Modern Israel Has Sown the Wind and Will Reap the Whirlwind

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There seems to be no bottom to the moral toboggan slide the modern house of Israel has been on for the past 40 years!

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At the present time, my cable company offers CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We are able to watch the same programs as the residents of Windsor, Ontario. Occasionally I watch their main news program as it tends to have more international news than any of our 24/7 cable stations. Additionally, it carries news of Canada, which can be very interesting. Canada has often been ahead of America in embracing modern liberal reforms. The noon news program on Dec. 21 was particularly interesting. After a lead item on the upcoming Canadian election, there was news of the pop singer Elton John's tying the civic union knot in Windsor, England, the same place where Prince Charles and Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, were wed. Only Elton John was uniting with another man. Elton John and his longtime partner, David Furnish, took the earliest possible opportunity to enter into a formal commitment, which is the legal equivalent of marriage, without actually using the "M-word," lest traditionalists get upset. I'm sure it won't be long before the word marriage is used in the name of equality. What was surprising were the crowds outside the hall where the wedding took place. Everybody was cheering on the famous couple as they appeared after the ceremony. There was no sign of any opposition, just plain acceptance on the part of bystanders and supporters. In Canada, on the same day, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that swingers clubs are perfectly legal and somehow guaranteed under Canada's constitution, which dates back to 1867 at the height of the Victorian era. The news anchor was very helpful in enlightening viewers on exactly what a swingers club offers—group sex and wife swapping were top of the list! Windsor, Ontario, has long been famous on the Michigan side of the border for its strip clubs, which offer total nudity and alcohol, a combination disallowed by the Michigan Legislature. Where is all this leading? It's been 40 years since the Sexual Revolution swept through the Western nations. The enthusiastic supporters of reform at the time probably had no idea what they were setting in motion. I was reminded of this some time ago when watching a documentary on the History International channel, an offshoot of the History Channel that offers documentaries on non-American history. One documentary highlighted the 1967 decision in Denmark to legalize pornography. Many supporters of the move in the nation's parliament simply wanted to end rapes. Their feeling was that access to pornography would stop men from committing acts of sexual violence against women. Nearly 40 years later, as the documentary pointed out, there is mounting evidence that pornography has only made things worse. Many of those who supported the reform measure almost 40 years ago now wish they had not done so. They were incredulous at what their seemingly minor reform has led to. They did not expect other nations to follow Denmark. Nor did anybody expect back then that their decision would lead to the development of an adult-movie industry that soon produced more movies than Hollywood—and the Internet had not even been invented! Not long after that the whole Western world allowed porn. It has been that way with other so-called sexual reforms—what begins in one nation soon spreads to the others! Now, one nation after another is allowing same-sex, civil "marriages," and soon a swingers club will probably be opening in a city near you, if it hasn't already! The Old Testament prophet Hosea wrote: "They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7). What we do has unavoidable and terrible consequences later on! What a nation does inevitably has consequences. Proverbs 14:34 states, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Sin is defined in the Bible as "the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4, King James Version), the breaking of the Ten Commandments. People have always had difficulty keeping God's commandments. The difference between today and the time before the 1960s Sexual Revolution is that today governments not only condone the breaking of the commandments, they actively encourage people to do so, often without their even realizing it. Widespread biblical ignorance also means that many people have no concept of sin—but that does not mean they are immune from the consequences of sin. Historical background How times have changed! You have to have a sense of history to see the irony in all of this. The Canadian city of Windsor is named after Windsor, England, which is the home of the British royal family. It was Queen Victoria who chose to move the British royal family's residence to Windsor, slightly west of London, England. During World War I, when anti-German sentiment was running high, her grandson King George V chose to change the family name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor, after the city in which they lived. Victoria symbolized moral rectitude. She gave her name to an era—the Victorian age—and even today people still talk of "Victorian prudery," a reference to the supposed narrow-mindedness of the British monarch. However, she deeply loved her husband, Prince Albert, and was the mother of nine children, so it is likely inaccurate to dismiss the lady as a "prude." She was, however, scandalized by the moral laxity of the next generation, notably that of her son, the prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. She would be appalled at the morals of her subjects today! It was Queen Victoria who chose the location of the Canadian federal capital (Ottawa) when Canada was given independence from Great Britain halfway through her reign. She also signed into law the new constitution of federal Canada. Her descendant, Queen Elizabeth II, remains Canada's head of state—a fact perhaps lost on many Americans unfamiliar with Canadian government. Canada at one time was a bastion of conservative values within a British Empire that was founded on upholding traditions passed down through the centuries. The ancestors of those of us in Canada, Great Britain and the United States would not recognize the moral state of our nations today. Unfortunately, an enormous cultural shift in traditional values has taken place. And current events are continuing to rapidly undermine our Judeo-Christian ethic. No matter how many courts reinterpret the definitions of marriage and family, it doesn't alter the fact that those who wrote our laws in times past did not intend the changes that are taking place today. Throughout history, the biblical definition of marriage and family has been a constant of our civilization—rejecting those values takes us down an increasingly uncertain and rocky road. Canadians, Britons and Americans are among the modern descendants of ancient Israel. (For more on this, please request our booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy. ) God wanted Israel to receive His blessings and promised that, if they obeyed His laws, they would be blessed. He reveals this clearly: "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth" (Deuteronomy 28:1). Further in the chapter, He shows the consequences of disobedience, of breaking His laws. Beginning in verse 15, we read: "But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you." The penalty for sin is rarely exacted immediately (see Ecclesiastes 8:11). Biblical precedent shows that the peoples of the ancient world, and Israel in particular, were repeatedly warned over a period of decades before the punishment finally came. But God's Word says it will come. There is a penalty for sin. Nations who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. WNP
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Melvin Rhodes

Melvin Rhodes is a member of the United Church of God congregation in Lansing, Michigan.