At the beginning of May a friend of mine challenged me to read a chapter of Proverbs a day for the month. There are 31 days and 31 chapters. I have really enjoyed the very practical nature of this book. It seems sometimes as I read through other books of the Bible I find that the spiritual nature is so far above me in understanding and application, but Proverbs is plain and very straight forward. I was reading chapter eleven today and there were two verses that really stood out to me. Verses ten and eleven deal with the interaction of the righteous and the wicked and their cities. "When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; And when the wicked perish, there is jubilation. By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, But it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked." Proverbs 11:10,11 Many people from many different philosophical,theological,and cultural backgrounds are sounding the alarm that this great nation is in trouble in many ways. Inflation is rising, jobs are hard to find, violence is up, the general attitude of this land is becoming more and more skeptical and cynical. Morally, we have become relativistic, what is right and true for you is not necessarily right and true for me. When morality becomes relative immorality becomes an accepted norm. This is easily observed in what passes for entertainment today, but it doesn't end there, immorality is spreading to every aspect of American culture (the church in America is not excused from this by far). My understanding of the text quoted above is very simple, as the righteous and upright go so does the city or nation. Who are the righteous and upright? The righteous are the ones who have been declared to be in right standing with God. We are declared right in the sight of God when we repent of sin and declare Jesus Christ as LORD and Savior. The upright are those who live lives that are a reflection of God's law and will. Living uprightly is the outward display of the righteousness imparted to those in relationship to God through Jesus Christ. Righteousness and uprightness are not well received in our world today. To stand upon the statutes and principles of the Word of God is not a popular view point. So the righteous and upright have begun to hide and fail to speak out against the very things that are destroying our future. For example, in the spirit of free speech music artist have been allowed to promote all kinds of filth and we allow our greatest hope and our greatest blessings, our children, to hear and mimic it. Then in great disgust we turn on the children and complain that they are far worse than any generation before them. Let me just say that I do not oppose free speech and the opportunity for these individuals to share what is in their hearts. I would say that it is interesting that we as a society can tolerate and even promote actions that offend a large section Americans but find their rebuttal of said behavior intolerable. These verses stand as a warning against forsaking righteousness and uprightness. They serve as a reminder of what is the outcome when wickedness is the sponsored religion of the city. The wicked perish and the city is overthrown. We are seeing a great decline in America's ability to sustain it's position in the world today because our politics, culture, ideology, theology have become stained with wickedness. It is interesting that as Judeo-Christian values are replaced with moral relativism that depression,cynicism, skepticism, sexual deviancy, divorce, violent crimes (including juveniles), business fraud are all on the rise. Those that practice these things would say you're just making this up but if we truly look at the world around us, I ask who really has their head in the sand? The righteous must begin to speak out IN LOVE to a world that has called evil good and good evil. If restoration is even possible and apart of God's plan it is going to take the people of this once great nation to repent and to return to the God who brought such great prosperity and favor in the past. God bless!