http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1528
Is America’s Iniquity Full?
When
one examines the sweeping scope of human history, it becomes readily
apparent that progress is not technically linear. Rather, nations rise
and fall. The progress that they achieve is often lost to later
civilizations, who must essentially “reinvent the wheel.” Archaeological
evidence exists to substantiate the fact that highly advanced
civilizations have preceded modern times, creating many enigmas for
researchers. The Moche were a highly developed society that vanished
centuries ago. The ancient Paracas performed medieval wonders in brain
surgery using only crude metal instruments. The fabled Macchu Picchu
achieved incredible engineering feats (“Inca...,” 1995). The Nasca (or
perhaps their predecessors) produced massive drawings that stretch for
miles and are thus visible/discernible only from the air (“The Lost
City...,” 2000; “Nasca Lines,” n.d.).
What happened to such civilizations? Why are they now nonexistent? One
would expect that the likelihood of a nation’s survival would increase
in proportion to the technological, medical, and economic progress. One
explanation for this circumstance (perhaps
the
explanation) is provided by the Bible. Simply stated, the Bible affirms
that as a nation moves in the direction of spiritual and moral
depravity, becoming increasingly alienated from God, that nation
positions itself for inevitable destruction. That destruction may come
in the form of natural disasters—like volcanoes (e.g., Pompey). It may
come in the form of external invasion—as in the case of the fall of
Babylonia or Rome. It can even come in the form of direct, miraculous
intervention by God—as in the case of Sodom and the other cities of the
plain (Genesis 19:29).
This principle is alluded to repeatedly in Scripture. When God promised
to Abraham that his descendents would be given the land of Canaan as
their homeland, He noted that this gift would not be given for several
hundred years. Why the delay? “[F]or the iniquity of the Amorites is not
yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). God would not have displaced one group
of people simply in order to give another group the land. That would be
unjust and prejudicial—in direct contradiction to God’s nature
(Deuteronomy 32:4). He eventually allowed the Israelites to conquer
Canaan because the peoples that inhabited the land had grown exceedingly
wicked. Concomitant with reception of the land, God used the Israelites
to punish the Canaanites for their perversion and depravity.
For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants.
You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not
commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any
stranger who dwells among you (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled),
lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out
the nations that were before you. For whoever commits any of these
abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among
their people. Therefore you shall keep My ordinance, so that you do not
commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you,
and that you do not defile yourselves by them: I am the Lord your God
(Leviticus 18:25-30, emp. added).
Observe that God gives civilizations a considerable amount of time—even
hundreds of years—to choose the spiritual and moral direction they will
take. If they are determined to spiral downward in an ever-deepening
devotion to idolatry, covetousness, sexual impurity, etc., then God
eventually “lowers the boom” and destroys them for their iniquity (cf.
the Genesis Flood—Genesis 6:3). The inspired writer of the book of Kings
compared the wickedness of King Ahab to the previous inhabitants of the
land of Canaan, noting the reason for their destruction: “And he
behaved very abominably in following idols, according to all that the
Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of
Israel” (1 Kings 21:25-26).
This same principle is reiterated in the New Testament. Jesus
summarized the history of Israel as one of frequent rebellion against
divine precepts. He intimated that they were nearing the limit of God’s
toleration and impending punishment when He declared to them: “Fill up,
then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt” (Matthew 23:32). It was as if
an imaginary cup had been gradually filling up with sin, and that it was
nearing the brim—at which time God would respond with appropriate
destruction. Paul verified this very understanding when he accused his
fellow Jews of having been the ones “who killed both the Lord Jesus and
their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God
and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that
they may be saved, so as always to
fill up the measure of their sins;
but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16,
emp. added). As the Jews entrenched themselves against the will of God,
they were guilty of piling sins on top of sins, until inevitable divine
wrath would be forthcoming—as it did when the Romans sacked Jerusalem
in A.D. 70.
Speaking centuries earlier, the inspired writer of Kings acknowledged
this principle in his summary of the Jews’ national history:
And the Lord spoke by His servants the prophets, saying, “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations (he has acted more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols), therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah,
that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I will stretch
over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the
house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.
So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into
the hand of their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to
all their enemies, because they have done evil in My sight, and
have provoked Me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt,
even to this day’” (2 Kings 21:10-15, emp. added).
Observe that the writer compared the sin of the Israelites with the sin
of the previous occupants of the land of Canaan, thus earning for
themselves the same outcome: divine retribution and devastation. As the
prophet Ezekiel reported: “‘Thus I will make the land desolate, because
they have persisted in unfaithfulness,’ says the Lord God” (15:8).
It is interesting that the Founding Fathers of America recognized this
eternal, biblical principle as having been posited in the fabric of the
Universe by the Creator. They understood that while God will judge each
individual human being at the Judgment when Christ returns (e.g., 2
Corinthians 5:10), He judges nations
in history, in time,
by bringing destruction upon them when their iniquity is “full.” That
is why Luther Martin, a delegate to the federal Constitutional
Convention, stated in 1788: “It was said, it ought to be considered,
that national crimes can only be, and frequently are,
punished in this world by national punishments”
(Elliot, 1836, 1:374, emp. added). George Mason, often called “The
Father of the Bill of Rights,” stated at the Constitutional Convention:
“As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they
must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects,
Providence punishes national sins by national calamities” (as quoted in Madison, 1840, 3:1391, emp. added). The “Father of the American Revolution” and signer of the
Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams, explained: “Revelation assures us that ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation.’ Communities are dealt with
in this world by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe.
He rewards or punishes them
according to their general character” (1907, 3:286). Thomas Jefferson
likewise warned: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is
just: that
His justice cannot sleep forever” (1794, Query 18, p. 237, emp. added).
Finally, consider the haunting, if not prophetic, warning issued by Daniel Webster:
[I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority,
violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of
morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds
us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity” (1903, 13:492-493, emp. added).
If this pattern of eventual divine retribution has repeated itself many
times over throughout world history, and if God is immutable, i.e., He
does not change (Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6), will He not respond to
America’s iniquity in the same fashion? Yes, He will. So the only
question that remains to be answered? “Is America’s iniquity
full?”
REFERENCES
Adams, Samuel (1907 reprint),
The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Cushing (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons).
Elliot, Jonathan, ed. (1836),
The Debates in the Several State Conventions (Washington, DC: Jonathan Elliot).
Jefferson, Thomas (1794),
Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia, PA: Mathew Carey).
“The Lost City of Nasca” (2000),
BBC, [On-line], URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/nasca.shtml.
Madison, James (1840),
The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry Gilpin (Washington, DC: Langtree & O’Sullivan).
“Nasca Lines” (no date), [On-line], URL: http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html.
“Inca, Secrets of the Ancestors” (1995),
Time Life’s Lost Civilizations Series, [On-line], URL: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/llilas/centers/outreach/resources/topic/inca.html.
Webster, Daniel (1903),
The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, & Company).
Forgiveness
is one of the most sublime concepts in the Bible. To think that our
Creator loves us in spite of grievous sins that we have committed is
thrilling. And to know that the blood of Jesus can forgive us when we
repent and obey is nothing short of amazing (see 
“It’s
been proven! Life began in a primordial soup in lakes and oceans. If
you don’t believe us, you’re an ignoramus…. No, wait. Scratch that.
Actually, it began in space. If you don’t believe us, you’re an
ignoramus. Wait...it began underground. Now, if you
don’t believe us, you must be an ignoramus….” Once again, it appears
that the evolutionary community is wrong in its long-time, dogged
speculation about the origin of life according to the naturalistic
model. While most of us grew up being taught in school definitively that
life sprang into existence in some primordial soup, recent research is
now calling that into question—proving that evolution has never had key
answers that would prove itself to be true. Not surprisingly, the new
research provides more support for the Creation model of origins.
