Bud Hancock brings great insight into what truly ails the USA., and indeed what has done so for a long time now. He recommends repentance and prayer. Sounds like a good recipe to this monkey.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

What Will Save the United States of America?

By Bud Hancock

Previously, I have written about the Biblical saga of Jonah and the whale; it is a wonderful story, illustrating the goodness and mercy of God toward man. In the story, the empire of Nineveh had become a very wicked and sinful presence on the Earth. God noticed the evil that was becoming consistently worse, and He was not pleased. Not wanting to destroy the empire without giving them an opportunity to repent of their wickedness and turn to God, His plan was to send a man, a righteous emissary, to Nineveh to preach His Word to them and to warn them of their impending doom.

His choice for emissary was a man named Jonah who apparently enjoyed for some time, the Presence of the Lord. When he refused to obey God and go to Nineveh, the Bible states that he “fled from the presence of the Lord”, and instead bought a ticket on a ship bound for Tarshish, a very wealthy major city known for trading in valuable goods, having much riches in resources and attracting many people wo wanted to become wealthy. When God sent a strong storm that nearly sank the ship, Jonah knew that his disobedience had brought the catastrophe upon him and the other passengers on the ship, so he told them that he was to blame for the storm and commanded them to throw him overboard. When they obeyed, the storm relented and the ship was saved.

Anyone who has read the story needs no repetition of it, but the fact that God allowed Jonah to redeem himself from the disobedience that caused him to end up in the belly of a very large fish, is another indicator of His mercy toward us all. To get all the background, read the entire book of Jonah.
Understand that God hates evil, sin, corruption, lying, cheating and stealing, but He LOVES people and, when obedient to His word, He loves to forgive them and allow them back into His presence, and when Jonah repented of his own disobedience, God spoke to the great fish and it vomited Jonah out onto dry land, whereupon Jonah proceeded to go to Nineveh to fulfill God’s purpose for his life.

Despite all that Jonah went through to avoid obedience to God’s command, he eventually went to Nineveh and preached to them as God instructed. Then, when the people, from the king to the lowest of them, repented and turned to God, the Lord saw their works and their sincere repentance and spared the city. When he saw it, Jonah was very displeased and angry at God for not destroying them.

But the major point of the story of Jonah is NOT his personal struggles against God, but the majestic mercy of God toward the Ninevites as well as Jonah. Because one man obeyed Him, and preached His word, more than 120,000 Ninevites were spared.

Now, here we are in the present in a land called the United States of America, and much like Nineveh, it has become a very wicked, sinful and corrupt nation. God has reached out to the people of this great nation many times during my 81 years as a citizen and I have seen some great moves of God as Americans heard the word of God decrying their sin who then repented of their wickedness and turned back to God. But I have also noticed that, generally, people are becoming more and more resistant to calls for both personal and national repentance. That could be a symptom of a very weak Laodicean Church, wherein the Church has left its original state and has become lukewarm. Many churches and pastors have decided to water down the message of the gospel and present a nearly useless gospel that has no power to save. The burning desire to preach an unadulterated message about Jesus Christ has become, or is being replaced by a desire to reap the prosperity they claim that God wants for each person, replacing the original gospel with a message about the nearly unlimited prosperity that Christians can have by following the “prosperity message”.

The apostasy we are now seeing in nearly every major Christian denomination speaks much about the state of the Laodicean Church here in America. In His letter to them in Revelation 3:14-22, God stated they considered themselves rich, but were actually wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked; as such they had become lukewarm, causing Jesus to want to spue them out of His mouth. Such a church has zero chance to reach the people who need the true gospel message the most and instead, are running away from God to “Tarshish”, wherein are found great riches but no true satisfaction. How many of those running to “Tarshish” today will repent and seek God’s forgiveness, returning to deliver the original gospel message they were given when God called them?

Notice that it was NOT a new leader, the result of a satisfying election result, or a new king that saved Nineveh. It was especially NOT Jonah that saved Nineveh. No, the only thing that saved Nineveh was the acceptance of God’s message delivered by His emissary, His pleading to turn from their wickedness and seek God that moved God to spare them and their city. However, the fact that Jonah eventually realized his error in trying to run from God’s command is an integral element of this story and should be noted by those men and women who have been called by God, given their marching orders to take His message of redemption to the lost and dying world, but instead, have refused that order and headed to the “riches of Tarshish”.

At this point in time, I do NOT see a person or persons with God’s message to the people of America, warning of the impending destruction coming upon America unless a national repentance occurs. I do not know what the general message coming from America’s pulpits is, but unless it becomes one of revival brought about by a massive move of repentance, and instigated by the prayers of the TRUE CHURCH, no prosperity message will ever take effect and the future of our once great nation will indeed be bleak.

It is now very late and time is running out for those who once accepted God’s charge to be pastors, evangelists, apostles, prophets and teachers to fulfill their purpose. This wicked nation is waiting for the message to be delivered and, unless the ordained leaders of the Church respond, the blood of the lost will be upon all our heads.
Blessings and,
Maranatha

Bud Hancock

Born and raised in a small textile town in North Carolina, Bud’s family moved to Michigan in the hope of finding better employment with General Motors.  After graduating from high school, Bud began an apprenticeship with General Motors to become a Metal Modelmaker.  Retiring after a 30 year career, which included an eight year stint as a Metrologist (Science of high precision measurement), he and his wife moved back to North Carolina to be near his elderly parents.  Shortly thereafter, with both of his parents having passed, he began a new career in the bank security/ATM business, advancing from an entry level technician to one of two North Carolina customer service managers for his employer.  Retiring again after 13 years, he and his wife of 51 years relocated to Tennessee where Bud began writing articles emphasizing Biblical teaching and geopolitical issues.  At age 75, he and his wife relocated to South Carolina with their Miniature Schnauzer, Baxter.  Bud continues to study God’s word and write articles on Christian living and geopolitical issues from the Biblical end times  perspective.