Can God Bless America?

After the re-election of Obama, I emotionally checked out of this country.  If the majority of this country actually wants to continue down this destructive, immoral, and Godless path, then I want no part of it!  I have come to realize that all the wicked laws are not what is going to bring God's judgment on our country, but rather we accept all the wicked laws because we have rejected God.  Fighting political battles is not going to change hearts and save lives and change our country's destructive course.  There is only One Way to save this country, but this country, as a whole, has rejected Him.

I had recently changed the purpose of my blog.  Oh, my purpose was always to share the truth, but I was originally more politically based.  Then I came to realize if people just knew the real Truth, if they truly sought the Lord their God with all their hearts, He would show them the Truth and the Way, and give them wisdom.  There is absolutely no wisdom apart from God, and it is so apparent when you see the insanity of what goes on in this country.  Evil is called good, and good is evil, just as the Bible says it would be.  It is so ridiculous that it is almost laughable that we are so foolish except that it really is so incredibly sad.  For the most part, I just share the Word of God and my study of it in my blog now.  Occasionally, I can't help but note how it plays in our present culture, hoping someone might see and investigate for themselves.  That is how I came to be really saved and born-again.  It began with my soon-to-be husband scaring me with Biblical prophecy.  I remember running around the block, crying, truly scared of what I did not know.  I then decided I would read and study my Bible and find out for myself the truth.  I truly began to search God's Word; I was seeking Him with all my heart and as He said, He would be found if I did that.  So that is my wish for others, that they might seek Him in His Word, and they will come to see the Truth, too.  I guess I appear to place more importance on the Word of God first because that is tangible black and white proof of what God said.  Of course, prayer and a relationship with our Lord and Savior is essential, but without knowing exactly what God said, people can be led astray by deceiving spirits, because the Bible tells us that even Satan can appear as an angel of light.  We have to know what God said so that if some charming preacher or dream or feeling tells us something that seems right, we know if it really lines up with what God says is right.  So often people will talk about what their God would do or not do, but there is only One God and He is true only to Himself and not to what we think is right!  We know by reading Biblical prophecy, that there will come a time when the majority of the people will be deceived by the anti-Christ, and I can't help but believe that time is quickly approaching, so we must be armed with the Truth so we won't be deceived.

I came to realize I had to change the icon of the title banner of my blog.  It said, "God Bless America".  It had a vintage look, and I do believe that God has blessed America immensely since its founding.  It's because the founders looked to God to form the greatest nation in history.  However, over the years, our nation has turned from God.  We decided there was no place for Him in our schools.  We decided He might be offensive to others in the public square and we must get rid of every symbol of Him.  We've allowed ourselves to believe there must be a separation of church and state.  How else could we allow ourselves to believe it is okay to murder millions of babies, the very most innocent human life?  How else could we take something God called an abomination and hail it as "marriage equality"?  How else could we support a man who was the worst of the worst on life issues and even went so far to vote three times to kill (by intentional neglect) born alive babies who had the misfortune of surviving botched abortions?  How else could we support that same man who went further than any other president ever has to elevate homosexual "rights", to the point of ignoring our laws, the very laws he has sworn to uphold?  How else could we believe it was okay that this man had to cover up a symbol of Christ before he could speak on the same stage?  How else could we vote for the party who rejected God and Israel and wanted them out of their party platform?  How could we actually support such open and blatant Godlessness?  The only way is to ignore God and pretend that we can still be good Christians in our private lives while supporting Godless acts in our public lives. When we try to do that, we are attempting to make a little god in our own image and place him in a little box and put him in his own place, and we are following a false god, because that is not the One True God of the Bible!

I have to admit I am beginning to no longer believe that God can bless America.  I want to believe that 2 Chronicles 7:14 which says, "If my people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land," means that Christians are the only responsible parties and that if we were to change our wicked ways, God could bless this country again, with or without the Godless people.  However, I just can't see God blessing a country that kills millions of babies and celebrates such an immoral culture.  It's not that I don't believe something God said.  Perhaps a part of Christians' evil ways is that they have completely missed the boat in sharing the news of Jesus Christ and changing lives.  I know God will continue to bless His people who follow Him and He will continue to draw His lost sheep to Him, even in the midst of a fallen country, and He can heal those personal lands, but I just can't believe that He will truly bless America again until America changes her wicked ways.  Once again, it is probably the fault of Christians and churches not doing their jobs that has led to this country's state and that is what must change, but for the time being, I just can't continue to display the banner, "God Bless America".

Because this blog is now about the study of God's Word, and because I have a love for the vintage, I looked for images of studying the Bible in old paintings.  I found many beautiful old images.  The one used in my banner above is from a painting by Hermann Kaulbach (1846-1909), entitled "Reading the Bible".  The image at the top of the right column is from "The Orphans, Reading the Bible", 1845, by Hughes Merle.  Below is Vincent Van Gogh's "Still Life with Open Bible," 1885:

This is "Old Woman Reading a Bible", 1630, by Gerrit Dou:

Another painting I found while I was searching is one I will not show here, but I found it very interesting.  It was the posting of a man whose wife had found a painting on eBay called "Proof Reader", depicting the devil reading the Bible, by Todd Hamilton.  Although I have no idea what the artist's intentions were, I found what I saw depicted in the painting to be very true.  The devil knows the Bible quite well, as evident in the way he quoted scripture to Jesus when he tempted Him:

And he (Satan) brought Him (Jesus) to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down from here, for it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"  And Jesus answering said to him, "It is said, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'". - Luke 4:9-12

We have to know the entire Word of God in context to know when Satan tries to deceive us with scripture out of context.  I realize we can never know everything about the nature of God or everything in His Word with 100% accuracy, but if we truly seek Him, He will guide us in His Word and by His Holy Spirit, and with the very Author guiding us, we will come as close as we humanly can in this world!