of a moral failure.
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So, as a result of their spirit being emptied out, that is the Egyptians,
and therefore being devoid of sound counsel to guide them,
they'll be subjected to a hard and fierce master, which historically turns out
to be Assyria, which was indeed the worst kind of master they could have come under.
Is America's fierce master already on the scene?
Some people say, well, Russia, I don't know about Russia.
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China, yeah, China is eager to rule, very eager. Listen to this.
This is from the Epoch Times.
This is from an article by Darren Taylor, June 9th of this year.
And it's a long one. I just picked out the parts that I think are important.
So listen up. Quote, the Chinese communist regime has annexed media spaces across Africa,
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severely restricting citizens' access to fair and accurate news,
while allowing Beijing to spread anti-American messaging at will,
according to separate research completed by two authorities on China's activities on the continent. it.
Xinhua, and I may not be pronouncing that right, it's X-I-N-H-U-A,
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China's top state media organ, answers directly to the Communist Chinese Party's
propaganda department. Remember that word propaganda.
Xinhua is present in all but out of 14 of Africa's 54 counties,
out of 54 counties that Africa has countries, they're in every one of them except for 14.
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It has 40 African bureaus, It's more than any other media agency on the continent.
And it is staffed by almost 1,000 people, mostly, of course, who are Africans.
Now, back in my day, the Voice of America was big, and it was everywhere.
And Voice of America was big in Africa one time. Now they're down to just one station.
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The Voice of America has one bureau left. And what is the purpose of Voice of
America? Well, from the American viewpoint, to spread good propaganda.
Okay? That's what it is. When there's good propaganda, there's bad propaganda.
One Voice of America member has said this, quote, to hear from African journalists
that they're being offered big salaries from the Chinese, well,
we can't blame them. They have families to feed.
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All right, end of quote. So what do we draw from this? Most journalists are
African, and America's influence is disappearing, and China's influence is pervasive,
running through Africa.
Propaganda always precedes revolution. Propaganda precedes revolution.
We learned that, some of us still remember it, from the Nazis because the propaganda,
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you know, and there was a great The Triumph of the Will, a movie made of it
was shown in all the theaters over in Germany.
Well, you have a generation that grows up. The generation that grew up post-World
War I is what founded the Nazi movement, you know. And you look at the generation
in Africa that's being raised up to not like America.
Right. In a few years, they're going to be in the positions of power.
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They'll be in the positions of power. Less than a generation.
And they will be with the people who have blessed them, which is the Chinese.
So, propaganda is everything, and it's everywhere, especially Chinese propaganda.
So, that's something to think about. Now, look at Isaiah 19,
verse 11. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish.
The wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
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How can you say to Pharaoh, I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings?
Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the
Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
Yeah, what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
Zoan, of course, is another name for Egypt and they become their counselors,
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the people who advise the leaders.
They've become stupid, stupid.
And you know, and the funny thing is, funny not ha ha ha, but funny bad.
I can still remember because I remember watching the tape, the video of that
after first, when President Obama was in office and they had this big bill and
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stack, it looked like it was like two foot high and Nancy Pelosi made the comment, well.
People would complain they hadn't a chance to read it. She said,
well, we have to pass the bill before you can read it. Now, everybody took this
as a joke, and yeah, that's Nancy.
People, that's stupid. I mean, recognize it for what it is.
Otherwise, we're going to have trouble. And the verse 12 that Randy went on
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to read, where are your wise men?
Let them tell you what they might know, what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
In other words, as they are doing their stupid counseling, God is already planning to bring judgment.
So, look now, Isaiah 19, verse 13.
The princes of Zion have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded.
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Those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made Egypt stagger.
Wise counsel in any government, past or present, is the foundation of good governance.
Look at Lincoln and the wisdom he had, and they still write books about the
wisdom he had for governance and how to work, how to actually govern a country.
But now, such counsel shakes the edifice of our government.
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The whole USA is shaken in some fashion.
It gets worse. Isaiah 19, verse 14.
Confusion reigns. There is no one to give wide counsel, nor is there anyone
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who could carry it out if they had it. All you have to do is look at the latest
Israeli-Hamas war and how we have flipped back and forth three or four times
of that as if we don't have a position.
The problem with the war in Ukraine, the recent anti-Semite demonstrations on
the college campuses and the inability to address it, the border disaster,
and a coming podcast at some point, the schadenfreude of everyone.
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One, once Trump got convicted on those crimes, so-called, and it will be determined,
I guess, later whether or not they're so or not.
But the point I'm making is the left just rejoiced in that because he's their enemy. That's obvious.
And there's a lot of literature in the Bible that says, don't do that.
Never rejoice when your enemy goes down. In fact, there's a whole book in the
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Old Testament called Obadiah, which deals with that.
So, confusion. The drunk searches under of the streetlight because he can see better there.
Rather than in the dark where he lost his money. It's an old vaudeville joke.
When God confuses those who are supposed to be wise, they look in vain for answers.
And so, Isaiah 19, verse 15. And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or
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tail, palm branch or reed may do.
In other words, from the leaders all the way down to the people at the bottom,
from the highest to the lowest, there'll be a failure to include God in the
plan, and that becomes the plan of failure.
Think of the decline of law and order in the last 20 years in this country and
cop killings. And we've done some podcasts on that.
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Here's one, and I could take the next 20 hours just reciting these from the past few years.
Here in Tennessee, there was a young lady named Jillian Ludwig,
a New Jersey first-year student at Belmont, and then a fellow named Shaquille
Taylor, who was out and about, shot a gun and killed her.
The district attorney's office did not prosecute this man earlier.
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The DA's office told station WSMV4 that he was found incompetent to stand trial.
And we just recently did something along those lines with Robert Herr's interview
with President Biden and said, yes, yes, he did these things,
but he's an old man and he's incompetent because he's got no good memory, you know.
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That seems to be a kind of thing now, confusion, having no sense and making
sure nobody else has sense so you can, whatever.
It's just craziness. Listen to this quote. This is from November 8th of last year from that station.
Quote, this is an issue that WSMV4 chief investigator Jeremy Finley highlighted
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just two weeks ago in WSMV4 investigation.
How is it that people deemed mentally incompetent keep getting arrested for
crimes and are released packing to the streets?
Yes. And that's it's not happening here in Tennessee. And you could go through
the states and everybody's got a story. And that's the real insanity.
And leaders have become fools. some people will
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say we need to follow and it's a
good passage second chronicles 7 verses 14 through 16
if my people who are called by my
name 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 now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made
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in this place For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever.
My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
Now, I've heard this quote a lot as the answer to our country.
But keep in mind, who is this being applied to? It's applied to Israel.
Notice what God says. My eyes will be opened, my ears attentive to the prayer
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that's made in this place, which is Jerusalem at the temple.
Temple, for now I've chosen and consecrated this house, the temple,
that my name may be there forever.
My eyes and my heart will be there all the time. Where did Daniel turn when
he prayed three times a day? He turned toward the temple in Jerusalem.
And so, this is addressed to historic Israel, not the USA.
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If we applied it to the USA, then it should be all of we who are Christians need to be repenting.
And if we've been placing our hope in politics to save America, we should be repenting.
Listen to this from Psalms 146, verses 3 through 6.
Put not your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no salvation.
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When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his
God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever.
Once again, notice the faith is in first and foremost, God is our creator because
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as creator, he rules over the nations.
They're not redeemed. And there are nations that are unredeemed,
but he's the ruler, so it comes from his creator status.
And so Israel understood that. So they made sure they first and foremost said,
God, you made us. You created us.
Before we go any further, whatever else you've done for us.
So, however, there is a nation that is explicitly called to glorify God and has been so redeemed.
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And that's us who are Christians. 1 Peter 2, verse 9.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
A people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Yes.
The language that would be applied to Israel is now applied to the church made
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up of Jews and Gentiles, chosen race, the world priesthood, a holy nation.
And our purpose is to say God's called us out of darkness into his marvelous
light and we bear witness to that.
But what about America, our homeland?
Well, listen up. 1 Peter 2 again, verse 11.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of
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the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Yes, we are sojourners and exiles on planet earth.
And of course, we might think of our problem with the borders and a lot of exiles
coming across the The border's there.
This world is not my home. Yeah. And so we're in that category,
according to the Bible, in some sense.
We are sojourners and exiles. We don't have a stake in that sense in America lasting forever.
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This world, including the USA, is not my home. I'm just a passing through.
Remember, Jesus says the meek shall inherit the earth.
And when's that? Listen to this. 1 Peter 2, again, verse 12.
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against
you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
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A day of visitation, the return of Jesus.
And if we live a life that bears witness to the Lord, that is a good deed.
We may have words or other acts to add to that, but certainly living for God is an act itself.
And as Peter says, that is what we need to be doing right now for our country.
It's just being Christian, live up to our calling.
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So, should we pray for a revival? Well, as for me and my house,
we're not against praying for revival. I would never say you shouldn't do that.
But I do ask this, what do the Scriptures tell us to do?
Is there explicit place in the Bible, especially the New Testament,
where it says, you know, pray for revival?
It does. It says we should pray for the ultimate revival, and that's where our priorities should be.
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Here are the top three seeking the ultimate revival Scriptures that we need to pay attention to.
First of all, Matthew 6, verses 9 and 10. This is, of course, the Lord's Prayer.
Number one, pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth. Wouldn't that be the greatest
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revival of all, the greatest thing to happen?
Here's our political solution and the call for the greatest revival.
It's funny that we allow something that is a temporal experience,
a revival, revival to completely always keep us from the ultimates of scripture
that we're supposed to be primarily praying for.
And by the way, just because the person you voted for to get into the presidency,
that's not the time for revival.
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That's not a revival. We have another podcast called Political Solution Delusion
that answers some of that as well. Exactly. Yes.
So Jesus tells us to pray this. And since he talks about daily bread,
it's a kind of prayer, whether repeating repeating the Lord's Prayer or putting it into your own words.
We should regularly be praying for God's kingdom to come on earth so things
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will be like they are in heaven. It'll be heavenly.
So, number two, here is Peter's solution for revival as well.
2 Peter 3, verses 11 through 13.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you
to be in the lives of holiness and godliness,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord,
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because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved,
and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn?
But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
All right, the destruction of planet Earth at the return of Jesus and its restoration,
and out of it coming a new heavens and new earth, which leads us finally into
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the final stage of that in the book of Revelation.
But pick up on verse 12. He said we should be living Christian lives,
holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening, meaning this kind of of life
actually hastens the coming of the day of God.
Because why? Because we should be awed of what God's going to do on that day.
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And according to his promise, we are waiting, and our waiting should be the
hastening. So that's the number two.
So there's a paradox of faith there. As we wait, we hasten.
Somebody say, well, how do we hasten the coming of God, the coming of the Lord?
The prayer that Jesus gave us, Peter points out our lifestyle, all right?
Missions, supporting missions. Now, some of you probably have not heard about China's.
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Growing evasive influence around the world. And that's why I did that one for
Africa. We could do lots more.
But there's also a flip side to this. You know, I've mentioned before,
we support a mission to the Muslims in Africa.
Got a letter this past week from the team that works down there.
And they have, not only do they do good works, they put in wells,
they build buildings, they help people learn how to plant, but they have evangelism
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missions and they have schools for children.
We're in a place there, and they're located in Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso. so.
And in Ghana, the letter was addressing their school in Ghana.
They continue to pick up more and more Muslim children from Muslim families
to be educated in their Christian setting because the Muslims don't have anything to educate their kids.
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And he says, they've noticed that they get a great education.
And of course, they also hear about the love of Jesus. So I thought,
well, you're never going to hear that on the news. So we got to get that in the podcast.
But the fact that Muslim Muslim people in Africa, which shows us we should not
have an animus against Muslims, have enough,
I don't know, goodwill toward these Christians to say, we see that these kids
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turn out good. And so they've been sending their kids to the Muslim school.
Contrast that with our schools, which are continually having more and more and
more trouble. So it's the same situation in Haiti, you know,
Hope for Haiti's Children.
Right. That is supported as well.
Well, you know, the gangs and the entities behind the rioting and everything else,
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they at least see the goodness as what's coming from those Christian schools
and support it and want the Christian school as gang members' kids going to their school.
That's excellent. Yeah. Yeah. So supporting missions is a great way to hasten the day of the Lord.
And, number three, number four.
This from John, after seeing all the great and disturbing visions and judgments
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of the book of Revelation, here's what John has to say about this in the very
last two verses of the Bible, Revelation 22, 20, and 21.
Number three. Number three. He who testifies to these things says,
surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. And so ends the book of Revelation.
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John says this after he's seen all these judgments, because people want revival,
they don't want judgments.
But the greatest revival will only come through the judgments of God, one way or the other.
Surely I'm coming soon. And John says, Amen, come Lord Jesus.
And my translation has an exclamation point. There's none in the Greek,
of course, but I think it's proper to put it there.
So to pray the Lord's Prayer, to really strive to hasten the return of Jesus
(44:03):
by how we live, and having seen all the judgments, we read the book of Revelation
that prepare the way for Christ's return.
Turn, and then to shout out a final plea like John did, having seen all that,
Lord, come, because yes, it's disturbing sight to see those judgments,
but we know on the other side of that, everything will be great.
So we got to be involved in these things. So when the great day of visitation
(44:24):
comes, as Peter says, there'll be those, hopefully us, if we're here when that
happens, that others have seen the deeds of what we've been doing,
and they will glorify God right along with us when that happens.
That's an untold story that you don't hear often from the second coming.
And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, thanks, Jim. We've got a lot to think about and perhaps you have questions or comments on it.
(44:48):
And to that end, please send us your questions or comments to events and expectations
at gmail.com or simply post your question in the comments on the podcast on
your favorite platform.
This has been Current Events and Christian and expectations.
And until next time, keep looking up.
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