The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to give you life, and give it more abundantly. John 10:10
America is under the judgment of God. The Transition that is taking place is bringing the world to a New Era, a New Epoch of Time, and that is a concept spoken about for many years by leading mystics and scholars in the Catholic Church. Not the end of the world as people who often mock derisively an individual with a biblical belief, but a place it has never been before. Being a believer today is not acceptable in many venues. There is at present a global shift and transformation of how people view religion today, and the animus towards Christianity is becoming more virulent. Quite simply, Heaven has told us that we are living in the end times — the end of an evil era. Cardinals Sarah and Burke have also said this over the last several years. This is an incredibly emotionally charged concept that divides people.
The word of God does not change, but some may say this is an Old Testament concept that is no longer relevant. However, Scripture tells us, “That Jesus Christ is the same today, as He was yesterday, and as He will be forever” (Hebrews 13:8). One does not need to look very far in the Old Testament, New Testament, or history, to see that nations, families, and people have positive or negative repercussions as a result of virtue or sin. God does judge nations much to the chagrin of progressives and liberals who deny the very existence of God. Don’t expect to get truth from the press as the vast majority are at best agnostic, and over 95% of liberal media are categorized as unchurched according to polls. It is impossible to avoid the onslaught of immorality we get bombarded with daily by these folks. Do we think we will get the wisdom of God listening to their views? Like it or not, this is where most people get information. Not that going to Church makes everyone a saint, but it does show there is a desire to first seek the things of God.
Due to our abysmal disregard for sin in today’s culture, few can recognize the signs that a nation is even under divine judgment. The intellectual will often view events solely through the eyes that history repeats itself in cycles and this is true. What they fail to recognize that it is God who raises up a nation and brings another down. It is the blessings of God which bring forth fruit to a nation, and it is the Lord who commands its destiny.
The reasons for our anxiety are numerous, but there is one main reason why we lose peace of soul: it is because we have become separated from God. Isaiah says, “It has been your sin that has separated you from God.” (59:2). As a nation, we have left the spiritual for the temporal in profound ways over the last several generations. Economics trumped spirituality much in the same way the people of Germany chose Hitler as leader because on paper he gave them a way out of the morass of what happened in World War I. The Weimar was a time of economic desolation for Germany, so they chose a leader with a vision, although a godless one. The entertainment craze in our midst is only one area that has led people to think they don’t need God due to the continuous distraction it provides. Sports and entertainment has submerged the things of God to where faith and belief are no longer welcome in many places. The Sabbath is often ignored to provide more time for Sunday sports, errands, and chores. Has God turned His back on us? No, it is we who have turned our back on Him.
YOUR VIEW OF THE WORLD – OR GOD’S ETERNAL VIEW OF THE WORLD
No matter where one turns, there is general discontent. Everyone knows in their gut something is wrong. The reason is quite simple—we forgot God. But the ramifications of how God has been ignored, mocked, and vilified is playing out around us is wreaking havoc in our homes, neighborhoods, and workplace. The end result is that few of us feel safe anymore. The security of living under God’s protection is not there, as there has been wholesale spiritual abdication of our responsibilities.
There are few topics or social indices today that are functioning as designed. No matter the profession today, many people see what is happening around them is not working. This is not a question of seeing the glass as half full, it is seeing the reality of what has happened in the last several generations and how we as a country have drifted so far from the Light of Divine Truth.
Few know what to do as they feel helpless against this Leviathan of reckless government. Many don’t see a realistic solution for what ails us. Political pundits and writers of social commentary continue to look at the problems of the U.S. with great clarity and diagnosis. However, they rarely if ever see that the root issues to the problems are moral, not political. Few propose a viable solution. Some refuse to clearly see that adherence to moral guidelines is what makes a nation civil and good. Know this, it starts in our homes and schools. If you are in some Catholic high schools today (especially Jesuit run), you are probably learning more about Buddha and Islam than Jesus Christ. It is no wonder the kids are lost as they are not taught the rubrics and fundamentals of the faith. Some students are being taught to be social activists rather than disciples of Jesus. Social activism must branch out from the heart of what Jesus is asking of us to go make disciples, not social workers. Activism must be borne from a life of prayer and discernment. Saint Teresa of Calcutta was always clear that she was not a social worker, and the strength and growth of her sisters came from Eucharistic Adoration. She often said the work was not possible without a Holy Hour every day.
People now see support groups and social structures that they have become so acquainted and familiar with over the last several generations around them disintegrating. If one looks for what may be a genesis when America lost its innocence, it would be the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. Then came Viet Nam. The day of unlocked cars and unattended purses had passed. No one was safe from the onslaught of a nation on its way to control by a firmly embedded liberal bureaucracy hell bent on removing God — everywhere. People no longer see a safety net supporting them as families, school, and neighborhoods experienced in previous generations. A sound nuclear family is now in the minority, and people do not have the support they once had. If one has been reading the financial news over the last several years, a major shift took place recently where the greatest financial gurus who have lived their whole lives in the financial sector are now speaking in language that was unimaginable for them to say in public years ago. They are using apocalyptic language as they describe where the world monetary system is headed.
This has taken place in previous civilizations and many have ended up on the ash heap of history. It is actually a very simple answer when broken down to the simplest element. When the Holy Spirit is extinguished from a culture, then it is left to its own devices. The culture is not sufficient to maintain order without God as its foundation. Jesus said about believers, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13). Salt is a preservative, and when the salt is not present, society collapses into disorder. When Jesus used the metaphor, people understood this as they would starve without salt. Salt for many was more valuable than gold in agrarian society. In those days there was no refrigeration to store things for further use, but salt. Remove the believer from society, and you will have a breakdown quicker than anyone could imagine. This is precisely what we are seeing now as we decline so quickly into moral and civil chaos. Saint Paul in Romans speaks how people are given over to depraved minds absent of God.
He says, “In other words, since they refused to see it was rational to acknowledge God, God has left them to their own irrational ideas and to their monstrous behavior” (Romans 1:26). Once the light of the Holy Spirit is extinguished, there is no light, truth, or wisdom. Don’t expect logical rational thinking from a government that is out of control and given over to depraved behavior. The believer must make a transition that it is not business as usual, and there is huge shift taking place as the Lord is doing away with the old, to usher in the new. It will be disruptive.
Social Indices That No longer Function as Designed
Governments at all levels are leveraged and broke. Social Security is being used as a giant Ponzi scheme by the Federal Government, Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) is being used as long term unemployment rather than a temporary program. Union and state pension plans are severely underfunded by billions, and a welfare program that is so broken no one knows how to repair it. Job insecurity is at nearly every level with a broken godless school system, people on Food Stamps which has formed a permanently unemployed class of people. An inordinate number of vaccines being forced upon young children by a Federal government and public school system bullying young mothers. We have other issues including: the controversy of global warming, excessive government regulation destroying initiative in nearly every area of living, currency wars, drones, extreme weather and natural phenomena eroding Federal, State, and municipal budgets across the land. There are 100 year droughts, 100 year cold, 100 year rain depending on the part of the world you live, elderly losing all types of funding that were reserved for them after a lifetime of saving, tax payers funding abortions as sanctioned and paid by the government, a prison system bursting at the seams, a banking system that is over $170 trillion in debt when one looks at derivatives and other fancy financial instruments no one understands, but the bankers are taking fee’s from them. There are approximately 100 million Americans not working for valid and invalid reasons, and Governor Cuomo of New York said that conservatives and pro life people have no place in politics in his state. (yes, a Governor said it). We are a country that has lost its way.
The list will stop lest you look for a ledge to jump from, as the purpose of this article is to show clearly we have drifted so far from what the Lord is asking of us. As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” The sooner we realize we need trust and hope in the Lord’s plan, the sooner we will personally achieve peace of soul, and civility will be restored to the nation. Coming to this realization is a very difficult thing to do. Know this, the social and financial structures are not going to get better any time soon. It gets worse before it gets better, and making an adjustment in your personal and spiritual life is the key to grasp what Heaven has been doing during this time of Transition in the world.
In 1922, five years after the Bolshevik Revolution it was asked of the babushka (in Russian this means old hat, but loosely translates to old woman) in the streets of Moscow how did all of this happen? Her simple three word response said it all, “We forgot God.”
Much more could be said here, but the point is made that changes are coming at us due to disobedience to the commandments. In the near future they will come at us like box cars one after another, and if we don’t have a well developed spiritual life, then we will at best struggle, and at worst perish. At this point, we must realize we are beyond human solutions for fixing these momentous societal problems.
Below is Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy in its entirety. It is called The Blessings and the Cursings of a Nation. It is not happy talk that all is fine, because things are not fine. There are several things to take note. The first 14 verses are the blessings. Notice how simple one blessing is and the benefit to all who receive it. There is a protective hedge around that nation that observes the laws and statutes of God. There are only 14 verses where all live in relative prosperity and peace – and quite simple to understand. In verse 15 there is a radical departure to the famous, “if then” clause. There is a requirement to obedience for God’s blessings. There are many preachers who teach the “prosperity gospel” that have a very good message on hope, trust and faith. However, with this repeated message of God’s blessings and how we deserve them, little is ever mentioned about obedience. This continual message soon becomes hollow. Very little is ever mentioned on how to deal with suffering, and its role in our lives.
Embracing the cross to endure the dark night of the soul is avoided and considered negative to this crowd. It is as if God is a cosmic bell-hop who is meant to send financial delights on a whimsical prayer to Heaven Does God want us to live in a state of poverty? No, I think not. But living in extravagance is another matter. In this chapter we see the repercussions of sin and how every area of life is affected because of it. IF, there is repentance as Jonah walked through Nineveh, there can be restoration. But today, few speak of repentance. After King David sinned with Bathsheba, and had her husband Uriah killed by sending him to the front lines in battle. The Lord said it would be the next generation that would cost his son the kingdom of Israel. Sin has consequences.
After verse 15 comes the cursing of a nation which then continue for another 54 verses. The blessings are so general and easy, yet the cursings are lengthy. The Lord’s ways are always easy as Jesus said, “My burden is easy, and my yoke is light” (Matt. 11:30). There are just 14 verses of blessings, and 54 nauseating verses of cursing. The Lord can be specific to correct His people if necessary as mankind has seen throughout history.
See if you see anything that has happened to America as we have turned our face from God? You decide.
DEUTERONOMY 28
‘But if you faithfully obey the voice of Yahweh your God, by keeping and observing all his commandments, which I am laying down for you today, Yahweh your God will raise you higher than every other nation in the world,
2 and all these blessings will befall and overtake you, for having obeyed the voice of Yahweh your God.
3 ‘You will be blessed in the town and blessed in the countryside;
4 blessed, the offspring of your body, the yield of your soil, the yield of your livestock, the young of your cattle and the increase of your flocks;
5 blessed, your basket and your kneading trough.
6 You will be blessed in coming home, and blessed in going out.
7 The enemies who attack you, Yahweh will defeat before your eyes; they will advance on you from one direction and flee from you in seven.
8 Yahweh will command blessedness to be with you, on your barns and on all your undertakings, and he will bless you in the country given you by Yahweh your God.
9 ‘From you Yahweh will make a people consecrated to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and follow his ways.
10 The peoples of the world, seeing that you bear Yahweh’s name, will all be afraid of you.
11 Yahweh will make you abound in possessions: in the offspring of your body, in the yield of your cattle and in the yield of your soil, in the country which he swore to your ancestors that he would give you.
12 For you Yahweh will open his treasury of rain, the heavens, to give your country its rain at the right time, and to bless all your labours. You will make many nations your subjects, yet you will be subject to none.
13 Yahweh will put you at the head, not at the tail; you will always be on top and never underneath, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I am laying down for you today, and then keep them and put them into practice,
14 not deviating to right or to left from any of the words which I am laying down for you today, by following other gods and serving them.
15 ‘But if you do not obey the voice of Yahweh your God, and do not keep and observe all his commandments and laws which I am laying down for you today then all these curses will befall and overtake you.
16 ‘You will be accursed in the town and accursed in the countryside;
17 accursed, your basket and your kneading trough;
18 accursed, the offspring of your body, the yield of your soil, the young of your cattle and the increase of your flock.
19 You will be accursed in coming home, and accursed in going out.
20 ‘Yahweh will send a curse on you, a spell, an imprecation on all your labours until you have been destroyed and quickly perish, because of your perverse behaviour, for having deserted me.
21 Yahweh will fasten the plague on you, until it has exterminated you from the country which you are about to enter and make your own.
22 Yahweh will strike you down with consumption, fever, inflammation, burning fever, drought, wind-blast, mildew, and these will pursue you to your ruin.
23 The heavens above you will be brass, the earth beneath you iron.
24 Your country’s rain Yahweh will turn into dust and sand; it will fall on you from the heavens until you perish.
25 Yahweh will have you defeated by your enemies; you will advance on them from one direction and flee from them in seven; and you will be a terrifying object-lesson to all the kingdoms of the world.
26 Your carcass will be carrion for all wild birds and all wild animals, with no one to scare them away.
27 ‘Yahweh will strike you down with Egyptian ulcers, with swellings in the groin, with scurvy and the itch, for which you will find no cure.
28 Yahweh will strike you down with madness, blindness, distraction of mind,
29 until you grope your way at noon like a blind man groping in the dark, and your steps will lead you nowhere. ‘You will never be anything but exploited and plundered, with no one to save you.
30 Get engaged to a woman, another man will have her; build a house, you will not live in it; plant a vineyard, you will not gather its first-fruits.
31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes and you will eat none of it; your donkey will be carried off in front of you and not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will come to your help.
32 Your sons and daughters will be handed over to another people, and every day you will wear your eyes out watching for them, while your hands are powerless.
33 A nation hitherto unknown to you will eat the yield of your soil and of all your hard work. You will never be anything but exploited and crushed.
34 You will be driven mad by the sights you will see.
35 Yahweh will strike you down with foul ulcers on knee and leg, for which you will find no cure — from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
36 ‘Yahweh will send away both you and the king whom you have appointed to rule you to a nation unknown either to you or to your ancestors, and there you will serve other gods, made of wood and stone.
37 And you will be the astonishment, the byword, the laughing-stock of all the peoples where Yahweh is taking you.
38 ‘You will cast seed in plenty on the fields but harvest little, since the locust will devour it.
39 You will plant and till your vineyards but not drink the wine or gather the grapes, since the grub will eat them up.
40 You will grow olive trees throughout your territory but not anoint yourself with the oil, since your olive trees will be cut down.
41 You will father sons and daughters but they will not belong to you, since they will go into captivity.
42 All your trees and the whole yield of your soil will be the prey of insects.
43 ‘The foreigners living with you will rise higher and higher at your expense, while you yourself sink lower and lower.
44 You will be subject to them, not they to you; they will be the ones at the head, and you the one at the tail.
45 ‘All these curses will befall you, pursue you and overtake you until you have been destroyed, for not having obeyed the voice of Yahweh your God by keeping his commandments and laws which he has laid down for you.
46 They will be a sign and a wonder over you and your descendants for ever.
47 ‘For not having joyfully and with happy heart served Yahweh your God, despite the abundance of everything,
48 you will have to serve the enemy whom Yahweh will send against you, in hunger, thirst, lack of clothing and total privation. He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you.
49 ‘Against you Yahweh will raise a distant nation from the ends of the earth like an eagle taking wing: a nation whose language you do not understand,
50 a nation grim of face, with neither respect for the old, nor pity for the young.
51 He will eat the yield of your cattle and the yield of your soil until you have been destroyed; he will leave you neither wheat, nor wine, nor oil, nor the young of your cattle, nor increase of your flock, until he has made an end of you.
52 He will besiege you inside all your towns until your loftiest and most strongly fortified walls collapse, on which, throughout your country, you have relied. He will besiege you inside all the towns throughout your country, given you by Yahweh your God.
53 During the siege and in the distress to which your enemy will reduce you, you will eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of the sons and daughters given you by Yahweh your God.
54 The gentlest and tenderest of your men will scowl at his brother, and at the wife whom he embraces, and at his remaining children,
55 not willing to give any of them any of his own children’s flesh, which he is eating; because of the siege and the distress to which your enemy will reduce you in all your towns, he will have nothing left.
56 The most refined and fastidious of your women, so refined, so fastidious that she has never ventured to set the sole of her foot to the ground, will scowl at the husband whom she embraces, and at her son and daughter, and at the after-birth when it leaves her womb, and at the child to which she has given birth-
57 she will hide away and eat them, so complete will be the starvation resulting from the siege and the distress to which your enemy will reduce you in all your towns.
58 ‘If you do not keep and observe all the words of this Law, which are written in this book, in the fear of this glorious and awe-inspiring name: Yahweh your God,
59 Yahweh will strike you down with monstrous plagues, you and your descendants: with plagues grievous and lasting, diseases pernicious and enduring.
60 He will afflict you with all the maladies of Egypt which you used to dread, and they will fasten on you.
61 What is more, Yahweh will afflict you with all the plagues and all the diseases not mentioned in the book of this Law, until you have been destroyed.
62 There will only be a small group of you left, you who were once as numerous as the stars of heaven. ‘For not having obeyed the voice of Yahweh your God,
63 just as Yahweh used to delight in making you happy and in making your numbers grow, so will he take delight in ruining you and destroying you. You will be torn from the country which you are about to enter and make your own.
64 Yahweh will scatter you throughout every people, from one end of the earth to the other; there you will serve other gods made of wood and stone, hitherto unknown either to you or to your ancestors.
65 Among these nations there will be no repose for you, no rest for the sole of your foot; there Yahweh will give you a quaking heart, weary eyes, halting breath.
66 Your life ahead of you will hang in doubt; you will be afraid day and night, uncertain of your life.
67 In the morning you will say, “How I wish it were evening!”, and in the evening you will say, “How I wish it were morning!”, such terror will grip your heart and such sights you will see!
68 Yahweh will send you back to Egypt, either by ship or by a road which I promised you would never see again. And there you will want to offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as serving men and women, but no one will buy you.’
69 These are the words of the covenant which Yahweh ordered Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant which he had made with them at Horeb.
You be the judge if America is under judgment for disobedience.
JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU