The Moral Deterioration in America

Some Thoughts regarding Moral Deterioration in America

In the wake of this past 4th of July let us soberly remember that this nation was not founded as a "Christian nation" as many claim today, but nevertheless, many of America's founding fathers had more wholesome views of God, reflected in the things that they wrote, than the majority of those professing faith in our day. With all of the rejection of God, and the things of God that has occurred over the past several decades, and before, let us think soberly about what is actually preserving America to this day?

Every nation in the world's history has had both a beginning and an end (with the exception of Israel). Nations such as Babylon, the Medo-Persian Empire, Greece, Rome, and Egypt each had their turn to rule the world as world empires. Today what is left of those great nations are archaeological remains, greatly downsized countries, and places of tourism. Each of these fell altogether, or at least fell from their once-held place of world prominence because of moral disintegration.

I personally give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that I was born and have lived all of my life in America. It has been a particularly unique time and place in the world's history. This has been a time characterized by what I would call a general normality of life and of good days that is exceedingly rare. We get up every day, go to work, go to school, make plans, go here and there at will, go on vacation, go on trips, come home, and have a place to come home to. Whether men are rich or poor, there has been an element of safety that has characterized most of our days, safety and normality that are for the most part taken for granted. Many others in the world's history have grown up in such places as a war zone, or "theater of war," or in a time of great plagues, or pestilence, or famine, or in a time of great oppression by the government. These were times when people lived from day to day, not knowing whether or not their family circle or circle of close associates would be unbroken before the day was over. For many, this was what had come to be regarded to be normal.

Peaceful times such as these, particularly, are times that God gives, not only to seek Him, but also to cultivate a love and devotion for His holy Name through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is so that those professing faith, especially, may "lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty" (I Tim. 2:2. Times of less distraction are opportune times that God gives to men so that they may give themselves to setting their affection on things that are above, and not on things on the earth (Col. 3:1-4).

In my lifetime, however, I, personally, as well as many others, have witnessed a steady and significant deterioration in the moral fabric that is all about us. There has been a marked and an increased rejection on almost every level of the Lord and of His Christ, evidenced by such things as the banning of prayer and Bible reading in the schools, the murdering of unborn children (as well as the legalizing of this practice, and affording respectability to the perpetrators of these abominations), the banning of capital punishment for murderers, and other like things have all crept into the fabric of America's society.

The exploitation of concupiscence and violence on television, in movies, in children's games have become increasingly and aggressively prevalent. We have also lived to witness the almost complete devaluation and disintegration of the husband and wife relationship in marriage. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

(Bear with me a little in my folly. In the plumbing industry, male threads have be joined together with female fittings. Couplings and male elbows simply do not go together of themselves. It is the same in the electrical field. Male plugs have to be inserted into female receptacles. That is the only way they go together. Everyone knows this. That is the only way that they serve the purpose for which they were made.

Also, in the animal kingdom, roosters always mate togther with hens, and stallions with mares, rams with ewes, foxes with vixen, drones with queen-bees, and they are productive and serve the purpose for which the Lord God made them. But men, in their departure from, and rebellion against, the living God have left the natural use to work all manner of ungodliness.) These examples will suffice to express our exasperation and lament.

Lest I be misunderstood, I again want to state that I am thankful to God that I was given to live in the time and place of the working out of His purpose in Christ Jesus. But I also know that the God that made the world and all things that are therein is holy. He is holy and righteous in all of His ways. In the gift of His only begotten Son, He has made abundant provision for the putting away of sin once. But He has made no provision for men neglecting Him and His great salvation in Christ, unless it be the provision of being cast away forever from His Presence.

Before Christ's coming into the world to lay down His life a ransom for many, the Scripture says that God winked at times when men were ignorant of His ways, exercising forebearance and longsuffering in view of the coming Redeemer, but now that Christ has come, He commands all men everywhere to repent and take hold of the salvation that He wonderfully provided in His beloved Son. "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isa. 45:22). --editor@banner.org