“Has a nation ever changed its gods?  (Yet they are not gods at all.)  But my people have exchanged their glory for worthless idols…My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”   Jeremiah 2:11-13.  We are witnessing in America today a change of epic proportions.  Though this change began decades ago, God has given us a visible manifestation of a paradigm shift that has fully arrived.  Barack Obama is that sign.  He is a judgment from Almighty God that we have chosen to cast the God of the Bible, the God of our Pilgrim Forefathers, and the God of our Founding Fathers, to the ground.  Yes, Barack Obama is a sign from God Himself that we have chosen to abandon Him and His laws for new gods and a new set of laws. 

Many call this change, liberation – God calls it rebellion.  “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather against the Lord and His Anointed One.  “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.”  Psalm 2:2-3.  In this Psalm, we see that the desire for change (to break the chains) has always been with us.  The devil desired change when he whispered into Eve’s ear in the garden, “Did God really say…?”  We, in America, have become like a kite on a string that believes it can soar to the heavens if only it could break the chains of the confining string.  Little does it realize that once the string is cut, the possibility for flight ceases.  It is, after all, the string that enables the kite to fly. 

It was God, His Law, and His Son who enabled America to become great.  God was the string that enabled the little kite called America to soar.  It was His providential hand that made us free unlike any nation before us.  It was His design that America would be “a shining city set on a hill” that the world might know that the Lord is God.  America has been mightily used by God to come against the tyrants of the day, to liberate the oppressed, provide safe haven for the poor and weary, and to spread the Name of Jesus throughout the earth.   

He was the glue that allowed such a diverse people to become unified.  We weren’t black-Americans, Indian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Irish-Americans, or Italian-Americans – we were Americans!  We were one nation under God.  We were free to worship, assemble, and speak.  Free to raise our families, work hard, love our neighbor, and care for those less fortunate.  We learned to lay our own lives down that others might be free.  We chose to do that which we ought, rather than that which we want.  We were free and God made us that way.      

But, as time passed, we forgot His many blessings and providences.  We forgot the unseen hand that lifted us to these heights.  We grew tired of Him.  We were wearied by His moral constrictions.  We desired to be free from Him, to do what we want.  In essence, we became our own gods.  Barack Obama said it best, “We are the people we have been waiting for. We are the change we have been looking for.”  We changed gods - We cut the string!

We forsook God, the spring of living water, and hewed out cisterns, broken cisterns that could not hold water. This represents change at its worst.  We became a law unto ourselves.  We rejected God and His law and replaced Him with ourselves, doing what was right in our own eyes.  The book of Judges puts it this way:  
“After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel.  Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.  They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt…They provoked the Lord to anger…In His anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them.”  Judges 2:10-14.

Please note the italicized words.  Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  There was a standard that judged between good and evil.  God was the author of that standard.  When Israel strayed from Him, He judged them by sending raiders upon them.  After suffering at the hands of these raiders, God’s people would become painfully aware of their sin, repent and cry out to God to save them.  As soon as they cried out, God rescued them from the hands of their enemies.  He immediately responds to the cry of repentance.

The phrase, “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the lord,” is repeated several times in the early chapters of Judges (3:7, 3:12, 4:1, 6:1, 10:6).  It is important because it reveals that the people had a standard of judging between good and evil.  It was not a standard of their own making or perception.  It was a standard set in place by God.  Every time the Israelites repented of their sin and cried out to God, He delivered them.  Why?  Because God is merciful.  Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13) but mercy will never be dispensed apart from judgment.  Judgment of sin brings God’s people to repentance and to God’s mercy – His help.

But there comes a dramatic change in the last five chapters of Judges.  “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”  Judges 17:6.   God’s people had become totally debauched with no standard at all.  Everyone made up his own standard of what was good and evil.  Everyone did as he saw fit.  They cried out to God, but this time there was no help from Him.  Why not?  Because His people did not believe they needed to repent of evil; they just wanted God’s help.  This change eliminated all possibility for God to act and dispense His mercy. 

This change represented the complete abandonment of Almighty God and His law.  Though His Name was continually on their lying lips, their hearts were far from Him.  It did not happen all at once, nor was anyone really aware that the change had taken place.  But now there was no standard.  There was no way to distinguish between good and evil.  There was no king.  There was no judgment.  There was no judge.  There was only everyone doing as he saw fit.  Without judgment there can be no mercy, for no one knows to repent.

These are five of the most grotesquely graphic chapters found in the Bible.  God’s people were destroying themselves from the inside out: civil war, lying priests, superstition, child sacrifice, murder, rape, lying, deceit, homosexuality, ad nauseam.  This is what happens when God’s people forsake Him, and become their own god.

Four times in these last five chapters the author emphasizes that, “In those days Israel had no king,” (Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25).  They had moved from One God and one standard of law to new gods with multitudinous standards.  Everyone thought they were right.  If I’m OK and you’re OK, why repent?  It shouldn’t surprise us then that many Christians voted for Barack Obama and had no problem with the fact that he supports child-killing and the radical homosexual agenda.  We say we love God yet violate every one of His Commandments.  It is easy to do for now God is God as I perceive Him.  No objective standard – every thing is now relative.

In the earlier chapters of Judges there was a standard of good and evil, “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the lord.”  They realized that they were evil and needed a Savior.  They repented before God and cried out to Him.  He saved them.  But in the last five chapters of Judges change had taken its awful toll.  God could not rescue His people because His people refused to repent.  They were convinced they were right!   

Why not?  Because Israel had abandoned God and did not even know it.  She had become her own worst enemy.  Her bent toward idolatry and doing what is right in her own eyes took away any possibility of detecting the sin in her own heart.  God could save her from any sin or any enemy that came against her, but He could not – He would not deliver her from herself.  She had become her own God – every man had become a god unto himself.

This is where America finds herself today.  On Sunday, February 24, 2008, Louis Farrakhan addressed a large church crowd in Chicago and proclaimed these words:  “You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change.  And that is why Barack has captured the youth…that is a sign.  When the messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the messiah is absolutely speaking…Brothers and sisters, Barack Obama to me, is a herald of the messiah.  Barack Obama is like a trumpet that alerts you to something new, something better is on the way.”

“Something new, something better is on the way,” indeed.  Yes, universal change has come to America and it does not bode well.  The election of Barack Obama is simply the culmination of the movement (rebellion) from One God (Jesus) and standard of Law (the Bible) to other gods and standards of law.  It is a movement from content to form (having a form of godliness, but denying its power).  It is a movement from justice to fairness (fairness is the greatest enemy of justice for it has no standard).  It is a movement from creation of wealth to redistribution of wealth (from capitalism to socialism).  It is a movement from biblical love to tolerance (biblical love demands we get involved and make judgments while tolerance sits back and demands we say nothing).  It is a movement from character to performance (it doesn’t matter your character so long as you perform).  It is a movement from individuality to uniformity (The unique image of God shoehorned into the uniform mantra of the state).  It is a movement from liberty to bondage, from  joy to despair, from life to death.

Another Word for Change – Repent (Metanoia)

The Psalmist asked, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?  Psalm 11:3.  The answer of course, “Repent and rebuild the foundations!”  Recognizing and confessing that this change (rebellion from God) has taken place is essential to beginning the rebuilding process.  You see, there is another word for change.  It is called repentance.  The Greek word for “repent” is a combination of two words - meta (change) and nous (mind).  The word, “repent” or, in the Greek, “metanoia,” literally means to change your mind.

Repentance is change that we can truly believe in.  Repentance changes everything, for it instantly opens the ears of Almighty God to our prayers that He might forgive our sin and heal our land.  Yes, repentance is a powerful weapon in the hands of God’s people for it signifies that our faith, hope, and trust, rests solely in Him.  It opens the heavens for God to go to battle on behalf of His people.  Listen to God’s heart for His people through the prophet Isaiah, “…In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.”  Isaiah 30:15.  Do you believe this?  Neither did the people in Isaiah’s time.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.” Psalm 119:67.  Therefore God sent great afflictions and trials upon His people to bring them to their knees that they might cry out in repentance to Him.  Perhaps this is such a time of affliction for us in America.  We busied ourselves doing all to keep Barack Obama from office.  We believed that if we could do this it would be our salvation.  Not so!  It is a broken cistern – a cracked and leaking hope.  Our wound is far deeper than Barack.  He is simply a sign and judgment of a far worse malady. 

God Himself is laying afflictions upon us that we might repent and return to Him the “spring of living water.” For Him to have mercy upon us now would do great damage to His justice.  We can’t keep killing His children and cry out for mercy.  So, don’t despair brothers and sisters – repent (stop the killing) and cry out to God!  This is change we can truly believe in.