Intentionally Overbalanced

As you peruse the pages of this blog, you might find yourself thinking that I am overbalanced toward the dark sayings of the Bible, while exhibiting an unhealthy gloom toward the prospects of America. These things are true. But it's not an accident attributable to my morbid personality alone. It's intentional, because I am convinced that the diet of the average American Christian contains far too much sugar, and far too little salt. If you take a little dose of the sobering stuff in the scriptures along with your normal consumption of tepid televangelists and silly disc jockeys, you might have a better chance at achieving a proper degree of balance in your walk of faith.

In our generation, we tend to believe as a culture that God loves everybody unconditionally and equally, that the laws of the Bible have been done away with for everyone, while at the same time there is no real need for a specific Savior, and the only thing you have to do to go to Heaven is to die.

While I agree that God is loving and patient and kind, one of the core doctrines of the faith is that, among His other attributes, He is holy. Akin to that are clear statements that He is just, that He will ultimately avenge all injustice, and that the unredeemed man will reap what he sows. God's love is a holy love, a love that is notable because it reflects God's holiness. It is not a sloppy permissiveness that just lets everything slide. Someone had to pay the price for our transgressions against His holiness; that price was paid by Jesus Christ alone, and unless you are covered by Him, you will find the balance due upon your arriving in the next world a bill far more than you can pay.

As a nation we have been given many years under several prosperous administrations to show our gratitude toward a benevolent Provider, and to repent of our disobedience to His precepts, turning back to the God who has so richly blessed us … but did we do that? Has there been any notable return to the Lord in our actions or in our prayers? Not that I am able to see. The left responded to the four years under the last Republican rule with Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots, burning down our cities, and disenfranchising the very people they pretend to champion. Did the right do any better? Well, maybe they didn't burn down any cities, but there has been no public display of remorse for our sinful ways, no sackcloth and ashes anywhere to be seen. Perhaps there has been some private rending of the hearts instead of the rending of garments, but if so, it remains for the fruit to be revealed.

So instead of a second term of Trump's mostly sensible governance, we were given a ruler in keeping with what we have deserved. And look at what has become of America already!

I am not prophesying here; I am just making my best guess at our future, recognizing the times that we are living in and comparing them with my understanding of the human heart. I think that the Republicans will win big in the 2022 and 2024 elections, giving the people of America one last chance to turn back to the God that most of the founding fathers and other early settlers worshiped. And my expectation is that—barring a sovereign act of tremendous mercy—we will fail. We will be hardened in our selfishness and confirmed in our rebellion against our Creator. And by the end of this present generation, America will have fallen, unrecognizable as the land of the free.

So, Christian reader, take advantage of your freedom now. Use these days to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, and devote yourself to good works—not trusting in them for any righteousness of your own, but as befitting a people who have been bought at great price. And be merciful to me, a sayer of dark sayings, as reflective of the days in which we live.