CHAPTER TEN

A WARNING TO AMERICA

ODOM, AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE END OF THE WORLD:

When studying about the end of the world, there are no better passages to consider than Genesis chapters 18 and 19. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is probably the greatest illustration, the clearest picture, of the end of the world that the Lord has given to us. Jude writes, “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” - Jude 7. Peter says, “If he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) - 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.” - 2 Peter 2:5-10. "It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).

There are many exact parallels between the end of Sodom and the end of the world.

All these facts are exact parallels between Sodom and the end of the world, and would lead us to believe that the clock that God used for Sodom’s destruction is exactly the same time clock that God will use for the destruction of the world.

GOD’S TIME CLOCK FOR DESTRUCTION: God’s clock seems to have two faces. The wickedness of the wicked is measured on one side, while the ratio of the godly to the ungodly is measured on the other. It appears that when the wickedness of the wicked reaches the saturation point, and the ungodly make up nearly 100% of the people, the time for destruction has come.

THE BOOK OF JUDGES is an example of God’s time clock in action. There is a cycle in the book of Judges that goes like this: God’s people turn to Him in repentance, God forgives them, God gives His people blessings, when the people are blessed they feel they no longer need God. The people fall deeper and deeper into sin until they reach a saturation point, and at that point destruction comes. After the destruction, the people turn back to God, and the cycle is repeated. Over and over in the book of Judges we see the picture of God’s clock. In fact, the entire Bible is the story of God’s time clock in action.

SIN’S CYCLE XE "SIN’S CYCLE"  IN JUDGES

Please note: The symbol ¯ indicates that the Israelites are moving away from God. The symbol È indicates they are in a crisis situation. The symbol ­ indicates they are moving closer to God and Ç indicates peace and prosperity of the Israelites.

¯  Judg 2:11 - “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD”.

È Judg 2:14 - “In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders”.

Ç Judg 2:16 - “Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders”.

¯ Judg 2:19 - “But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers”.

È Judg 2:20 - “Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel”.

­ Judg 3:9 “But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer”.

Ç Judg 3:11-12 - “So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died. ¯ 12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and È because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel”.

­ Judg 3:15 - “Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer-Ehud”.

Ç Judg 3:30 - “That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years”.

¯ Judg 4:1-2 - “After Ehud died, the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the LORD”.

È Judg 4:2,3 - “So the LORD sold them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan, 3 - who oppressed the Israelites for twenty years...”

­ Judg 4:3b - “...they cried to the LORD for help”.

Ç Judg 4:24 - “...and the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, the Canaanite king, until they destroyed him”.

¯  Judg 6:1 - “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, È and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites”.

È Judg 6:6 - “Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help”.

­ Judg 6:7-8 - “When the Israelites cried to the LORD because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet”.

¯ Judg 10:6,7 - “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD”.

È Judg 10:7 - “...he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines”.

­ Judg 10:15, 16  - “But the Israelites said to the LORD, ‘We have sinned.’ 16 Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the LORD”.

Ç Judg 10:16b - “And he could bear Israel's misery no longer”.

¯ Judg 13:1 - “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, È so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years”.

THE GENESIS FLOOD is an example of God’s time clock.

Gen 6:5,11 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.

The wickedness of the wicked had reached the saturation point, and there were only eight righteous people on earth. The hands on the clock pointed to the time of destruction, and the fossils of the earth tell the rest of the story. They tell of the greatest destruction this earth has ever seen.

GOD’S PROMISE TO ABRAHAM is an example of God’s time clock in action. God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants, but He told Abraham that they could not possess it for 400 years.

Gen 15:13-21 - “Then the LORD said to him, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”’

By this statement, God said that the Amorites’ wickedness had not yet reached the saturation point, therefore, He would not at this time allow them to be destroyed. But notice what happened 400 years later.

Deut 9:5 - “It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you.”

THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM is an example of God’s time clock in action. The book of Genesis records...

Gen 13:13 - “Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD”.  Wickedness had reached the point of saturation. “He answered, ‘For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.’”- Gen 18:32. There were not ten righteous people in that city. The ungodly made up nearly 100% of the people. The time for destruction had come.

GOD’S TIME CLOCK CAN BE SEEN IN THE STORIES OF THE KINGDOMS of Israel, Judah, Babylon, Rome, Germany, England, Russia, America (slaves and the Civil War) and many other great nations. The story is always the same; great wickedness, few godly, the hands on God’s clock point to destruction and destruction comes.

2 Thess 2:3 - “Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs.”

Rom 1:18-32 - “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them”.

Compare this list from Romans one and see how America is falling into the same pit. Remember, it only takes one generation to fail to instill godly principles to their children and there will not be enough good people left to keep God from destroying the world.

Matt 5:13 - “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

Christians are the only ones who are keeping destruction from coming on America and the world. It only takes a small amount of salt, but it does take some.

ICHABOD -THE FALL OF SHILOH.

The title of this story is “Ichabod.” The setting for the story is a quiet, sleepy hillside village just 20 miles North of Jerusalem. The town’s name is Shiloh. Shiloh means peace and security. The Tabernacle was set up at this location. What an honor! This was the place where God’s presence was always to remain. This was the place where the Jews traveled three times a year to worship God.

In 1 Sam. 1:9-28 the story of Hannah’s prayer for a child is recorded. In keeping with her promise made in that prayer, she gave that child back to God. The boy, Samuel, was actually given to Eli, the priest, to serve and to learn at his feet. One night, while Samuel was laying on his bed, God told him that he was going to destroy Eli’s family because his son’s were evil and Eli had failed to correct them. A short time later, the Israelites went to war against the Philistines.

In 1 Samuel chapter four, we learn that Eli’s sons took the Ark of the Covenant into battle with them. The story continues with these words: “The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. 11 The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died. That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line and went to Shiloh, his clothes torn and dust on his head. 13 When he arrived, there was Eli sitting on his chair by the side of the road, watching, because his heart feared for the ark of God. When the man entered the town and told what had happened, the whole town sent up a cry.

14 “Eli heard the outcry and asked, ‘What is the meaning of this uproar?’

17 “The man who brought the news replied, ‘Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.’

18 “When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years.

19 “His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains. 20 As she was dying, the women attending her said, ‘Don't despair; you have given birth to a son.’ But she did not respond or pay any attention.

21 “She named the boy Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel’-because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband” (1 Sam 4:11-21).

We do not have the actual account of Shiloh’s destruction, but it is conjectured that after 30,000 Israelites were killed the town of Shiloh was left in smoking ruins. (Ichabod!-The glory of the sleepy village was gone!)

FALL OF JUDEA: Four hundred years passed. In Jeremiah’s day, Shiloh was still a pile of ruins. Jeremiah saw the wickedness of his people growing worse and that they were heading to the point of crisis. In a desperate attempt to bring His people to repentance, God told them through Jeremiah, “Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. 14 Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers. 15 I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your brothers, the people of Ephraim.”

16 “So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. 19 But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?

20 “`Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be quenched” (Jer 7:12-20).

Jeremiah was encouraging Israel to go up and view the ruins of Shiloh in order to avoid the same fate, but the people would not listen and therefore were conquered by another nation. The book of Lamentations is Jeremiah’s story of his crying over the ruins of Jerusalem after the Babylonians captured the city and carried off most of the people to be slaves in Babylon.

FALL OF JERUSALEM IN NEW TESTAMENT DAYS: In the days of Jesus, Jerusalem was a much greater city than Shiloh or even the city of Jerusalem of Jeremiah’s day. It had become the religious capital for over half of the world. People from all over the world came to worship at Jerusalem. At one time, Jerusalem housed the most beautiful building in all the world, the temple. The city of Jerusalem was crowned with the Glory of God - God’s only Son came to teach there and God’s greatest gift to man was presented to us at Jerusalem.

To the east of Jerusalem is a row of three mountains. The most southern is called the Mount of Offense. Here, across the valley from God’s Temple, Solomon offended God by building temples to idols. The most northern of the three mountains is called Mount Scopus. It was here that, in 70 A.D., Titus “scoped” the city of Jerusalem and made his plans to destroy it. The center mountain is the Mount of Olives. It was from this mountain that Jesus wept over Jerusalem’s coming destruction, sweat blood and assented to heaven.

Luke records our story in chapter nineteen. “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace-but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you’” (Luke 19:41-44). The horrible destruction which Jesus predicted came to Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Josephus, who was a firsthand witness of the events, told of the great suffering. He told that, early in A.D. 70, nearly two million Jews fled ahead of the Roman army and had secured themselves behind the walls in the tiny city of Jerusalem. (The city was 5,400’ X 3,000’; just over 1 mile long and just over 1/2 mile wide.) At the beginning of the siege, each person in town had only eight square feet of space for his own. Hog farmers today try to give each hog an average of eight square feet of space.

The mighty Roman army completely surrounded the city and blocked off all avenues of escape. Rome held this position for nearly 3-1/2 years!

Street gangs inside the city constantly fought for control. These Jewish thieves fought, raped, killed and plundered their Jewish neighbors.

Since there was an abundance of gold inside Jerusalem, many people swallowed as much gold as they could and then jumped over the wall to escape. Once they felt they were safe, they relieved themselves and retrieved the gold. Roman soldiers soon witnessed this strange spectacle. As a result, as when anyone escaped and was captured, the soldier sliced open his stomach and searched for the gold.

Soon starvation began to spread through the city. The streets were filled with dead, stinking bodies. The most anyone could do was to throw the bodies over the wall. Soon there was a solid row of putrefied bodies all around the city. Josephus tells us that the starvation was so bad that mothers were killing and eating their own children.

One million, one hundred thousand (1,100,000) people died and 97,000 were taken captive.

About 35 miles southeast of Jerusalem is a plateau called Masada. The hillsides are nearly perpendicular which makes it a natural fortified stronghold. When Jerusalem fell to the Roman army, many Jewish men, women and children took refuge on this plateau. The Roman General Silva conquered this stronghold by forcing the newly enslaved Jews from Jerusalem to carry dirt in baskets on their shoulders to build a ramp up this mountain. The Jews were forced to work so hard in the heat of that desert that they died at the rate of three per day for approximately six months. When the ramp was finally completed, huge battering rams were pulled to the top. However before they knocked down the wall, the Jews on top of Masada set fire to all the store of supplies and executed each other. When the Romans broke through the wall, they found only two women and a child still alive out of the 967 people who had taken refuge at Masada.

The Romans were so angry with the Jews who survived the war at Jerusalem that they sent them all out of the country and made it a capital offense to return to their home land. Some years later, the Jews were permitted to return only one day a year and that was the day the Romans celebrated as the day they had defeated Israel. When the Jews finally returned to their country, they had no temple to go to, since it had been totally demolished. The Jews gathered at the retaining wall that was near the temple and there they have prayed and wept for nearly 2,000 years. The wall is called the “Wailing Wall.”

It would be good if Americans could visit the ruins of Shiloh and see first hand the suffering the Jews have experienced due to their rejection of God and His Son. If we don’t learn from history we are destined to relive it.

What will be the future story of America? Happy ever after or will it be Ichabod?

What Made America Great?

What's so Great About America?

What Made America Great?
Chapter 3

The Persecution

The Dream for Freedom

Men Who Shaped America

Separation of Church and State

The Fall of America

The Cost of Freedom

A Warning to America

The Collapse of America

Hope for America

Appendix What Made America Great?