God is a personal God — loving, leading and nurturing in our personal lives. As personal as God is, he also works on a larger scale.
The New Testament book of Colossians declares, in chapter 1, verse 17, “He (God in Christ) is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” The context is the creation. God through Christ is literally running the universe.
In Psalms 108: 6-9, we read of God’s ownership and ruling the nations of Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Moab, Edom and Philistia. We cannot dispute God’s overruling hand.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
There is no doubt that the United States has risen to the level of power and prosperity that she has by the mighty hand of God. If God exalted us as a nation, he can take us down.
It happened to Israel in Old Testament times. Israel was a mighty nation, blessed by God. Israel turned from the ways of God, and God brought a godless nation against them to destroy them as a nation. In Isaiah 10:5, the nation of Assyria is mentioned as the rod of God’s anger, “the club of my wrath!”
The wealth of Israel was carried away by the ungodly Assyrians and Babylonians. Eventually, the nation collapsed and was overrun.
The wealth of the United States is literally being transferred to other nations by our borrowing money from them that we have no ability to pay back, or by allowing our lifestyle to continue at a level that we cannot maintain without excessive importing of goods that literally drains the national wealth.
God says, in Isaiah 45:7, “…I bring prosperity and create disaster.”
The prosperity God brings is inexorably linked to righteousness, or living according to God’s principles. If an individual or a nation departs from the ways of God, God can withdraw his blessing and “create disaster.”
The disaster is not speaking of a tornado, hurricane, or some other calamity necessarily; it is speaking of a massive shift of fortune and status. God has done it before, and the United States is on the brink of disaster as a nation, and is possibly already in an irreversible decline.
What can we do? We must repent of our ways, our excesses, our selfishness that sends the unborn to death, our trampling in the dust God’s view of marriage and family and our disregard of responsible living.
We must cry out to God. It may not be too late. It may begin with one person who radically gets right with God and influences others.
God is our only hope!