AMERICA’S BIGGEST DANGER!
Somebody posed this question – how do you eat an elephant? The best answer was, “One bite at a time.” Enough little bites can consume the whole big elephant.
Big things fall because little things eat away at them. Little drops of water constantly hitting a rock will eventually wear the rock down. If a woodpecker keeps pecking long enough with his little pecks, a limb or even a tree can come down. A lot of little things led to the collapse of the 12-story residential complex, Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida. Many residents died and many are still unaccounted for.
I feel that today so many things are chipping away at the foundation of America. Because they come in little packages, many people are not paying attention to them. I believe that America is in a dangerous position. It’s like a boat that becomes untied from the pier. It starts drifting. You can be sitting in the boat and not be aware that it’s drifting.
Drifting doesn’t seem so bad, except there is a huge waterfall out there. The boat will drift towards the waterfall. Unless there is a change of direction, the boat will go over the waterfall and everybody aboard will be in danger.
America’s biggest threat is never from the outside but from the inside. It’s the slow deterioration of our values.
Abraham Lincoln gave his first major policy speech and addressed the question of the dangers to America. He did not expect some transatlantic military giant to cross the ocean and crush us with a single blow. He affirmed that no armies in the world would ever come into this country and “take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge.”
He warned that the biggest danger is the one that will rise up from within. He said, “If it ever reaches us, it must spring up from amongst us. It cannot come from abroad.”
That’s so true today. I fear that we’re allowing our Biblical and moral principles to be eroded. Big things fall from within because little things have immense power. Consider these examples: denying the fact that Jesus is God’s plan for salvation; taking God out of the picture and saying that man can solve all of his problems; changing our understanding of family; deadening sensitivity to racial injustice; not protecting the unborn; neglecting our responsibility to those less fortunate; and you add to the list.
C.S Lewis writes that the Devil believes that “the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Is there hope? I believe there’s only one hope, and that is a return to trusting and obeying the God who loved the world so much that He sent His Son in order that His kingdom might come on earth.
We have a choice – “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)
What will you help change today?
