Ask Dr. Couch (#409)

Dr. Couch, I appreciate your observations about where our nation is going. Where are some other verses that describe the state of our country?

Try Isaiah 57:20-21 and Jeremiah 17:5-11. America is a spiritually restless and destructive nation. I am now writing a book on where this is all going entitled: Satan, the Nations, and the End Times. If it is possible, we are seeing sin becoming more sinful! Television is a good thermometer to tell us what is happening to the people, especially the younger people, of our nation. Did you know that in some state universities they now have co-ed apartments. In other words, men and women can live together in the same room.

God has said "The wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet" (Isa. 57:20). "Its waters toss up refuse and mud." Because of this "There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked" (v. 21). Our nation only focuses on the material and the physical. The moral and the spiritual are ignored.

But even more pointedly, Jeremiah quotes the Lord as saying, "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind" (17:5). That is what the people of our nation are doing. America trusts in America and not in God! Jeremiah adds, cursed is the man who "makes flesh his strength" (v. 5b). And, cursed is the man "whose heart turns away from the Lord" (v. 5c). This man is like a bush in the desert who "lives in stony waste in the wilderness" (v. 6). There is nothing but dryness and deadness around!

But there is a reminder: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust IS the Lord" (v. 7). That man is like "a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit" (v. 8).

Then the Lord warns: "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (v. 9). We cannot understand even our own heart. We can be self deceived and not even know who we really are. God searches our heart and tests our minds (v. 10a). And He will reward according to our works.

The hope of Israel is the Lord. If they do not trust Him, as all people, there will be judgment. Those who forsake Him are "put to shame" (v. 13a). Those who turn away from Him will be "written down, because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, who is EVEN THE LORD!" (v. 13b).

In reference to the spiritual fall of America, the old scholar Lange said "Out of the virtues and vices of the family come the virtues and vices of nations."

Thanks for asking.
Dr. Mal Couch