In his book When Nations Die, Jim Nelson Black lists three aspects of decay: social decay, cultural decay, and moral decay. Three important trends demonstrate moral decay. They are the “rise in immorality,” the “decay of religious belief,” and the “devaluing of human life.” The classic study of Roman civilization, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, written by English historian Edward Gibbon was published in that famous year of 1776. He “observed that the leaders of the empire gave into the vices of strangers, morals collapsed, laws became oppressive, and the abuse of power made the nation vulnerable to the barbarian hordes.” ¹ In today’s podcast, we are going to take a look at one of the main reasons why great nations fall.

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[Tweet “The very ground you are walking on records the iniquity done on it.”]

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Each weeks podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This weeks call is:

I hope you can see from this the importance of living clean, pure life’s. With that being said, 2 Chronicles 7:14 should come to bear in our prayer lives. Our cry unto God must be to turn the current course of immorality in our nation.

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Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believers life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
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Question: In what way do you agree or disagree with the contents of this post. Please share your comments, in the comments section below.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Exodus 20:13–14 (NKJV)
¹³ “You shall not murder. ¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery.

• The obedience of a people to these two commandments are of utmost importance when it comes to establishing the moral fiber of a nation.
• America is considered a top nation.
• Our concern should be how do we stay that way?
• In order to stay on top, we have to understand some of the reasons why nations fall and then, as a nation, be willing to make adjustments.

Why Great Nations Fall – Immorality and the Iniquity of the Amorites

•  The history of the world is the history of nations that are conquered by other nations who have collapsed into anarchy.

Genesis 15:13–16 (ESV)
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

• As part of the Abrahamic Covenant, God promised Abraham land for his descendants.
• Here in this passage, God informs Abraham He is not going to give them the land right away.
• According to this passage, the time for Israel to inhabit the land was at least four generations away.
• The obvious reason for this is there was no one to give the land to yet.
• Isaac had not been born.
• Consequently, there is no nation of Israel.
• There is only a promise of one.
• A promise with God is a sure thing.
• The physical part of populating a nation had to take place first.
• Isaac’s birth would not take place for another thirteen years after this conversation between Abraham and God.

Incomplete Iniquity

• But there is a second reason why it was not time for Abraham and his descendants to inhabit the land.
• The scripture says the ‘iniquity of the Amorites was not complete.’
• The word ‘Amorites’ here is a general term meaning all the different Canaanite families in the land.
• It is like the word “American” which could mean family origins from many other countries.
• We must ask the question then, what was the iniquity of the Amorites?
• Their specific ‘iniquity’ is described in Lev. 18:6-23.

Leviticus 18:6–23 (NKJV)
6 ‘None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness: I am the LORD. 7 The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness. 9 The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover. 10 The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for theirs is your own nakedness. 11 The nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, begotten by your father—she is your sister—you shall not uncover her nakedness. 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother. 14 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. 17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness. 18 Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive. 19 ‘Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. 20 Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, to defile yourself with her. 21 And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. 23 Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion.

• There is a long list here of people who Israel was not to have sex with.
• The sins described there are sexual perverse in nature.
• There is right sex and wrong sex.
• Mixed in with these sexual sins was innocent blood shed.
• Some of the deities the Canaanites worship required human sacrifice.

Leviticus 18:24–28 (ESV)
24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

• Notice one of the reasons why he told them to keep their sex lives straight, ‘lest the land vomit you out.’
• Why do nations fall? Because they become so perverse in their behavior that the land itself expels them.
• The very ground you are walking on records the iniquity done on it.
• When that iniquity gets to a certain level, it vomits out the inhabitants.
• That’s why nations fall.
• Here is this same principle in Genesis record.

Genesis 4:1–2 (NKJV)
¹ Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” ² Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. ⁸ Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. ⁹ Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

• Notice in verse nine, the Lord asks Cain ‘where is your brother’.
• Cain replies, ‘I do not know’.
• And so what you have here is the first murder mystery.
• Who solves the first murder mystery?

Genesis 3:10 (KJV)
10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.

• The ground, the earth, solved the mystery because the ground recorded it.
• Think of the irony.
  • People have committed murder.
  • People have tried to hide that murder from others by burying those bodies in the ground in some secret place.
  • Unknown to the murderers the very ground they are trying to use to hide the deed is actually recording the deed.
• There are no unsolved murders on planet earth, not even one.
• They are all known. There is a witness, the ground itself.

Isaiah 26:21 (NKJV)
21 For behold, the LORD comes out of His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood, And will no more cover her slain.

• Notice from these three passages in Leviticus 18, Genesis 4, and Isaiah 21, “the land” registers the amount of sexual perversion committed in it and records the amount of innocent blood shed upon it.
• When those sins are ‘full’, when there is too much perversion, when there is too much innocent blood shed, the land rejects its inhabitants.
• It vomits or evicts the people who live on it.

The Lord’s Position On The Land of the Amorites

• Did God just take the land from ‘innocent people’ and give it to Israel just because they were Israel and needed a place to stay?
• No, God knew that these ‘innocent people’ were not so innocent.
• He knew the land would reject the Canaanites because of their iniquity they were sowing.
• He knew there was going to be a vacancy and He knew the exact time that vacancy would occur.
• He had Israel positioned at the right time to move in which is the fourth generation.
• Back at that time because the people had much longer life spans, a Bible generation was 100 years and so four generations would be 400 years.
• This was the approximate time Israel would be in Egypt (Exodus 12:40).

Sodom and Gomorrah: A Mini Picture of an Eviction

• We see a small taste of this idea of the land ‘evicting its occupants’ when we look at what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah.

Genesis 18:20–21 (NKJV)
²⁰ And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, ²¹ I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

• Where was the outcry coming from in verse twenty-one?
• It couldn’t have been from Lot and his family.
• Some of his family you could not be too sure of spiritually.
  • Only four made it out of Sodom and one of them was turned to stone.
• The outcry was not from the few righteous people in the land. The outcry was from the land.
• Notice the language of verse 21, God said “I am going down there to see whether they have done according to the outcry. I am going to go down and check this out”.
• When He found out it was so, fire and brimstone fell, that is the land ejected its inhabitants.
• Even though Lot and his two daughters were spared, he lost his home, his possessions and his wife.

Why Israel Was Given the Ten Commandments

• We can understand from this one of the reasons why the Law was given to Israel.
• When they came out of Egypt, they were just a bunch of families.
  • No governing authority.
• One reason, He gave them the law so the land would not spit them out.
  • By staying in the land they could as a nation fulfill their purpose and their destiny.
• A second reason was so that sin would not be a separator between them.
• God could then be a functional part of their lives.
• It is essential in understanding who God is to understand this deep internal desire He has to be part of your life.

What Believers Can Do to Help Their Nation

Pray and Seek His Face

2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV)
14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

• The phrase “heal the land” now takes a greater depth of meaning.
• The future of our nation rests with believers who are willing to pray about the land.
• Nations fall because of rampant immorality.
• Just as it affected Lot and his family it can affect yours even though you are living righteously.
• Believers can do something to alter the outcome by standing in the gap.

Ezekiel 22:30 (ESV)
30 And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.

• This verse in Ezekiel is almost a repeat of 2 Chronicles 7:14 though this verse was written approximately 100 years later.

The Salt Principle

Matthew 5:13 (ESV)
13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

• The nature of salt is to protect against decay and disease.
• For example, it is very easy to cross-contaminate when you are cooking if you are not careful.
• This is true for everything except touching salt.
• If you touch salt with bacteria on your fingers, in a matter of minutes, the salt will absolutely kill the it.
• Now couple this thought with the thirty-six New Testaments admonitions to do ‘good works’ like Ephesians 2:10 and Titus 2:14.
• Why are good works profitable for people?
• Good works are profitable because just like sex sins and murder are registered by the ground, so are good deeds.
• Righteous people can sow acts of righteousness and help reset the ‘iniquity’ gauge.
• You cannot sin and say, ‘this sex sin is okay because it is between two consenting adults. I am not hurting anybody.’
• Yes, you are hurting EVERYBODY because the ground is recording your sin and we all live in the same land.

The Importance of Revival

• Revival resets the ‘iniquity’ gauge.
• Throughout the history of America, revival has corrected the moral fabric of our nation.
• Eviction was avoided.
• During a revival people get saved, people get recommitted, people repent from sin, people sow righteousness.
• During Finney’s revivals, whole towns came to God.
  • The bars shut-down.
  • The brothels and houses of prostitution shut down.
• When saved people start acting saved in massive numbers they sow acts of righteousness and become salt spreaders.
• This reverses the moral decay registered by the ground.
• It is revivals that have kept us in the land not our great Constitution.
• It is ‘moves of God’ and ‘outpourings of His Spirit’ which have kept us from being vomited out of these fifty states.

Acts 2:16–21 (ESV)
16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: 17 “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

• This revival, prophesied to take place right before the Second Coming, resets the gauge on planet earth.
• It undoes the ungodliness sown in the last of the last days.
• All the junk you are seeing now, which the ground has registered will be washed away by this revival.
• This revival sends planet earth us into the Millennial reign of Jesus with a clean slate.

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