Dear John and Doves:

I am of the settled opinion that God warned us – through both natural signs AND His scriptures – and we as a nation have ignored the warning. According to Flavius Josephus (an eyewitness), in the days leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, God sent SEVEN warnings: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/keithgiles/2018/02/7-signs-josephus-reveal-end-times-destruction/   Josephus wrote:

 Thus it was that the wretched people were deluded at that time by charlatans and pretended messengers of the deity; while they neither heeded nor believed in the manifest portents that foretold the coming desolation, but, as if thunderstruck and bereft of eyes and mind, disregarded the plain warnings of God.

Sounds like us - wretched people who are deluded by false prophets who misconstrue God's warning to our collapsing nation.  We are continuing to disregard the plain warnings of God.  There is nothing new under the sun.  God has warned America and we have turned our backs and turned up the volume of our favorite distractions.

God’s final warning was on April 8th. We reached the end of His patience on May 18th.  I would ask any reasonable man (and there are few left) what they would think if they received in the mail a picture of their home with a big, black X written over it. 

God dealt with His errant people in the days of Amos.  He cut off their groceries, sent drought, blight and mildew, sent locust swarms to devour their crops, and sent their young men off to die in war.  "Yet you have not returned to me,” says the Lord (read Amos chapter 4).  Under God’s various chastisements, the people still would not repent. 

In the New Testament, God used a different approach: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” In Romans 2:4 we see that GOODNESS is intended to engender repentance. And we can see that God has been very good to America.

But instead of engendering repentance, we have responded with completely unwarranted contempt. We seem to think we can enjoy the gifts and disobey or ignore the Giver. Like ancient Israel, we’re advised to prepare to meet our God. That meeting is not far off.

I expect a LOT of our Christian and political leaders will jump on this “resurgence of patriotism” bandwagon in the coming days. Our pulpits may be aflame with appeals to a return to our “bedrock Christian principles” upon which the nation was founded. There may be new passion for righteousness and a return to political civility.  But it will be short-lived, partly because we don’t really mean it, and partly because there’s practically no time left on the clock. God sent America a Nineveh warning. We shrugged it off. Amos had a word for his people, and it’s also a word for us:

Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

Steve