I am very concerned about our nation. I’m sure you are as well. I’m not just concerned about the teetering economy, the decline in morality, or the continuing holocaust of abortions in America. I’m not just concerned about God being pushed out of our schools or a culture that is calling evil good and good evil. I’m not just concerned about the blatant corruption in government and lack of truth telling at all levels. If we had to live in the midst of that it would be difficult enough. What I am most concerned about are the curses that these behaviors and attitudes are about to unleash on America.
A strong thread runs through scripture that is summarized in Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia. “Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal.6:7-8). In the Old Testament there are huge sections on “blessing and cursing.” In Deuteronomy 28, God gives an extensive list of blessings that will come upon Israel if they faithfully serve God and an extensive list of curses that will be released if they reject God. Nations reap what they sow as well as individuals.
Those curses listed in Deuteronomy include economic disaster, sickly children and blighted crops. They include failure in everything they attempt, diseases that ravage the nation, drought or destructive weather patterns, defeat from enemies, confusion, a man’s hard work being harvested by strangers, oppression of all kinds, and aliens in the land rising up and ruling over native born citizens. These curses sound like the six o’clock news.
In the book of Job, Satan complained to God that he had put a hedge around Job so that Satan could not get at him (Job 1:9). What we see in that chapter is Satan wanting to destroy Job and his family. God, however, in his goodness and mercy had been restraining the devil because Job was faithful. When men or nations sow to the flesh long enough, God is compelled by his holiness and our free will (which also chooses our consequences) to turn these men or nations over to their own choices. When that point is reached, God lifts the restraints and Satan has access to individuals or nations because they have aligned themselves with the enemy.
When curses flood into a person’s life or over a nation, these curses are not something God has conjured up but they are simply what Satan has been wanting to release on that nation, family, or person all along. Because of God’s love for all men, he restrains the enemy and these disasters until man has sown so much destruction that it must be harvested. The law of sowing and reaping then kicks in. Here is the sobering part. The harvest is always greater than the planting. An acorn produces much more than itself. A kernel of corn produces dozens of ears of corn. A man gets back even more than he put in.
That’s good news if you are sowing to the Spirit for God will give you more good things than you sowed. But if you have been sowing to the flesh, the destruction will far outweigh the evil you have planted. Many times the destructive results will affect generations. Children will reap what their fathers sowed. The biblical principle is that the consequences of the sins of the fathers will be passed down to the third and fourth generations of children (Ex. 20:5).
Our nation is mocking God and sowing to the flesh in abundance. Jesus said, “To whom much is given much is required” (Luke 12:48). God has given much to America over the last 300 years. America has not been ignorant of God, his Word, and his ways. He has blessed us abundantly in our faithfulness but will discipline us abundantly in our rejection of him, his Word, and his ways.
Our hope is in the grace of God and his willingness to forgive and restore when godly sorrow and sincere repentance come from the heart of a man or a nation. But rather than righteousness and repentance flowing out of the church in America I am seeing compromise, going along to get along, a desire to be more acceptable to man in a perverse culture than to God in his holiness. A few are declaring God’s truth and absorbing the ridicule and accusations of culture but more are being silent.
God’s judgment, which is the release of the enemy to have his way with men who have partnered with Satan, usually comes first in a slow stream giving men the opportunity to recognize what is happening and turn again to God. Then the stream widens – disasters are greater and more frequent, and then if no repentance comes, God is forced by our own decisions to open the floodgate and let the enemy come in without restraint. History is full of such lessons. Curses are not vicious acts by a vengeful God, but rather the harvest of what we have insisted on planting year after year. God takes no pleasure in judging nations or men. His heart for us is to repent so that he can bless us again. But it is still our choice.
Our sincere and constant intercession for our nation, its leaders, its people, and the church is still our hope and can be a powerful weapon to push back the enemy. The authority of believers needs to be exercised on behalf of a nation and our nation evangelized by the love and power of God once again. Even this struggle is not against flesh and blood but spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. We are in a state of war and we have been promised the victory – but only if we stand, only if we fight. My prayer is that more than ever before believers in America will rise and fight against the enemy and drive him out of this nation so that the goodness and blessing of God can flourish here again. I hope you will make a decision to go to war today against the dominion of darkness and not stop until the victory is secure. Be blessed today knowing that God goes before those who go in his name.
