Many people make statements that if we don't stop a particular sin we will fall under God's judgement. This is true, but their point is that the judgment of God is a future event. The problem is that sometimes the movements of God are not discernible to all people. Jesus' first ministry to Israel was not perceived by the majority as a move of God. In Jeremiah's day, the majority never realized that he was bearing the true message of God until it was too late. Could it be that we are already under judgment as a nation and most don't perceive it? According to Romans chapter 1 we have been under the cloud of God's judgment since at least the 1920s. That is right, the 1920s. This section will be long, so I will have to extend it over a few days.
In the 1920s, the roaring twenties, America was beginning to experience a shift towards lawlessness as a nation. Like the pattern in the book of Judges, the first step of a backsliding nation is that people do evil in the sight of the Lord. During the 20s there was a shift in the morality of the nation and an attitude that we need to turn from our roots as a Christian nation. The Scopes Monkey Trial was at work laying the foundation for a godless school system. In 1921 Margaret Sanger started the American Birth Control League. Her venomous speeches on abortion at times even praised Hitler for his contribution of ridding the world of an undesirable race. Looseness and promiscuity were on the rise in the major cities. Also, the streets were filled with violence partly due to prohibition. The divorce rate in the 1920s began to rise from less that 5 percent to over 14 percent in this decade. When the depression and World War Two came the nation experienced a spiritual awakening as the people, like the Israelites in Judges, began to call on God in repentance. However, the groundwork of apostasy that was laid in this generation would resurface in the 1950s and especially the 1960s.
The divorce rate in the 50s was running near 25 percent. This is the time period that most look to as the generation of the family, but a spirit of rebellion also had begun to set in. Then we were hit with the issue of prayer in schools. Some of the very first legislation in America that called for compulsory education was the Olde Deluder Satan Act of Massachusetts. It was believed that children needed to be able to read the Bible in order to not be deceived by the devil. This act and concept were the very foundation for the educational system of this nation. It had always been understood that the nation was founded upon the precepts of the Holy Bible, but this was about to start an avalanche that is just about to reach terminal velocity today. In 1962 it became illegal to pray in a public school. Most don't think that this event was that significant. Look at the violence in our schools today. Look at the promiscuity of the average teenager and the drug and alcohol abuse among teens. What should have brought the nation to their knees in repentance was nothing more than a necessary change to most. This was the first signpost of Judgment. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Romans 1:21-24. The bottom line is that judgment started when we turned our back on God and began to look at the creation as god. "We don't do that?" My friend, the godless philosophy of evolution does teach that. More on this later. Please notice the last phrase after God gave them up and think about the sexual revolution of the Sixties.
