Posted by my Brother

I will take no credit in this post that I have copied from my brother Armed and Christian. The only thing that I can do is paste it here and let you see what he so eloquently expressed that is on my heart as well. I too have been reading through the Book of Jeremiah and my heart breaks for this nation and world. Enjoy this and please go and comment on his site.

This Election -- Inception Of The Judgment Of God?

It has been obvious to me for some time that God is bringing judgment upon our nation. We have utterly turned from His Word, and are now glorifying, normalizing, and aggrandizing those exact things which He finds detestable and abominable. For those who may not know, the definition of “abomination” means something that makes you want to vomit when you see it. It is something aesthetically and morally repulsive (TWOT 2530a). An excellent example of an abomination is homosexuality. 

Scripture repeatedly defines homosexuality as abominable in God’s sight (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9). Despite what the liberals among the Christian camp wish to believe in their twisted and illegitimate eisegesis, The Bible is very clear on this point. In 1 Corinthians, there are even separate words used for both the penetrator and the penetratee. Despite this, our society has allowed the homosexual agenda to bully their way into being allowed to adopt children, have "valid" (i.e. legally binding) marriage ceremonies, and they have even created an entirely new class of crimes defined solely by the perpetrator’s possible dislike of homosexuality. They have created unto themselves a protected status, whereby it is now illegal in California public schools and workplaces to reference “mom,” “dad,” or any derivative thereof, lest one offend a homosexual or a child who is being raised by homosexuals. If that were not bad enough, their school textbooks must also give positive examples of homosexuality in every course curricula.

There are also a good number of other abominations—things for which God has judged other nations. Let me know if any of these find parallels in our society and culture. Idolatry. Human sacrifice. Giving God a defective sacrifice. Dishonest business practices. Prostitution. Proverbs 6:16-19 give us another list of things which are abominable to God: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers. 

Now it is my experience that a good amount of the problem in the Church is due to “milktoast” Christians who are afraid to speak up or confront for fear of “spreading strife among the brethren.” My question to you is whether it is better to take a chance on being a strife spreader, or to allow sin and evil to go unchecked. Would you rather be responsible for stirring the shit pot or for allowing wickedness to flourish because you didn’t want to make waves? 
Before I wander too far off topic, let me go back and revisit the list of other abominable practices, and address them in order. 

Idolatry is defined as putting anything else in a place of more importance than one’s relationship with God. Ouch. I’ll not presume to speak for any of you, but if I am truly and brutally honest, I know that there are many times I do not put my relationship with God in a place of pre-eminence in my life. Unfortunately, I think this is just a big part of being human; inherently and naturally sinful, selfish, and almost utterly focused on the physical here-and-now that constantly presses on our senses and screams for our attention. To cultivate a spiritual relationship requiring disciplined reflection and quiet is difficult at best under these circumstances. Be that as it may, this is not an excuse, merely an explanation. It does not diminish the fact that our actions ... MY actions and attitudes fall into the “abominable” range from time to time. 

Human sacrifice, or the killing of another human being in order to placate, propitiate, or curry favor with a certain deity or being. The most obvious application of this is in our staggering abortion record. Some might even suggest that embryonic stem cell research be lumped into this category. In any event, the number of babies aborted in America is estimated at roughly one and a half million every year. In Washington, D.C., abortions outnumber live births by a 2 to 1 ratio . It is estimated that 98% of abortions occur due to reasons other than rape, incest, or preserving the mother’s health/life . Since the outset of the Iraqi war, there have been 17 babies aborted for every U.S. soldier who has died. That’s almost 6.5 million. There are an average of 3,750 babies aborted daily to the estimated eighteen people who are killed every day by handguns . That makes abortion 205 times more dangerous than my gun. 

America is sacrificing over a million human lives every year to the demon “convenience” on the altars of those who took an Oath to, “first, do no harm.” Need I say any more? I didn’t think so.

While we do not follow the ancient Jewish custom of bringing livestock and produce to the Temple for offerings to God and use for the priesthood and those less fortunate than ourselves, we do participate in giving our time, talents, and treasures to Him. While I think tithing is a wonderful thing, I do not tithe nor do I demand anyone else do so. The New Testament is clear that everything we have is from God, and that we should give as we feel led to give. I would love to be in a position to better support our church financially, but I must balance our income with our obligations to provide for the family and pay our bills. There are, however, other ways that one can support the church, such as ministry involvement and service. Again, I will not presume to know every person’s interests and area of giftedness, but speak for myself. The point is that when you give—whether you give money, or you build things, or your time teaching, or your time and effort serving in some other capacity—that you give God your absolute best. Too many Christians I know are content to be the equivalent of a couch potato, and their church involvement is no more than taking up pew space on Sunday morning. There is no commitment, no involvement, no relationship, and no community. This is completely antithetical to the Biblical concept that we are one family in God. 

Dishonest business practices. The corporations of America have grown bloated on the sweat and toil of not only American citizens, but also the cheap labor of third-world sweatshops. The reports of American clothing companies who pay Asian workers pennies a day to turn out clothing they’ll never be able to afford are so common that they barely get our attention when surfacing in the media. Another dishonest business practice that our lending corporations routinely use to pad their profits is their obscene double-digit interest rates. They aren’t the only ones, though. Our oil companies routinely engage in price-fixing and are currently gouging us for upwards of $4/gallon of gasoline while they report record profits every quarter. Our own government routinely engages in armed robbery as they greedily suck at our paychecks. As if this were not bad enough, the money they steal from us in the name of “the common good” is blatantly and flagrantly mismanaged and misused, and then they scream for more. Every year, the Senate votes itself another pay increase on the backs of American citizens. Last year, they also voted to give your Social Security money to illegal aliens—people who criminally snuck into this country, have contributed nothing, and are already enjoying the fruit of our labors by way of welfare and Medicaid. If this is not dishonest, I don’t know what is. 

Prostitution can be defined as giving yourself to someone you don’t “belong” to, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. While God’s Word outlines our relationship and responsibilities to Him and the parameters by which we should live our lives, we instead look to other sources for fulfillment. God accused the Israelites of prostitution when they made protection alliances with the pagan nations around them. Can we draw a parallel between this and the billions of U.S. dollars being given in foreign aid—mostly to countries who would just as soon see us overthrown and destroyed, and would aid in our downfall just as readily as they take our cash? We are trying to “buy” a good reputation in the world, yet the aims and goals of the U.N. show that our so-called allies would prefer to weaken us and use us to their own benefit. Were this played out between two people, it would quickly be recognized as an unhealthy relationship. Why is it so difficult for us and our leaders to see that it is much worse when it happens on a national level? We not only prostitute ourselves to curry favor with other nations, we prostitute ourselves to politicians who mouth empty, feel-good platitudes (yes, we can!), and our elected officials prostitute themselves to whatever public opinion they think will make people like them more than the other guy and help them keep their incumbent position. So far, the result I have seen of this is that the political parties we have are so similar as to currently be indistinguishable from one another. 

Haughty eyes, or pride and arrogance, are all the rage in our culture. In TV shows and films, fathers are commonly depicted as buffoons while the children openly mock and disrespect him by way of backtalk, attitude, and outright disobedience. Much of this same arrogance is found in what I call the “thug culture” of today’s Hip-hop influenced youth wherein people are commonly shot for disrespecting one another, and women are depicted as impersonal sex-objects. Those females who do not want to be seen as a piece of flesh, who want to be considered “strong” women, are more vulgar, foul-mouthed, and full of testosterone attitude than the men are. Ladies and gentlemen are more an exception than a rule anymore, and I think this can be directly traced back to pride and arrogance. In the same way, so is road rage; the physically arrogant action of imposing your vehicular will on an impersonal victim. Even in children’s toys and cartoons we can see “haughty eyes” glorified in the line of Bratz-style merchandise. When we teach our children pride and arrogance as personal virtues, what can we expect as a logical result besides the “Gangsta, Dawg, and Ho” Hip-hop culture with which we find ourselves overrun? When we inculcate an entitlement mentality—that the world, the government, that anybody OWES you something—what will we end up with other than a nation of professional victims and societal parasites?

God finds lies abominable, yet in our court system—the place one expects to go to find justice—is the one place that lies and half-truths routinely win the day, and righteousness is suppressed. Neither the prosecuting attorney nor the defense attorney are interested in discovering or demonstrating the truth; one is determined at all costs to portray the accused as an inhuman, evil monster regardless of the veracity or validity of the charges, and the other attorney is equally determined to portray their client as misunderstood, maligned, and innocent. Not to jump on the anti-politician bandwagon again, but I think that the connection between “campaigning” and making bald-faced lies is too obvious to be ignored. The other supposed bastion of truth and justice—the church—has also become home to falsehood and unrighteousness; whether it is suppressing evidence of pedophilia among Catholic priests or allowing Darwinian, gay, or ethnocentric heresies to vitiate the truth of the Word of God, or any number of other falsehoods we have allowed to creep in and replace truth with political correctness.

While there isn’t a lot, individually, that we can do about the murder rate in America, God does detest “hands that shed innocent blood.” Having already covered abortion, I won’t revisit that issue, but I will mention that neither our Constitution nor any concept of justice allows for a pre-emptive war like the invasion of Iraq. 

Again, I cannot presume to speak for any one individual apart from myself when it comes to describing a “heart that devises evil plans” or “feet that run rapidly to evil.” Likewise, I have no desire to go into a litany of my own shortcomings and inner struggles. Since the point of this essay is to describe why God is bringing judgment upon America as a nation, allow me to point out some of the more evil plans perpetrated by our elected officials and representatives. The PATRIOT Act allows any person to be capriciously designated a “terrorist,” and thus be stripped of any legal Rights, including humane treatment, trial by jury, and being charged with a crime before being arrested as opposed to being “detained.” It also gives spy agencies a carte blanche to violate the 4th amendment without any legal recourse by the object of their surveillance (or, indeed, without even their knowledge!). REAL ID, while not the “mark of the beast” that some are worried it may be, is a complete violation of personal privacy, a logistical nightmare, horrendously expensive, and obscene in that the people who are being victimized and having their personal data exposed and compromised are the very ones who will be made to fund it. Another evil plan is the military’s plan to prepare for quelling Urban American insurrection by means of FEMA “detainment facilities” and Operation Urban Warrrior. Of course, to facilitate this subjugation, we have the ongoing, relentless efforts of our elected officials to disarm us. The FBI’s sniper/assassin Lon Horiuchi going free after shooting a nursing mother in the back at Ruby Ridge. Waco. The BATFE and their long and storied history of lies and abuse of power ; most recently evidenced by their prosecution of David Olofson, the shutdown of Cav Arms, their harassment of Red’s Gun Shop in Idaho, and their harassment of Len Savage, the owner of Historical Arms. 

Now it was not my intention to turn this into another Pro-2A essay, but it cannot be ignored that a government who wishes to disarm its population is obviously up to no good. My intention was, and is, to show why God is bringing judgment upon America. It cannot be ignored that we are a perverted and unrighteous nation. When you consider the popular choices for what we consider entertainment, icons, and role-models, we become even more appalling. Our TV sitcoms routinely glorify immorality, lying, cheating, and disrespect to parents. Other “reality” programs desensitize us, and are based on debasing other individuals; whether by seeing how low someone will stoop to obtain cash and material possessions, or by dehumanizing those who run afoul of “the law.” Our video games depict carjacking, murder, and a host of other crimes as reasonable actions. Most of our elected officials and film stars have lower morals than most prostitutes. Our sports icons routinely engage in drug abuse and other illegal behavior, and are paid insane sums of money to play a game. Our teachers are underpaid, undertrained, and underappreciated, and despite our national affluence our schools cannot compete with the level of education provided in other nations. We have abandoned our Christian foundation, have shredded our Constitution, and allowed our Bill of Rights to be trampled. 

I've been studying through the book of the prophet Jeremiah, and many of the parallels between Israel and America are frightening. If God did not hold back His hand of judgment from His own chosen people, what makes us think that we--whom He has blessed so abundantly--are any less accountable.