One Nation Under God?

I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag,
Of the United States of America,
And To the Republic For Which It Stands,
One Nation, Under God, Indivisible,
With Liberty And Justice For All

You've come to this page on the Internet and you're probably wondering if you've been misled. After all, you clicked the link thinking that you'd be looking at a pictorial history of the American Flag. Well, I ask your forgiveness, but let me explain. For a few years this page did have a pictorial history of the American Flag. But I ask you now to read on and see that the change of this page is all about.

There are two reasons why I have changed this page. First, there are now a lot of pictorial history of the flag pages on the internet and the technologies of those pages are far more thorough and even more aesthetically pleasing to the eye then my page. Second, I feel compelled to study and comment on some of the contentions that have been brought up lately concerning the formation of the United States and God's involvement in that formation. Many people are coming out and speaking about the Separation of Church and State and they want to banish God from our society. I cannot sit by and allow this to happen without doing what I can to speak out against this atrocity. As is the case with most injustices that are done in the world, they are able to thrive because good people don't speak out against them. I will not go to my reward guilty of that charge, but will depart someday with the knowledge that I have tried to tell people the truth.

Most of the Americans who are my age or older were taught the Pledge of Allegiance in grade school and we recited it every morning as we covered our heart with our right hand. The recitation was a part of every day life and we all accepted it gladly. Of course when we were kids it was just something that we did and it was a routine. There was no question about reciting it and to be honest, nobody ever really explained what we were saying. To me it was no different than saying the Boy Scout Creed or even swearing some secret oath when we had our little clubs as children in our neighborhoods. But as I got older and especially after I became a Born Again Christian the pledge began to take on new meanings.

The pledge that we learned in school was taught so that we said it as it was written at the top of this document. Everywhere there is a comma in the pledge, we had a very short pause. Punctuation is allowed in the English language to add spice to the sentences and paragraphs that we write. Without it, our sentences would go on and on in what would seem like mindless dribble. With punctuation I can make my character sound excited, melodramatic, or any mood that I want to express.

As it was taught to us, the pledge expresses the following manner of expression. I will paraphrase it thusly:

I swear that I will be loyal to the flag,
Of the United States of America,
And I'll also be loyal to the Republic that the flag is a symbol of,
Being one nation, that is under God, that can't be divided,
With freedom and justice for everyone.

Now that doesn't sound too bad right. I mean, it seems harmless to say such a thing. But one has to wonder if the punctuation was placed in the right places. I'd like to submit to the reader that the punctuation is not right in one place. I would like to now submit to you the way that I feel the pledge should read:

I swear that I will be loyal to the flag,
Of the United States of America,
And I'll also be loyal to the Republic that the flag is the symbol of,
And as long as it is under God, will it be one nation that's indivisible,
With freedom and justice for everyone.

Now there has been a lot of question in recent years as to whether God should be allowed in the Pledge. Those in the atheist camp say that by using God in the pledge, children are being forced to pledge to God, whom they see as the Jewish and Christian God. One particular individual, an attorney from California has been battling this in the courts for several months. His contention is that he doesn't want his daughter indoctrinated in the ways of God. His ex-wife and daughter are both believers in Jesus and the daughter has repeatedly said that she likes to say the Pledge. So, we have one man who is fighting against the pledge in the guise that he's doing it for his offspring, but he is really serving in his flesh, and the deed is his and his alone. Obviously this man has no shame if he feels that it is okay to hide behind the skirt of a little girl to enforce his opinion.

Now, since this whole thing has started, there has not been one religious person from any religion who has come out against the pledge, at least not publicly. That is because when any person from any religion says the Pledge, they think of their own gods and they ascribe credit to them. So when a Muslim says the prayer, they think of Allah, a Buddhist thinks of the Buddhist God, the Hindu thinks of a certain god; and so on and so forth. So it would seem that only the Atheist has a problem with the Pledge as it stands today.

The fight against the Pledge is just another battle in a war that started many years ago here in the states. It first started in the Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. At this time and place we had the Scopes Monkey Trial. This court fight was the first actual public battle between Creationism and evolution. At the end of the trial, the Creationists camp won, it was a shallow victory and, one could say, an embarrassment to the Creationist camp.

As the years rolled on, evolution was slowly and methodically added to the textbooks. Then, in 1957 and in the few years that followed the Russians made some great leaps on the space race. Many believe that when this happened, those in the American sphere of thinking attributed this leap in progress to the fact that the Russians were atheists and taught evolution. When this supposed revelation came to light those in power here in the U.S. pushed the increase of evolution in the textbooks. Soon, evolution got federal funding and the words in textbooks increased a great deal. This is a sad state of affairs. I say that because the Constitution clearly prohibits the government's establishing or supporting a religion; and evolution is clearly a religion. Click here to read more about this.

It is interesting to note some statistics that have come to light in recent years. First, we must remember that 1963 was when evolution received federal funding as it applies to education. Before 1963 the average grade school textbook had somewhere between one thousand and fifteen hundred words on the subject of evolution. After 1963 that number took a dramatic jump to right around 34,000 words on the subject of evolution. In nature, such jumps usually take on catastrophic tolls. Just take for example the El Nino floods out here in California back in 1996. In Sacramento we usually get anywhere from 17 to 20 inches of rain a year and it mostly comes in the rainy season which lasts from the end of November till right around the middle of April. But, in the winter of 1995/1996 we received around 42 inches of rain. The result was flooding like I have never seen before. Now, that was only a 100 percent difference over normal; not the mega increases that we'll see below. Let's look at what evolution has gotten us:

The statistics don't lie and it isn't just a coincidence that these statistics have escalated. When you start teaching people that they are only animals they start acting like animals.

The interesting thing to reflect on is that God is not a God that pressures people to love Him. As long as a nation accepts Him and loves Him, He will stick around like a faithful friend. He will protect that people or nation and will cause them to prosper. But, if a people or nation spurn Him and demand that He leave, He'll oblige them and grant them their wishes. But don't expect the blessings to remain when the author of blessings is expelled.

Take into account that this God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die in our behalf and that makes rejecting Him the ultimate insult. Here's an experiment to conduct. Take the person you love the most and buy them something real expensive; something they've always wanted. Then give it to them and have them throw it back at you and tell you that they don't want you or your gift. You now feel a fraction of the hurt that God feels when people reject Him, and the free gift of salvation that He offers everyone.

One part of the pledge declares that the United States is one nation. That means that everyone in the nation will be of one accord, with one purpose and dedicated to a common goal. For most of the history of this nation that was the case. Of course there were times where there was strife. We are humans living in a fallen world and we have to expect some problems from time to time. Through those bad times the people were for the most part moral God fearing people.

My ancestors hailed from many parts of Europe. On my mother's side, the ancestors came from Denmark, Germany and Poland. On my father's side the ancestors came from Italy and Austria/Czechoslovakia. There were Protestants, Catholics and yes, some agnostics. They were people who probably, had they stayed in Europe would have been at odds with each other. The Danes, being for the most part a Protestant nation, didn't care for the Germans or Poles who were Catholic. Germans seem to think of Austrians as being a little inferior to themselves. Those in Northern Europe didn't have any sort of affection for the Italians, who were thought to be inferior because of the darkness of their skin. What brought them all together so that I could sit here today and write this article? It was the cause of a common dream, to be American and to prosper under a new way of thinking of things, a new order of society; one built on the equality of everyone. And you know what? It worked well above my ancestor's wildest imaginations.

The other aspect of "one nation," that must be explored is that we have to realize that the United States is a UNION. I'm not speaking of a socialistic order of workers, like is found in many cities in the United States; but a union of states. When the United States first started out it was comprised of 13 individual mini nations that were commonly referred to as the "Colonies." Each Colony was sovereign and an entity unto itself. Most of the Colonies had their own currency and their own political way of doing business. When the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 it was signed by representatives of every Colony. After we won independence we had to draw up something that keep the Union cohesive (stuck together) and it was a painful process. Before the Constitution existed there was a document that attempted to do this; called the Articles of Confederation. It was a loosely knit collection of clauses for the new government. The trouble was that this document gave some states more rights than it gave others; so the founding fathers sought a new document; one that would make everyone totally equal under the law. Because of that, we have the Constitution. Might I add, that it too was signed by members of each State in the new nation.

The founding fathers really struggled for the right words to frame the Constitution. If you do any study, you'll see that they were men of faith; not all of them but most of them. They trusted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Almighty One; the Lord of Hosts and Maker of the Universe to lay a foundation for our nation. I'm sure that they were familiar with the scripture:

One might argue that we've not always been one nation during our history. Well, that is true at times, especially during the Civil War when the Union was fragmented, but we will discuss that in another category.

When we study what the phrase "under God" means, we have to first examine which God we're talking about. There are a lot of god's around. Every culture has their deity that they pray to and trust in; some have many gods.

It might be of interest that the Pledge of Allegiance wasn't officially recognized by Congress until 1942 and the words, "under God," were not put into the pledge until 1954. What was the state of our nation and who was our nation's God in 1954? During the 1950's our nation experienced a surge in economic growth; it was a period of great prosperity. This is the time when the term, "The American Dream," came into reality. If you watch the 50's show, "Leave It To Beaver," you can get an idea of what society was like back in that time. You had the man that went out and made a pretty good living. You had a wife that stayed home and attended to the children, the home and her husband's needs. You had two or more children and they were healthy and on the road to being well educated. Most of the diseases that had plagued our ancestors had been either tamed or obliterated and the life span here in the States was growing by leaps and bounds. There was a lot to be thankful to God for.

But as good as things sounded in the paragraph above, there were problems. Social unrest was beginning to grow. The plight of the black people was coming to the forefront and whites started to realize that things weren't as rosy as the picture they saw painted. Children all over the country were exercised in disaster drills because the fifties was a time of "Cold War," with the United States and the Soviet Union locked in an epic battle to see who could be the strongest nuclear power. We were told that the Red Menace could at any time drop atomic bombs on our cities and obliterate us off of the face of the earth. This caused people to think about where they might end up after they met their demise. Uncertain death causes people to think of God, and how to please our Creator. Thus, the fifties saw a tremendous surge in church membership. During that time, if you were to walk up to someone and ask them if they believed in God, they'd look at you like you were a moron and say, "yeah, who doesn't?"

In the 1950's the vast majority of the population were Protestant by definition of religion. The Catholic's were a minority that was slowly catching up in number values. This was followed by the Jewish population who mostly (like the Catholics) confined themselves to the urban areas. But the one main factor of these three religions was that they believed in the Jewish God, with the Protestants and Catholics accepting the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua Ha Mashiach, or as the English tongue says, Jesus Christ; both terms being interchangeable. So it stands to reason, that when the pledge was finally accepted in 1954, as being, "One nation under God," that it was referring to The God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel; and those of us who are Christians we recognized this also to mean Yeshua, the Messiah, the Son of The Living God, and God Himself.

But what does it mean to be under God? To some, it might conjure up thoughts of being under the oppressive thumb of a tyrannical deity who just wants to oppress us and grind our old bones into dust once we die. Unfortunately, that is the thought that many these days have of the God of Israel. Instead of seeing Him as a loving father figure, they see him as a ruthless authoritarian with no feelings. I can't fault people for feeling that way because I felt that way before I came to know God personally.

Now that I'm in a living and loving relationship with God Almighty, I see things differently. I see that mankind is in a state of decay. That is because of the original rebellion when Adam decided to choose rebellion over obedience and since then all people have been in rebellion. For this reason God gave the people of Israel the Law. This Law was the foundation that our legal system has ultimately been built upon. He gave Israel 613 commandments, but expects all of mankind to follow just ten; known as the Ten Commandments. Notice that they're Commandments, not suggestions. When all else failed, God saw that mankind couldn't keep His Commandments, so He decided to come down in form of a man, to offer the final sacrifice. Those who accept that sacrifice and are thankful for it are called Christians. Some people choose to call themselves Christians without accepting the sacrifice and without asking Yeshua to come and live in their hearts; but sadly, they are deceived.

So, seeing that God has gone through all the trouble to satisfy our penalty toward Him takes away the farce that He is some sort of tyrant. The early settlers of America knew these things and for the first hundred and fifty year or so of our nations history were years of blessings. Sure, civil strife did rear it's ugly head, but it was usually met by devout believers who got on their knees and prayed for divine intervention by our Holy and Righteous God.

To be under God means to be under His authority. It's much like being a child, and being under the authority of good parents. The child that is under the authority of a good parent is happy to be under that authority. It pleases that child to make his/her parent happy. This child, who is brought up in a loving home doesn't despise discipline, but knows that when they've erred in they ways, that their punishment is deserved and they accept that fact. When the children of a family are obedient to their parents they live in harmony with each other. Sure, there might be sibling rivalry, but each individual realizes that they are interdependent on each other and that if one hurts, the others hurt. The family is an organism, not an organization. All organisms need to be nourished. Nourishment is the part of the parent's responsibility and they gladly offer it. Now, put the family analogy in spiritual terms with God being the parent and each and every person being a child of the family of mankind. Some are under God and they obey His will, and they are happy and the Father is happy with them. Others think that the Father is a tyrant; they are out of the Father's will and deny the father. They are rebellious and can't receive the blessings of the Father because they deny His authority. The Father will try corrective measures to bring the child around to the common good but in many cases of rebellion, that only drives the child farther away, because of their rebellious heart. The father can try love too, but the rebellious heart is often a spoiled heart too and people who are spoiled think that everyone else has an agenda. Thus, they see the attempt of a loving Father to be an attempt by that parent to get something from them whereas the whole time the father is trying to give. That is the trouble with many in our nation and around the world these days. They don't know their true God. They have heard from others that God is harsh, so they believe it. When they hear that God is actually a loving God, they figure that God is only loving because He wants something from them. The truth is that He only wants the love returned.

When I was in grade school in Toms River, New Jersey, I had a teacher named Mr. Sneden. This teacher was one of the people who helped to build the foundation that many of my patriotic ways are built upon. One of the things that Mr. Sneden did was that he had us do a study on The Pledge of Allegiance. He broke it down, word by word and helped us to understand it. He was one cool teacher. I say that because I've always been the sort of person that just can't accept that something works; I need to know what makes it work and why it's important that it works. Mr. Sneden not only helped me to be that way, but he caused me to think and study everything out plus, he taught me what I wanted to know about many things. Thanks Mr. Sneden if you are reading this. By the way, I finally figured out why you liked to fish around Bishop, California. It's so beautiful there and the trout are great. Thanks for the education. But, I digress.

On one particular day Mr. Sneden came to the word, "indivisible" in the pledge. He asked what the word meant and I shot up my hand and yelled out that it meant that something could not be divided. He smiled and said that I was right and went on with the lesson. So, now we are up to the point where in the pledge we have already realized that if our nation is one nation; being one people made up from many others and one land mass made up of several states; and we are under God; meaning that we submit to the will and authority of God; we will be indivisible; not to be divided. But is that true?

As I mentioned earlier, when my ancestors all came to America, before the turn of the twentieth century, they all came here to be free. They came here with the express idea that they were forsaking their foreign lands to become part of a new entity; part of a new ideal and part of what they hoped would someday become the greatest nation that God ever graced the Earth with (aside from Israel of course). I'd like to share a story with you that my paternal grandfather told me.

Grandpa Ruffino was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1906. His name was John and his father's name was Egidio, which I understand is Italian for Giles, although the Census for 1920 lists him as James. Anyway, my great-grandfather wanted his sons to know Italian; I guess to preserve some family tradition and also I think it would help him to bridge the communication gap. I guess he figured that if his son's spoke both English and Italian they could help him in American society. One day my great-grandfather and his son (my grandfather) were in a store and my grandfather spoke to his father in Italian. My great-grandfather became angry and pulled his son out of the store for a scolding. He told his son that they were blessed to be in America. He told him that the official language of America was English and that it would be an affront to the people he felt were hosting them, if they were to speak their native tongue in public. He told his son that it was okay to speak Italian around the home, but he would not have my grandfather insult the Americans by speaking Italian in public. My great-grandfather had class and didn't want to offend those he was trying to become one with.

I say that because from it's inception until around the middle part of the twentieth century, people immigrated to the United States not only to be free, but to become part of it. They took low paying jobs to make a living and they learned, sometimes painfully how to speak English. Today there is a practice that seems to be diametrically opposed to that idea. But before I lay anything on immigrants, I have to say something about we who have been Americans by birth, perhaps by several generations by the time of this writing. I've fallen into what I'm about to write and I deeply regret it. We tend to lump ourselves into groups of people that we feel familiar with. Back in the seventies (maybe earlier, I can't remember) people started to separate themselves into subsets of American society. Whereas our immigrant forefathers forsook their foreign affiliation my generation started to refer to ourselves by our land of ancestors. I started referring to myself as an Italian American. Everyone did it. Soon people had bumper stickers with the flag of their origin. Then, in an act of total hypocrisy, we got offended when the sons of former slaves started to call themselves African Americans. You know, humans can do the stupidest things and I don't exclude myself from that association. It was a wise man who once said; "when you point at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you. Look at your hand when you point next time.

Anyway, why would such a thing happen? What would cause people who call themselves Americans want to identify with places that our forefathers gave life and limb to get themselves far away from? The answer is quite simple if you look at it from a Biblically spiritual point of view. We tend to forget that back in the early 1960's we loaded up our text books with the thoughts that evolution was true, which by default proclaims that God didn't create all that we can perceive with our senses. It wasn't too much later that we said that we couldn't pray in school; banning God from our learning institutions. You want to know why God doesn't do anything to prevent things like the Columbine tragedy? Well, we've all told Him that He's not welcomed in the schools anymore. And isn't it interesting that the two who killed all of those kids were avowed evolutionists and that in many cases they singled out the Christians for execution.

Over the years we made it legal to kill babies in a mother's womb and we call it a woman's right to choose? What about the child's right? What about, "Thou shalt not murder?" We've taken away the true meanings of Christmas and Easter and replaced them with fictitious characters that have occult themes. We have judges and lawyers who fight under suspicious pretenses to remove all mention of God from public buildings. These same people lie in wait to sue the first person who mentions God in public buildings. But who is really at fault here? It is the majority of decent people who just sit around and say, "well, I can't very well do anything about it. I'll let the other guy take care of it." If someone is not doing something to correct the problem, then they become party to the problem.

So, in the scant period of my lifetime we have gone from a God Fearing society to one who would rather live life without the interference of God. We are not under God anymore so therefore we are divisible. Every ethnic group is tripping over themselves to see who can get a bigger part of the American Pie. Go into the war grounds of the inner city and see what is happening. Every ethnic group is fighting to see who will take the turf. You would have had to just flown in from some far part of the galaxy to have not seen this. American has transformed from a melting pot to a bubbling cauldron filled with some of the nastiest poisons ever created. Those poisons are hate, envy, murder, lust, homosexuality, love of money and many other bad things. And to make matters worse, we have an entertainment industry that makes money off of the glorification of these poisons. WAKE UP AMERICA!!

Yet another sad thing is that things are going to get worse. Since we're obviously not under God, and haven't been for several years we are being taken over by illegal foreigners who flood across our borders. There are scriptures that tell of the dire things that will happen to a nation that calls itself a Godly nation, yet performs all sorts of ungodly acts. Isaiah Chapter One is God's address to a rebellious Israel. Israel was called by God to be a Holy nation. I believe that America was conceived to be a Holy nation too; or at least our founding fathers conceived it that way. For many years the population of our nation thought this to be so too. So, based on that premise, let's look at what God told Israel in Isaiah chapter one, and apply it to The United States.

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the LORD, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them. Isaiah 1:1-31

I've taken the liberty of color coding the scriptures. The yellow highlighted scriptures speak of the condition as it stands and the judgment that will ensue. The blue highlighted scriptures talk of hope and renewal of a people who recognize their condition and repent.

In the scripture God talks to a nation that He considers children. He calls them corrupters, evil doers, people laden with iniquity. He talks about how they have moved backward, and how they have angered Him. He compares their sin to a sick body with all sorts of ailment, even sores that are festering. Interestingly enough He talks about how their land is taken over by strangers right before their very eyes. Does that sound familiar? I sincerely believe that where He talks about a remnant being left He is talking about the small minority of Christians who are left in America. I'm talking about true believers who don't compromise with the world. It is the only thing that has kept the Lord from judging America with full judgment. Also, to our credit, I believe that our support of Israel has kept us from total destruction. So when God takes the Christian off of the Earth and the United States turns against Israel, better find a safe place to live if you're still stuck here.

God then goes on to tell the people that our religious festivals and holy days are like a stench to Him. Who could deny that any holidays left in America are really just regarded as days to barbecue or have a day off from work. Christmas and Easter have been totally corrupted with pagan ritual that they don't even resemble Christianity nor do they glorify the God whose remembrance they're supposed to employ. God even says that He's so mad that when people try to pray to Him, He'll just ignore the prayers.

God then shifts gears and tells how there's a remedy to fix all this wrong. He's actually, even in all His anger, giving another chance to turn around. He says that he's willing to erase the sins of the people if they only will humble themselves and repent. But as usual, God then tells the people that if they decide to rebel still more that war would come to their land.

Then God tells of the faithful city becoming a harlot. We again can see this fulfilled in modern America. I'll tell you there are so many parallels between the sins of the Israelites of old and modern America that it's almost spooky. Well, rebellion has a common author in every instance so seeing parallels shouldn't be too much of a surprise. The scripture talks about how once it was a righteous place that judged correctly. But then God goes on to say that instead of righteous people living there it's inhabited by murderers. It talks about the silver that has become dross, meaning that it's not pure. Interestingly enough, our money has become worthless, the paper money being only a debtor's note and in the 1980's even the coinage changed from worthless metals to even more worthless metals. The scripture then talks about our leaders not being leaders at all, but thieves who care more about how they can make money and secure their futures rather than taking care of the people they were elected to protect and defend. Spooky isn't it?

Finally, the scripture talks about the only thing that seems to burn rebellion out of a man or group of men. That thing is persecution and judgment. It seems that people just can't see the message until they're hard pressed and have nowhere else to turn. In American history there have been such times. Let's look at the period just after the first world war and the second world war. After World War One there was an economic boom in America like she had never seen before. Most people prospered in one way or another. But with prosperity it seems that sin always creeps in. In the 1920 people in America sort of let their hair down and partied to excess. It was the time of the flapper (women dressed scantly who liked to party and do other things in excess), fast music and all other sorts of sordid living. People basically shelved God and lived a life of ease and lasciviousness. Well, America had to be put back on the narrow road and in 1929 came the Great Depression; an economic crash that took many years to recover from. As a matter of fact, the only thing that brought our economy out of the depression was the advent of World War Two. Too bad that man just doesn't seem to remember history because if he could many problems would be averted.

For those who don't want to subscribe to the scripture in Isaiah talking about American society as well as ancient Israel, I now submit to you a scripture from the New Covenant that talks about the times that we now live in:

I don't think that I really have to expound on the scripture in 2 Timothy. You can open up the newspaper or turn on television and see first hand how society today fulfills that scripture. For information purposes, Jannes and Jambres were the two magicians in Pharaoh's court who were able for a brief time to counterfeit the miracles that God performed through Moses in front of Pharaoh and his people. God allowed them to manifest their magic, but only so far. Soon the miracles of God were too hard for these two men to perform, proving to Pharaoh and his people that they were just cheap imitators and not all that powerful. God has a wonderful way of humbling the proud and frankly, I enjoy watching it a lot.

I almost laugh when I read the last part of the Pledge of Allegiance. I can't think of a time when there has been liberty and justice for all. We come close a lot of times, but we never truly hit the mark. For too many years there was little liberty and no justice for blacks in most of the country and especially in the south. Up until recently there was a law in Alabama that it was still against the law for a black and white couple to marry. Is that justice? Ask the congregants of three synagogues that were firebombed in Sacramento a decade ago and see what they feel about liberty and justice. Sure, the bombers were caught and found guilty, but where's the liberty when you always have to fear that just around the corner there might be a couple of lunatics that might want to repeat the act.

Part of the problem, especially in recent years is that lawyers and judges are in their professions for the most part just to make a good living and to make a name for themselves. Whenever the people vote to make a law to bring forth justice it is in most cases challenged by demonic groups like the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and it is brought before a group of corrupt judges with satanic values and the law is scrapped in a refuse heap of decent laws that the unrighteous consider indecent.

You could ask the families of countless victims of child abduction and murder where they think the justice is. Consider that in most cases the people who abducted, raped and murdered their children were let back out on the streets after just doing a token amount of their original conviction time. Consider the countless victims of rape who live in fear because their rapists will only serve a fraction of the sentence they were given; only to be freed again to repeat their dastardly deeds. Consider our Supreme Court, who in the last fifty years has made it illegal to exercise many of our freedoms, but have legalized abortion and almost every other sinful act under the heavens. No, there is not liberty of justice for all. If you still believe that there is, just forget to pay the IRS if you owe them back taxes. If you disagree with them and don't pay you can ponder all this from your fully functional jail cell. If you think you have liberty and justice, just refuse to pay your property taxes and then you'll have time to ponder all of this while living in the homeless shelter.

When you do a careful study of the Bible, especially the Gospels in the New Covenant you'll notice that Yeshua had much contention with a particular group of people. These people always seemed to associate themselves with the Pharisees. The scripture refers to this group of men as "doctors of the Law." These were known as the "Scribes" and it's possible that some of the Pharisees were also called doctors of the law. In modern day we would refer to these people as judges and lawyers. They were the interpreters of the Law. Yeshua referred to them often as "a generation of vipers." So it seems that Judges and lawyers have always been a problem in societies from the beginning. The problem is that judges are supposed to be impartial. With all of the crazy things that judges are doing these days, one has to wonder if their lifestyles preclude them from doing so. One has to question for instance, if a judge gives a light sentence to a pedophile then why did that happen. Could it be that the judge is secretly a pedophile and can't judge his own kind because he or she would be condemning themselves?

So, why did I write this article? Again, I reiterate that I'm a patriotic American. I was born free and I'll die free. It hurts me a great deal to see what my beloved country has become. In just the short period of my lifetime I've seen the United States go from a God fearing caring nation to a self centered godless society. We operate in the guise that we're doing good for the world but it is just an illusion. One might use the argument of our current mission in Iraq as showing that we care about freeing nations. Well, that might be what it appears to be but is that the true reason for being there? Could it be a war for oil instead? While I'm thankful that we're battling Muslim extremist overseas and not here; I see more reasons for being there. I believe we're setting up Iraq as a secular democracy in order to prepare it to become the Babylon that is mentioned in the Bible. Babylon must be resurrected so that it can receive the judgment that God has promised will happen to it. Babylon is going to be both a spiritual and commercial capital for the Anti-Christ. It will be a capitalist center. Islam and capitalism are like oil and water; they just don't mix, ever. So Iraq has to be turned into a secular nation so that Babylon can exist.

As for the United States, I really hope and pray that we will have a vast revival and turn back to God. Aside from that, I think we've slidden into a chasm that we won't be able to extricate ourselves from. Our society has in effect told God to "get lost." Not a person to stay where he's not welcomed, He has obliged our request. He won't come back unless we become humble and contrite in spirit. Albeit, that could happen, but I believe that it will only happen after this nation has gone through a time of great distress.

I feel that perhaps some of you might be offended by what has been written in this document. I cannot apologize if you feel that way. Sometimes correction is a hard pill to swallow; but like most medicine, it doesn't taste good, but it promotes healing if taken faithfully an prescribed. I pray for revival for our nation daily and hope that all those who read this will agree with me in that prayer. Blessing to all of you in the name of Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus Christ)