How Nations Die

[Christina]

HOW NATIONS DIEThis pattern of biblical teaching was in mind as Hosea began to write this section of his prophecy. For the death of the nation described in these verses closely parallels the death of our first parents. How do nations die? The answer is that they die in spirit first. Next they die in soul, Eventually the body of the nation also dies and vanishes.This needs to be looked at in greater detail, however. So we ask first: How does a nation die in spirit? A nation dies in spirit when it forgets God and begins to worship that which is not God. Hosea describes this in the case of Israel by saying, "He became guilty of Baal worship and died" (11:1). In more recent times the worship of Baal has been replaced by worship of the race (as in the case of Nazi Germany) or material prosperity (as is happening in most of the western nations).When we talk about the death of a nation's spirit we do not mean that there has ever been a nation on the face of the earth, including Israel, in which every individual was regenerate. No nation has ever had a total awareness of God, involving every one of its citizens. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as God-consciousness in a nation, and it has sometimes been the case, particularly at the birth of a nation or at some period of special religious awakening, that many people have been aware of God and have been so anxious to serve Him that they have impressed truly spiritual principles and standards on their corporate life. This was true of the United States of America. Not all our founding fathers were Christians. On the contrary, many were mere deists. Some probably believed almost nothing biblical. But these views were not formative for the nation and did not dominate its first organization. In those days, people who did not believe the principles of the Christian revelation did not express their disbelief or fight for their secular outlook as people do today. Consequently, a certain God-consciousness was present and expressed. Prayer was part of national life. "In God we trust" was a genuine slogan. In the schools the Bible was read and taught by thousands.Unfortunately that ended. The first step in a nation's death takes place when its God-consciousness dissipates or, worse yet, is deliberately removed. We cannot speak of other nations at this point--we can speak only for ourselves--but we can say that this is precisely what has happened in America. In our country, particularly in recent years, there has been a deliberate attempt to remove any kind of overt dependence on God from national life. Prayer and Bible reading have been removed from the schools. Public figures have become afraid of identifying policies with Christian principles. Trust in weapons or diplomacy has replaced dependence on God.Second, the soul of the nation dies. This means that the national character deteriorates, We see this in the lowering moral climate of our citizenry, the accelerated corruption of business, the breakup of families, materialism, the increase in crime. We also see it at the national level in the failure of government to keep faith with its people and those of other nations.One example of how governments break faith with their people is by permitting inflation, particularly on an epic scale (which happens in periods of decline). In the days of their greatest vitality and earning power people save money to see them through their old age. The money they lay aside is worth something when they save it. But as the years go by the value of their dollars is deflated so that the money is actually worth much less when they come to use it. In ten years (figuring from a base year of 1967), inflation in the United States has topped one-hundred percent, meaning that a dollar saved in 1967 was worth less than fifty cents in 1977. Therefore, the working, saving people of America were half as well off as they thought they would be and have a right to be.Governments break faith with the people of other nations when they fail to honor treaties or trade agreements. The United States did this when it broke treaties with Taiwan. Why? Because mainland China demanded it as a condition for establishing diplomatic relations with us, and it seemed to our financial and political advantage to have such new relations.Hosea talks about this stage of Israel's decline in verse 2, saying, "Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, 'They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calf-idols."' Hosea's point is that, although Israel is spiritually dead (v. 1), she nevertheless goes on sinning. She is a walking, sinning corpse. It is what Paul says of the former life of the Christians at Ephesus. They were "dead in transgressions and sins." Nevertheless they sinned, following "the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air" (Ephesians 2:1, 2).At last, the body of the nation dies. By degrees! To use the analogy of a body, it is as if one organ after another fails to function properly and the body as a whole gradually sinks down until it collapses utterly. Nations seldom die cataclysmically by sudden and total overthrow at the hands of an enemy. They break down bit by bit. The police cease to be effective. The courts become technical battlegrounds and so cease to perform their proper function of punishing the guilty and exonerating the innocent. Politicians become no longer worthy of the trust committed to them. Schools cease to educate. Workers cease to work. Managers cease managing. Eventually the whole thing caves in, the country becomes a third-or fourth-rate power, and at last the nation is taken over or is dominated by another country whose star is rising.This is what Hosea refers to in verse 3. He has spoken of the death of the spirit of the nation, which is past. He has spoken of the present moral decline, the death of the soul. Now he looks to the future and sees the eventual disappearance of the body: "Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window." Mist! Dew! Chaff! Smoke! It is hard to think of four images better calculated to express how light, weak, and empty the nation had become. It is difficult to picture more graphically how she was to vanish at the first ray of heat or breath of airA NEW CREATIONIf the death of a nation unfolded along these lines for Israel, if it became true for Judah later, if this unfolding of spiritual death has characterized nations throughout history and seems to be descriptive of our own nation in the present day is it nevertheless possible to say at any point that there is hope? Is there a gospel of salvation?It is hard to answer this where nations are concerned, though there is always the possibility of grace. A people can always turn to God and find that He is ready and willing to receive them and will gladly postpone or fore-go judgment. There have been examples of this in history both in biblical times and since. With God all things are possible. Still, this is not the same as saying that repentance of this scope will occur or that judgment will be stayed where our particular nation is concerned. Will we be spared? Perhaps. But we must note that for every nation that has experienced repentance on a national scale and been spared, there are hundreds of others that have continued on their sinful way oblivious to the whirlwind coming upon them. I doubt if we will see a major turning to God again in America, though we may.At the same time we can say this: although repentance may not occur nationally so that the nation is saved, it can always happen to and for the individual so that the individual is saved. It can happen to you personally. The death I have described--the death of the spirit, soul, and body--is something each of us has experienced, for all have sinned and died. But each can also experience salvation in those areas. You can be a new creation. This is what God does; He makes us new creations. He does not take the old dead spirit and patch it up. What would He do with a patched-up corpse? He does not take that old soul, decaying under the weight of its sin, and plug up the holes. What would He do with a plugged-up soul? He does not keep alive that old body. God gives us a new spirit, a new soul, and a new body, and each is far better than what we had before.God works with the spirit first of all. Our old spirit died. God gives us a new spirit when we are born again. That is what the new birth means; it means to be made alive in spirit, reanimated by the Holy Spirit of God. Our old soul has been dying. God gives us a new soul known as the new man. He brings about an inward transformation so that we begin to think and act differently. It is what Paul is speaking about when he writes, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern. of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2). At last we are given a new body at the moment of the resurrection. We become new creations.Christians have an opportunity to live, serve, and pray for the nation of which they are a part. If we do that, by the grace of God we may be instrumental in bringing about the repentance and revival of our nation. It may be that, at least in this generation, we will not die...but live to the glory of God." Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. (Hos. 14:9)