America's Cities of Dreadful Night

America and the world are being brought face to face with the great Bible truth that a nation is judged by its ideals rather than by its achievements.  The same is true for each individual.  One political party has coined the expression "Never let a crisis go to waste."  That's a biblical truth as well. Could it be that God in His providence has allowed this dreadful night of crisis in America to spiritually revive us individually and as a nation?  Let's turn this crisis into a test: 

Have I allowed whole areas of pathetic personal sentiment about God to blot out Jesus' standard of holiness out of the ideal standards for my life? 

The University of Sinning is one of the great facts revealed in God's Book.  The sin of a pagan nation never comes anywhere near the sin of what we call a Christian nation here in America.  Unless I see this, I will never understand the need for the Cross of Christ.

Whenever God talks about sin,  He always makes its setting His own people.  Am I fostering the life of a super-sinner by allowing certain popular books, celebrities, and movements to become a cultural snare to get me away from the one great standing in Christ?

Am I producing fruit to the glory of God or am I turning myself into a son or daughter of perdition?  Judas and John were both productions of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Am I generous and giving, not because I am godly but because it is a much more prosperous game?  Am I troubled by the need to be righteous in God's sight?

Have I put the standard of Jesus Christ before good taste, good living, good uprightness so that I can begin to understand what the profound hatred of man is like against the Lord Jesus Christ?

Do I ever get disturbed out of hearing God's voice by saying other people have not heard it?

Am I careful that God's beauty which He has put on me, is not prostituted to a flirtation with God's enemies?

Cities are stagnant cisterns of the world where God is most ignored and everything goes on with satisfaction.   Am I maintaining a personal uprightness so that I am alert to the warning against becoming so overly satisfied with my life that I ignore God?

Is my life so hid with Christ in God that I see at times what men and women are like without God, from God's standpoint?  Do I pray for them even while they look upon me with pity?

Do I fear looking back at my past sins, not wanting to be forgiven but like a coward only wanting to forget?

Am I guarding my thoughts and being renewed in the spirit of my mind in order to be fitted into God's purpose?

Do I have the kind of broken heart that is untroubled by storms, and undismayed by deprivation because I am confident in God?

Do I allow the truth of God to bring me face to face with the standard of holiness revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ?