ABANDONED BY GOD

 I have been speaking about the judgment of God on America for several years and no one seems to listen. We are fighting a spiritual war against the government and pseudo religious Christians. The plandemic is the result of evil being no longer restrained by the Holy Spirit.  The false pretext of a worldwide spread of a dangerous disease has given Satan the foothold he needs to bring about his conquest of world dominion. There is an alliance between the state and church to support a plan that condemns those who will not be subject to the inoculation of an experimental gene serum that is life threatening, with unknown side effects and does not provide immunity from this manufactured disease. We are at war against spiritual power far beyond our abilities to defeat. What is more disturbing is the judgment of God is upon us as a nation. We have been abandoned by God. The wicked are moving their agenda forward without any constraint, without limits from above, since they have canceled the divine origin of the power of those who govern. 

We are living in Judges chapter 10. 

 "You have forsaken Me and served other gods; therefore, I will deliver you no more. Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress." God is saying I am done with you. In Proverbs chapter 1, verses 24 to 31, we find a similar sentiment. "Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; And you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof; I will also laugh at your calamity; will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would not accept my counsel, and they spurned all my reproof. So, they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices."  

 It is relevant to talk about this because I am going to try to show you from this passage that it is convincing that God has abandoned our nation. God has abandoned America to the effects of its sinful choices and God has abandoned much of Christianity in America.  

 Oh, this is not the first nation that it has happened to, this is the story of history. Acts 14:16, the apostle Paul said, "In the generations gone by, He" – God – "permitted all the nations to go their own way." This is the story of history. All the nations of history go their own way. So, like the nations of old, like the nation's past, we follow the same cycle of having the truth, rejecting the truth, and being abandoned by God.   

 God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God's part? It is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a – a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its unrestraint wickedness than Romans 1 does. Here is the most graphic and the most comprehensive discussion of what it means to be abandoned by God. And it is the best passage that I know of to explain the moral chaos and the confusion that we experience in our own nation at this very time. God's wrath is already at work in our culture. We are not waiting for it; we are currently experiencing it now! 

 The first indication is a society filled with sexual immorality. When a society becomes immoral when the general character of a society can be seen to be immoral, God's judgment is in effect. When man is abandoned by God, when a society is abandoned by God, it operates only out of the passions of its own impure heart. It operates in the lusts of the heart, leading to impurity. The heart is wretched, the heart is immoral, and the body follows. So, you see that in verse 24. First the lusts dominate the heart, leading to impurity and the bodies follow in the most dishonorable ways. The heart is wicked and unrestrained, and the body follows, and you have an immoral culture.  This is the reason for the moral decline of America. This is the reason abortion is accepted. This the reason we have an increase in pedophiles, sex trafficking, and sexual abuse. This is the reason we have gender identity issues. 

 That is just step one. So, you look at society and ask, is it driven by sexual immorality? Is it filled with lust in the heart, leading to impurity and the body follows in dishonorable behavior? The answer is yes. And it would be extremely hard to imagine one nation in this media-saturated western world in which we live, it would be hard to understand one nation going this way without dragging all the world exposed to its culture through the media with it. And so, it is not just a national issue, it is a world issue. But that is just step one.  

 Step two is in verse 26. "For this reason, God gave them over" -- here is the second step – "to degrading passions." Now we are not just talking about passions, we have added degrading. There is a greater debauchery here. Degrading passions can be defined as gross affections, vile desires, perversion, or even inversion. And here it is defined. "Their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural." Plain and simple, Lesbianism, homosexuality.  This passage refers to the degradation of women because they are usually the last to be affected in the decay of morals because they have a protective instinct over their own children but when the wrath of abandonment is in force, even the women fall to the degrading passions. And in our culture the Lesbian movement has been vocal and relentless and passionate and fierce and even violent. Proof that absolutely all virtue is gone when motherhood, the highest, normal human virtuous relationship is abandoned and the people who do it are elevated as cultural icons. All virtue is gone when homosexuality invades the female gender.  

 And verse 27 adds, "In the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." And there is a little slip in of the consequential wrath. What is the due penalty for their error? That is going to escalate, too, into this wrath of abandonment. There is also going to be the consequential wrath of sinful choices leading to deadly diseases. Homosexuality is the second step.  

 So, look at society. When you see a society that is immoral, that is consumed with sexual immorality, fornication, and adultery as a way of life, as a dominant way of life, which is not only in existence but approved and exalted in every way in the media, you know the wrath of abandonment is in operation. And then when a society also exalts the perversion of sexual immorality you will know we have been abandoned as a nation and that the judgment of God is upon us. 

 But there is a third step. And the third step is in verse 28. "Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer," – here is the third step – "God gave them over to a depraved mind." First the heart is rotten, and the body follows, and then the mind goes. What is a depraved mind? Well, the word means tested and found useless, disqualified for its intended purpose, a non-functioning mind. Reasoning is so corrupted that it is crippled. The faculty, the intellectual faculty can no longer function. The moral law of God written in the heart has been stomped and replaced with cultural immorality. The conscience cannot function.  

 And so, says verse 28, they do the "things which are not proper," not moral. So, immorality goes in every direction and now you cannot find your way back because the mind is so corrupt. People do not think right. People's brains do not follow the paths that they should. They advocate all the wretched things and depreciate all the virtuous things. And what flows out of this immoral, depraved culture? All evil, verse 29. "All unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil," – they even produce new forms of evil – "disobedient to parents" – you wonder how in the world did that get in there; that was a capital offense in the Old Testament; disobey your parents, you lose your life – "without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.  

 This is just any day in the newspaper, any day on the cable news network. This is just life in the world in all its sinful forms. Without conscience, without reason, without restraint, a society becomes like lustful, immoral beasts, running wild.  The answer is unmistakably clear. The Synagogue of Satan has control of the media, television, the music industry, radio, and magazines. These followers of Satan are the people who are the purveyors of this filth as cultural heroes and icons. Movie people, television people, music people, et cetera. This stuff is even advocated across this country in educational institutions. Particularly universities for the advocacy of all this kind of iniquity. This is what happens when God abandons a society.   

 Look at Exodus chapter 7 and see how God hardens the heart of sinners and brings judgment on them.  

 This brings us to the question of the text. Why does God do it? Why does God abandon a society? Let us go back to verse 18.  

 Now we know what it looks like when He does, but why does He do it? "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." The wrath of God is already operating in our culture. And God has abandoned our society on a wide scale and let our society go the way it chooses to go without restraint. But God has abandoned our society because our society has first abandoned God. There is no surer and no sadder evidence of a corrupted, wicked abandoned society than when that society will not tolerate anger against sin. People are being silenced every day to stop the spread of truth. 

 Our society will not tolerate anger against sin. Our society feeds on sin and wants no one to deny it its iniquities. And so, here we are under the wrath of God's abandonment. It is not like it once was. Restraining grace has been pulled back and this society gets more immoral, and more depraved every day. And why? I am going to show you a sequence starting in verse 18 that has led us to this.  

 The major reason is summed up in one statement. "We suppress the truth." Any society that suppresses the truth. In the original, who are constantly attempting to suppress the truth. And they suppress it in unrighteousness, or better, by their ungodliness. We crush the truth, we silence the truth speakers, clinging to our sin. We understand something clearly at last, we hate the light, we run to the darkness, despising the light, condemning the light. Suppressing the truth must imply that we have the truth. God does exist and He has made His existence known to us. He is divinely authored our minds to work on a cause-and-effect basis and to go back to the fact that the effect, the world, must have a cause, namely the Creator. And we would be able to understand there was a God just by reason. This nation and the world have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, crushed it under the preferences for sin. 

 Men have been given the truth. Verse 18 says, "We suppress the truth." Verse 19 then describes the source of that. "That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them." – through reason and the moral law written in the heart. – "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." They are without excuse because it is so obvious that a creation must have a Creator, a design must have a designer. Throughout the history of this nation, we have had the truth. God has made Himself known through general Revelation, in creation, perceived by reason and in the law written in the heart, perceived by conscience. That which may be known of God. God is knowable. Christ is the light that lights all men.  

 Everyone has some knowledge of God evident in them or within them. In the mind, in the soul, is reason, in the conscience, in the fabric of what it is to be human.  

 John says, Christ is the Light that lightest everyone who comes into the world.

  

 As a nation, we have accepted the lies that life is random, truth is relative with no absolutes, people are good, people can control their life, and the last is life is instant gratification.  

 The truth is opposite that.  God is sovereign and nothing is random. The Bible is absolute truth. All people are born sinful. Only Christ can change your life. And selfless submission to Jesus Christ is the goal of life. The world has gotten it completely wrong. And so, why would they honor a God they deny? Why would they give Him thanks? They think they have achieved everything on their own. They cannot thank Him because then they would be acknowledging He's the source.  

 It is like Isaiah. He wrote of his own time, "You felt secure in your wickedness, and you said no one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge have deluded you for you have said in your heart, I am and there is no one besides me."   

 Go back to verse 21, because "though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks." I am talking collectively about a society here – "But they became empty in their speculations." Futile, empty, human ideas, useless. And as I said, into that vacuum is sucked darkness. And the end of verse 21 says, "Their foolish heart was darkened." They would not know and now they could not know. The darkness dominated. The light went out. Intellectual darkness and moral darkness turn to spiritual darkness, deadly darkness.  

 Wrath came because of Revelation, and it comes repeatedly and repeatedly to societies throughout all human history because they will not acknowledge God who has revealed Himself. And so, you have Revelation followed by rejection. And when there comes rejection, the light goes out, the darkness comes. And a third step follows, rationalization. This, if it were not so sad, would be funny, verse 22, "Professing to be wise, they became fools." Their darkness is so profound that they cannot assess their true condition. So, they profess to be wise.  

 All I can say is there is a word of hope in Psalm 81. Let us look at verse 11. "But My people did not listen to My voice, and Israel did not obey Me. So" – here's the same language – "I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, to walk in their own devices." That is Romans 1. This happened to Israel. As I said, the history of the world is the judgment of the world. God has allowed all the nations to go their own way. 

 But verse 13, here is a plaintive cry from the heart of God. "Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would quickly subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their adversaries. Those who hate the Lord would pretend to be obedient to Him." In other words, they would be so good to be under the protection of the Lord that people would even pretend to be believers. And the time of their punishment would be forever, punishing their enemies. And I love verse 16, "And I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you." This is a plaintive cry from God who says, "Oh that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways." I would turn from abandoning them, from giving them over to their own sinful choices to defending them, protecting them, and punishing their enemies and I would feed them with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy them."  

 America has been abandoned by God and as a nation He is not hearing our prayers.  America has polluted the land with innocent blood, with idols and all ways of perversion.  The only pray God will hear from America is the prayer of true repentance. That repentance must start with those who call themselves Christian. 

 As a nation we have crossed the line of no return.  As a person you can change and turn to the LORD.  You do not need to feel the judgment of God upon you. However, as a nation will continue to feel a greater impact of the wrath of God in the coming days. 

The effects of a great engagement – There is no way to do 'battle' without casualties and costs. When a country goes to war, a couple goes through a divorce, or a church has a fight, the total costs and the casualties are unknown for a long time. When God sends His judgment, the battle waged will be directed at anything perceived as good. Joel 1 gives me a picture of the destruction of everything which God has designed to be good. The grapevine, fig tree, branches, and bark are all laid waste.  When will this happen?  I do not know. Just do not miss the fact that judgment is coming from God. His determination will be based on justice and truth.  

 For those who are under God's judgment, let us see how all of this impacts them. Joel 1:10-12 give us this picture. 

It destroys their provisions – Verse 10 tells us that everything humanity depends on for life will be destroyed. Frustration will be at an all-time high because nothing man can do to make the land produce. All will be dried up and laid bare. We are big on 'having plenty, but God's judgment will bring about a lack of everything a man needs to survive. Today's rat race will turn into a rat killing of global proportions as humanity wars over things that are believed to be necessary are gone. It disrupts their plans – Verse 11 – 12 gives us a picture of a drought that perplexes the farmers. They plan for a big harvest and for things to go on as usual, while God's judgment brings other plans. There will be a food shortage which makes the food shortage of today pale in comparison. God removes His hand of blessings, and when HIS hand of blessing is removed, nothing will bloom or blossom so that all plans will be laid waste. This picture is why Jesus told us not to make plans that we could not make good.  It dries up their personal joy. 

 The last line of verse 12 is staggering. To think that laughter will be gone, as will peace, hope, happiness, and love. Contextualize it this way; today in America, more people have more 'things' than ever before. We are wealthy people. Yet, we are miserable people. Deep friendships are at a premium, lasting relationships are all but non-existent, and the culprit is that in our search for happiness, we have abandoned true inner 'joy.' Joy is a fruit of the Spirit! And since more time has been placed on the "I" in this culture, the Holy Spirit has been summarily dismissed. In principle, this is what happens with God's judgment; joy is removed along with the Holy Spirit of God. 

 Let us read verses 13-15 again. To read this is to understand that the coming judgment requires a response from us. As I read these words, four calls came to mind. 

Remember-- We must remember who God is and who we are. We are God's creation, His crown creation. If we have a relationship with Him through His Son, we have cause to remember much more. Psalm 137 has a picture of remembrance. (READ vs. 1) If you are a believer today, give thought not to the place but the concept of ZION. For years we have sung, "We're marching to Zion, beautiful Zion. We're marching UPWARD to ZION, that beautiful city of God." Zion is the place where we see, know, and fellowship with the Lord. As a believer, can you remember the time you were closest to Him? Is it today? Or is it in the past? Remember when your heart was hottest, your fellowship was the closest, and faith was the strongest. Revelation 2:5 says, "First, remember how far you have fallen," 

 Reflect – This is a step that, many times, is overlooked today. Why is it that I have fallen away from sweet fellowship with my Heavenly Father? Is it because of what someone else has done to me? Is it because God loves me less, pursues me less, or am I simply less valuable to Him today than when we first met? Please miss this truth: God went nowhere; He hasn't moved away from you one step. "When you say, God seems so far away, who moved?" What caused it, and when was it that you moved away? This requires an honest self-examination & self-examinations can be painful, mainly if done under the watchful eye of the Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit. 

 Repent – The promise of judgment on this world calls us to remember, reflect, and then repent. Look at all the words that display repentance's need and action, sackcloth, lament, the altar, and offerings. The people were being called to become broken enough to have a change of mind, direction, and heart. If I am not as close to God today as yesterday, it is my fault, and I need to repent before God. The initial call of John the Baptist, Jesus, and even Peter at Pentecost was "Repent." Without repentance, there is no renewal, refreshing, &/or regeneration. There is no heaven on the horizon, no Zion to look for, and there is no hope for tomorrow. Repentance is an essential ingredient and is a call of judgment. 

 Return – Let us read verse 14. Just like the Father in Luke 15 was praying, "Son, come home," so the Heavenly Father invites us home. In verse 15, we read that the "Day of the Lord" is near, and we need to be close to the Father at home. Judgment is coming, like it or not. Every unconfessed sin will be judged. Judgment is calling, like it or not. It is calling sinners to come home, it is calling the lukewarm to get close to the fire of the Holy Spirit, and it is calling the carnal to return before it is too late. What will you do?