Ten Commandments (Part 3)
By Don Campbell
The second installment of this series on society and the Ten Commandments concluded with the thought that posting the Ten Commandments in the school house in an attempt to bring spiritual life back to America is like grafting cut roses onto the dead rootstock of what was once a prize-winning plant. The question was asked, "If the rootstock is dead, do we face a hopeless situation?"
Job said, "For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant" (Job 14:7-9). Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezek 37) also shows that it is never too late for God to restore a people to life and vitality. God could work a work among us which even the most optimistic would not believe. On the other hand, he could say, "For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them" (Acts 28:27).
I cannot speak for God, except where he has spoken. I do not know what decree has gone forth from heaven’s throne for or against our beloved America. I do know this: The instant God speaks concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom he has spoken turns from its evil, he will relent of the disaster that he had intended to bring upon it. I know this, because he said so (Jer 18:7-8).
Let us preach and pray that God will work a work in this nation that will dwarf the Great Awakening of the 18th and 19th centuries—the revivals to which many of us can trace our spiritual roots. Like Timothy, the faith that is in some of us was first in our mother and grandmother. For others of us our spiritual fathers were those who led us form sin to salvation. Either way, our heritage can be traced to those spiritual revivals.
Plan B is that we pray and prepare for our survival if God should say, "O America, America! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! You house is left to you desolate" (Matt 23:37-38).