Change Has Come to America

The following is a message by Roger Jewell, missionary to the Dominican Republic. He sent this letter in the wake of the election. As I found it appropriate for any and every time, I asked for and received Bro. Jewell’s permission to post the letter.
Roger Jewell’s sending church is Tabernacle Baptist Church of Lebanon, Missouri. Faith Baptist Church of Spokane is one of his supporting churches.

Dear friends,

I wrote the following at 4:00am the morning after the election:

I just woke up and thought I would see who won the election. We figured this would be the result when we went to bed last night, but it is still disappointing to see. Obama said that “Change has come to America,” and I fear that it has. I fear that we have crossed the line, and that we have been given what we desired (or maybe deserved).

Change, but change from what……..and change to what? Change from a Christian nation to a pagan nation? Change from a righteous nation to a wicked nation? Change from a clear thinking nation to a nation in confusion. Change from a nation with restraints on morality to a nation where all the stops are removed? What kind of change is it that we really desire?

Will our new president really be sworn in with his hand on the Koran, and will his god be our God or the god of Islam? What is he going to do to our nation? I fear the worst. I believe he is right, and that change has come to America, but that this change has been coming for some time now.

I believe that the silent majority has been silent for so long that they have become the hated minority. It is easy to say that we are hated because the world is the enemy of God, but I fear we are hated because people hate hypocrites and that is what they see in Christianity today. We are a people (Christians) who speak of the love we have for God, yet our lives show otherwise. We are a people who say that we love others, yet we get bigger and better things for ourselves rather than sacrifice our time, talents and treasures to truly reach others. How many people can we point to that have truly given their lives or have sold their possessions to give to those who have need?

The world sees very little of true, biblical, New Testament Christianity (Acts 2:41-47). We, God’s people, have caused this plague to come upon us, and upon our nation and upon this world. We have stopped walking in obedience to our God and have slept while our nation, and the world, turns their backs upon our God and His Holy Word.

The only cure is for God’s people to obey 2 Chronicles 7:14. We must humble ourselves and get back to God and New Testament Christianity. We need to stop living for “a better life” in this world and live for the next. We need to stop and examine our lives, and ask God to reveal what we really hold dear.

I fear that we will find that we are living for what we can obtain in this world. We want bigger homes, newer homes, more elaborate church buildings, newer cars, possessions and more money so that we can have newer furniture, the latest clothing, jewelry and other vanities. We have strayed so far from biblical Christianity while thinking that we are right with God.

Most of us do not try to evangelize the world, but even those of us who do, desire to have the things of this world and be successful down here. The Bible says that those who lived by faith and accomplished great things for God were “strangers and pilgrims” in this world (Heb. 11:13). We are told that as “strangers and pilgrims,” we should abstain from fleshy lusts which war against the soul in 1 Pet. 2:11. How many “strangers and pilgrims” have you ever heard of that had large, beautiful homes and large bank accounts in the “strange land” in which they live? If they are established in that land and know that land, then they are no longer strangers.

I fear that we are not strangers and pilgrims any longer, but that we have adopted the philosophies and ways of this world. I believe that we are at home in this world. I believe that we want the things of this world and desire that our children have good jobs, many worldly possessions and are successful in “this” world. My friends, we are citizens of “another” world and should not put roots down in this one. We need to move back into the tents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We need to become, once again, strangers and pilgrims in this world. We ought to live for our King and Master. Everything we do ought to proclaim that He is our Lord and Master. We need to become Ambassadors once again of a foreign land, a people living in a strange land and desiring to see our “Friend” and our Commander in Chief, Jesus Christ. We need to give up the niceties of this world and, in humility, do the work that the Master has given us to do. Our pride and arrogance has resulted in a world that has not heard the gospel. Our pride has resulted in a world that is steadily filling up with those who don’t want to have anything to do with our God. Who is the guilt party? We are.

We are responsible because we have been disobedient to our God. We are responsible, because we are living for what this world has to offer. We are responsible, because we are rearing our children to be successful in the world that Satan reigns in, rather than in the Kingdom of our God. Shame on us.

May God forgive our rebellion and our worldliness. May we repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. We need a fundamental change in our homes and in our churches. We need a change of mind that results in changed lives. We need true, Biblical repentance…we need revival. Our nation and our world will never come to God with the quality of Christians that we have living in them now. We must come back to God.

Only a man of faith will renounce the goods that he has in this world. We speak of the faith of Abraham who “went out, not knowing whither he went,” yet we are not willing to take that first step ourselves. We rejoice in the faith of Moses when rejected the wealth and prestige of Egypt (a type of the world) and chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,” yet we live for this world and desire to be successful in it. Moses “forsook Egypt,” yet we live for it. Where is our faith? Where is our service? Where is our sacrifice? Where is our God? Are we willing to get back to New Testament Christianity? Are we willing to live by faith as those mentioned in Hebrews 11:33-40? I fear that we are not. What great deeds are we performing because of our faith? Where is our faith (Luke 18:8)?

I fear that we have been so long in this world, and that we are so full of this world, that we are no longer a people of faith and are not willing to renounce the pleasures and goods that we have obtained in this wicked world by the hand of the “wicked one”. I fear that we have been corrupted, soiled and contaminated by the filth and poison of this world, and that we cannot even see it.

I pray that, if you read this, you will indeed see just how far we have strayed. I pray that you will humble yourself before the only true God, pray to Him and beg His forgiveness for your sin and for the sin our nation and of our world, seek His face and turn from your wickedness. Only then will we be healed.

Roger Jewell
Dominican Republic
Mt. 28:18-20