PRÉCIS ON AN AMERICAN TRAINWRECK: THE CONSEQUENCE OF OUR SUSTAINED REBELLION AGAINST OUR TRUE KING – (WITH VIDEO!)
- THE TEACHING
SCRIPTURE. “Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity (evil) and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is [uncompromisingly] righteous and rigidly just in all His works which He does [keeping His word]; ‘and we have not obeyed His voice.’” – DANIEL 9:14, AMPC
KEY TERM: “CALAMITY.” ‘Ra’ [רַע]: “From a primitive root word meaning, ‘To spoil by breaking into pieces;’ naturalor moral evil that distresses the Godhead; adversity, affliction; an exceedingly great grief; heavy hurt or harm; mischief, sorrow, trouble; vexation; wretchedness; a reference to the deeds or actions of great evil and its consequences; ‘that which gives great pain and unhappiness [designed most often to restore to proper order’].”
QUOTATION. “‘The Bow of God’s Wrath is bent,’ and the Arrow made ready on the string, and Justice bends the Arrow at your heart, and strains the Bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, ‘and that of an ‘Angry God,’ without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the Arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.” ― JONATHAN EDWARDS, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, July 8, 1741; edited
COMMENTARY. “‘Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us.’ – The evil of punishment; He watched the fit and proper time to bring it upon them; indeed, He watches over the evil of sin, to bring upon men the evil of chastisement or punishment, Job 14:16, but the latter is here meant; see Jeremiah 31:28; the word used has the signification of ‘hastening;’ and so Jarchi and Saadiah explain it, ‘He hath hastened’ … His strict Justice in punishing it; and His diligence and activity in executing Judgment for it, which slumbers not, as some imagine.
‘For the Lord our God is righteous in all His works which He doeth.’ – The Prophet is all along careful to clear God from any imputation of injustice in any of His works, even in His strange work, Punitive Justice; though He watches over the evil to bring it, yet He is righteous in so doing; no charge of unrighteousness is to be exhibited against Him on this account. ‘For we obeyed not His voice!’ Neither in His Word, nor in His Providences; neither by His Prophets, nor by His Judgments; and being guilty of the evil of fault, it was but just they should bear the evil of punishment.” – JOHN GILL, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 9 vols., 1746-1763; edited
II. THE UGLY AMERICAN
In 1958, WILLIAM LEDERER and EUGENE BURDICK published a novel with the title, The Ugly American, a story that depicts the failures of the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in Southeast Asia as harbinger of America’s disastrous Vietnam War under President LYNDON JOHNSON a few years later.
The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles and had major political impacts, both positive and negative. One of its better angels was the Peace Corps proposed by then-Senator Hubert Humphrey, established during the John F. Kennedy administration in 1961, partly as a result of the book.
NOTE. Some historians record that Johnson’s predecessor, President JOHN F. KENNEDY, had plans to deescalate America’s presence in Vietnam, but was obviously cut off by his execution on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
Just before his death, he telescoped America’s Southeast Asian policy for the coming years:
“In a September 2 interview with veteran broadcaster WALTER CRONKITE, Kennedy said, ‘In the final analysis, it is their [the South Vietnamese] war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.’” – Mark White, “Without Dallas: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War,” American Diplomacy, Nov. 2020; edited
THE VIETNAM WAR. Also known as the Second Indochina War, this War under Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, would last from November 1, 1955, to April 30, 1975. It was fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam supported by the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, and South Vietnam was backed by the United States and supported by South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
It was to be America’s second bloody confrontation as representative of the Free West with the Communist East as part of the new, Post-WWII Cold War. And it would end even worse than the Korean War a generation before.
The Fall of Saigon. Was a two-day study in humiliation as the Capitol of South Vietnam was captured by the People’s Army and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975. It was America’s first, clear-cut defeat on foreign ground. This was a Landmark Event that would fuel America’s Decline in the eyes of the world for perpetuity.
The very next day, on May 1, 1975, ironically the anniversary of ‘International Workers’ Day’ begun on “May Day” 1889, when the Marxist International Socialist Congress met in Paris to firm up its worldwide impact on an increasing number of even Western nations. It is now also celebrated in the aftermath of the bloody “Haymarket Massacre” in Chicago on May 4, 1886, when Anarchists and police clashed over workers demonstrating for an 8-hour workday.
Historians refer to this horrible event as “The Great Upheaval,” Harbinger of what America would experience 135 years later by the anti-Socialist forces of the Trump Maga Nationalists at the Washington DC Capitol on January 6, 2021.
THE WALL. On a very personal note, I had been drafted twice in the 1960s, the first deferred by my student enrollment at Long Beach State. The second time was on my birthday, September 23, 1969 – the very last year I was draftable at age 25. Without the hardly honorable details, I was on my way to the Fort Ord Army Post in Monterey, California having decided to not resist the draft by either imprisonment or emigration to Canada – alternatives exercised by a large number of my generation toward the end of the War.
As it turned out, I washed out on a medical exam (that I shamelessly pressed) at the Los Angeles staging area at the last minute.
After becoming a Christian ten years later on October 30, 1979, my former opposition to the Military Draft underwent a metamorphosis that came to a head on a visit to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Wall my wife and I took around 1985. I remember approaching the striking monument for the first time, later to learn it was designed by American architect MAYA LIN, completed in 1982.
THE EPIPHANY. As I got closer to the Wall, something extraordinary happened to me. Tears began to well up, and by the time I actually reached that Wall, I was awash with deep sobs that were nearly uncontrollable. This same reaction took place on two more visits a few years subsequent, and on the last one I blurted out: “What is this, Lord!”
This is what I distinctly heard in Reply, and no one will ever convince me otherwise:
“You are weeping for these men who died in your place, son.”
Stunned, I would later discover that no matter how corrupt the politicians behind the War were in their brutal ineptness, not the least of whom was President Johnson, God still held each life of sacrifice precious. Indeed, one can sense a ‘Hushed Presence’ hovering over that sacred ground.
At least that’s what I believe, and I am supported by the Messiah in this grave matter.
Jesus Reminds Us: “This is My commandment, that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another, just as I have loved you. ‘No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.’ You are my friends if you keep on doing what I command you.” – JOHN 15:12-14, AMP
I don’t for one minute believe those men and women died in vain, beloved. So, sue me!
III. LAST THOUGHTS
Fast forward 30 years to an America in 2015 when, not unlike Weimar Germany a century before, was in the throes of a desperate effort to regain former greatness. We had by then become increasingly stamped with the label, “Ugly American” by many of even our Western Allies. Thus as with our German forebears, we were looking for ‘A Great Political Leader’ to restore us to respectability.
A Desire carrying with it an utterly Disastrous Set of Consequences just down the American Road.
ENTER DONALD JOHN TRUMP. In November 2016, the very nearly unthinkable occurred when America elected as President a former reality television show host (The Apprentice), an inarguably corrupt businessman, a sexual predator, and an habitual ‘Mythomaniac’ – a pathological liar.
Vastly worse, he got there principally by the consensual auspices of the White American Church!Selah.
Trump’s modus operandi, like Hitler before him, was to stroke the wounded heartstrings and national ego of the American people’s lust for former greatness. To be known once more as, “The Greatest Nation that the World Has Ever Seen!” Thus we would see him before, during, and after his election shouting endless paeans of praise and adoration that Americans used to hear in days long past.
Even President RONALD REAGAN stoked this dangerous Nostalgic Fire in a now iconic speech:
“You and I have a Rendezvous with Destiny. We will preserve for our children this [America] – ‘The last best hope of man on earth’ – or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.” – “A Time for Choosing Speech,” October 27, 1964 (National Television Broadcast); edited
THE ELECTION OF 2024. Without even a whisper of exaggeration or hyperbole, the Presidential Election of November 5, 2024, is the most important election in the entire history of the Republic, hands down, no rivals. Why? Because our National Destiny and final place in the history books will be determined by that vote.
My Firm Expectation. Donald Trump will win the White House again, and serve as America’s Last President, ever.
Generally, polls have him in a dead heat with President Biden. But recent indications are that because of his legal woes effectively translating Trump into a Divinely favored ‘Christian Martyr,’ he will edge out the Democrat Mr. Biden.
And the American Church will once again have put him there!
A FORGOTTEN GOD. In all our self-congratulatory foment for over a century, we American Christians primarily, have somehow conjured ‘a God’ who was and remains so very pleased with us, that He promised to lavish us with Love and Praise and Plenty, ‘no matter our conduct.’
By our Sustained Rejection of that nasty old “Angry God” forced upon us by the foolish rantings of Jonathan Edwards almost 300 years ago, we now dared to believe that ‘Our God’ would never be mad at us. Because, well:
“We’re Christian Americans, don’t you know!” Underneath of which I can hear the Hubris: “And no one is better than we are.”
A NEW KING. So, we have discovered a Better King more to our liking, who continues to adore America no matter her sins – or his, by the way! Indeed, we are about to elect him for a second time to ‘Make America Great Again,’ our most important objective as a Christian Nation.
But not so fast, my friends. Here is what JESUS declares, by stunning and yes, angry contrast.
“No one lights a lamp and then puts it in a cellar nor under a basket [hiding the light], but [instead it is put] on the lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light. The eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is clear [spiritually perceptive, focused on God], your whole body also is full of light [benefiting from God’s precepts]. But when it is bad [spiritually blind], your body also is full of darkness [devoid of God’s word]. ‘Be careful, therefore, that the light that is in you is not darkness.’” – LUKE 11:33-36, AMP
Beloved, I fear, no, I am convinced that we have Chosen the Darkness of a Despot over the Light of Jesus Christ and are about to pay the Ultimate Price for it, awaiting us just a few short months ahead.
May God help us to cling to the One King, whose Shelter is eternally impenetrable to those who truly follow so close after Him, that the dust from His sandals falls upon our tunics.
He and only He, is our Sure and Blessed Hope, ‘and there is no other.’
NOTES ON THE DAY OF GOD’S WRATH: ONLY THOSE WHO STAND FIRM SHALL ESCAPE – (WITH VIDEO)
