THIS WORD

Is God Speaking to America Today?

By Ulysses L. Griffin
April, 1999

Ancient Egypt was a very powerful country. However, she was brought to her knees by 10 plagues inflicted upon her land and her inhabitants. These plagues were brought upon Egypt by the Israelite God, I AM, because of their refusal to obey God’s will. God’s will at this particular time was to let his people go, so that they might serve him. Each of these 10 plagues inflicted upon Egypt was directed at one of their gods. The first was the Nile being turned to blood. With the Nile considered by Egypt to be protected by the deity "Hapi", the spirit of the Nile, a clear message was given to them that "this river is not a god". The second was the frogs being multiplied, and frogs were associated with the goddess "Heka", who was thought to assist women at childbearing, and was a god with life-giving power. The sixth was boils and sores on man and beast, a direct hit against "Sekhmet" and "Serapis", their gods of healing. The ninth was darkness, a sure bullseye to their sun god "Ra". And the last one, death of all first born, was an absolute debunking of the idea that pharoahs were gods, for the firstborn of Pharoah died as well.

It seems as if God was simply saying to Egypt "your gods are not gods, I am the only true God, that has power over all things, repent and believe in Me, and all will be well". Egypt did not heed the message, and the rest is history.

With America being the most powerful nation today, surely Americans should ponder the question "could America be in the same type of situation"? Is America rejecting God’s will, or accepting it? Are America’s gods being destroyed one by one and is the futileness of them being shown? Is God speaking a message to America today?

What is America’s God? Where does she worship? What does she worship? It becomes clear by only a little research of the time spent by Americans in front of the television, that television is one of , if not the most significant "god in America". The average American spends hours in front of it. The average home has at least two. They are even on when no one is looking at them in some homes. Am I saying that television is totally wrong, no. But when americans become so devoted to their television and neglect their families and neglect to acknowledge God and His Son Jesus Christ, lookout. As Egypt gods became the source of confusion and discomfort, could America’s television be the same? Is the very thing that we consider so important, becoming a source of trouble for us? It steadily promotes and encourages violence, immorality, nudity, hatred, etc.. Is God speaking to America?

With the popularity of the Internet, computers have no doubt become a significant place of devotion for many Americans. Hours upon hours are spent in front of monitors by many people as they ignore their family members. Not only have individuals become dependent on it for entertainment, but computers is the way mostly all business and business transactions and records are made and kept. Now there’s not a thing in the world wrong with doing business by computers; but when man begins to say " I have created this economic empire myself, and by my own knowledge and technological advances I am sustaining it, and no one can take it from me", and begins to in a sense worship his own technological advances, lookout. Not to say that it is going to happen, but if Y2K does happen, would that not appear to be along the same lines as one of Egypt’s plagues? Would that not appear as if God was saying "you are worshipping your own technological advances, they can’t save you nor help you, it’s only the works of your hands; repent and believe in my Son; or else I’ll show you that these things are nothing".

God was speaking to Egypt.

Is God speaking to America today…