Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Has America Become Latter Day Amorites?*

Someone once said that if we don't learn from history, we are bound to repeat it. This message today is a serious prophetic warning. Second Peter warned that in the last days scoffers would come and the source of their scoffing would be the prophesied return of the Lord, and the judgment against wickedness. These scoffers would say, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (2 Pet. 3:3-4). These scoffers, Peter said, deliberately overlook the flooding of the earth in judgment, which occurred since the creation. Peter wrote that instead of a judgment by water, this time, the judgment against ungodly men would be by fire that is stored up for this purpose. Both the heavens and the earth will be dissolved and melted with fervent heat (v. 7, 10). The description of this melting heat sounds very much like the outcome produced by a nuclear holocaust. Many nuclear powers among the nations today are on the verge of conflict, and such conflict was only narrowly avoided in the past. The only reason that we have not yet seen this prophesied judgment, said Peter, is "The LORD is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night..." (v. 9). The judgment of God is patiently withheld to give men an opportunity to repent, but the day will come. You can read a confirming word in the Apocrypha: Wisdom 12, for those who understand that while the Apocryphal books are not now considered scripture, they were quoted in scripture, and offer interesting additional information. In a prophecy given to Abram, the LORD promised that Abram's seed would experience servitude, or slavery, as strangers in a foreign land. That servitude would last 400 years. At the end of that time, the Lord would bring judgment upon the land that oppressed His people with servitude, and His people would be delivered out of that land with great substance (Gen. 15:13-14). It has been approximately 400 years since America began oppressing the native people of this land, and began to bring people from Africa and other lands into slavery here. Now, in America, there is still violent racial hatred against different racial and ethnic groups. The prophecy of the LORD to Abram does not stop there, however. He could not bring Abram's descendants back to the land of Canaan until the 400 years were completed "for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (v. 16). After four generations, God would bring back Abram's descendants to the land of Canaan through judgment against Egypt, and at the same time, displace the iniquitous Amorites from that land. God found the practices of both the Egyptians and the Amorites to be an aabomination and warned His people not to do the same: "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God." (Lev. 18:3-4). What were the practices of both Egypt and the Amorites, the inhabitants of Canaan, that were so abominable that the LORD would bring judgment upon them. What are the abominations that America shares with the Amorites? The LORD, in Lev. 18, describes numerous sexual sins that defile. Not only do these sins defile a people, but they defile the land on which the people dwell: "For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled; that the land spue not you out also, when you defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people." (v. 27-29). All of the sexual sins mentioned in Lev. 18 are running rampant in America today. Sexual perversion, promiscuity, and pornography, are tolerated by law, while those who speak out against it are not tolerated. Another abomination of the people of the land that the LORD warns His people against is the offering of children to the god, Molech: "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD." (v. 21). Here in America, millions of chldren have been slaughtered in abortion. This is the human sacrifice of children. Shall the Lord judge the Amorites, but not judge us for doing the same? The LORD said that there were six things He hated, and seven were an abomination to Him. One of those things mentioned is the shedding of innocent blood. Does there exist any more innocent blood than that of an unborn child in its mother's womb? Yet we shed it daily. One who wanted the practice of abortion to become widespread, Margaret Sanger, who served as president of Planned Parenthood, shared the views of Hitler regarding those who were "less desireable". She believed that populations from the "mongrel nations" should be controlled, even eliminated, and that civil and religious leaders, especially from the poor, black, and immigrant communities, should be recruited to endorse and spread these methods of population control in those neighborhoods. The prophets wrote of the Word of the LORD concerning His people when they practice the ways of the Amorites. Isaiah wrote that when God's people join properties into large land possessions, their houses shall be desolate. He judges His people who no longer are sober, but drunk until they have no self-control, and encourage their neighbors in drunkenness to see them fall. As a people, we have become users of alcohol, and also drugs, in order to escape sobriety. God told His prophet that His people have turned away from the knowledge of the LORD, and no longer consider the work of His hands. "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it." (Isa. 5:14). Not only do these conditions exist in America, but Isaiah continues to show us our nation: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!...which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him." (v. 20-21, 23). Truth, justice, and the knowledge of the LORD are no longer sought in America. We here in America surely fit the picture that Isaiah has painted. As the prphet Habakkuk sought the LORD to hear for what he should repent and intercede, he was told to write the vision down plainly, so all could quickly read and understand it (Hab. 2:1-2). This vision, though it was for a future time, would come, and it would not be late. Though the scoffers, such as those spoken of by Peter, above, believe that the Word of the LORD will not come to pass, the LORD assured Habakkuk that it surely will. The LORD spoke judgments or "woes" that would come to "him that increaseth that which is not his, and to those who become involved in the covetous and oppressive economics of debt (v. 6: "thick clay"). The Word is spoken against those who take spoil from other lands, and fill their own land, and cities, with violence and blood. The Word is against those who are covetous, seeking and taking to accumulate what they need, they believe, to secure a place for themselves in order to avoid an evil overtaking them. However, we cannot buy or accumulate our way out of the woes and judgment of God. "Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!" (v. 12). Much of the growth of our nation came by violence and practices of iniquity. We purposefully and violently drove out native peoples to inhabit their lands, and built our wealth on the enslavement of others. Habakkuk was so convicted by this vision from the LORD, that he immediately went into prayer: "O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy." (Hab. 3:1-2). This is the same kind of prayer that the LORD asks of His people when they see their land embroiled in these conditions of iniquity (2 Chron. 7:14). If His people will pray and repent, and change their own ways, He will hear and heal our land. There is no other remedy or solution. Though men may try to buy, fight, or even vote their way out of the "woes" that come from their iniquity, there is only one solution given by God: the repentance of His own people. Though men might scoff and say that there is no coming judgment, the Book of Revelation says that a moment comes when the mystery of God declared by His servants the prophets will be finished, when the voice from heaven says, "...there should be time no longer", which means there shall be delay no longer. Until that moment comes, we have been given time by a longsuffering God to heed, understand and repent. *Based upon Dr. Kenneth E. Stevenson's 4/25/21 message to the church. To contact: PO Box 154221, Waco, TX 76705 or Everlastingcovenant@ymail.com Look for Dr. Stevenson on Facebook, Twitter, and endtimeschool.com

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