The Decline of a Nation

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http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/decline.html
The Decline of a Nation

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http://wwThe first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith. The second from spiritual faith to great courage. The third stage moves from great courage to liberty. The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance. The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness. The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency. The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy. The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay. The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence. And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.

These are the ten stages through which the great civilizations have gone. Notice the progression from bondage to liberty back to bondage. The first generation throws off the shackles of bondage only to have a later generation through apathy and indifference allow itself to once again be enslaved.


This is the direction this and every other country is headed. The book of Judges shows that the nation of Israel passed through these same stages. And this country will do the same unless revival and reformation break out and reverse the inexorable decline of this nation.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/decline.html





About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government'

'A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury'

'From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship'

'The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years'

'During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:



From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence -- back to bondage

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Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government. Thus, by internal weakness and fragmentation the societies came apart. There was no way to save them except by a dictator who arose from within or by barbarians who invaded from without.


Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today.

Ideas have consequences, and false ideas can bring down a nation



Much of the Old Testament records the history of the nation of Israel. It passed through these same stages and so will every country in the world.


As Christians we must recognize that nations will rise and fall just as individuals will be born and die. Our civilization will not last indefinitely, but will eventually pass off the scene. Only God's Word endures forever. We should not put our trust in the things of this world for they are destined for destruction. Instead, we should put our faith in God and His word.

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When delegate Benjamin Franklin left the State House at the end of the convention, curious Philadelphians asked him what kind of a government the convention had created.

Franklin answered, “A republic — if you can keep it.”



British writer and Christian philosopher, G. K. Chesterston:

“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on men unless they act.”




This was a period dominated by youth, but also by an explosion of political and social revolutions that fractured society, and brought about profound changes for everyone. The Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the Women's movement dominated national attention. The post war generation known as the "baby boomers" entered college in this period. Because of their numbers, their age is the dominant demographic fact in any period following world war II. In this period, the characteristics were those of youth-- experimentation, revolution, and innovation. Fashions of the period reflected these qualities

An Era of Youth and Change (1963-73)

http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/dres...m/babyboom.htm

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1963 was a hinge year
the beginning of the so called sexual revolution
but another year was 1968
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/681

Any history of 1968 is going to be full of if onlys, what ifs, counterfactuals and might-have-beens. You can construct a zillion parallel universes of what could have happened if a single event had turned out a fraction differently. The reality was astonishing enough. And, as the 40th anniversary approaches, the year continues to maintain a remarkable grip on anyone with a sense of modern history.


But what was the point? All year, there was a seemingly endless supply of startling global headlines. However, it is still hard to discern a coherent picture in the mosaic.

The unifying factor is that across the developed world and even beyond, people-specifically the young and most specifically students-challenged established authority. Sometimes they did this violently and sometimes this invited violent consequences. Inevitably, American concerns linked in to everyone else's. The United States was obsessed with the intractable war in Vietnam. And there was a very obvious tipping point.



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For young Americans, so privileged in many respects, the campaign against the war was not some theoretical cause, any more than the black demands for civil rights were. They were subject to conscription, and liable to be shipped out to Vietnam where their contemporaries were dying (at a rate of 300 a week in 1968, compared with nearly 4,000 in all so far in Iraq).
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The same applies to related social developments: in 1968 most young men still wore pyjamas and white y-fronts, even if they were now readier to take them off; casual drug use slipped only slowly from the avant-garde to the high-school playground; and very long hair for men did not become the norm until the 1970s (all the really serious student revolutionaries I knew in that era kept their hair determinedly short). Social change was far slower than history or selective memory might suggest. But 1968 made it unstoppable.

"In the end, it was a sensational victory," says Felix Dennis, "the hidden victory that set up the 21st century. And on that, the whole Western world floats as it does




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http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=7095

It's interesting to show people what the 1960s are about," Ortiz said. "1968 is the moment when everything explodes. It wasn't just hippies touring in painted Volkswagen vans."


People routinely say that the world has changed since 9/11," Stimson said. "The same could be said about 1968. Understanding that change and its historical consequence is useful for understanding our society now and its larger political context."

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http://www.reuters.com/article/world...72695220080215

Youth too lost, scared to rebel say '68 veterans


The 1968 generation wanted to revolutionize society, battle against authoritarianism and demolish what they saw as the old social order. In the United States, demonstrations against the Vietnam War triggered massive peace marches worldwide.


Back then there was the feeling that you had to completely revolutionize society," he said. "With today's movements you don't see that. There are demonstrations, like against the Iraq war, but they are not about revolutionizing society."




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read this one
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...6422-9,00.html

1968 Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future

In 1968, by the Hoffman hypothesis of atomic aging, the world was about 22 years old. The baby-boom generation, not only in America but in much of the rest of the world, grew up not merely in the shadow of the Bomb but also in an envelope of common experiences. Television gave them a collective memory -- of Howdy Doody and Beaver Cleaver, of public events (most vividly and traumatically, the assassination of President John Kennedy). Then, in the mid- and later '60s, the young endlessly enriched and elaborated their culture, through music mainly and through drugs and costume and linguistic style (groovy, far-out, rip-off, bummer, bread, acid head, pigs, narcs, rap, trash). They made a worldwide cultural revolution.




The youth of the world's atomic age came to a sort of critical mass in the spring of 1968. Nineteen days after King's assassination, students at Columbia University began occupying five buildings on the campus and held them for almost a week.

The uprising at Columbia was the work of a minority of student radicals. But it was not an aberration. Around the world that year in cities as widely spaced as Paris and Tokyo and Mexico City and Berkeley, students rose in protest and revolt. The spasms of unrest seemed almost psychologically coordinated, as if a mysterious common impulse had swept through the nervous system of a global generation. The theme of the protests, and of the generation, was . . . what? To challenge authority. To change the world. To take possession of the world. To announce itself.


1964 - The Year The Sixties Began

Viewing a transformation that still affects all of us—through the prism of a single year

http://www.americanheritage.com/arti...006_5_32.shtml


These were the days when Tom Matthews, a high school senior in California, could run for class president on the stirring platform “Vote for Tom—He’s a Real Good Guy.” “That’s the way we were,” Matthews later remarked. “… Around my high school, guys were still padding the halls in saddle shoes and humming ‘Sh-boom.’ A nice girl was a virgin who didn’t smoke cigarettes. Ideology? No one even heard of it. There were no issues. We were suspended closer to the Age of Sinatra than the Age of Aquarius.”


If the kids were still loitering in the fifties, so were their parents. In early 1964 people had tremendous faith in their elected officials, their elders, the police, and the Army. Seventy-six percent of respondents to the University of Michigan’s American National Election Study that year believed that they could trust the federal government to do what was right “most of the time” or “just about always.” By the close of the decade barely half of all Americans had faith in their public institutions. But those days of popular cynicism and skepticism still lay in the future.




Courtesy of the population bubble that produced 76 million children between 1946 and 1964, a higher birthrate than in any era before or since, young Americans not only represented a larger portion of the general population but also formed a more unified, self-conscious entity.

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Jesus People: The '60s Intriguing Offspring


Approximately 25(40 now) years ago a most curious social phenomena stunned religious analysts. On the heels of the 1966 “Death of God” pronouncement, a revival broke out among the North American hippie populace. Time magazine reported that Jesus People had taken to the streets and were "embracing the most persistent symbol of purity, selflessness, and brotherly love in the history of Western man." Once again, Jesus was more popular than the Beatles. With fingers pointed to the sky and shouts that “Jesus is Coming,” the ensuing revival spilled over into dozens of countries in its wake and has left a continuing legacy within North American evangelicalism.

The decade of the 1960s was one of transition where the norms and mores of the previous generation were seriously challenged by the young. Civil rights, the brutality of the political assassinations, student protest against the war in Vietnam and the threat of nuclear disaster all added to the increasing tension which spilled over into individual households. Kitchen tables became the ideological battlefields where child and parent clashed. Although regarded as the most affluent and educated group in history, the 'baby-boomers' (those born between 1945 and 1960), rejected the materialistic vision of their parents with the hopes of creating their own utopia. Theodore Roszak dubbed this affront to the status quo the counterculture.
http://jesuspeoplemovement.com/research-3.html

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The counterculture became a rallying point for youthful protest. Urban pockets of dissident teenagers gathered in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district and Toronto’s Yorkville area to find collective expression. Encouraged by self-proclaimed prophets, the media-dubbed “hippies” were invited to “tune in, turn on and drop out” in submission to the altar of experience and self-introspection. Drugs, eastern mysticism, sex and communal experimentation all pointed to the counterculture's desperate yearn for truth. When introduced to the message of Christ, the response was overwhelming. The ensuing revival spread across the continent like wildfire.
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The advent of the Jesus People offered the ultimate rebuttal to God's 1966 obituary. At the very moment when the church was announcing that a post-Christian era would ensue, the Jesus freaks proved that reports of His death were greatly exaggerated. At least one of the “death of God” pundits has recently come forward to “eat a little crow” for his miscalculations. The growth of evangelical churches continues to mystify the experts.

the song of the movement


We are One in The Spirit
Ephesians 4:4
"There is one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;"




We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.

Chorus:
And they'll know we are Christians
By our love, by our love,
Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand.
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand.
And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land.


Chorus:
And they'll know we are Christians
By our love, by our love,
Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.
We will work with each other, we will work side by side.
We will work with each other, we will work side by side.
And we'll guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride.


Chorus:
And they'll know we are Christians
By our love, by our love,
Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.

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Imagine that it's now 2013. Illegal immigration, gang warefare, HIV infections, race tiots, rape, murder, inflation, corrupt politicians & foreign terrorism all are 10 times worse than today. Would a future Congress give the President wartime powers to clean up the mess? YES


This deterioration makes a strongman - a "man on horseback" to rein in an out-of-control nation - plausible and perhaps attractive.



definition:

man on horseback
n. pl. men on horseback
1. A man, usually a military leader, whose popular influence and power may afford him the position of dictator, as in a time of political crisis.
2. A dictator.





Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning

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The fact that the Americans refrain from killing their enemies does not mean that their enemies will refrain from killing them, as America was recently reminded. On September 11, 2001, around 3,000 people were murdered in a barbarian raid upon the USA, when the fanatical followers of an Islamic sect deliberately crashed hi-jacked passenger planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The Barbarians Are Coming—With A New Dark Age
The World Trade Centre attack is confirmation of Arnold Toynbee's claim that the decline of a civilization means the appearance of Barbarian war-bands. And it is clear that, in one way or another, it is only a matter of time before the increasing senility of the countries that make up the Western world, will see them succumb to invaders. The result will be the final extinction of Western Civilization, along with its wealth and power, and a return to the Dark Ages: a time when there is no human community anywhere that is sane.



The French Revolution was not a protest against tyranny, but against authority. It marked the time when Authority stopped being the master and started being the servant of its charges. Which was a choice to abandon sense—sensible rule where parents rule children—with nonsense—the rule by popular whim where children rule parents.

Rule By Democracy Is Decline
Being ruled by the occasional will of the people, which is democracy, is to replace the rule of wisdom with the rule of wishes, and inevitably obtain social decline.

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/theend.htm

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Corruption Progresses a Generation at a Time
The corruption of tradition progresses a generation at a time, with each succeeding wave of offspring corrupting more tradition, which in turn means showing less restraint and thus less understanding than the last generation




Or as the ancient Roman poet Horace (BC 65-8) said:

"Our parents, worse than our grandparents, gave birth to us who are worse than they,
and we shall in our turn bear offspring still more evil."

And the result is a community growing ever more demented and impotent







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3. Determine if the community is discarding traditional morality, a condition immediately marked by the disappearance of manners, which themselves are dictated by morality. Politeness is a prerequisite for public order, which is why it is constantly refined by the improving understanding of a waxing community. The opposite result is documented by Edward Gibbon in his work "The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire", which reveals the decline of the Roman empire was paralleled by a decline in the morality of its citizens.
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Corruption Progresses a Generation at a Time
The corruption of tradition progresses a generation at a time, with each succeeding wave of offspring corrupting more tradition, which in turn means showing less restraint and thus less understanding than the last generation




Or as the ancient Roman poet Horace (BC 65-8) said:

"Our parents, worse than our grandparents, gave birth to us who are worse than they,
and we shall in our turn bear offspring still more evil."

And the result is a community growing ever more demented and impotent







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3. Determine if the community is discarding traditional morality, a condition immediately marked by the disappearance of manners, which themselves are dictated by morality. Politeness is a prerequisite for public order, which is why it is constantly refined by the improving understanding of a waxing community. The opposite result is documented by Edward Gibbon in his work "The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire", which reveals the decline of the Roman empire was paralleled by a decline in the morality of its citizens.




#46 05-21-2008, 07:00 AM
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Moderator Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 869

Re: The Decline of a Nation

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5. Consider the community's general attitude to truth; a civilization rises because it pursues truth, it falls when it suppresses truth

6. Consider the attitude of children towards their parents. When a civilization is waxing progeny revere their parents whom they dare not disobey, but when a civilization is waning it is the parents who revere their children whom they fear to upset—see the law of reverse civilization.



When a civilization declines it goes into reverse with all the wealth, power and wisdom realised by its rise being discarded at an ever increasing rate until dissolution.
2. The essential requirements of:

i. Peace will be disturbed by increasing interruptions of:

• Noise.
• Indecency (see f-word and loss of shame)
• Violence from within and from without the community

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1. Growing Communal Dementia is because of increasing public confusion as a result of the widespread abandonment of the community's founding morality along with its associated beliefs, which are the wisdom of society.

2. Faltering Communal Strength is a direct result of the growth of selfishness among its citizens, for a community's strength is built upon its members' willingness to make private sacrifice for the common good.


1. Wisdom cannot be restored because it has to be founded upon a morality, which no longer exists. And inspiring a people with a morality can only be the accidental work of events because it must precede understanding. This means that just as a man cannot choose his morality nor can a community, so once lost a morality can never be regained.

2. Strength cannot be restored because it needs a pool of unselfish citizens who no longer exist, and it is impossible to change the existing selfish into unselfish people.

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Our civilization has been declining since the late Eighteenth century (see "A Study Of History" by Professor Arnold Toynbee), which means that since then the majority of citizens of western civilization have been selfish — for selfishness is the influence that rejects moral restraint, along with its associated beliefs. In place of the guide of tradition the selfish rely upon feelings to recognise right from wrong and fact from fancy. Now, after more than two centuries of discarding and reversing traditions, most citizens are fools who can neither tell right from wrong nor fact from fancy.



"So long as the young generation is, and continues to be, well brought up, our ship of state will have a fair voyage; otherwise the consequences are better left unspoken."—Plato, Laws


Decline is inevitable because the reversal of authority has an immediate and crucial impact on the process by which a community constantly renews itself — the way it rears its children.


A Community
Waxes
When parents demand respect from their children
Wanes
When parents seek the approval of their children





What Is Political Correctness?
Political Correctness (PC) is the communal tyranny that erupted in the 1980s. It was a spontaneous declaration that particular ideas, expressions and behaviour, which were then legal, should be forbidden by law, and people who transgressed should be punished. (see Newspeak) It started with a few voices but grew in popularity until it became unwritten and written law within the community. With those who were publicly declared as being not politically correct becoming the object of persecution by the mob, if not prosecution by the state.






But the emergence of Hitler, the conditions for his rise and his triumph, depended on circumstances far beyond the narrower framework of conditions in Germany. We need not mention Versailles, nor Munich, nor Moscow. We may confine ourselves to the common inner characteristics of which these and countless other comparable stages on the road were only symptoms: The turning away of almost all European powers from reason and realism; the disenchantment with traditional values and ethical standards, accompanied by a lack of will to defend any moral and legal principles whatever; a short sighted striving for advantage and security as well as, in particular, a susceptibility to illusion —the fatal characteristic of the epoch." —J.C. Fest 'The Face Of The Third Reich'.



European Reason Failing In The 1930s
These sentiments not only applied to the European governments leading up to the Second World War, but naturally to the people they represented. The very rise of the Third Reich is the story of a Nation losing sense, for the people who flocked to the Nazi rallies demonstrated a complete and utter disregard for reason and morality. Nazism was never a concept, but a series of promises and slogans that were merely irrational excuses to indulge in prejudice and wishful thinking. The population of Nazi Germany had decided to give control of their actions to their feelings, rather than their intelligence.

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The Importance Of Religion
Naturally distinguishing good from evil is crucial for any community which is why religion is the foundation of a community, because that is the concern of religion. It is the church's prerogative to tell citizens what behaviour is good, or virtuous, and what is sinful, or evil. The church's commandments are presented as divine instructions on how to avoid a private eternity in hell after death, but are in fact practical directions for the best way for citizens to improve their life. By being good, individuals are improving the lot of their society and so improving their own and everyone else's life. While being sinful (evil), does not just threaten the well being of their souls but the well being of their community and hence themselves. (See the example of marriage).

The Decline Of A Community Is Its Descent Into Evil
All the institutions, customs and manners that make up the tradition of a community are inspired by its communal understanding, which in turn is guided by its recognition of good from evil. So a society that is extending and refining its traditions is extending its ability to distinguish good from evil, and prospering. While a community that is corrupting its traditions — discarding, or reversing the nature of, its manners, customs and institutions— is not only losing wisdom and facing dissolution, but it is embracing evil.




The dissolution of society is clearly described in that part of the work headed "The Disintegration Of Civilizations". Professor Arnold Toynbee's scholarly treatise, based upon consideration of numerous civilizations, sets out the symptoms and prognosis of our condition, and it leaves no doubt that our society is disintegrating.





Thus Arnold Toynbee could rightly say, “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.”

Toynbee, a British historian (1889-1975), is most famous for his magisterial A Study of History, 1934-1961. In this 12-volume work he examined the rise and fall of nations.

One of his more significant remarks is worth recalling: “Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.” Given that this is now a dated comment, how much more true is it today?

Other historians have of course remarked on the suicidal tendencies of nations. Will Durant (1885-1981), an American historian, made this observation: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.”
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/...ions-collapse/

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Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) wrote an important essay by this title in 1993. In it he decried the moral collapse in the West, and the way we try to cope with it. He wrote: “The amount of deviant behavior in American society has increased beyond the levels the community can ‘afford to recognize’ and that, accordingly, we have been redefining deviancy so as to except much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard.”


He rightly noted that the saturation of evil is becoming so complete that the only way we can cope is to redefine it


“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)



Our moral decline is directly connected to our rejection of God. Will Durant offered this insight: “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”


Will Durant concurs: “From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day”



Indeed, the bottom line is this: Society is in a mess because the church is in a mess. And the church is in a mess because you and I are in a mess. We need to get back to our first love. We need to stop our trivial pursuits. We need to realise that we are here for a purpose, and the purpose of our existence does not revolve around ourselves, but around someone who gave his very life for all of us. We can do no less for him.





In the end, we must agree with Toynbee: “Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God.”


The question is, how will we respond?

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When Nations Collapse
A lot of thought has gone into human mortality, and how we can prolong life. Less thought has gone into the question of why nations die. But nations, like people, do have a beginning, and do have an end. Thus it is worth looking at the questions of how and why nations collapse.

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/...ions-collapse/
How did this happen?

There is a long answer which we cannot go into here. We could look at the Enlightenment and its impact. Or more recently, the counter-culture of the sixties. But we can provide a short answer: The past century has been one grand social experiment to see what life is like when we reject God. (And the results are in!)

We have tried to live as if there is no God, and we are now reaping the whirlwind.

One modern prophet who shares this view is the former Russian gulag prisoner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He has written much on this theme. His assessment is simple yet profound: “It is because we have forgotten God. That is why all this is happening to us.”

Our moral decline is directly connected to our rejection of God. Will Durant offered this insight: “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”



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We have tried to live as if there is no God, and we are now reaping the whirlwind.

Our moral decline is directly connected to our rejection of God. Will Durant offered this insight: “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”


Another important voice in this regard is TS Eliot (1888–1965). The American-British poet and critic wrote an important volume in 1948 entitled, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. His thoughts are well worth recalling:

“If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”



Indeed, the bottom line is this: Society is in a mess because the church is in a mess. And the church is in a mess because you and I are in a mess. We need to get back to our first love. We need to stop our trivial pursuits. We need to realise that we are here for a purpose, and the purpose of our existence does not revolve around ourselves, but around someone who gave his very life for all of us. We can do no less for him.

Thus we need to get back to basics. And we need to seek forgiveness for losing the plot. As we were reminded so long ago: “If my people, who are called by my name, will 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.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

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We live in an age where virtues have become vices, and vices have become virtues. What most societies shuttered at just decades ago is now paraded and promoted, especially by popular culture. And the old virtues, like faithfulness in marriage, truth-telling, humility and concern for others, are now mocked and derided as hopelessly out of date.


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There is one word that is heard constantly and incessantly: “tolerance”.




In the past, you tolerated someone, treated them with respect, even though you might violently disagree with their beliefs or their lifestyle. Today, to tolerate someone means you must also embrace their philosophy, their worldview, their lifestyle. That is a big difference.


The modern doctrine of toleration promotes isolation, but the practice of real toleration pushes us gently to community. Thus we need to reclaim the lost tradition of real tolerance. The modern hijacking of the concept has served the interests of those seeking economic and political power, but has not been a panacea to the struggling masses



"When evening comes, you say, `It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, `Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” (Matthew 16:2)





Nations rise and nations fall. Every nation has followed this progression from bondage to bondage. The nations of this century will be no different. But let us not accept the Marxist notion that these are fixed and intractable laws of history. Christians can point to unusual times when revival has redirected the inexorable decline of a civilization. In the Old Testament, Jonah saw revival postpone God's judgment of Nineveh. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther and John Calvin saw a Protestant Reformation transform Europe. And even in the history of the United States the First and Second Great Awakenings changed individuals and our society.


But apart from God's intervention, nations will decline and eventually pass off the scene. Much of the Old Testament records the history of the nation of Israel. It passed through these same stages and so will every country in the world.


http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/decline.html

History has shown that the average age of the great civilizations is around two hundred years. Countries like Great Britain exceed the average while other countries like the United States are just now reaching the average age.


Each of the great civilizations in the world passed through a series of stages from their birth to their decline to their death. Historians have listed these in ten stages
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/decline.html

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In his book Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Wilson identifies the common pattern of family decline in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Notice how these seven stages parallel what is happening in our nation today.

In the first stage, men ceased to lead their families in worship. Spiritual and moral development became secondary


In the second stage, men selfishly neglected care of their wives and children to pursue material wealth, political and military power, and cultural development.

The third stage involved a change in men's sexual values

The fourth stage affected women. The role of women at home and with children lost value and status.

In the fifth stage, husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership, and the affection of their children.

In the sixth stage, selfish individualism grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller group loyalties. The nation was thus weakened by internal conflict

Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government



Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today. Families are the foundation of a nation. When the family crumbles, the nation falls because nations are built upon family units. They are the true driving social force. A nation will not be strong unless the family is strong. That was true in the ancient world and it is true today.






Carl F. H. Henry, in his book Twilight of a Great Civilization, says:



There is a new barbarism. This barbarism has embraced a new pagan mentality . . . not simply rejecting the legacy of the West, but embracing a new pagan mentality where there is no fixed truth.
Today we live in a world where biblical absolutes are ignored, and unless we return to these biblical truths, our nation will continue to decline.



Historians have listed the stages in the decline of a nation. These should not be too surprising to any student of the Old Testament. The stages of decline parallel the stages through which the nation of Israel passed.




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In fact, Romans 1 shows the decline of a civilization from a societal perspective. Looking at the Hellenistic world of his time, he reflects on the progression of sin in a nation.


The first stage is when people turn from God to idolatry.


The second stage is when men and women exchange their natural use of sex for unnatural uses
In a society where lust- driven sensuality and sexual perversion dominate, God gives them over to their degrading passions and unnatural desires.



The third stage is anarchy. Once a society has rejected God's revelation, it is on its own.


The final stage is judgment.


Notice that this progression is not unique to the Hellenistic world the Apostle Paul was living in. The progression from idolatry to sexual perversion to anarchy to judgment is found throughout history.





This progression happened throughout the Bible and to Greece, to Persia, to Babylon, and to Rome. And if it happened to these nations, then it can happen today.Unless we return to God's principles, decline and destruction are inevitable.



America's Moral Decline


From her earliest days, America existed as a Christian nation. Perhaps this was due to the fact that most of her first settlers came for the purpose of being free to express their Christian beliefs in accordance with their own consciences. Yet it is undeniable that America has changed greatly since that time, forsaking moral values, and grower colder and colder towards Christianity. Throughout the centuries, there have been many events which have been turning points of decline, decline which has occurred in mainly the churches and schools of America.



Perhaps one of the first major turning points of decline occurred in the church. Before 1662, in order to be a full-active member of a Congregational (Puritan) church, one was required to provide a testimony of their salvation before becoming a member who was allowed to take communion, be baptized, and vote


Three men that lived and worked in the nineteenth century would have a profoundly detrimental effect on America; Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Julius Wellhausen.

In 1963, prayer was removed from schools in yet another attempt to rid America of any reference to God.6 President Ronald Reagan recognized the danger of this act when he said:

“Our Pledge of Allegiance states that we are ‘one nation under God,’ and our currency bears the motto, ‘In God We Trust.’ The morality and values such faith implies are deeply embedded in our national character. Our country embraces those principles by design, and we abandon them at our peril. Yet in recent years . . . Americans . . . [have] for the sake of religious tolerance . . . forbidden religious practice in the classrooms. The law of this land has effectively removed prayer from our classrooms. How can we hope to retain our freedom through the generations if we fail to teach our young that our liberty springs from an abiding faith in our Creator?”


Thus, another declining step was made as America's citizens began to accept the beliefs of others as equal truths. Toleration lead to the declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973




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In conclusion, it is interesting to note that early Americans were facing a land of emptiness; their future and all their well-being held no security. Therefore, these people recognized their daily need for God, and their circumstances kept them dependent on Him. However, we may note that as America grew more established and economically stable, her people began to forsake God, not recognizing their constant need for Him. The words of Jesus ring true, as he stated that "And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."10 More importantly, they began to disregard their need for a Savior, and turned away from God. Now religion is yet another thing that people may seek to make themselves happy, and thus is may be pursued in any way shape or form. Scripture makes it quite clear what must be done to reverse the tide of evil, yet many Christians wonder why America is in such a dire situation, while at the same time disregarding God's admonition. "If My people, who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, the I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

[lighthouse]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.


Pastor Martin Niemöller







Original Translation
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.


When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.




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"First they came…" is a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.


An early supporter of Hitler, by 1934 Niemöller had come to oppose the Nazis, and it was largely his high connections to influential and wealthy businessmen that saved him until 1937, after which he was imprisoned, eventually at Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. He survived to be a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. His poem is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the dangers of political apathy, as it often begins with specific and targeted fear and hatred which soon escalates out of control.

[lighthouse]

When God Gives Up
Romans 1:24-32
Verse 24 — "God gave them over"
Verse 26 — "God gave them over"
Verse 28 — "He gave them over"





Stage # 1: Sexual Immorality
This is the first step away from God—widespread sexual immorality. It's a sign of what happens when a society (a village, a city, a state, a nation or an entire culture) decides to turn away from God. Verse 24 begins with the word "therefore," which points us back to verses 21-23, and the Five Fatal Steps to Idolatry. First, men are indifferent to the truth they know. Then their minds become confused. Then their hearts are darkened so they no longer know the difference between right and wrong. Then they think they can live without God. Finally, they turn to idolatry.

But what happens then? From idolatry man moves to immorality.







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Stage # 2: Open Homosexuality
It shouldn't surprise us that immorality leads on to homosexuality. By itself, sex can never satisfy man. You never get enough to satiate your lusts, your mind can always imagine new and different perversions, you keep pushing the limit to see how far you can go. But there is a law of diminishing returns. You have to do more and more to satisfy your sexual thirst. Eventually the desire crosses the line into homosexuality.

Please note that God allows this as part of his judgment on the human race. History records that ancient Greece and Rome were hotbeds of homosexuality. Many of our most revered philosophers were homosexuals as were many of the political leaders of that day. In fact, 14 of the first 15 Roman emperors were homosexual, some of them blatantly so.

But this should not surprise us. Whenever men turn away from God, terrible things begin to happen in society. Long-held standards disappear.
http://www.calvarymemorial.com/sermo...play.asp?id=96





Stage # 3: Unlimited and Unrestrained Evil
These verses describe a world that has left God far behind. It is a society with all the restraints removed, a culture that has lost all sense of right and wrong, a place where literally every man does what is right in his own eyes. In this stage God abandoned the world to a "depraved" mind. The word means "rejected, disapproved." It speaks of a mind that is so clouded by sin that it is no longer able to make reliable moral judgments. Here we have gone beyond deliberate iniquity to something much more frightening. At this stage man has lost the desire and the ability to think clearly. He has lost his mind and doesn't even know it.

These verses list 21 specific sins that come to the surface in this stage. They all basically show a contemptuous disregard for others. "Wickedness . . . Evil . . . Greed . . . Depravity . . . Envy . . . Murder . . . Strife . . . Deceit . . . Malice . . . Gossip . . . Slander . . . Hatred of God . . . Insolent . . . Arrogant . . . Boastful . . . Inventors of evil . . . Disobedient to parents . . . Senseless . . . Faithless . . . Heartless . . . Ruthless." These are the sins men commit when they turn away from God.











Result: Final Loss of Public Morality
This verse is very striking: "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Paul outlines the three things that happen when men have completely and decisively turned away from God:

They know what they are doing is wrong.
They do wrong anyway.
They praise other wrongdoers.
We have now reached the bottom, and it is not a nice place to be. The bottom is where you are when evil becomes good and good becomes evil. The bottom is where you are when the wrongdoers are publicly praised while defenders of morality are reviled. The bottom is where you are when truth is on the scaffold and wrong is on the throne. The Living Bible has a striking translation of the first part of this verse: "They were fully aware of God's death penalty for these crimes, yet they went right ahead and did them anyway." That, my friends, is the bottom—When evil is celebrated publicly!

[lighthouse]

The Wrath of God II - How God abandons a nation



1. We are not the first nation God has abandoned - it is part of the cycle of history

Acts 14:16
In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.

Many nations that were formerly great and enjoyed the blessing of God, when they were blessed, left Him and His principles, and have since sunken from prominence (e.g. Great Britain).


2. God reveals his wrath when men suppress truth

Romans 1:18
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

So when we begin to confuse truth with error (Isaiah 5:20), and those in power begin to suppress truth, this is the first sign that a nation is leaving God, and is setting themselves up for God's wrath.


3. God "gives them over" to their passions.

This phrase is used three times in Romans 1 (same verb), and expresses the idea that God's restraining hand is removed, and we are now free to be victims of our own unrestrained, fleshly passions.

Romans 1:24
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves

This speaks of sexual sin.


4. Sexual permissiveness degrades further to sexual perversion, typically homosexuality

Romans 1:26
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;

Why is lesbianism listed first? MacArthur explains that women are usually the last to be affected by the decay of morals because their primary nature is to secure and protect a nuclear family. When women abandon normal sexual relations with men, and society approves, you have reached the bottom of the moral decline.

Romans 1:27
and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

MacArthur notes that this due penalty is physical sickness - the end result of all sin is sickness, but because homosexuality is so against nature, such things as STDs and AIDS are not a surprise

http://www.twoorthree.net/2007/06/th...h_of_go_1.html

[lighthouse]

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3. God "gives them over" to their passions.

This phrase is used three times in Romans 1 (same verb), and expresses the idea that God's restraining hand is removed, and we are now free to be victims of our own unrestrained, fleshly passions.

Romans 1:24
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves

This speaks of sexual sin.


4. Sexual permissiveness degrades further to sexual perversion, typically homosexuality

Romans 1:26
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;

Why is lesbianism listed first? MacArthur explains that women are usually the last to be affected by the decay of morals because their primary nature is to secure and protect a nuclear family. When women abandon normal sexual relations with men, and society approves, you have reached the bottom of the moral decline.

Romans 1:27
and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

MacArthur notes that this due penalty is physical sickness - the end result of all sin is sickness, but because homosexuality is so against nature, such things as STDs and AIDS are not a surprise




The Wrath of God I - Five Types of Divine Anger

Eternal Wrath - Eternal separation from God - the final judgment for those who reject Christ. This is going on now for those dead, and will go on into the infinite future.
Eschatological Wrath - The outpouring of God's judgment during the "last days." (Revelation 6-19). This wrath is yet to come.
Calamitous Wrath - Such interventions as the Noahic Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.
Consequential Wrath - the natural results of bad choices. Whatever we sow, we reap. This reaping, though passive on God's part, it still seen as God's judgment, and wrath, on sin.

The Wrath of Abandonment - this is what MacArthur says is being described in Romans 1, and how God judges individuals, groups, and nations. And he says America is already there





Point #3 – There Will Come a Day When God’s Patience Runs Out:


God is without limit in his love for us. He is without limit in his grace and in his mercy. Many people today make the mistake of thinking that God is limitless in his patience. The truth is, he is not. Hosea 6:11 says this:


Quote:

Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.




Also, Romans 1:18 says this:



Quote:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.




God’s patience runs out when a society gets so far away from him that evil is the only thing people are thinking about. Genesis 18 speaks of God losing his patience with Sodom and Gomorrah. The result was that these two wicked cities were destroyed. Many people today think that the United States is in the eye of God’s judgment. Many others think that the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, was God’s judgment on the USA. I think that the 9-11-01 terror strikes in the USA were just he beginning. If society in the USA doesn’t return to God, the USA will see far worse than what we saw on 9/11. God passed his judgment and sentence on Israel, on Rome, and on every other civilization that has rejected him. This world will also feel his full judgment so long as we turn away from Jesus Christ.
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