By George H. Alquist Jr.
"Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spew you not out.
"And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
"But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.
"Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.
"And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine." Leviticus 20:22-26
In the Old Testament God chose a people, the Hebrews, the nation of Israel, and separated them unto Himself. In the New Testament He also separated a people unto Himself. All those who have been born again by God's grace and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are His people.
God's desire was and is that His people should know Him. In order for us to know what pleases and displeases Him, He has given us His Holy Word. He says to His people in verse 23, "Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things [the things mentioned in verses 2 to 21], and therefore I abhorred them."
Because of the way the nations lived, God tells the Jewish people that He is going to cast out the nations before them and give the land to the Jews. The things that these nations committed as a society brought forth the ire, the anger and the judgment of a Holy God. He tells them forthrightly that they are not to walk in the manner of those wicked nations.
Verse 22: "Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out."
He is saying, 'I am casting out these nations because of the way they lived and giving you the land. Go in and take it. But don't think I won't cast you out if you live like they lived. If you do the things for which they are being judged, I will judge you, and that land will spew you out."
God once destroyed an entire world, save eight, with water because of the way they lived.
"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
"And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." Gen. 6:5,6
This account says that God looked upon the way man was living and saw the evil, the imaginations of their hearts, and so destroyed the entire world.
He once destroyed an entire civilization with fire from Heaven because of the way they lived. That story is of Sodom and Gomorrah, recorded in Genesis 19.
God will once again return in fiery indignation and judgment upon this earth for the wickedness of mankind and will destroy the earth by fire.
But notice this: each time God destroyed a civilization, He first delivered the believers.
Before the flood, He delivered Noah and his family.
Before the fire fell from Heaven, He delivered Lot and his two daughters.
Before this world is destroyed by fire, He is going to take all the born-again Christians out in an event called the rapture. The Bible says that we will be delivered from the wrath to come.
Before He sends His fiery indignation upon this wicked planet, He will once again deliver those who have placed their faith and trust in Him.
Are you saved? If not, you had better get saved. If you are not saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, then you will stay here after the rapture of the saints, go through the awful Tribulation period, then die and spend the rest of eternity in the place called the lake of fire. There will be no one to blame except yourself when you spend eternity in Hell because He has given you every opportunity, every reason, to escape the judgment to come.
"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12
"How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" Heb. 2:3
A nation, a society, even an entire planet, brings the wrath of its Creator upon it by the way the inhabitants live.
Since God created this earth and every human being, He has every right to tell us how to live. He has given this world plenty of opportunity, yet our world continues to live in the wickedness of sin, often without regard to God. He will one day bring swift destruction. The time may be near.
I'm proud to be an American. I'd rather live in America than in any other place on earth. But America is in a sad state, and unless she repents and experiences a genuine spiritual awakening, I believe God will judge her for her wickedness.
Wickedness has always existed in every society. Even when a nation is being blessed of God, wickedness exists within that society. When society as a whole and in general embraces wickedness, approves sin and incorporates that which God hates into its societal fabric, that society will eventually incur the wrath and judgment of a Holy God. The evidence that America is drawing closer to that day is overwhelming. The cry of it, as with the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, is mounting up to Heaven.
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
"Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" Isa. 5:20, 21
America is at a place where she has become wise and prudent in her own sight. We have become a backwards nation: we have put evil in place of good, darkness for light, and bitter for sweet.
Political correctness has stolen the day. We are no longer as concerned about being biblically, morally or ethically correct as we are about being politically correct. Well, I am going to be as politically incorrect as I can be in this message. I don't intend to be mean or to have a bad spirit, but I want us to look at several areas of society that God calls evil, which America either has already begun or is beginning to call good.
I. Homosexuality: An Abomination
Homosexuality has become a lightning rod. Today it is more a political issue than a moral issue. Politicians have sold the 'good' for a vote. No matter that it is wrong-they just want to garner a vote. They therefore cater to this homosexual crowd, when the Person whom they ought to be catering to is God!
We see the charade of the Episcopalian Church that was an abomination before our eyes in every form of media that we have in our country. We've seen the ordaining of homosexuals, queer churches, gay marriages, gay adoptions, laws respecting this behavior, along with society's approval as evidenced by its acceptance.
Society says those who speak against homosexuality are presenting a message of hate. No! It is a message of love.
Proverbs 27:6 declares, 'Faithful are the wounds of a friend.' Sometimes we have to tell people something that may hurt them in order to help them.
A doctor does you no good if he examines you and discovers a disease, then says, "Go home and have a good day." The doctor needs to tell the truth though it may be difficult to hear. Society needs to hear what is right and wrong so God can help it.
It is true that we live in the twenty-first century, but we do not live in an enlightened society. Having the philosophy of the day does not enlighten us. We are enlightened when we understand and believe the Word of God. We are calling light darkness and darkness light.
God gives us His mind on this subject of homosexuality. God calls homosexuality an abomination.
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Lev. 18:22; 20:13
The word 'abomination' means 'abhorrent.' In other words, God abhors the sin of homosexuality. The Bible says, 'From the beginning of the creation God made them male and female' (Mark 10:6). And when we go against that created order of God, He sees it as abhorrent, an abomination, a perversion of His plan for mankind.
Listen to me: God will not accept homosexuals into the ministry of Jesus Christ! No matter what the Episcopalian Church says or what society or the politicians or homosexuals themselves say, you can't cut it any other way!
God destroyed nations because of their abhorrent lifestyles. You say, "But that was in the Old Testament. We're living in the New Testament age, the enlightened age of grace!" Romans, chapter 1, is in the New Testament. God, speaking of the decline of mankind and their turning away from Him, says:
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
"Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever Amen"
For this cause God gave them up into vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." Rom. 1:24-28
God is as clear as a bell when He deals with the subject of homosexuality. You have to twist and defile the Word of God to see homosexuality as anything other than unclean, dishonorable to the body, a vile affection, unnatural, a lust of the flesh, unseemly, an error, evilness of a reprobate mind. God abhors it so much that He says it is "worthy of death" (vs. 32). I agree with God, and so should you!
In I Corinthians, chapter 6, Paul gives a list of those of reprobate minds, unsaved and living in the flesh.
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
"Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." I Cor. 6:9, 10
The present-day crowd believes that all of these wicked people will not go to Heaven, but they leave out the 'effeminate.' Why? Because it is no longer politically correct to believe that.
In Revelation, chapter 21, the Lord gives a list of people who are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire: "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (vs. 8).
You say, 'Preacher, I didn't hear anything in that list about homosexuals!' Yes, you did: "the abominable." In Leviticus he said that homosexuality was an abomination and abhorrent to Him. If He calls something 'an abomination,' then when He lists the word "abominable' in verse 8, that includes everything that God called abominable.
Society says, 'You Bible-believing people are just a bunch of homophobes!' The word phobia means 'a persistent, illogical, abnormal fear.' We are not afraid of homosexuals, and there is nothing illogical about being against homosexuality; God is against it. If we preach against prostitution, are we prostiphobes? Christians must not capitulate to those who live in direct opposition to the Word of God.
God speaks directly to both these abominations:
"There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
"Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God." Deut. 23:17,18
God said, prostitution is an abomination, sodomy is an abomination, homosexuality is an abomination: what more do we need? God has made His point, and either we believe Him or we believe the theologians who have thrown away the Word of God.
Society is in great danger because we're calling good evil and evil good.
II. Abortion: Another Name for Murder
Abortion is the wholesale murder and dismemberment of hundreds of thousands of innocent little children every year.
Romans, chapter 1, tells us that those who have left God and changed the truth of God into a lie are 'without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection' (vs. 31).
Does tearing a baby's limbs apart demonstrate natural affection? Maybe someone in this service has had an abortion. God still loves you, even though He hates abortion. Maybe the doctor told you that it wasn't a bad thing, but the scientific, medical evidence of abortion is that it is a horrible, horrible way to die. Abortion is without natural affection.
What about the sanctity of life? What is the difference between killing an unborn baby and a five-month old baby? Is being born the criterion for life?
A fetus is simply a baby that has not yet been born, so when they say, 'We terminated a fetus,' they are saying, 'We terminated a baby!'
Doctors and scientists and ethicists cannot agree on when life begins, and they are pushing it further and further along in a pregnancy. It is now acceptable to perform an abortion in the last trimester, when the baby actually has body parts that they have to bag. I don't have to be a physicist or an atomic scientist to understand that when you pull out body parts, that is a human being.
When they went to the World Trade Center and started pulling out body parts of those who had been killed by the terrorists, they said, 'These are people!' Our country was outraged that someone would come and destroy those buildings and almost three thousand people, yet that was nothing more than three thousand body parts being destroyed in the womb.
If they can't agree on when life begins, why not go back to the beginning - conception? Then you won't make a mistake; you'll be safe. The medical community doesn't want to go back to that point because there are those who want to abort so they can make money; there are those who want abortions so their lives won't be inconvenienced or changed. So they pretend that it's at this stage or that stage of the pregnancy in order to solace themselves. But it's a shallow, empty solace.
God is not silent on the issue of abortion, so I'll let Him speak for Himself.
"And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder [Esau] shall serve the younger [Jacob]." Gen. 25:23
God called them nations when they were still in the womb. If an abortion had taken place, two nations would not have existed.
God saw those babies as more than some protoplasm, some tissue; He saw them as nations.
The Lord said to Manoah's wife, 'Thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines' (Judg. 13:5).
God said, 'That is Samson in the womb, and he is going to be a Nazarite and will deliver Israel!' God had plans for that little fetus, didn't He?
Turn to Exodus 21-22 and 23: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her [something causes the woman to deliver the child in her womb before its time], and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine."
And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life."
'God said, 'If you cause the baby within a woman's womb to come out dead, you will die.' If such be the case, that would stop a whole lot of abortions, wouldn't it?
In Luke, chapter 1, we have voice recognition by a babe in the womb:
"And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
"And she spake out with a loud voice, and said...."
"For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." Vss. 41, 42, 44
This was not just a supernatural occurrence. Science has already proven that babies in the womb can recognize the voices of their mother and father. It's also been proven that it is beneficial to play soothing music, to read and talk to the child before he is even born.
Doesn't this prove that abortion is murder? If the termination of a conscious, sentient, feeling, comprehending and immature human being isn't murder, what is it? Our society says that's good; God says it's evil.
What do you think God will do to a society that calls abomination good? that calls evil good?
III. The Psychic Phenomenon
"They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart." Jer. 14:14
Psychics have become mainstream in our society. Psychics are available for us to call on hotlines, to watch on television and to listen to on radio; they're holding well-attended conferences; and they're writing books and the ever-present horoscopes, which a lot of Christians are reading. They are tabbed as 'a special kind of person with extrasensory perception,' or as it is commonly known, ESP.
Many of the well-known psychics have been proven frauds, yet they keep bringing healers into hospitals where they perform hooey over patients who are about to go into or are coming out of surgery.
Even the police bring in these frauds and let them go through their rituals to see the evidence that will help solve the case.
The only thing these frauds actually possess is celebrity status, and Christians have no business making them rich and famous. God has always been against those who practice or participate in this knowledge!
"Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." Col. 2:18
These psychic healers and those who claim they can see into the future (in some cases, back into time) are intruding into things they have not seen. They are in a territory into which they ought not venture.
God has always been against delving into the world of the dead; He's always been against prognostication, which the Bible calls divination.
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire [sacrificing your children to false gods and idols and actually throwing them alive into the fire], or that useth divination [prognostication], or an observer of times [astrology], or an enchanter, or a witch,
"Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer [someone who inquires of the dead].
"For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD." Deut. 18:10-12
God says that these people shouldn't be found among Christians. Then He says,
"And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards [those who conjure up visions] that peep [to imitate the voices of the dead], and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God." Isa. 8:19
God said there would come a time when people in nations around them who do not know God would to try to get them to 'seek after those who conjure up visions and imitate the voices of the dead! They would be enticed to seek after that which was not real.
The necromancers and fortunetellers and psychics take you in, take your money, sit you down and they "peep, and ... mutter' by imitating the voices of the dead.
Listen to me: they cannot hear the voice of the dead; they cannot communicate with the dead. They are peeping and muttering while getting rich off of your foolishness. God says, "My people don't need that stuff. They can just enquire of Me. They can just come and talk to Me."
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
"Idolatry, witchcraft... Gal. 5:19,20
'Witchcraft' includes the psychics, fortunetellers, witches, warlocks, necromancers, diviners - all "works of the flesh."
These things are all abominations to God, and the 'works of the flesh' do not please Him. His wrath and judgment come as a result. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20).
God is long-suffering, but His long-suffering is limited by His holiness and by His justice. And God will judge America if we do not repent, if we do not return to Him.
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
"Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
"And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." I Cor. 6:9-11
None of us is better than a homosexual, a thief, a greedy person, a drunkard or a psychic. The only difference - we used to be one of them, but now 'we are washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.'
The message to every homosexual, abortionist, those who have had abortions, the psychics and those who deal with them is, there is victory in Jesus. He loves you; He wants to forgive your sin; He wants to cleanse you and wash you in His blood.
We are to hate the sins of abortion, homosexuality, psychic divination and delving into things that we are to leave alone; but we are to love the sinners. We were all in the same boat before we got saved. A lie is as sinful as any one of these sins we've mentioned. If you've not been saved, you are going to die and go to Hell, but the message of love is, 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life'. (John 3:16)
He sacrificed His only begotten Son on the cross. He let Him hang there and bleed and die and bear the sin of every homosexual, abortionist, psychic, liar, thief and drunk. Now He offers free and full salvation to every individual, whatever the sin, simply by believing Him and receiving Jesus Christ as your Saviour.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:31
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." II Cor. 5:17
My dear friend, when you get saved by the blood of Jesus, you no longer need to be a homosexual or an abortionist; you no longer need to be a psychic anymore; lying, stealing and cheating will no longer be your lifestyle. He will wash you, cleanse you, justify you and make you 'a new creature.'
America needs Christ. Our mission is to go and tell.
