Has our nation reached the trigger point?

Posted on May 1, 2013

By Dr. David R. Reagan Founder & Director, Lamb & Lion Ministries
In 2003, a book of mine was published that was titled America the Beautiful? The United States in Bible Prophecy. It has since been re-published in two subsequent editions, one in 2006 and the latest in 2009.

I began the book by writing about how God deals with nations. I showed from Scripture a series of seven principles that govern how God relates to a nation. I pointed out that when a nation begins to rebel against God, He will send prophets to call the people to repentance, and if they ignore the prophets, He will then send remedial judgments. If the people persist in their rebellion there will come a “trigger point” when God will deliver the nation from judgment to destruction.

The trigger point is revealed in the book of Nahum.
The prophet Nahum came on the scene 150 years after Jonah. Like Jonah, he was called of God to preach to Nineveh. But, unlike Jonah, he was not sent to call the people to repentance. Rather, he was told to inform them that the time had arrived for their destruction. This warning was in accordance with God’s character, for He never pours out His wrath without warning.

In Nahum 1:11 God reveals the reason for His unalterable decision to destroy the city and its empire: “From you has gone forth one who plotted evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor.” Thus, the trigger point of God’s wrath is when neglect or rejection of Him turns to war against Him. In response, God declared, “Your wound is incurable” (Nahum 3:19). In short, their fate was sealed.

A contemporary of Nahum’s, the prophet Jeremiah, spoke of the same principle regarding God’s relationship to Judah. He proclaimed that the nation’s wound was “incurable” (Jeremiah 30:12). He added, “There is no one to plead your cause, no healing for your sore, no recovery for you” (Jeremiah 30:13).

The Point of No Return
One chilling point is that the Bible teaches that when a nation reaches this point of no return — this point where “the wound becomes incurable” — prayer is no longer of any avail. Thus, Jeremiah was told by God that he was not to pray for the deliverance of Judah! “Do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you” (Jeremiah 7:16). Later, God made this same point again in even stronger terms: “Even though Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not be with this people; send them away from My presence and let them go!” (Jeremiah 15:1).

Ezekiel was told the same thing when he tried to pray for Judah, but in even stronger terms. God named three of the most righteous men who had ever lived — Job, Noah, and Daniel — and He told Ezekiel that even their prayers could not deliver the nation from His wrath (Ezekiel 14:12-21). “I have set My face against them,” the Lord concluded (Ezekiel 15:7).

God is patient and long suffering. But He cannot be mocked. “Whatever you devise against the Lord, He will make a complete end of it” (Nahum 1:9). God will ultimately deal with the sin of every nation. “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Nahum 1:3). Some nations will be destroyed before the Great Tribulation begins, but all nations will taste God’s wrath during that terrible period of international judgment.


 
I believe the trigger point for our nation occurred in November 2012 when President Obama was re-elected. We have ignored the prophets and the remedial judgments. God has responded by giving us the kind of leader we deserve. We are now positioned to be delivered from judgment to destruction.