The End Is
Near...for the USA
By Jason Lovelace
On this 9th
Anniversary of the Terrorist Attacks in
New York and DC, this writer thinks that the
USA
is near the point of no return.
"Righteousness
exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."
--Proverbs 14.34
"But if ye will
not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be
sure your sins will find you out."
--Numbers 32.23
On April 12th, 1861,
the US Fortress in
Charleston
Bay named Fort
Sumter was fired on by elements and
artillery batteries associated with the Army of the
newly-formed Confederate States of
America. Since that
time, whenever the United States of America has been
assaulted in any way, shape, or form, the citizenry and the
government of the USA has responded with clear and righteous
anger and rage, usually resulting in war with the attacker,
the US Military not ceasing operations until the enemy was
totally vanquished. Such was the case in 1898 when the
Spanish were accused of destroying an American Battleship,
the USS Maine, in Havana Harbor; ditto that in 1917 when
several US Ships had been sunk due to unrestricted German
Submarine Warfare; ditto that again when the Japanese
assaulted and attacked our Naval Base at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii in 1941. In all of these cases, the USA and her
people - following these assaults listed - followed through
and supported the Government and the Military until the job
was done, and the likes of Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, the
Kaiser, the Spanish Crown, and the Confederate States of
America were summarily defeated (we could say the same
concerning Mexico in 1848-49, and almost the same with the
British in 1812). We were a nation when assaulted were
like lions: attack our pride, assault our family, and
destruction is assured. We were also a nation that, up
until the 1960s, held respect for God as supreme (even if
some of us refuse to worship or follow him), where our
National Leadership appealed early and often to the
Almighty, seeking his face and his will in the crucial
decisions that were to be made and were made. The
result was a nation that became strong in record time, and
internationally dominant in a time span never before reached
by any other nation or civilization...and all of this
happening via people who were considered cast-offs and the
refuse of other more highly advanced and ancient nations.
Just the mere whisper of the USA made people
dream dreams never before visualized. Even the mention
of the US Government's indignation was often enough for
other countries to sue for peace before shots were fired,
and often conflicting nationalities both inside and across
national borders appealed to the USA to mediate.
As the 9th
Anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks
has now come upon us, it is interesting to reflect upon the
time past since this horrible incident took place. In
an unprecedented move, for four whole days - from September
11th to the 15th of 2001 - an entire nation, the most
powerful nation on Earth with a population of 300 million
was held in the grip of eighteen terrorists, mostly from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
but hailing from their Al Qaida bases in Afghanistan. In all of
history, no nation before was ever held in the grip of fear
in such a way by so small a group. No population of
such size was ever held captive by so small a group of men -
but then agan, no other group of men were so dedicated to
their cause and religion and leader as to take so bold a
move as they did (and this is in no way praising the men who
did this terrible deed). In the beginning of this
ordeal that the USA has undergone for nine years - the War
on Terror - we, the population of the USA, were bound and
determined to see this faceless and slippery enemy defeated
and annihilated form the face of the Earth. We gave
President bush unprecedented powers and responsibility to
get the job done, and for the most part over his two terms
of presidency, he did just that, insomuch as all but wiping
out Al-Qaida and the Taliban from their bases in the two
countries the US Military was ordered to enter: Iraq
and Afghanistan (yes, the Taliban wasn't totally defeated,
but their presence in Afghanistan was greatly reduced,
forcing them to retreat to friendly regions inside
Pakistan). However, over the course of those eight
years Americans increasingly became tired of the war, and
focused their dissatisfaction at the voting booths in 2006
and `08. We voted in a congress which opposed
President Bush's policies with regards to the Iraq Theatre,
and in 2008, voted in a President in Barack Hussein Obama
who was ready to pull the plug on the most obvious assets in
the War on Terror, the Terrorist Prisons at Guantanamo Bay,
and the victorious efforts in Iraq. We are now seeing
a draw-down of troops in Iraq,
and an end of combat operations by the US Military as early as this winter.
Yet, terrorism
remains as strong as ever. The enemy, mostly defeated
in Iraq
- thanks to President Bush's Surge Strategy - is making a
comeback, and things in
Afghanistan
are only getting worse (and have done so since President
Obama took office last January).
What's happened?
Why are we Americans basically giving up the fight when the
enemy we seek to destroy is still active and dangerous?
First and foremost,
we have become a nation of people who give up all to easily.
We Americans used to stick in the fight until the job was
finished, and the enemy either vanquished (as in the Mexican
War, the War Between the States, the Spanish-American War,
World War One, World War Two, the Grenada Intervention, and
the Assault on Libya) or brought to the negotiation table
(The Korean War and the North Vietnamese in 1973). How
is it that we have yet to see terrorists of any and all
stripes wiped out, yet our President declaring that combat
operations are finished in
Iraq, especially seeing how
Terrorists are stepping up their attacks? It's because
we have become a nation of quitters who decide to stop
something when the job gets tough. Essentially, this
is how our enemies - and, yes, friends, the USA still has
MANY enemies - see us in our election of a man to the office
of President of the USA who made it a campaign pledge from
his earliest days as a candidate to end the conflicts and
pull out our troops. Al Qaida has not sued for peace.
The Taliban have not come to the negotiation table.
Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are all
still ready to continue their efforts in stepping up
international terror. Yet, we, the Population and
Electorate of the USA, have essentially told these entities
(not to mention a burgeoning People's Republic of China, an
antagonistic North Korea, and the ever-present Communist
State of Cuba) that we're done with fighting, that we've had
enough, and that we are going home. We, the Citizenry
of the USA, are giving up the fight because it has gotten
hard, long, drawn-out, and we have lost too many casualties
already (despite the fact that we lost more soldiers on
Omaha Beach on D-Day than we did in all the years we've
spent trying to oust Terrorists from Iraq), not to mention
the fact that it has also cost the USA billions of dollars.
Because we are tired of the fight, because it seems long and
not easily won, we have decided to call it quits and bring
our boys home.
Secondly, we
Americans have become self-centered. Essentially, we
are selfish. If we aren't getting something in return
for our efforts, why keep trying? The left and those
of a liberal and Democratic Party stripe have said ad.
nausaeum that the conflict in Iraq was about "oil", yet
our own American Petroleum Reserves are essentially the same
as they were on September 11th, 2001, and gas prices since
then - at one time - had quadrupled. Forgive this
writer's lack of expertise in business, but don't prices
tend to rise when there is a shortage of something, rather
than an abundance? If this conflict in Iraq
really was about Halliburton and Oil, why is it that price
at one point were hovering near $4/gallon for gas? The
law of supply and demand states that prices rise when demand
is high but supply is low, and the opposite for when supply
is high and demand low. The statements made concerning
the conflict in Iraq being about
oil essentially are about us as a nation becoming spoiled,
selfish, and self-serving. Anyone who should disagree
with this need only look at the following:
- Abortion on Demand is still
the law of the land, and since legalization by the
Burger Court in `73, 50
million Americans have been slaughtered, more than 99%
of the time for mere convenience...
- Divorces have skyrocketed in
the last 50 years, most cases being due to infidelity of
one or both partners, but more often due to
"irreconcilable differences" (read in both:
selfishness)...
- The rise of couples shacking
up before or instead of marriage has been dramatic, most
couples doing so as a sort of "test drive" of their
partner before actually committing to marriage (despite
social stats glaringly showing such couples rarely do
marry after such shacking up, or divorce coming soon
after marriage)...
- The strength and strong rise
of the Homosexual Community adn their agenda, demanding
special rights (no other chosen lifestyle is regarded in
the same light nor treated with such care as
homosexuality, save the Islamic Community in the USA)
and getting them despite the will of the people in 32
states declaring marriage to be between one man and one
woman for life...
- The rise of pornography and
the deviance of all things sexual, even with regards to
people who are married...
- The continued decadence of
entertainment, especially movies, television, and
mainstream music...
- The rise of churches which
water down the Gospel of Jesus Christ, making their
sanctuaries and campuses more "user" (read: "sinner")
friendly, and rejecting the doctrines of sin and man's
sinful estate before God, the reality of eternal
damnation and the existence of hell, the devil, and
fallen angels...
- The practice of High Profile
Church leaders in the USA visiting nations where
Christians are jailed, imprisoned, tortured, and/or
executed and naming them and their leaders as "Christian
Friendly"; these same leaders also have denounced the
Tea Party Movement, Government Leaders, and even fellow
pastors who actually bother to preach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ as it is written in the Bible (not to
mention doing the same to churches and denominations
which do the same)...
- The rise and popularity of
"celebrities" like
Paris
Hilton, the Kardashian Sisters, and Movie Stars and
Starlets who live lifestyles of self-aggrandizement...
- Professional Athletes - most
recently Major League Baseball players - who have
admitted to cheating and breaking the rules of the
professional governing bodies of the sports that they
play but are not only allowed to keep their records, but
also continue playing their respective professional
sports without disciplinary action taking place. The
lifestyles of many of these sports stars also emulate
and parallel those of
Paris
Hilton, the Kardashians, and Lindsey Lohan..
All of these - and
this list could go on and on - show that we, as an American
society, are selfish. If international affairs don't
in some way affect our lives on an enduring basis or if we
aren't getting some benefit in return, we don't want to be a
part of it. The War on Terror hasn't really brought
anything tangible or physical to the population of the USA in most people's minds, so as a
result we are no longer interested in continuing to fund
military operations on foreign soil and distant countries.
This is all in the face of the facts that precisely because
of President Bush's actions (much akin to Presidents
Reagan's and H. W. Bush's policies) there has not been
another assault on US soil by terrorists (and anyone wishing
to blame President Bush either in part or in whole for the
September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks need a stern
refresher in 1990s history, seeing how President Clinton
gutted the military and intelligence sectors to near
skeleton-crew status) in those 9 years since the terrorists
attacked New York and Washington, D.C. Despite the USA
being kept safe because of the US Military's taking the war
to the terrorists on their ground, many Americans - enough
to elect a Democratically-controlled Congress in 2006 and
Mr. Obama to the Presidency in 2008 - see nothing physically
rewarding to their daily lives, and therefore are
finished with the USA fighting the terrorists over there.
Only until or unless terrorists again disrupt our daily
lives, and cause us physical or emotional loss will we
bother to take them on again.
Thirdly, we have
become a nation of Godlessness. Now, yes, 76% of Americans
claim to be Christians; and yes, a majority of Americans
claim to go to church; and yes, again, a majority of
Americans say that they pray every day....but taking a look
at modern society in the first decade of the 21st century,
it becomes painfully clear that we may be talking the talk,
but we aren't walking the walk. As if the statistics above
aren't bad enough, we Americans are more and more becoming
addicted to alcohol, despite it being far more destructive
ot people's lives than marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth.,
and heroin combined. More and more Americans at
younger and younger ages are becoming sexually active,
insomuch that school now pass out free condoms to students
in hopes of promoting the (false) idea of "safe" sex, and
even more disconcerting is the fact that more American
Teenage girls are not only becoming more increasingly
sexually active, but are wanting to become pregnant at
younger ages (the "Gloucester 17", and the movies Juno,
Knocked Up, and The Waitress being glaring
examples of this trend, even promoting it among high school
students). Movies such as the Saw Series, and
remakes of The Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the
Thirteenth, Halloween, Psycho, The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre Series, and My Bloody Valentine
delve into violence and grisly murder which, just a few
years ago, would have been banned outright form any theatre
house in America. Further, more and more movies which
mock Christ have been made, including The DaVinci Code,
Angels and Demons, Jesus Christ: Superstar,
Godspell, and The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ.
Despite our rhetoric that we are still a Christian nation
and that there arte still a lot of people who identify
themselves as Christians, our public schools have been
devoid of any positive mention of the Name of Jesus Christ
for fifty years. Prayer is still banned in public
school. Bible Clubs still have to wade through a sea
of red tape at public schools and state university campuses.
Godlessness is still taught in monopolizing fashion in the
science classes in the form of the false idea of Evolution.
Yet all the while, classes on Transcendental Meditation, New
Age Thought and Practices, Hindu Meditational Practices, and
classes on and about Islam are regularly attended and in
most cases required classes (and still the ACLU, the People
for the American Way, The Society for Separation of Church
and State all remain eerily silent concerning US Tax Dollars
going to fund these religious classes). Agnostics
still attack our very foundations of the nation, including
the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments displayed on
public property, Nativity Scenes on public lawns, and even
Christianity being spoken of on the airwaves. All the
while this is happening, we, the so-called Christian
Majority - all or most of the 76% of us who claim to be so -
not only remain silent as these things are taken away from
us, but we, further, were the primary instigation for the
Democrats and President Obama being elected in 2006 and 2008
despite the fact that modern-day Democrats in office have
regularly sided with the practice of homosexuality, the
massacre of the unborn, the squelching of free religious
speech, and he curtailing of inalienable rights, especially
for followers of Jesus Christ. How long will the LORD
bless us, as a nation and a people, so long as we remain
Godless in his eyes?
Fourthly, we have
become a nation that is passionate about very little.
Is it any wonder that groups such as the Taliban, Al Qaida,
Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Islamic Terror Groups consider
us satanic, when we mock and deride anyone who dares take a
stand on anything, especially Christian principles?
Should we be surprised when the Kim Jeong Ils, the Osama bin
Ladens, and the Fidel Castros of the world call us weak,
when we protest churches and pastors that stand up for
what's right? Pastor Terry Jones has not only taken a
stand concerning the Qur'an, which he threatened to burn,
but also on the fact that Islam is a false religion.
Because of this, he has been protested and criticized by
every imaginable public and celebrated figure in the United States today. We
Americans will not take a stand on anything, especially if
it "pigeon holes" us into a select category...even so far as
being labeled as certain forms of "Christian" (yes, we're
Christian, but not "Fundamentalist" Christians). We
will not even take a stand on American values and/or ideals,
labeling anything patriotic or nationalistic as extreme or
arrogant. Americans who wave the flag, or take pride
in America's
accomplishments are regularly viewed narrowly and with
either an air of suspicion or with mild disdain at the very
best. People who dare take a stand against the things
that are abhorrent in God's eyes are often cast in an
unfavorable light. People who oppose homosexuality are
often called "bigots"; those who stand up for the lives and
rights of the unborn are labeled "intolerant"; those who
dare point out that social welfare - something the Bible
mentions as being the purview of the church and not the
government - are slathered as "unrealistic"; those who point
out the dangers of sex aside from marriage - especially
underage sex - are characterized as "old fashioned" and
"wanting to return to the past"; people who say that god is
real and that he speaks and that they listen to him are
marginalized as "fringe", "kooks", and, and
"fundamentalist". No longer do we uphold men who take
stands on what is right. When the late minister and
NFL Defensive End Reggie White on two occasions spoke out on
the sinfulness of homosexuality, he was demanded to
apologize and retract his words. No words of praise
came to or for white. No ministers or pastors rose to
his defense. No Christians took up the torch and stood
by him publicly. Instead, he was forced to apologize
and retract his words. Carrie Prejean, Miss
California 2009 and candidate for Miss
USA
2009, not only received negative points for stating her
negative views of homosexuality, but also had her private
life assaulted by those in the mainstream media. She
was denounced merely for stating her beliefs and her stand
on the issue of homosexuality, and because her views were
against the media's views, she found her character slandered
and her image tarnished. Is it any wonder that we are so
derided as a nation? Is it no surprise that more
people are wanting to become terrorists than immigrate
legally to the
USA?
Fifthly - and most
tragically - we, as a nation, have embraced sin. No
longer do we Americans decry and denounce sin when we
encounter it, we now embrace it, encourage its practice, and
applaud those who become famous for it. Hugh Hefner is
one of the most celebrated people in
America, yet he is also one
of the most hedonistic. Most
Hollywood
actors and actresses have - at one point or another -
appeared nude and/or in sex scenes at some point in their
careers, or taken part in portraying gratuitous violence.
Celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian are applauded
not because they are entrepreneurs, but more so because they
also have appeared in sex tapes. We no longer laud
government leaders who stand up for what is right (such as
Presidents Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Bush) but those who have
taken a stand on what is wrong. Politicians who stand
for abortion are lauded, while those who try to defend life
are marginalized. Candidates who denounce
homosexuality are derided as out of touch, while those who
champion special rights for such a deviant chosen lifestyle
are exalted. Lawmakers who declare that sexual
promiscuity a danger to society are leveled in the media,
while those promoting the fallacy of "safe sex" are praised
for being forward thinking and in step with society.
How many churches and pastors were protested and burned n
effigy for supporting Proposition 8 in
California? How many times has
Pastor Jones from the Dove World Outreach Center been
decried and protested against in Florida for declaring Islam
a false religion and daring to threaten to burn the Qur'an?
We as a society have not only embraced sin, but elected
leadership into positions of great power who have made sin
their platform. President Obama not only has defended
Islam at every turn, but also has promised to make Abortion
the legislated law of the land by enacting the Freedom of
Choice Act, a law that would overturn all the Pro-Life laws
passed by legislators previous to his administration,
including the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban signed into law by
President Bush in 2006. Speaker of the House of
Representatives Nancy Pelosi is also a champion for Abortion
"rights", special homosexual "rights", and for squelching
free Christian Speech. Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid has time and again stated his ideas on such issues as
abortion, homosexuality, "safe" sex, and other sins we the
American Society have come to embrace. This is all not
to mention the sin we Americans watch in movies and on TV,
read in magazines, and listen to on the radio, welcoming it
into our homes on a nightly basis. Further, we
protested Rev. Jones for threatening to burn Qur’ans, but
when Bibles were burned by the United States
Army more than a year and a half ago, who protested?
Where was President Obama then? How about Sarah Palin
and others who protested Rev. Jones? Why can we
protest the threat of the burning of a false religion's
book, but when The Book that gives and shows the way to
eternal life is burned by the pile by a government entity,
no word of dissent is uttered?
A recent Rassmussen
Poll shows that most Americans - to the tune of 71% -
believe that we will be hit by another terrorist attack on
the scale of the September 11th, 2001 assaults. A
whopping 39%, according to Rassmussen (both as of September
11th, 2010) believe this to be very likely. This
writer has stated before that he believes that we, the
USA, WILL be hit
again....but it will be far, far worse than what we saw on
9/11/2001. In fact, unless we right the ship, and as a
nation do what is right and righteous in the eyes of the
LORD, we will likely see a Nuclear 9/11. Mind, this
will not happen because we simply elected the wrong person
into office, or because we have allowed this or that form of
entertainment to become popular; this will happen because we
have become a society of sin, and that, folks, is precisely
what the USA has become. Sixty years ago, people
respected God, even if they did not worship or follow him.
Seventy years ago, we as a Nation sought God's face, and
prayed for his help in times of disaster. We elected
leaders who would no more think of killing an unborn baby as
they would think of playing around with a cobra. We
went to church and filled the sanctuaries of local worship
services, even if we thought the pastor as too pointed with
his messages. We lauded public figures and celebrities
who had upstanding character and moral purity. We
respected pastors and preaches, especially when they stood
up and took on sin, unrighteousness, and ungodliness n
society. Since then, "We've come a long way, Baby!"
We now call evil good and good evil. What things used
to be white are now black, and those things seen as black
are now white. The things we declared to be wrong are
now right, while things that were once right are now wrong.
Friends, the LORD is clear on this point, that a nation and
society that reaches such a point will be destroyed.
It’s just that simple. Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed not only because their citizens were homosexuals,
but because their societies were depraved, and ditto that of
Israel
and Judah
several centuries later. The same it is for us today.
September 11th should be remembered, but not just because
we, as a nation, were paralyzed by eighteen men from a
second-world country, but because it is an indication of how
sinful as a society we have become, and how we have embraced
sin, welcoming it into our daily lives. Unless things
change, nuclear 9-11 is waiting at our door (Genesis 4.7),
and it will hit us when and where we least expect it (1st
Thessalonians 5.3). In fact, destruction more complete
and more total awaits us if we fail to heed God's
warnings...
Friends, the USA we see today
is not what it used to be. President Obama stated in a
speech that the
USA
is not a Christian Nation. Like it or not, like him or
not, and like his words or not, the proof is in the pudding:
our embracing of sin, receiving of evil as good, and our
uplifting of abomination in all sectors of American life
show the President's words to be painfully true. What
we were is no longer what are now, and God help us for it.