Proverbs 14.34
“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
National culture begins with personal character. A healthy nation requires citizens to operate with “rightness” in three essential areas. When the citizens of a nation have these characteristics, the nation will succeed. But if these characteristics are lacking among the citizens, a nation will struggle and eventually fail.
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Virtue.
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Personal responsibility.
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Productivity.
The OT provides a cautionary tale for the people of God in the 21st century. It also provides a prophetic message for America in our generation. Here is what the Lord said to the OT nation of Israel through the prophet Hosea:
“Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no truth or mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.” (Hosea 4.1-3)
The consequences of Israel abandoning her covenant with God were devastating for every aspect of Israelite society. Without the Lord and his standards as the reference point, the people of Israel rejected and broke all restraints. People did whatever they wanted, with no restrictions. The result was “swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery … and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” The summary conclusion of this disconnect from God was “the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish.”
Hosea could very well be speaking of 21st century America. Our nation has turned its back on its Judeo-Christian heritage, and has relegated God to the margins of society. The Christian faith is tolerated as privately engaging, but rejected as publicly irrelevant. The truths and traditions of Christianity are excluded from the public arena, and in many places openly ridiculed.
America is in a situation very similar to that of Israel in Hosea’s day. In modern America, there is no consensus about the givens of human existence, and certainly no divinely created order or even a natural moral order, so that categories such as true or false, right or wrong, and male or female are relative and depend entirely on one’s viewpoint. There is a growing consensus that everything is socially constructed and therefore anything is permitted.
In the words of Hosea, “There is no truth or mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land.” Like Israel we have “broken all bounds.” The result is a contemporary culture being flooded with toxic ideas that are leading us into chaos and disaster.
A key pillar of America and the West has been the assumption that there are indeed givens, and these givens derive from an infinite-personal God. The universe has a created order, including right and wrong, true and false, male and female, and therefore it has an ethical and social system just as it has a physical and biological system. Respect this order and the result will be productivity and fruitfulness, but reject it and the outcome will be the curse of deepening chaos and disorder. Borrowing again from Hosea, “the land will mourn, and all who dwell in it will languish.”
It is time that the followers of Christ speak up and challenge the spirit of the age. The created order is real and its ethical standards are good. America will not flourish if it abandons its Judeo-Christian heritage. If the present trend continues, the link between America’s disobedience and America’s degeneration will become plain to all.
According to Hosea and the other prophets, personal integrity and public order are a necessity for a just, free, and stable human society. To flout the will of God openly will therefore be the fast track to social and national failure for America and the West.
Revival and renewal are needed. The people of America need to awaken to the reality that national culture begins with personal character.
