By Scott Tibbs, September 15, 2011
Ten years ago this past Sunday, Muslim terrorists crashed passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Jerry Falwell said then that this was both a warning and as judgment from God.
I wrote a letter to the editor where I said that Falwell was wrong to say what he said. At the time, I was wrapped up in patriotism and not heeding the warnings of Scripture, and I was wrong.
The Bible is filled with examples of God warning or destroying entire groups of people. The wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are the two most obvious examples, but God also proclaimed that the city of Ninevah would be destroyed because of their wickedness. Of course, God spared that city when they repented.
God ordered that the wicked Canannites were to be wiped out because of their evil practices, including the practice of child sacrifice. The people of the land would toss their infants into a fire, sacrificing them to pagan gods – an incredibly cruel and inhuman practice.
In Deuteronomy 12:29-31, Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and 2 Kings 16:3, God spoke of destroying the wicked people of the land in part because of infant sacrifice. In Jeremiah 32:24-36, God proclaims judgment against Jerusalem for their wickedness, including infant sacrifice. In this passage, God's rebuke is especially damning. He says that the practice of infant sacrifice is so evil that it didn’t even enter into His mind.
It is common for Christians today to think that the Old Testament has been rendered irrelevant by Jesus, but we should not forget that Jesus Christ warned of the destruction of Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-24:2 – a prophecy that came true when the Roman Empire destroyed the city in A.D. 70.
But are we any better in America? In the United States of America, we have murdered 50 million unborn children in the name of reproductive choice and personal autonomy.
Is it so outrageous to believe that God would judge America for the great wickedness in our land? I do not believe it is. We need to repent of our wicked ways and turn to God before it is too late, and our iniquity is full like the iniquity of the Amorites as described in Genesis 15:16.
