Moral Security
The United States and its allies have responded sternly against the terrorist attacks of 9/11. President Bush has committed to stamping out terrorism. One reason this campaign is important is the increasing availability of nuclear weapons. The undercurrent to the war on terrorism has been one of waging war against nuclear power in the wrong hands. We fear nuclear terrorism. And rightly we should.
But is nuclear terrorism the greatest threat we face?In effect, yes; but the cause of such a threat is the greater danger.
The U.S. and Britain have become a cesspool of immorality. Pornography rakes in $10 billion a year in America, more than movies make, more than rock concerts and broadway theaters combined, more than major league baseball. And though we temporarily became more “religious” after 9/11, pornography sales increased!
Pornography’s widespread availability—from the Internet, to cable television, to the privacy of any hotel room—both feeds and stokes an increasing demand for it. It has even made its way into mainstream markets, with prime-time television glamorizing guest porn-star appearances on sitcoms and crude discussion and jokes about perverse sex practices. Porn master and multi-millionaire Larry Flynt has “lived long enough to see the stuff that Hustler was scandalizing people with in 1974 make it to television, to see hbo’s popular Sex and the City discuss, if not show, sex acts that were once the province of porn and to see companies like at&t, Hilton and Marriott slip into bed with porn producers” (Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 6, 2002).
Entertainment filters into real-life America: Pre-teens engage in sex acts, a junior high oral-sex epidemic is discussed on Oprah, college newspapers include regular sex columns, Internet chatrooms are full of explicit sexual talk.
The greatest victim of these problems? America’s families.
History tells us that strong families are the backbone of any nation. When “invincible” Rome fell in the 5th century a.d., one major weakness that had left it open to destruction was the wrecked family and moral structure. Moral depravity leaves countries inherently weak on the whole.
Where do the terrorist attacks ultimately stem from? We need to think about this. If God has withdrawn His protection and is allowing these attacks to try to wake us up, should we not consider changing how we live? The popular chorus after 9/11 was that any deviation from life as usual would amount to a victory for the terrorists. But was God actually trying to get us to live differently—to jolt us from our decadence? We think we are snubbing the terrorists by continuing our “American” living, when in fact, we are snubbing God.
This is not just another “ultra-conservative”argument from the exhausted soapbox of “family values.” These are God’s thoughts. This magazine trumpets its message, not as a political argument or as self-righteous affirmations, but simply because it is the most significant warning God gives America and the other Western democracies in the end time.
Amos 5:6 reads, “Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph ….” Joseph’s sons were Ephraim and Manasseh—Britain and the U.S. respectively in the end time. This message is for us.
God warns that Israel’s moral station is so base in the end time (see Amos 2:7-8), He compares it to the hedonistic cities of Sodom and Gomorrah—in immorality and in fate! Amos 4:11 states, “I have overthrown some of you [some is not in original Hebrew], as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.”God links our immorality with our nuclear fate, if we don’t turn to Him!
In another prophecy, God speaks of major cities inIsrael having 99 percent of the population completely wiped out! (Amos 5:1-3). What besides nuclear warfare would cause such cataclysm?
Make no mistake about it. We should be severely concerned about a nuclear threat. So many prophecies tell us so. But why?There is a cause for this effect. There is a reason God must punish us so severely.
The main reason is our moral condition—we have turned from God’s perfect law. God warns that He will use extreme nuclear measures to bring us to repentance!
If we were to stop this war on terrorism right now, and spend all our national energies on fighting immorality and repenting of our gross sins first, God would remove the nuclear threat from our nation! God wants us to return to Him. Five times in Amos 4, God talks about punishing the end-time nations of Israel and still they “have not returned unto me.” Each account talks about increasing the punishment—from floods and devastating droughts to violence and disease leading all the way up to a fiery nuclear punishment.
If we return to God now and fix our moral dilapidation—even if only individually—we personally can escape the horrendous nuclear fire soon to obliterate this nation. Amos 5:14-15 states, “Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.”