Avoid ‘Sudden Terror’ By Staying In Line With God

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(3) <God says,>”If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, (9) I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. (14) But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, (15) and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, (16) then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength…”’ (Leviticus 26:3, 9, 14-16)

We often look outside the United States for ‘sudden terror’.  The recent position by Germany that Ukraine can use its missiles to strike deep in Russia, then Russia’s response it may strike Germany if Ukraine does so, then Ukraine attacking Russia’s strategic bombers throughout all of Russia, raises the concerns that Russian retaliation may go beyond Ukraine and go beyond conventional munitions.  The warning by Israel and the US that it will attack Iran if Iran is preparing and refining its uranium to create its own nuclear weapons, then the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency declaring Iran is at the cusp of creating weapons-grade uranium may push Israel to attack unilaterally.

Both scenarios are concerning for the United States as both could draw the US into another war and worst, a use of nuclear weapons against the US, its military bases, or its allies.  As concerning as this is, there is also one more terrifying concern, the destruction of the US from within.  We’ve seen our nation turn away from a Biblical Worldview to a secular worldview over time, into one where debauchery and chaos once deemed unacceptable is to many now considered the norm.  It affects our communities, our government, and even our social interactions with each other. 

At some point, given the hedonistic tendencies our society has, in terms of greediness, selfishness, and pride, gone from a Godly, caring nation that paid its way each step it made to a secular, woke nation that is running up our debt tab.  One day it will be time to pay the bill, and the country will be broke both financially and morally and won’t be able to.

‘Sudden terror’ has come several times to mankind throughout history, and especially is described in the Bible many times over.  It is always because a subset of the people (usually the ruling ‘elite’) do ungodly things.  Pharaoh and his advisors would not listen to Moses, which caused the plagues to hit all of Egypt (including the Jewish slaves in Goshen).  The kings of Judah and Israel fell to pagan worship, ending in all of Israel being stripped, burned and the Jews exiled into Babylon.  Hitler and the Nazi Party led Germany into World War II and implemented the Holocaust, ending in the destruction of most German cities and the shaming of its people for its atrocities.

In the US, as we retreat (corporately) from God’s principles into the secular worldview, we see history repeated.  The greed of a few, borrowing money to speculate in the market caused the 1929 crash, and the hedge funds’ actions are may end up causing the same thing today.  A few can cause the whole to feel God’s wrath, just like one soldier’s stupidity can cause their drill sergeant to punish the platoon as a whole.  Why is this?  We who are Christians have a duty to speak up and correct those who are doing evil around us. 

However, we often will not speak up out of fear that those ‘elites’ will punish us, ridicule us, or shame us.  But look at what happens when the Christian (or if in the Old Testament,  the righteous in God) does not stand up for Godliness.  The devout Jews (except for Jeremiah) stayed quiet as Jerusalem fell into paganism.  The German Christians stayed quiet as their Jewish brothers when into boxcars to the concentration camps.  We American Christians stay silent as the secular push God further out of the mainstream, and secularism/evil takes hold. 

Things that are not significant to us don’t affect us, until they affect us.  Removing prayer in school? Doesn’t affect me.  Abortion made legal?  Doesn’t affect me.  Gay transgender cross-dressers reading to kids?  Doesn’t affect me.  Hey, why is my church closing?  Why are all my shows I once enjoyed now filled with same-sex debauchery?  Perhaps the removal of prayer in school has dropped the number of people wanting to attend church.  Perhaps when we are silent to those who are perverting our society, we shouldn’t be surprised society taking over our entertainment choices as silence is often interpreted as approval.  What you didn’t think affected you, did.

Pay attention, and more importantly, stand up for Jesus and for His Gospel!  Some of us see the impending doom of what will happen when national debt becomes overbearing and the money printed is no longer worth even the value of the paper its printed on, but have we spoken up?  Do we as Christians speak up against that which is against God, or do we believe ‘meek is weak’ and cower from evil?  If we don’t speak up and defend God now, He may bear His Wrath like ‘sudden terror’ upon us as He did the Jews or the German Christians of days past.  If you see or hear evil, but don’t warn others, you may be held as being complicit in it.