A Roadmap to Judgment (Part I)
Biblical bearings for a nation that's lost its way
America’s “golden age” revival?
A lot has changed in a short time in our country.
Just a handful of months ago, there was legitimate talk of political assassination, continued election malfeasance, unprecedented political chaos, and even civil war. Last November, a nation collectively held its breathe, cast its ballots, and hoped for the best.
And now? Well, to many, it seems that the best is yet to come.
Having finally exhaled, many Americans are now breathing easier as they survey what appears to be a very different national landscape, one reshaped seemingly overnight by a political landslide precipitated by a seismic cultural shift. Many are now seeing visions of a new American “golden age” dawning on the horizon.
When the president dodged a bullet, perhaps our nation did too. God, it would seem, has mercifully relented, at least for the time being, from further judgment, granting us a desperately needed reprieve. And that, in and of itself, is a very good thing, and something we should all be thankful to God for.
Hence the wet blanket reactions of some Christian leaders to the 2024 election results were clearly out of place, lacking in proper perspective and gratitude in light of what was obviously an act of sheer providential mercy.1
However, is the answer to such pietistic pooh-poohing really unbridled political optimism, one that reduces the Christian’s prophetic witness to a mere performative cheerleading, rallying the evangelical base to support whatever the current crop of conservatives is up to?
Are we not to function primarily as prophets, rather than puppets, men who are first and foremost on God’s side (Joshua 5:13–14), rather than in the pocket of any political party or politician? Are we not to serve as guard dogs, rather than lapdogs, watchmen who bark, and even bite, when danger approaches, while others make merry among the spoils of short-lived victories (Isaiah 56:9–12)?
When Paul testified before the rulers of his day, as Christ predicted His disciples would do (Matthew 10:18; Mark 13:9; Luke 21:12), he did not skip over the supposedly trivial “in-house” matters of “righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment” (Acts 24:25), things that in theory only Christians care about, and even that only on a good day. Instead, Paul prioritized these “matters of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4) over every top-line agenda of the rulers of this age (Matthew 20:25, 26; 1 Corinthians 2:8), making the centerpiece of his public witness the gospel itself: repentance from sin and faith in Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah (e.g., Acts 23:6; 1 Corinthians 1:23, 2:2; etc.).
If sharing this unwavering emphasis makes us the proverbial “skunk at the inauguration party,” then so be it. Nevertheless, we insist that in adopting such an approach we are not acting against the interests of current administration, but rather for them. We are tying to help, not handicap, build up, not burst bubbles.
It is right to acknowledge, and even celebrate, with genuine, heartfelt gratitude, the many answered prayers and temporal mercies that have come to our nation through recent political developments. At the same time, we should avoid the naïve assumptions that “we are so back,” when in many ways we are not, that “the vibe shift is real,” regardless of whether it is lasting or meaningful, or that God’s wrath on our wayward nation has now fully abated, which we hope to prove here is most certainly not the case (at least not yet).
So the question is, which is it, American Christian? Are we under God’s blessing again as a nation, or does His wrath abide on us still? Has God’s anger passed over us, or, like the receding of the tide, is this merely the pleasant gap between the next wave of judgment? Has the darkness finally passed and a new “golden age” dawned—post tenebras lux—or have we merely delayed the inevitable sunset?
“To the teaching and to the testimony” we must go to answer these questions, for “if they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:20).
These are the days of Josiah
What we are presently witnessing unfolding before our eyes in America is truly historic. Movies will one day be made about the world’s richest man and his cadre of technological wunderkinds shining the light of algorithmic justice on the government’s filthy lucre. If the president keeps up even a fraction of the unprecedented pace of his administration’s historically ambitious agenda, then love him or hate him, he will undoubtedly go down as not only one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history, but as a world-historic leader of lasting consequence in any nation’s history book.
In Israel’s history, such times of national renewal and progress periodically arose as well, and they too were often a thing to behold. One particularly memorable example came during the reign of King Josiah (641/640–610/609 BC; 2 Kings 22, 23; 2 Chronicles 34, 35). Although Josiah’s reforms were in many ways unprecedented, they were not entirely unanticipated, for his acts as king, and even his very name, were prophesied in dramatic fashion long before he ever arrived on the national scene (1 Kings 13:2). Indeed, by the time the boy-king ascended the thrown of Judah at the tender age of eight, much evil and backsliding had transpired in the humbled southern kingdom over which God had set him as “reformer-in-chief.”
In Josiah’s day, the “united kingdom” of Israel was but a distant memory. Since the national split, the Northern kingdom (called “Israel” because it contained most of her tribes) had been ruled by men who followed the precedent set by their idolatrous founding father, Jeroboam son of Nebat. In an ill-fated attempt to consolidate power, he established the very form of worship that God had so explicitly condemned in the wilderness: the worship of golden calves, and this time not just one, but two of them.2
For this, Jeroboam was condemned, to his face, by a Judean prophet who foretold in graphic detail the eventual demise of Israel’s apostate priesthood (1 Kings 13:1–6), which would occur several centuries later.
Perhaps the only thing that could top this extraordinary curse was the extraordinary blessing of Josiah’s reign itself, which in spite of all the hype did not disappoint (2 Kings 22:2; cf. 2 Kings 23:25):
“He [Josiah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”
However, after dusting off a long forgotten scroll that one of his priests had stumbled upon in Solomon’s now dilapidated temple (2 Chronicles 34:11), Josiah realized both his, and the entire nation’s, true peril (2 Kings 22:8–13; 2 Chronicles 34:14–21).
How did they find themselves in such hot water, you might ask? Well, it turns out that dusty, old, nondescript scroll was none other than a neglected, all but forgotten copy of the Torah (“law”) of Moses itself, and according to it, Judah was in deep, deep trouble (2 Kings 22:13; cf. 2 Chronicles 34:21):
“Go and inquire of the Lord for me [king Josiah] and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.”
Imagine a U.S. president centuries from now wandering into the abandoned ruins of the Washington National Cathedral and finding a crumbling copy of “The Holy Bible,” a book he has only a vague recollection of, but which he finds holds the very keys to unlocking the secrets of his people’s demise.
To Josiah’s horror, the people of Judah were on the verge of perishing under God’s boiling hot wrath (Leviticus 26:14–46; Deuteronomy 28:15–68) and they didn’t even know it (Hosea 4:6):
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to Me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”
Ignorance was never bliss.
Josiah, to his credit, wasted no time in implementing drastic, comprehensive reforms to both literally and figuratively “clean house” in Judah, uprooting the rampant corruption of the rotting religious and political establishments of his day (2 Kings 23:1–25; 2 Chronicles 34, 35:1–19).
What followed was a truly remarkable nationwide turnaround.
The land and its temple were cleansed of their idolatry and restored to working order (2 Kings 23:4–14; 2 Chronicles 34:3–13).
The Passover, which had not been observed in like manner since the time of the judge Samuel some four hundred years earlier (2 Chronicles 35:18), was once again celebrated (2 Kings 23:21–23; 2 Chronicles 35:1–19).
The sacrilegious high places, which no king since Solomon had either the conviction or courage to overturn, were finally torn down (2 Kings 23:13; 2 Chronicles 34:3).
Societal decay and bad actors of all sorts were being exposed and deposed on a daily basis with breathtaking force and zeal. One could almost see the beleaguered, faithful remnant rejoicing in the streets, grinning ear to ear in disbelief with tears streaming down their faces. They thought this day would never come.
Is any of this sounding just a little bit familiar?
A revival of pretense
And yet, for all of the earnest repentance that Josiah himself displayed, his righteousness, in the end, would deliver only himself (Ezekiel 14:14).
After hearing the words of the Book of the Law, rending his garments, and sending his high priest and officials to inquire of the Lord, the message Josiah received from the prophetess Huldah3 was decidedly mixed (2 Kings 22:15–20; cf. 2 Chronicles 34:23–28):
“She said to them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Tell the man who sent you to Me, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods and aroused My anger by all the idols their hands have made, My anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’’’ So they took her answer back to the king.”
Though by all outward appearances it seemed that the entire nation had finally come to its senses, the return to sanity was but a momentary lapse from their true spiritual condition. As with the ministry of John the Baptist (John 5:35–40), though the people were willing to bask in the light of Josiah’s reforms for a time, they ultimately failed to return in their hearts to the One to whom the reforms pointed in the first place (2 Chronicles 34:33, emphasis mine):
“Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors.”
As with Israel’s judges of old, as soon as Josiah was gone, the people picked up right where they left off, resuming their downward death spiral into judgment as if the reforms had never even happened (2 Kings 23:31–37, 24, 25; 2 Chronicles 36).
Our nation has likewise made many “New Year’s resolutions” at the start of our supposed comeback, but the question is, will we stick with them? Judah sure didn’t (Jeremiah 3:6–10, emphasis mine):
“The Lord said to me [the prophet Jeremiah] in the days of King Josiah: ‘Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to Me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.’”
Judah’s “repentance” was merely an outward, worldly sorrow, one that sheds self-pitying alligator tears over sin’s regrettable personal consequences (2 Corinthians 7:10; Hebrews 12:17), but fails to come to grips with the ultimate sting of sin as committed against God and God alone (Psalm 51:4). Absent this realization, we will never bear fruits in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8), fruits that truly stand the test of time (John 15:16).
Political, and even superficially religious, reforms that do not address the inner spiritual sickness of a people will have no lasting staying power, for they will lack the only power—namely, the power of God—which could possibly give it to them (Titus 2:11, 12; 2 Peter 1:3). Half-hearted reformations may have a temporary appearance of godliness, but they lack any real power to radically transform those who are impacted by them (2 Timothy 3:5).
At the end of the day, in spite of its fleeting benefits, repentance in pretense only is really no repentance at all. It merely delays, rather than averts, the inevitable.
In America’s case it is no different.
Even if an incoming president appears to be the second coming of Josiah, even if such a leader outstrips all previous administrations by orders of magnitude in terms of his concrete actions for the good, even for all of that, it may still prove to be a case of “too little, too late” (2 Kings 23:24–27, emphasis mine):
“Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of His fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse His anger. So the Lord said, ‘I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’’”
Though the king turned to God will all his heart, the people did not. Oh, they followed along to a point, but only to a point. As impressive and God-ordained as Josiah’s efforts were, and for all the real, tangible good he did for the people while he was in charge, he was simply incapable of single-handedly reversing the judgment that was already set into motion during the bloody reign of his wicked grandfather Manasseh (2 Kings 24:3, 4, emphasis mine):
“Surely these things [i.e., the Babylonian invasion, conquest, and captivity] happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.”4
The national point of no return had already been breached and there was no going back now (Ezekiel 14:12–14, emphasis mine):
“Son of man, when a land sins against Me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out My hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God.”
Could God have made His point more emphatically? Perhaps if He were addressing America today, He would say something like “Even if Jonathan Edwards, D. L. Moody, and Billy Graham personally interceded for you on bended knee, I would not listen. Your judgment cannot be thwarted. You have gone too far this time.”
For all the civil reforms in America today, there seems to be nothing even close to comparable to Josiah’s religious reforms, and even they were not enough to deliver that nation from judgment!
Look around you. Where is the widespread acknowledgment of our sins as a people, the nationwide brokenness over our countless rebellions and provocations against the God of our fathers? Where is the contrition, the weeping, the breast-beating, the head-hanging of the truly penitent (Luke 18:13, 14)? Our crimes against God and humanity just over the past six or seven decades alone far exceeded those of Israel and Judah, even under the worst of their leaders.5
Apart from an unprecedented, Spirit-wrought miracle of mass scale salvation, what hope does our nation have of escaping the judgment of God?
Indeed, unless our current government overhauls are accompanied by the true and lasting repentance of multitudes of backslidden Christians, our great American “golden age” may turn out in the end to have been little more than fool’s gold.
Road signs of the times
In the next installment of the League of Believers we will conclude this two-part series on judgment in America by providing a “roadmap to judgment,” signs of the times to help orient us Christians as we seek to understand our historical moment and, most importantly, to do something productive while we’re in it. Buckle up as we explore the pothole-riddled road of a nation in decline. Exits and detours abound, but only one route leads to eternal life.
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For example, pastor John Piper, in an X post from November 6, 2024, stated:
“Presidential election results.
Having delivered us from one evil, God now tests us with another.
‘The Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ Deuteronomy 13:3”
Not surprisingly, this response received a great deal of pushback almost immediately after it was posted (e.g., Larry Alex Taunton’s X post response from November 7, 2024).
One calf idol was installed in Dan toward Israel’s northern boundary, and one was installed in Bethel, the very “House of God” (Genesis 28:17–19), toward Israel’s southern boundary (1 Kings 12:25–33).
Surely the fact that the leading men of Judah inquired of the Lord through a female prophetess reflects poorly on the state of the male prophets during Josiah’s reign, which is to be expected given the overall state of moral and religious decline during that period.
Contrary to popular Christian understandings, God is in fact under no obligation to forgive anyone, let along everyone, dispensing His mercy and grace to whom He sees fit, in the proportion He sees fit, when, how, and where He sees fit (Romans 9:14–18):
“What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For He says to Moses,
‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.”
This may sound hyperbolic, but it is, if anything, and understatement, as we will document in part II of this two-part series.