Has our Nation Changed gods?

The prophet Jeremiah details an appalling catastrophe which brought down damnation upon unbelieving Israel. It was the changing of the Gods. Perhaps it was like the changing of the guard. At one point in time Yahweh was the God of Israel. At another point in time, there was a change. Yahweh was God of Israel no longer. He had been replaced by a whole host of senseless and totally useless idols of stone, and of wood, and of Israel's rabid imagination.

God says through Jeremiah, "I remember your youthful devotion, the love of your betrothals, your following after me through the wilderness, through a land not sown," through a land which was wild, untamed, and uninhabited. "I brought you into that land." I drove out its inhabitants before you. I gave you "its fruit and its good things." I provided for each and every one of your needs. "But you came and defiled my land; and my inheritance you made an abomination. . . . The rulers also transgressed against me . . . and have walked after things that did not profit." They have laid the land waste.

Through the pen of Jeremiah, God asks the appalling question, "Has a nation changed gods, for that which is no god at all? Be appalled, O heavens; Shudder, and become terrified at this. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fount of living water, to hew out for themselves cisterns which are broken, and which cannot contain any water."

I attended a send-off ceremony for my son who is a member of our National Guard. He is being deployed. He is being sent away on government business. It was a gala event, a grand and spectacular event which attracted the dignitaries from the city, the state, and the country. The speakers which spoke, spoke of the great cause of human freedom and justice. They spoke of the quest for peace, which was spoken of as an enduring human endeavor. They invoked the name of God. God bless America! God bless our soldiers! We will pray for you while you are away, and may God bring you back safely to us.

Earlier that morning, I had attended a worship service devoted and dedicated to that God -- I think I can still refer to this God using a capital "G." Maybe 25 people -- the room was large. Perhaps I underestimated; let's say that there were more like 30-50. Has the nation changed gods? Have we abandoned our fount of living water to hew out for ourselves cisterns that cannot contain any water?

I have read in our history books accounts of the civil war where the war stopped on Sunday so that men of both Union and Confederate stripe would have time to worship on Sunday. I read accounts of how Union and Confederate soldiers would even worship together in the same services, and then commence their fighting again on Monday. I have been at the Lincoln Memorial at the Capital, and I have read the consternation of Lincoln, that both side in the battle called upon the same Lord and God and invoked His care and His keeping over the soldiers of their Army.

And I have to ask, "What has happened to this God now?" Where is His honor? Where is His devotion? Where is His praise?

I can hear it now, and I share the grief, how a nation that swore allegiance to that God could divorce herself, and kill and maim her brothers on a battlefield when both sides claimed allegiance to the One who was supposed to be the "Lord" of the battle. There were battles which were fought in the name of that God, likely battles which that God never called for, and to which He never rendered any assistance or aid. Perhaps that is why this God is disdained now; perhaps that is why at this send-off His true worship garnered little supporters at all.

I don't have many answers. I only know that I left the auditorium wondering if we really cared about the God whose blessing and care we invoked. Has a nation changed gods? Be appalled, O heavens; Shudder, O earth, and return to the desolation from when you have started. It is an appalling catastrophe, a crying, and a dying shame.