The letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 offer both timeless encouragement and a warning to churches and individual Christians. While two churches received only encouragement from the Lord Himself, the other five found themselves strongly rebuked.

Jesus’ words to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:5 are instructive to us still today. This beloved church, planted by the Apostle Paul, was the first to be called out by name in Revelation.

The Lord first lauded their deeds, toil, and perseverance. He also noted that they did not tolerate evil men. However, His grievance against that church was that they had abandoned their First Love. Without question, God is justifiably offended when those who know Him — and should know better — turn their backs on Him and violate the relationship into which He has called them. And that is not only true for individuals. When a nation or society that once respected and honored the Lord strays from Him, insult is added to injury, grieving the heart of God.

We tend to see with physical eyes, measuring a nation’s health by its economic vitality or its citizens’ life expectancy. Those indicators have merit, but just as God told Samuel not to look at outward appearance when anointing a king from among Jesse’s sons, “God still sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

God’s prophetic Word says that most human hearts will grow darker and colder in the last days — and that society itself will become increasingly evil. We refer to this category of End Times signs portending the Lord’s return as “Signs of Society.” And America is following the tragic trajectory of ancient Judah right now.

Set Apart and Blessed with Grace

Too often, we are deluded into thinking that our nation is blessed because we deserve God’s blessing. With shouts of “USA! USA!” ringing in our ears, we figuratively thump our chests and tout the worthiness of our nation, forgetting that even our national hymn, “America the Beautiful,” repeats the line “God shed His grace on thee” six times. Few reflect today that Katharine Lee Bates’ poem was meant to inspire humility and thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Older Americans were raised to think ours is “the greatest nation on the earth” (if not the greatest nation ever). I would agree with that sentiment when it comes to the ordered liberty that marked the American experiment for its first 200 years or so — not because our “more perfect union” was indeed perfect. Instead, our nation longingly aspired toward perfection, respecting as Bates did the Source of our greatness:

God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!

Over the past century, few could dispute the unprecedented prosperity our society has enjoyed. But, sadly, that prosperity morphed into a sense of entitlement, self-importance, and self-sufficiency that has led America grievously astray.

Faith Of Our Fathers

David Barton and other Christian scholars offer clear evidence of the Judeo-Christian foundations of our society. Men such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and yes, even Thomas Jefferson, could not have imagined crafting a nation without underpinning it on Christian faith.

Some would retort that those men were hypocrites when it came to following the law of God. I would agree. All of us are hypocrites to some degree, and the founders were guilty of some glaring oversights and inconsistencies. But that realization still cannot detract from the ideals they collectively agreed to pursue — or the system of government that they established to honor “Nature’s God” and the rights of His most elevated creature.

Over time, our nation endured tremendous growing pains. The most pronounced happened less than fourscore and seven years after the original establishment of the United States. Reflecting on the horrible tragedy of the Civil War and the scourge of slavery itself, Abraham Lincoln observed, “The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!…the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’” (Second Inaugural Address).

A Christian Nation?

There is no doubt that America was founded on Christian principles. The Bible was once taught in every public school classroom alongside primers like the McGuffey Readers. Our laws and our collective morality were unapologetically shaped by the Word of God. But no more.

Some Christians still want to maintain that this is a Christian nation. I find this to be an offensive assertion. Would a Christian nation tolerate, let alone encourage:

• Unfettered sexual licentiousness
• Flagrant homosexuality and a willful appropriation of the rainbow (ordained by God) to convey enthusiasm toward sodomy and sin
• Confusion over basic creation truths like the biological distinction between men and women
• An epidemic of family-shattering divorce, though hated by God
• Rampant mind-numbing drug use — prescribed or “recreational”
• Millions of babies murdered in their mothers’ wombs.
• Professing churches denigrating Christ’s deity and His Word.
• National leaders flaunting their deceitfulness and sin that impoverishes future generations in violation of biblical principles.

I could go on and on, describing in heart-wrenching detail the transgressions against Heaven that are multiplying every day. Instead of focusing on the litany of transgressions, I’ll simply ask: Would God label our nation as a Christian nation, or would He be offended that such a people co-mingled the Name of His Son with their manifest perversions and celebration of wickedness?

It is not my point to prove here that America was founded as a Christian nation. The question that hangs over our heads today is: how did we get to where we are today?

In the second part of this expose on America’s fall from grace, we will answer the question as to how the nation got to such a sad state.