What's Wrong with America - and How to Fix It

Published: June 25, 2020, 8 p.m.

The Devil is a liar, Jesus says, and was a liar from the beginning.  When faced with the troubles of our time it's tempting to look for worldly solutions.  But mankind's problem, the foundation of all our social and personal ills, is sin.  Sin will impact different people and cultures in varying ways but the root is always the same so to fix a problem caused by sin we must be careful not to simply repeat the cycle. 

The root of the Devil's lie is "did God really say?"  That's the lie he builds destruction upon.  He doesn't drive up and abduct people by force; he uses duplicity.  Well, today, as we're confronted with protests and racism, and calls to tear everything down and remake America, we must understand that we can't solve old sins with new ones.  The answer to oppression isn't new oppression.  The answer is to go to God's word and see that He's given us the blueprint - the divine principles upon which we can rightly order our personal, professional and political lives.  That's the answer, not more of the same.  

The thing is, though it's right there in Scripture, explained in Romans 12-13, we don't want to believe it.  We insist on fixing our problems with worldly solutions.  Instead of turning to Christ for grace and submitting to God's moral law, we try and rewrite morality after our own - and ever changing - standards.  Next, and ominously, we hijack the civil magistrate and call him our servant.  But there are no governing authorities except from God and the government is God's servant, not ours.  The government is God's avenger, an impartial power with the mandate to punish crime regardless of wealth, sex, race or anything else because God shows no partiality.  Not until we accept God's order for our lives will we have peace and justice and any attempt to try our own solutions or to go our own way will simply create new victims and conflicts in place of the former.