Deuteronomy 28:1-2 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God.

This entire 28th chapter of Deuteronomy is one of the clearest examples of conditional promises in the whole Bible. Moses took just 14 verses to say, in very clear terms, that IF you listen obediently to God, THEN you will be blessed in everything, period. He then took 54 verses to express in considerable detail just how horrible it will be for God’s people to forsake Him. Lest we think this was just words, those things were fulfilled in horrible detail for the descendants of the very people to whom Moses was talking. It would be logical to think that any people presented with even just the list of blessings would do all they could to line up so as to receive them, but sadly, human beings are not very logical. That’s why God has to be so gracious and forgiving toward us when we turn to Him in repentance. There again, it is when, and if, we do turn to Him in repentance. Those who refuse to repent never discover just how gracious He really is. God is love, and He delights to do good things for His children, but actions and attitudes have consequences, and we have to learn that. God chose the physical descendants of Abraham to work with, but as Paul explains in Romans 4, the promises to Abraham and his descendants are extended to all who walk in the faith of Abraham. (Romans 4:12-17)

America is the nation that, more than any other, has claimed the promises of God in faith, enjoying the benefits laid out in the first 14 verses here to an unprecedented degree. That has certainly not been a perfect track record, because no person and no nation is perfect, but the nation as a whole made Biblical standards their goal, and the blessings rolled in. In recent years, however, on a public scale, America has deserted the God of the Bible, to the point of openly and actively rejecting Him, and the consequences are starting to roll in. I am at a remove, in a nation that has never actively claimed the God of the Bible, but with family and friends there, I am intimately connected and concerned. My two avenues of influence are absentee ballots and prayer, and I must use both. America needs to wake up and smell, not the coffee, but the sewage it has been swilling, and repent. For my part, I must strive to be fully obedient to God on every level, and pray that many would follow my example.

Father, recently watching America has been like watching a big train wreck, too horrible to watch but you can’t tear your eyes away. Help me respond as You want me to, walking in personal holiness and faithfulness and praying Your will in the power of Your Spirit, so that Your Name may be hallowed and Your kingdom come as Your will is done, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!