The State Of The United States. I Must Not Despair.

These days, I’m not as in touch with the news like I have been in the past. I no longer trust the media, no matter the stripe. However, sometimes I can’t resist. When I do, I’m tempted to despair. I hadn’t anticipated the days in which we now live. I didn’t think I would ever be living in a nation where evil is called good, and good, evil. Those who promote these sinful lies are an abomination to the Lord.

“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15).¹

It’s not just the politics over which I am tempted to despair. It is the incomprehensible moral decline and the swiftness of that decay. We have now accepted as normal sexual sins, both natural and unnatural, and even promote them. This nation is on a fast track to destruction, and there will be terrible results. It is very uncomfortable and even frightening that wreaking devastation is one of the ways that God announces to people that He is the Lord. The Old Testament is full of examples. Here is one declaration in which the Lord tells the inhabitants of Mount Seir in Edom what will befall them.

“I will lay your cities waste, and you shall become a desolation, and you shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 35:4).

Cities laid waste. Do we see that happening?

However, I must not, I will not despair. Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables spoke the truth when she said. “To despair is to turn your back on God.” Christians know why this is true. To despair over circumstances of any kind indicates a falling away from God and a lack of faith and trust in Him. And to be unpleasantly honest, what the Lord is doing in inflicting such ruin is actually a blessing. Somehow, according to Paul, tribulations help us enter the kingdom of God.

“When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:21–22).

The reason this is true, perhaps, is because hardships cause Christians to realize that the Lord is sovereign ruler over all things and thus help us understand that we are part of an eternal kingdom where God alone reigns.

They are also a blessing because they will help remove idolatry from our hearts concerning our trust in the United States. When we trust in men and governments, we are leaning, not upon God, but entities that can offer nothing of eternal value.

“Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales;” (Isaiah 40:15a).

Although our government may contain honorable men and women, this is what the Lord says about Himself and them.

“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble” (Isaiah 40:22–24).

So, I will resist the temptation to despair and place my trust and hope where it rightly belongs.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 24–25).

Lord, please help us trust in You alone and not in governments. Help us not to despair, whatever the cause.

¹All Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (2016). Crossway Bibles.

Gif courtesy Edge images.