America Under a Strong Delusion

The following are excerpts from an article entitled America Under a Strong Delusion by Andy Woods (February 19, 2016). You can read the full article at  http://thewordonpolitics.com/america-under-a-strong-delusion/.

Recommended by Rev. Joda Collins, Contributing author for PPN. The parenthesis are mine.

I had originally intended to write...(for) Republican voters....(regarding) the upcoming primaries...(but) I have decided not to write (about the primaries.)...for the reason that it has finally occurred to me that America's real problem is not a lack of information. Thus, such a(n)...article...would largely be a waste of time. Recently, I have reluctantly come to the realization that Americans, with very few exceptions, are really not interested in facts or logic. We are living among a generation where facts no longer seem to matter.

...America is finally under the judgment of God. Our nation has been given over to what it wants. America is under a deluding influence. Such a deleterious condition cannot be remedied with better and more aggressive public policy arguments. The Scripture teaches that people can go so far in their sin that God finally removes His hand of restraint upon them and finally gives them over to what they want to do. This is the very thing that happened to Pharaoh in the Old Testament. After hardening his own heart several times against God (Exod. 7:13, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7), God finally hardened Pharaoh's heart and gave Pharaoh over to what he wanted to do (Exod. 4:21; 9:12). This removal of divine restraint as a sign of judgment upon a culture is also the key theme of Romans 1:18–32. In this troubling section of the Bible, after people no longer see fit to retain the knowledge of God (Rom. 1:18-23), God is said to repeatedly give them over (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28) to the sins that they are so eager to commit. The prophet Jeremiah anticipated that same type of turning over by God in his own day when he recorded the following chilling words from the Lord, "As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you" (Jer. 7:16). We see the same type of judgment predicted for the end times as people will be given over to a spirit of delusion that will cause them to embrace the antichrist. Second Thessalonians 2:11–12 says, "For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness."

Further evidence of God withdrawing his hand from America might also be found in the recent deaths of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Theologian Dr. Charles Ryrie. Both of these men were similar in their ambition to honor authorial intent. They were both giants and sources of great spiritual light in their respective fields. What Scalia was to the field of Constitutional interpretation, Ryrie was to the field of biblical theology. Yet, within the span of a few days, as both men passed, these lights to the culture were removed by the hand of God....Like the Ninevites of old, the current generation of Americans apparently are no longer capable of discerning their right hand from their left (Jonah 4:11). Of course, in my heart of hearts, I want to be wrong about all of this. I want to believe that there is still hope for this once great nation.