The Heart of The Matter

Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

There are many opinions flying about as to why a once great nation is so rapidly descending into chaos. There are opinions from economic minds, there are opinions from moral authorities, there are opinions from historians and scholars, but when we get right down to it, when we get to the heart of the matter and peel back the layers of pseudo-intellectualism, the answer is sin.

Some small words have a big impact, and the word ‘sin’ is one of those words. We can theorize, we can deduce, we can look back on the histories of other great empires and get clues as to why they descended into ruin, but the Word of God is simple and straightforward: sin has brought us to this place; sin has robbed us of our convictions; sin has stained our conscience; sin has blinded us to truth; sin has paved the way for our destruction!

Some are attempting to get back on track, to rediscover their roots, to pull themselves up by their bootlaces, and once more become that exalted nation. Especially of late, it seems we’ve been hearing more and more opinions on what exalts a nation, at least in the eyes of the world, and none of their opinions seem to be lining up with the word of God. It is righteousness that exalts a nation, not wealth, not opulence, not military might, not poverty, not weakness, not rhetoric or politics. Righteousness exalts a nation, and until we return to righteousness, until we return to faith, until we return to the truth of God’s Holy Word, we will continue to be a reproach.

‘Brother Mike, how can you say something so mean? How are we a reproach?’

It’s not me it’s the word of God. Sin is a reproach to any people, and before we can fix what has been broken, before we can build what has been torn down, we must return to righteousness.

When we attempt to bypass or otherwise minimize righteousness, and still have the expectation of exaltation, we are doing nothing but deceiving ourselves, and in due time will suffer the disappointment of having fallen short of our expectations. Righteousness exalts a nation! It is simple, and straightforward, yet less and less people want to hear this divine truth.

In order to fix the multitudes of problems that we are facing as a nation dear friend, we must return to righteousness. There is no way around it, there is no substituting it; righteousness must be our goal, our quest, and our purpose.

We often focus on the symptoms rather than the root cause of our nation’s ills, and this is why we rarely come to a right and true conclusion. The root cause for our nation’s ills is sin, plain and simple. The sin I speak of is not exclusive to the world, but even within the house of God. Because we knew the truth, because we ought to have obeyed it, we will be held all the more accountable for the reproach we have brought upon our own heads by believing that we could play games with God, or that we could substitute the gospel of self for the gospel of Christ.

What is alarming to me at least, is that we are no longer making hesitant strides toward destruction, we are galloping toward it. We have been uncorked and that which was within us all along is spilling out. Men are showing their true colors, and even those who claimed to be of Christ are pulling off the mask and revealing their true nature.

They stand behind pulpits and scream at the top of their lungs, ‘this is not God, this is not God’, all the while His Word tells us that it is indeed God.

How will we now react toward God? How will we now react toward His rod of correction I wonder? It is our rejection of righteousness that has brought us to this place, the selfsame righteousness that once exalted us as a nation.

In 1865, four years before his death, a man by the name of Joseph Charles Philpot wrote a book called ‘Steps of Thankful Praise’. In it, he said something truly profound concerning sin that I would like to share with you today. Sin has thoroughly diseased us, and poisoned our very blood. Sin has diseased our understanding, so as to disable it from receiving truth. Sin has diseased our conscience, so as to make it dull and heavy, and undiscerning of right and wrong. Sin has diseased our imagination, polluting it with every idle, foolish and licentious fancy. Sin has diseased our memory, making it swift to retain what is evil, slow to retain what is good. Sin has diseased our affections, perverting them from all that is heavenly and holy, and fixing them on all that is earthly and vile. And this he wrote in 1865.

There is only one remedy for sin, and that is Jesus, there is only one way by which our understanding, our conscience, our imagination, our memory and our affections can be transformed and made new, and that is by being washed clean by the blood of Christ our Lord and Savior. If we desire to be an exalted nation once more, we must deal with the root cause of sin that has corrupted and destroyed so many minds, hearts and lives.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.