THE PRODIGAL NATION

By COACH DAVE DAUBENMIRE
NewsWithViews.com

Prodigal - - A person who spends, or has spent, his or her money or substance with wasteful extravagance; spendthrift.
Food costs are rising faster in America than anytime in the last two decades. Is it any wonder?
We are burning our food. It is the last sign of foolishness in the mind of secular man. We live in a society today where God and the things of God are deemed foolish. It is right out of Romans 1.
"For the wrath of God is re-vealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in un-righteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being un-derstood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was dark-ened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…"
The American ship is being steered by fools. The official policy of the American government is the worship of nature. ("Because that, when they knew God, they glori-fied him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened . . . . Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Crea-tor,)
The captains of the "ship of fools" have turned to worship of the creation rather than the wor-ship of the "Creator."
It's global warming I am talking about. Environmentalism, rain for-ests (Tarzan called them jungles), no drilling in ANWR and "going green" are nothing more than re-worked paganism endorsed by our government and proselytized in our government schools.
The official policy of the United States government is "Earth Wor-ship." Gaia is Eastern Mysticism dress up as "Environmentalism." We have exchanged the Truth of God for a lie.
The Bible is out and Global Warming is in. Even some churches are buying in to the "new religion."
The reprobate mind is leading America.
I am sure that you have noticed the steady rise of food prices at the grocery. It has been going on for several years now. A few years ago a friend of mine who is a dairy farmer shared with me that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. His costs for producing a gallon of milk did not equal the price he was re-ceiving in the market.
But all of that changed about sixteen months ago. In our latest conversation he shared with me that in all his years in the milk business prices had never been higher. He was actually turning a profit.
"Why is that John?" I asked. His answer made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. "The price of grain is going through the roof be-cause the ethanol producers are buying it all to try and turn it into alternative fuels. There is a big fight going on in the markets. Should the grain be used for fuel or food?"
We are burning our are being discovered on American soil. food while huge new deposits of oil
As I was thinking about this yesterday it reminded me of the story of the Prodigal Son. Take time to read it, only replace "son" with "nation." "And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat:
If we continue down this road, America we will end up "eating the husks."
What has become of wise men? What has become of com-mon sense? What has become of wisdom?
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." . . . ."Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…"
What type of leadership burns our food?
The American Church is para-lyzed by what Gary DeMar calls "Last-Days Madness." In a nut-shell, the modern American Church has become so obsessed with End-Time prophecy that Christians have ceased to be the "salt and light" that Christ has commanded us to be.
Convinced that things are "only going to get worse" Christians have neglected Jesus' mandate to "Occupy until I return and have in-stead turned the gates of authority over to the enemies of the cross.
"Worse is better!" I heard one Christian-radio pundit say. "As things get worse that means the return of the Lord is near."
What hogwash! Is the Lord glo-rified by the multiplication of evil? "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth…" Did Jesus pray against His own will?
I don't want to turn this into a theological discussion and get us all wrapped in the minutia of fig trees and famines. For the Lord's sake, man, STAND UP AND FIGHT!
I have often wondered what America would look like if the Church believed in revival as much as it believed in the rap-ture. What would happen to this land if the churches turned their eyes towards heaven and bom-barded the gates with cries of repentance? What would happen if we begged the Lord to send us true spiritual revival?
Every time I read the story of the Prodigal I am struck by a verse hidden in the parable. "And when he came to himself…"
Isn't it time that we "came to ourselves" and returned to the Father?
In 1970, Hal Lindsay wrote a book "The Late, Great Planet Earth" where he suggested that the rapture would occur within forty years of the formation of the nation of Israel in 1948. When the end didn't come in 1988, he and a few others changed the date to forty years after the capturing of Jeru-salem in 1967. Lindsay and his fellow prognosticators are working on borrowed time.
But let's say Lindsay is right. Let's assume that the return of Christ occurs next March. Will our efforts to restore Jehovah as King over this Nation have been in vain? Doesn't it make more sense that the closer we get the harder we should fight?
On the other hand, what if the rapture doesn't occur in the next few years? What if the "prophets" have been wrong and time marches on? What if it is another forty years? What will this nation look like if Christians continue to allow this nation to wallow in the pig-pen?
If your house was on fire would you watch it burn….or grab a hose?
America must return to God. If God-fearing men and women rise above the insanity and call the na-tion to a return to the Father we have His Word that He will "heal our land."
I don't know what the future holds. But I look in the eyes of my children and envision a future be-yond description. As the Church has yielded all authority to the "government" the flood of evil is rising like a tidal wave. Thinking that the wave is to be ridden to heaven, Christians will be shocked as they are slammed head-first onto the rock.
Could this be the final sign from the Lord? Could He be pleading with us to return home? The eating of the husks brought the Prodigal to his senses. Will it take starva-tion to turn us around?
Is America a prodigal nation? We are lost but can we still be found? If so, we must pull our-selves out of the moral muck.
We are burning our food in a sacrificial ritual to the environment. I can see that God is turning up the heat. It gives new meaning to "global warming."
"I will arise and go to my fa-ther, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee," Our choice is clear. America must come to her senses. V

Coach Dave Daubenmire, founder and President of Pass The Salt Ministries www.ptsalt.com and Min-utemen United www.minutemenunited.org, is host of the high octane Pass The Salt radio show heard in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1999 Coach Daubenmire was sued by the ACLU for praying with his teams while coaching high school in Ohio. He now spends his energy fighting for Christian principles in the public domain.
E-Mail: coach@ptsalt.com