WORLD IN CRISIS (final part)

In the name of social justice and resisting “systemic racism,” America has been thrown into a period of upheaval that is the biggest threat to social cohesion in the last half-century. The rot of political corruption, social decay and institutional failure has been exposed in ways that are shocking to an older generation with long enough memories to understand the threat of such behavior. The broader world has looked at what is happening and asks whether America will have enough self-awareness and strength of national character to collect itself and carry on as the world leader. If self-loathing and anarchy continue to dominate, America’s ability to lead in the world could be severely crippled. The prophet Isaiah’s description of a nation’s death throes are eerily familiar to the headlines of today’s America: “Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupts! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your land in your presence; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers” ( Isaiah 1:4-7) Perhaps the most significant crisis of today’s world is this scene of unprecedented polarization and civil unrest in the United States. Charges that America is irredeemably racist and that its history is that of an evil society that has only made the world worse is pushing it to the brink of irreversible national division. If this false narrative continues it will choke out the spirit of a people that has stood for liberty and justice throughout its exceptional albeit imperfect history. America has had its severe flaws, but it is the only nation in history that has enshrined the values and principles of liberty in its founding documents. The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal . . . with certain unalienable rights.” Its more than 240-year-history has been a story of a people seeking to create a society where this lofty and noble goal is achieved. It has fought itself over these ideals. It has gone to war in Europe twice to free nations from totalitarian governments that sought to snuff out those ideals in their bids for world conquest. If, in this moment in time, America is deceived into thinking it is irredeemably racist, unjust and unworthy to lead, a leadership vacuum will be created in the world. Into that void will step a world power promising peace and order—but that power, as Bible prophecy reveals, will crush all who oppose it. This is what I see as I assess how the world has been reshaped in 2020. Now is the time in our life to walk with the Lord God, with Jesus the Christ, with strength and confidence. Regardless of what the coming months will bring, God is guiding history toward the day when Christ will appear in the glory of His Kingdom!