Proverbs 14:34 (NIV)
34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any
people.
Justice, reigning in a nation, puts an honor upon it,
however vice, reigning in a nation, puts disgrace upon it. Throughout The Bible
the people of Israel were often instances of both parts of this observation;
they were great when they were good, but when they forsook God all about them
insulted them and trampled on them. It is therefore the interest and duty of
those in authority to use their power for the suppression of vice and support
of virtue.
Whenever there is a separation between values and
practice, things break down. In ancient China, the people desired security from
the barbaric, invading hordes to the north. To get this protection, they built
the Great Wall of China. It's 30 feet high, 18 feet thick, and more than 1,500
miles long!
The Chinese goal was to build an absolutely impenetrable
defense—too high to climb over, too thick to break down, and too long to go
around. But during the first hundred years of the wall's existence China was
successfully invaded three times.
It wasn't the wall's fault. During all three invasions,
the barbaric hordes never climbed over the wall, broke it down, or went around
it; they simply bribed a gatekeeper and then marched right in through an open
door. The purpose of the wall failed because of a breakdown in values. [James
Emery White, You Can Experience a Purposeful Life (Nashville: Word, 2000)]
We should never forget when sin and corruption live in a
nation there will always be that one person to open the door to destruction. Pray
that God would revive this nation with a passion for righteousness and justice.
Pray the people would include Christ in their lives and live as Christ would. Pray
that this nation would be a nation under God and for God.
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