By Charles Christmas

This is the last in a mini-series of four on “Unless We Repent:” anyone, believers, churches; and now, we as a nation.

I am certainly not a prophet who discerns the Bible prophecies in detail about the future. But it does not take such a prophet to see the obvious “handwriting on the wall:” to remember the judgment upon our nation in recent decades, to see the judgment which is happening to our nation now and the certain prospect of larger and worse judgment ahead of us.

The God of the Bible is God of love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, compassion and he is slow to anger. He is all-powerful, all knowing, ever present, unchanging and sovereign. But God is also holy, just, jealous and God of wrath, anger and judgment relating to sin, wickedness and rebellion against him.

Sin, wickedness and rebellion have their own “built-in” judgments. The wages of sin is sin itself. The wages of sin can be death to a clear conscience, a reputation and character, to a relationship, a marriage and a family, and to the Bible definition of marriage, moral values and Biblical principles.

You need no reminder of the continuing and increasing corruption and deterioration of our society. This article is to remind us that our Holy God is aware and we are to be sure “our sins will find us out.” The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God: Psalm 9:17. There is a graveyard for nations also.

God had resources we had never thought about in his arsenal for wrath and judgment: The 9/11 airplane bombings of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the plane that crashed in the Pennsylvania field; the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing; our present two major wars with no victory or winding down; our uncountable hurricanes, storms, tornadoes and forest fires; the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing; the disaster of the recent traitors to national security for normal citizens and the total military security for our nation; and the Supreme Court changing and rewriting the Bible’s definition of marriage.

Logically and biblically, we can hardly call our nation a Christian nation. True, freedom of worship by Bible believers was huge among the founding fathers. God and the Bible were basic in the original foundations by our leaders and our basic documents and guidelines. This remained true for a few centuries with some rebellion under freedom of speech and worship (and not to worship). Immigration, freedom of speech and religion, humanism, popular polls and a reinterpretation of our original foundational documents have tended toward a nation with much unrestrained rebellion against the simple truths of the Bible and against God.

In this article we have only taken a glance at the downward course of our nation; at God, who among other inviting character traits is also God of wrath, anger and judgment; and the possibility of an unthinkable impending judgment upon our nation.

What help and hope can there possibly be? The help and the hope is righteous people. The U.S. today is not God’s Old Testament people, Israel, but we are a nation with many citizens who are God’s true people, and with many of his churches, which include many of his true people. Sodom was not a city and territory of God’s people, but some of the citizens were God’s people. God promised Abraham that he would not send destructive judgment upon Sodom if 10 righteous people could be found there, but all-knowing God could not find 10 and unthinkable judgment happened. God says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin a disgrace to any people.”

Therefore, the hope and the help and the responsibility, in the face of continuing and impending judgment upon our nation, rest squarely upon the Church and the churches in our nation. We must be and become righteous. We must be God’s “light” and “salt” in every facet of our life. Every leader and true believer in a church is responsible. Second, we must produce righteous persons by evangelism and discipleship efforts. Of course, none of this can be done in human effort or planning. Extreme prayer and the help of the indwelling spirit of Christ are absolutely necessary—but the ball is in our court. We must not pass the buck of personal responsibility by shifting the blame, criticizing others, wringing our hands or saying, “Well, there’s nothing that I can do.”

—Charles Christmas is a religion columnist for The Clanton Advertiser. His column appears each Thursday.