"Ezekiel 33:14-15
"14 But when I say to the wicked, ‘You will certainly die,’ and he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness, 15 if a wicked person returns a pledge, pays back what he has taken by robbery, walks by the statutes which ensure life without committing injustice, he shall certainly live; he shall not die."
Ezekiel 33:17-18
17 “Yet your fellow citizens say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right,’ when it is their own way that is not right. 18 When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, then he shall die in it.
When a nation is past the tipping point in sin, without remorse for it, even defending it as a right the nation as a whole is no longer Christian if it really ever was so.
The only nation in the world that will ever be entirely Christian is the nation of Israel at the end of the tribulation when the entire nation will trust in Christ and evangelize the rest of the world. There has never been an entire nation that was Christian and will never be until the end of the time of Jacob's trouble.
We are past the tipping point in the United States. We have murdered over 60 million babies as well as entrenched sins of every stripe rampant to the point of becoming the social norm. Rampant sin of every form of debauchery is the cultural norm while Christianity is the fringe, demeaned, mocked and excluded every day now by those in power.
The wicked have been warned and yet they grow in numbers taking over every venue in every agency as more people who claim to be Christian are influenced by those irrational satanic ideas.
The Christians have been warned as preachers on the internet, the ones who remain faithful to God's word have warned and pleaded with the people to repent and instead of repenting they dig their heels in slipping deeper into sin, worse sin than ever before just as Sodom and Gomorrah did back in the day.
What are so many "conservatives" wanting us to "get back to" in America? The way it used to be when just 50 years ago began the teaching of self-esteem became mandated, all rules about family were expunged from the training in schools while the parents abdicated their responsibility to train their children in righteousness? Do they want to go back to the days when Christianity was taught as a better life choice based on cultural standards rather than on a transformation by Christ?
If we were to write a book outlining all the violations of the word of God down through the centuries in our country it would be lengthy. Our culture could not have become as wicked as it is if the people had dedicated themselves to prayer and Scripture study with the emphasis on Christ changing hearts.
Our form of cultural Christianity had trained people to follow good rules without Christ. The emphasis was on following the rules to appear righteous without the power of Christ changing hearts. This led to pride as well as harshness on those who did not adhere to the prescribed rules by those in authority.
Without the power of Christ in changing hearts the rules are easily changed when the culture as whole changes. If we are not motivated by the direction of the Holy Spirit our actions and attitudes are fleshly, easily manipulated without the power to remain strong, that power being Jesus Christ. When the culture applies pressure on cultural Christians to accept something other than the truth they readily cave to be accepted by others.
When Christ is our strength no one can deter us from the truth or cause guilt over our desire for righteousness.
How would it be possible to return the bodies we have stolen through abortion? We can never bring back those babies. We remain under judgment even if the nation as a whole were to repent we must still pay the consequences for our sin of rampant murder.
For those who think we can get our country back through political pushback must not realize how entrenched the wicked are within our nation and they must not realize just how sinful the nation has been having passed the tipping point.
We cannot payback what we have stolen, we cannot bring back more than 60 million babies, we must pay for our sin, whether or not we repent, but we will not because the nation has turned it's back on God, even in the houses of worship where the attendees claim to be Christian but care little if anything about obeying the Holy Word of God.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 "2 Timothy 3:1-5
Difficult Times Will Come
3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these."
Did you notice this phrase in the 2 Timothy 3 passage; "HOLDING TO A FORM OF GODLINESS ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE DENIED IT'S POWER"
Did you notice this phrase in the 2 Timothy 3 passage;
"4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,"
Did you know this is a description of the end times church? Obviously, the world has come into the church, so much so that it is likely that most who attend gatherings today came to Christianity based on culture and have never been born again.
No one becomes a Christian merely by choosing to become a part of a local church. A born-again believer is transformed by Christ at the time they confess their sinful nature and desire to be changed by Christ into a new creation. It's not so much about our individual sins, it's about our sinful nature being changed by Christ into the new creation, He does that we do not change ourselves in our own effort. We are changed by Him because of our desire to be changed.
One way to pray might be this: "Lord I hate my sinful nature, please change me into a new creation that I might serve you."
When we have been "contrite" meaning crushed over the realization that we are so sinful is what motivates God to change us.
When we are changed by Christ into a new creation we no longer think the same way we did before. We think with the mind of Christ, we interpret everything in terms of how Christ thinks, rather than a fallen sinful mindset of the old nature.
2 Corinthians 5:16-18 "…16 So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:…"
"All this is from God", is the key phrase, is anyone attempting to become a Christian by their own power, they will come with their fallen sinful mind misinterpreting everything God said according to worldly thinking. When we have the mind of Christ we will see all matters in terms of how God thinks, not according to the ideas of the world.
The modern church is filled with people who "became a Christian" culturally but were never born again and their sinful hearts were never changed. These people bring error, rebellion, and contention to the gathering, causing division and sadly often unchallenged by others in the group.
Pretenders often learn enough Biblical lingo to confuse and deter others from the truth. Sadly in our day many Christians are afraid of offending man more than God and allow the error to be taught in favor of protecting the "feelings" of the pretender. The pretender is empowered by the lack of challenge. The believers are fearful of being seen as rude or mean by challenging error so the pretender wields more power than the born-again believers.
This is the reason the modern church grows further away from truth while intimidating weak believers into silence.
Now that we know the condition of the church we ought to never back down or feel guilt over telling the truth, boldly and without apology.
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