TOPIC:"America - A Nation Adrift"
"The ox knows its owner, the donkey his owner's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand" (Isaiah 1:3, NIV).
That God has showered His blessings upon America since her birth as a nation is a fact that cannot be denied. The tragedy today is that we no longer acknowledge the God who made America great and has preserved her as a prosperous nation. We have relegated God to the back seat, while the gods of materialism and secular humanism have infiltrated all of our institutions. We are now on a downward path which if followed is going to be our demise as a nation.
The words of our text are taken from the prophecy of Isaiah as found in God's complaint against Judah. During the years of Uzziah's reign material prosperity flourished on all fronts. But as it often does material prosperity destroyed their spiritual vitality. The people of Judah forgot God and His moral laws. And because they refused to listen to God, Isaiah predicts that a time of judgment was about to fall upon them.
So Isaiah became the prophet that God used to proclaim a divine message of judgment upon wayward and wicked Judah. The first thirty-two chapters Isaiah's message is one of warning, judgment, doom and destruction. It is not until we get to chapter thirty-three that this prophet of God turned from a message of destruction to a message of deliverance for those who put their trust in God for salvation. Let us now consider what that message was and how it speaks to our nation today.
Think, to begin with, of God's INDICTMENT against this nation of Judah. Notice again the words of verse 3: "Israel does not know, my people do not understand." Judah's refusal to know God and understand God resulted in their being expelled and exiled from the land by God. We read about this in chapter 5 verse 13 where God states: "Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst."
Imagine, according to . . .