I stood beside the bedside of a young man who was very ill, near death even. He looked me in the eye and said these words, “Pastor, I am simply reaping the harvest of my own wild oats.” That young man realized that God was not punishing him for his sin, but simply allowing the harvest of his sin to spring up.
America is reaping a harvest of the “wild oats” we’ve been sowing for the past few generations. It is not that God has suddenly unleashed judgment upon us, but our own sin is yielding its crop. Paul says, “for this reason, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” (Romans 1:28 KJV) Our passion for self- fulfillment has brought us to the pig pen in which we wallow today.
We have so many “social” problems in a generation of young adults who have shunned education in favor of the party, abandoned purity for sexual license, and who have chosen a perpetual, drug-fueled euphoria in favor of personal responsibility. I see them, every day, standing on street corners, at mall entrances, and doorways along the street holding
cardboard signs with scribbled words, “Homeless, any act of kindness will help.” They burglarize, steal from one another, shoplift, and beg just to survive, all the while blaming the government for not giving them enough of what men at one time felt the responsibility to earn.
This is not God judging America. It is America reaping the harvest of its wild oats. We are not sorry; we are mad! We’re mad at the government, mad at the rich, mad at the police, mad at the president (doesn’t matter which one), and we’re mad at God. We’re mad because we have discovered that wild oat seed produces weeds and not wheat.
“If the government was good, it would give me all the things I need.”
“If the people on the streets were good, they would toss money in my hat.”
“If God was good, He wouldn’t let me be in this situation.”
“A good God wouldn’t let me go hungry and be homeless and sick.”
“If God were real and if God were good, He would fix this mess. Why would a good God not prevent the murder of innocent children by a crazy man in their school?”
“Why won’t God protect us from terrorists?”
We are not in agreement with God about our sin. (That is what confession is, by the way.)
It must be the government; we have to change the government.
It must be the rich; we have to punish the rich.
It must be God. Surely, He is not a good God or He would do something.
America is sitting in the pig slop of our own making, broken and confused. We don’t know how we got here, and we don’t know how to get out of here. We do not understand why things are so bad and we blame God.
It's not God—it is us. We have sown to the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind.
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