I will stretch out My hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal...

Be silent before the Sovereign LORD, for the day of the LORD is near.

Zephaniah 1:4&7, NIV

After hundreds of years of the descendants of Abraham's having lived as a superpower in Jerusalem, their reign was about to come to an end. God's chosen people had rejected Him as their Sovereign and were now about to pay the penalty. God loved His people and had been sending his messengers to them to give them warning of their impending doom unless they repented of their continual wickedness, but it had been to no avail. 

The people of Judah simply could not believe that God would punish them by destroying their nation. They had been a nation ever since God had rescued them out of Egypt over 800 years earlier. God had sent prophets before, but He had always relented in the past. Never mind the fact that God had punished them before - that was long ago, yet the nation had still survived. So, they didn't heed the warnings of God and they paid the price.

Modern day observers call this "normalcy bias" or "recency bias". It's the idea that we humans have a hard time imagining things can be different than recent experience shows them to be. They have been the same for so long that in our minds they will always be the same. This type of nearsighted thinking is often compounded by a failure to learn the lessons that history has taught. Those observant and honest enough to admit it will have to confess that our own modern-day society is pretty short on history and fairly long on arrogance, so many of our generation are absolutely clueless as to what is happening right now before their very eyes.

This is the long way around the barn, I suppose, of saying that America finds itself in a similar position that the Israelites of Judah were in over 2,500 years ago. And while there are some differences between the two nations (despite thoughts to the contrary, Americans are not God's chosen people, though many have chosen to follow Him) the similarities between the two nations are significant. For instance, both were founded by people who desired to be righteous before God. Both have had a long history of loving God and seeking to do His will. Both eventually rejected their need to remain obedient to God, but both felt that God would never punish them for doing so.

And both felt that things would never change.

There is yet another similar characteristic the two nations share: Both had a remnant of people who up until the very end still loved God and listened to His warnings. The nation of Israel had the prophets who issued these warnings, while the people of our day have the teachings contained within the Bible to give us ours. And though a few still heed those warnings, the vast majority do not. Why should they?

When you think about it, the older generation has done a fairly lousy job of preparing the younger one. Most of the current generation is being brought up with the idea that America is great because we are diverse, equitable and inclusive. Never mind the idea that we have taken these noble standards and twisted them to being diverse, equitable and inclusive of perverse and sinful behavior. We are noble in our own minds and that is all that counts! And as for God? Well, He loves us unconditionally, doesn't He? Furthermore, He will unconditionally protect and reward us no matter how sinful we become, won't He? That's what many of our times have been taught and that is what they believe.

So, we have "slouched towards Gomorrah" and we find ourselves in a nation of people who think they can do anything they want without consequence. It has been so in the past (at least in their limited understanding of history) and it will be the same in the future. This is what the Israelites thought in Zephaniah's day, and it is what most people think in our own. The people of Zephaniah's day were carried off into exile as punishment for their leaving God - even though they clung to their normalcy bias until the bitter end. Do we think that it will end differently for us, should we continue to cling to our sins?

One of the reasons that we read the Bible and history is so that we can learn that things do change. Sin does have consequences! God does have standards that must be upheld! Even if we haven't believed this to be true, it is so. Since this is the case, what do you think we should do about it? Maybe a good place to start is with repentance. Then maybe we can start talking to the next generation about the need to return to God before it is too late.

It's something to consider, don't you think?