first 3.26.14

This Ezekiel 17 word follows up a Jan. 2009 word "Wake Up American Faithful" (https//zionpentecostmission.com/wake-up-american-faithful.html (also based on Ezekiel 17).

In that word, the Lord established that the good old USA is not any new Israel, as if we could count on the God of Israel to ensure and bless any foreign or domestic policy, as if  we enjoy special privilidges.

This is built on the wooly-headed notion of a false replacement theology, that the Christian church, and by extension the good old USA, is the "New Israel." 

Instead, this prior word states that we are a secular nation that includes an Abrahamic clan of faith (Genesis 12,3). We live in a secular nation, not any new Israel. One day the faithful of this country will reign from Zion, with Jesus (Psalm 53,6), but the only Israel that exists today is the nation just south of Syria.

That word and this word speak to all sorts of government or other types of overreach, as if  we enjoy a manifest destiny to the protections of God's literal Israel (which itself is subject to God's word, Spirit and will), as if any secular nation could provide all our rights and guarantee all our blessings.

We in the USA are no "New" Israel. And Israel still today is the only nation-state that might say "Thus say the Lord when it comes to any foreign and domestic policy."

Having realized this, there is still a sense that the USA is undergoing a time of "exile" (exile in place so to speak) in our nation's history, as if we-  like the Jews 6th century BC- are off course, in need of focus, a time of searching, correction and purification that brings change for the better.

Are we going to change for the better?

But unlike Israel of old, in today's climate of hyper change, we are not likely to have the luxury of 70 years of searching, correction, and purification.

We can argue as to when this purification-correction began. Vietnam? 9-11?

But since Monsignor Putin's ho-hum annexation of Crimea, please stand by, I think it is safe to say that the searching, correction, and purification of the good old USA has begun.

This could be a great thing.

And the Lord is taking me right back to Ezekiel 17,4-6a:

He [great eagle Babylon] took the very top of a cedar tree, plugged its highest twig; he carried it  off to a land of traders, and planted it in a city of merchants. 5 Then he took a native seed and put it in a prepared plot; he set it like a willow, a shoot beside abundant water. It sprouted and became a vine, sprawling low along the ground and bending its boughs towards him."  

We are the top of the willow tree planted beside a fertile stream in a land of merchants. All this means is that from God's point of view Babylon was God's generous provision for his exiled people of Judah, just as he has provided for the USA.

In fact, thanks be to God, we have been incredibly blessed as a nation, both in terms of political and personal rights, and economic prosperity. But now a new era has begun, an era of hyper change. And our federal government (forget about the minor differences between Republicans and Democrats) seems to have fully adopted the unamerican concept that it knows best, about everything.

Squandered Our National Roots and Rights Given By God

The essence of our national birth was fleeing statist Europe so we could enjoy God-given freedoms without the unjust decrees of kings and the meddlesomeness of religious power brokers. This cultural and political patrimony is being replaced by a statist concept that seems to say government knows best.

But correct me if I'm wrong- we are becoming a nation without discernable or fixed and effectual roots, or guiding legal and constitutional principles. We were planted by a generous God-given stream. God gave us this nation and His rights and roots in establishing it. And even though this is an earthly exile, and we were never meant to be a "Christian" country in any juridic sense, we had all we needed to be a beacon of hope, and an example of generosity, fair play, the rule of law, and justice to the whole world.

We also until quite recently enjoyed these roots and expressed cultural gratitude about  our great country, this beacon of hope for the world.

But it seems we are squandering these precious God given roots and provisions on all kinds of governmental,  and corporate overreach.

Our still young nation has the same symbol  as the old nation of Babylon, an eagle. In the bible the eagle is portrayed two ways. It is the highly favored bird that can fly closest to heaven and look into the sun (Proverbs 23,5; Revelation4,7), or one that circles low, Matthew 24,28; Luke 17,37.

Which eagle are we going to be?

God wants us to be the eagle that looks into his highest freedoms, and comes closest, in all this earth, to protecting them.

What Redeemable Principles Are We Going To Live By In The USA?

We as a country need to  find and identify some redeeming secular values (forget about Christian values for a moment) that protect our individual freedoms, principles that ensure us against injustice here and abroad.

Perhaps, we can learn something from historical Israel which has survived  for thousands of years all the empires and nations and peoples that have tried to co-opt, invade, destroy or otherwise subsume her.

It wasn't that she always claimed no limitations to her God-given freedoms and blessings from any secular government or force, but that she always knew when to protest against any infringement  on her future sovereign existence when some such entity crossed a line and threatened her God given essence.

Likewise, since some of us, faithful and non, have woken up now to our "exile" in place, perhaps it's time for all of us Americans to search and then vocalize and visualize how the good old USA, richly planted beside abundant waters, will look in say 50 years or 20 years, or even 10 years?