Below are notes to a sermon preached Sunday morning and evening, July 2, 2000, at Gospel Light Baptist Church, Albany, Georgia.

HOW THE LORD MAY STRAIGHTEN OUT THIS CROOKED NATION

By Michael D. O’Neal Pastor, Gospel Light Baptist Church Albany, Georgia

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 32:1-7

Text: Deuteronomy 32:5

Deuteronomy 32:5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

Introduction: In recent days our courts have ruled that high school students in Texas are breaking the law if they have public prayers before their ball games. At the same time, Vermont courts have ruled that sodomite marriages are lawful and two queers were just joined in wedlock.

It has been said that our country was founded by God, guns, and guts! If that is the case, we are forsaking our foundations!

America is probably the greatest place in the world for Christians to live. My, how we have been blessed. But make no mistake about it: We are NOT a Christian nation. We are a PAGAN nation who has forsaken the God of our fathers!

Our country is laden with sin! Consider some of the sins of our leaders and of our people. Most of these are expressed in Bible terminology:

Adultery
Astrology (Isa. 47:13)
Answering a matter before hearing it (news talk shows – the guests holler on top of each other’s conversation)
Atheism
Baby-killing
Backbiting
Bastardizing – producing babies out of wedlock
Bearing false witness (President Clinton in court)
Betrayal – traitors in 2 Tim. 3:4
Blasphemy
Boasting
Casinos
Changing the natural use into that which against nature (lesbianism) (Rom.1:26)
Cheating
Covetousness
Cursing
Debate
Debts unpaid
Deceit
Deficit spending
Despising those that are good – 2 Tim. 3:3
Disobedience to parents
Divorce – Couples enter marriage without true commitment
Drugs
Drunkenness
Emulations
Envy
False accusations – 2 Tim. 3:3
Ferocity – 2 Tim. 3:3
Fornication
Forgetting God
Gambling
Gluttony
Gossip
Greed
Hatred of God
Heady
Highminded
Idolatry
Incontinence – 2 Tim. 3:3
Inventing evil things – Rom. 1:30
Lasciviousness
Laziness
Leaving the natural use of the woman (sodomy)
Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God
Malignity
Monthly prognosticating (Isa. 47:13)
Murder
Nakedness
Perverting judgment (Prov. 17:23)
Perverting the right ways of the Lord (Acts 13:10)
Pride
Rape
Rebellion
Resisting the Holy Ghost
Resisting the truth – 2 Tim. 3:8
Seeking familiar spirits
Selfishness
Stargazing (Isa. 47:13)
Stealing
Strife
Swearing
Trucebreaking
Unbelief
Uncleanness
Ungodliness
Unholy
Unmerciful – Rom. 1:31
Unjust
Unrighteous
Unthankful
Variance
Vanity
Vile affections
Wastefulness
Whispering
Whoredom
Whoremongery
Wickedness
Witchcraft
Without natural affection

Our text speaks of a crooked and perverse generation. I am afraid that describes America in the new millennium to a “T.” The one hope that I have for our country BEFORE the Rapture is that God specializes in straightening up crooked things. God is able!

God does use TOOLS and to do His work and METHODS to accomplish His will, and I want to suggest some ways that God just MAY straighten up this crooked nation called the USA.

GOD MAY STRAIGHTEN UP THIS CROOKED NATION THROUGH:

I. SUPPLICATIONS AND PRAYERS FOR OUR LEADERS

1 Timothy 2:1-2 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

A. Pray for their deliverance from sin

B. Pray for the decisions they will make

C. Pray for discernment for them

Our President seems to have no discernment at all about right and wrong or about truth and lies.
The highest judges in our land are almost split right down the middle about what is right and what is wrong or about what is lawful and what is a crime.

GOD MAY STRAIGHTEN UP THIS CROOKED NATION THROUGH:

II. SOUL-WINNING – PERSUADING THE LOST

Philippians 2:15-16 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; 16 Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

What a blessing it would be if someone had won Bill Clinton to Christ right after he entered office!

A. Saved people shine in the darkness

B. Saved people are salt to preserve

C. Saved people sweeten the atmosphere

GOD MAY STRAIGHTEN UP THIS CROOKED NATION THROUGH:

III. SEPARATION AND PURITY IN OUR LIVES

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

A. As salt, we preserve the goodness in society

B. As saints, we portray God to society

GOD MAY STRAIGHTEN UP THIS CROOKED NATION THROUGH:

IV. SPEWING PEOPLE OUT OF THE LAND

Leviticus 18:26-28 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: 27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) 28 That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.

God can throw the population out of their own land and freedom therein, if He so chooses. Sometimes He does this:

A. Through illnesses and disease

B. Through invaders

C. Through insurrection

GOD MAY STRAIGHTEN UP THIS CROOKED NATION THROUGH:

V. THE SOVEREIGN PRESENCE OF THE LORD

Revelation 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

A. Jesus will return soon

His return will be in two stages.
At the Rapture, all of His people will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and be taken into heaven.
There will then follow a 7-year period of trouble often referred to as the Tribulation.
Then there will be the Revelation, where Jesus will come to the earth in glory, to destroy the armies of the antichrist.

B. Jesus will rule this earth for 1,000 years

C. Jesus will rid the earth of

Corrupt politicians
Crooked practices