In a ‘post-truth’ times, when the media are promoting the sensational over the accurate, homes, churches, nations, and most especially, Americans are in an atmosphere of weariness and expectation. America is a nation founded in covenant with God. When the first President of America, George Washington was sworn into office on April 30, 1789, he declared ‘no people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.’[1] The reflection is that, the blessings and prosperity of God on America could become a dream when God’s commandments are disregarded. Broken covenant, lack of giving God the first place is the foundation of America’s all sorts of trouble (2 Pet 2:21, Rom 11:19-20). American in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 calls for a fresh and insightful perspective on the challenges that plagues America and the need to return and embrace its covenant narrative with God for a brighter future.
Just as no amount of theology or structure can stop church decline if a heart is impure, the best democracy could produce the worst leader and policy if the heart is impure (Prov 4:23). Coupled with the obvious moral and spiritual decline, the political, economic, and systemic crisis in 2005 that climaxed with the financial break-down and Great Recession that began in late 2007, the effect of the Wall Street ‘occupation’ in late 2011 continue to hunts America future. Beyond Barack Obama’s eight years presidency, the United State America, a federative republic of 50 states, five major territories with a federal district, the nations’ seat of government, Washington D.C is facing a critical future. To build a just future, Gar Alperovits, an economist and author of paradigm-shifting book, “America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy,” lays out a roadmap necessary for the American systemic economic change. However, the questions of ownership, wealth distribution, cooperation, democracy, and what an economic future might look like that does not assume the dominance of corporate capitalism are unresolved.[2]
The emergence of a former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the billionaire Donald Trump as the Democratic and Republican nominee is not making the issues on ground better. According to report, the ‘year-long circus of mudslinging, bad blood and insults comes to an end … when 300 million American go the polls to decide the most acrimonious race for the White House in US history,’ on 8th November 2016. It is argued that ‘Hillary or Donald may be the most unpopular presidential candidate ever to seek the Oval Office,’ bearing in mind that the billions in financial markets are resting on the outcome and its implications for ‘the biggest economy on the planet.’[3] It is not only the fate of the world that is at stake, the American church is battered and divided. Politics is influencing the church negatively rather than the Church influencing the politics positively. The most important election in the world is not about Hillary or Donald and their infamous pledges, but about the Americans and the world in general. America is very strategic to the world revival, peace and unity. With the rise of China and the growth of emerging markets, the economy of America is still the one that sets the pace for the rest of the world. While the world is expecting how the outcome of the heated 58th US presidential contest affects the financial markets, God is seeking and calling America to renew its fresh identity in God alone. American in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 is a call to America to relearn what God stands for, and then they will know where and who they are for.
The words of David Gardner in his book, The Trumpet Sounds For Britain, Vol 2 is very helpful in understanding American present context. According to Gardner, ‘it is not enough for an army or a nation to have a vague faith in God. It is not enough for us to rest content that our commanders are godly, and that God’s flag is publicly flown.’ The question is what does God want done in America? America believe in God – as what? – ‘As a nonetity, content to be recognised, and then ignored? As a vague power, meaningless, purposeless, inarticulate, and therefore unfit to command a platoon, let alone a world? America in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 is a call to Americans to remember their Christian heritage and turn to the Lord in repentance first ‘believe in God who wants, and means to have done, all that Christ embodied, taught, and lived out.’[4]
Using the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, just as ‘the worst of democracy has turned Britain into a country divided in many ways at the moment – and we’ve seen a rise in intolerance, discrimination and hatred,’ America needs prayers for a post-election divine intervention. One of the challenges is the feasibility in systemic term – to sustain equality, liberty, and democracy in a very large-scale, centrally governed continental system that spans almost three thousand miles and includes almost 300 million people. America in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 points not only to how a democratic nation might ultimately be conceived, but a call to return to the powerful narratives of how the Scripture and Christian faith shaped the prosperous foundation of American ethnic and nationalistic vision and project. It was a narrative that equally generate ‘human dignity and reconciliation.’[5]
America in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 summons Americans to return to the Eternal Who is able to ‘wreck the purposes of pagans, he brings to nothing what the nations plan; but the Eternal’s Purpose stands for ever’ (Ps 33:10). In such a critical time in American history when all known systems are not working, America in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 suggests a clue to the real problem and way forward. The systemic ills in America is basically build on the departure and lack of education in basic Truths, the foundations of right knowledge which was the narrative foundation of America. You cannot talk of peace while giving approval and blind promise to the way that produces war, racial discrimination, and division. You cannot give assent and conferring civilisation’s acceptance on the ways that are the causes of the America’s systemic ills.[6] America in Prophecy: Beyond 11/16 calls for a new way of living together and treating one another, outside the present orthodox thinking in order to generate Eternal vision into reality with a clear sense of divine purpose. A set of eminently practical ideas that promise a truly democratic America could become source of tragedy based on vanity of intellect and ‘disdainful rejection of the divine revelation.’
America in obedience to God’s commandments suggests a ‘concrete and feasible ways to reverse the ominous course of the past several decades and to open the way to a vibrant democracy with a sustainable economy that can satisfy human needs’ according to God’s purpose. Democratisation of wealth without God is causing era of deepening moral and fiscal crisis. The prosperity of America is beyond super-elites logic of long-term political refocusing. In democracy, American may appears as ‘a continent too large,’[7] but God has got the whole world in His hand. American is not too large for God’s redemption. Jesus still rules the world, the Gospel still changes lives. Americans are hurting in sin, division, bitterness and brokenness. The soul and heart of America are looking for hope, a hope beyond Hillary or Trump. The hope of America is in God’s prophecy, a renewed covenant relationship, ‘since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained…’[8]
ARISE AND LET US PRAY FOR AMERICA.
[1] Bailey, James, ‘America’s Broken Covenant Causing All Sorts of Trouble,’ https://z3news.com/w/americas-broken-covenant-causing-trouble/
[2] Alperovitz, Gar, America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy (Boston, MA: The Democracy Collaborative Press and Dollars & Sense), pp. 119-122
[3] Lynch, Russell, ‘Will it be Hillary or Donald? How to trade the US Election,’ in London Evening Standard, Tuesday, 1 November, 2016, pp. 40-41
[4] Gardner, David E, The Trumpet Sounds For Britain: Volume 2, God’s Mighty Acts of Deliverance (Southend on Sea: Jesus is Alive! Ministries), p 121
[5] British Academy, The Role of Religion in Conflict and Peace Building (London:British Academy, 2015), p. 71
[6] Armstrong, Herbert W, The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy (California: Ambassador College Press, 1972), p. 10
[7] Alperovitz, America Beyond Capitalism:, pp. 63, 119, 169
[8] President George Washington cited in https://z3news.com/w/americas-broken-covenant-causing-trouble/
Recent Comments