Our old, rotting, retaining wall made of railroad ties.
It has since been replaced.
Our neighborhood is built on hills.
This means that almost every house is built on some degree of slope. There are many retaining walls. We have one on our south side. Ours was built of railroad ties.
It rotted. In the last year it has been impossible to ignore. I’d see it up close every time I mowed the grass. It was probably caused by termites or water, or both. Weeds and lizards lived in the hollowed-out spaces.
It needed replacing. I was determined to do it myself. Though I never worked in construction and am not a natural at home improvement jobs, I thought I could handle it. And over a couple of weeks and several extra trips to the hardware/lumber store, I did handle it (with some help from a son and son-in-law).
As I was clearing out the old railroad ties, it was so bad that parts had disintegrated into small chunks of wood or even rotted all the way down into dust.
There was so much rot!
It wasn’t the result of sudden action, but of slow decay over time caused by outside forces.
Sin works the same way. It usually starts small. It doesn’t seem too bad at first. It might even become a habit that seems manageable. But its effects are devastating if it isn’t stopped. James 1:15 says, “…after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
Sin, if left un-countered, will gradually destroy both individuals and nations.
In my novel, Spirit of the Times, the main character, Olaf Taylor, and his associates prepare to head to California for a campaign appearance. They have a discussion.
“What happened to California?” David lamented. “It was the state of Nixon and Reagan. It used to be sane, then it went nuts…and in such a short time.” After some discussion, Taylor weighs in: “…I look at it through a theological lens. California, as I see it, was more blessed by God than any other state: with weather, coastline, mountains, deserts, agriculture, and its economy. And what did they do with those blessings? Did they praise God for them? No! They turned away from God. They took the blessings and ran.”
Later, alone, Taylor wonders if God will judge states. He isn’t sure, but he knows that God will judge nations.
There is abundant biblical evidence that God will judge nations. Even Israel was not exempt. The book of Deuteronomy shows us the clear warnings God gave Israel head of time. The books of 1-2 Kings show us the reality of what happened when those warnings were ignored. Israel was well-established with every advantage from God, yet it turned to sin, even habitual sin. Wrong became right, up became down, lies became truth, God’s good and right ways were rejected and replaced by idols.
This story is in there for a reason. It is a warning for others to learn from.
I know, America is not exactly in the same situation as Israel. But the principles are the same. America, like Israel, was blessed, perhaps more than any nation. For a while, we acknowledge God and were grateful to God as the source of those blessings.
But then, over the last 50-60 years, there has been a gradual turning away. Over time, we kept the blessings but forgot the Source of them. And just like Israel in its later history, wrong became right, up became down, lies became truth, and God was replaced by idols (or their modern-day equivalents).
As evidence, we can look at the policies of one of the presidential candidates, Kamala Harris. She supports:
- Abortion (killing of the most vulnerable)
- Illegal immigration (mass lawbreaking)
- Redefining marriage (sexual sin, a replacement for God’s stated design for marriage)
- Transgenderism which threatens to destroy women’s sports (injustice)
- Massive deficit-increasing government spending (theft from future generations to pay for present day selfishness)
- Approving of taxpayer funded sex change operations for inmates and illegal aliens (incentivizing lawbreaking)
These are not the policies of some fringe candidate, but that of the candidate of a major political party. That implies that these things have become widespread, maybe ‘a new normal’. Such things should not be. God sees and knows. Getting to this point happened gradually, but here we are. America needs to change its ways.
What can we do about it?
Elections are not everything, but they are something. There are those who would dismiss politics in favor of ‘changing hearts one at a time’. I’m all for it. But you can do that and do the voting. Seeing as how Christians are to be Christians all the time and in every area, we have no choice but to oppose evil wherever we can, however we can, including through the avenue of elections.
I’m voting for Trump, not because he is as conservative as I’d like (he isn’t), but because his policies are not the defiantly-evil polices that Kamala Harris and her vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz stand for.