Americans Losing Hope, Become Fearful-Its a Good thing

Ecc 1:2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
Ecc 1:3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

Ecc 1:8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

Ecc 1:14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

Ecc 2:11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Ecc 2:22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?

Ecc 12:13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Perhaps some Americans are now forced out of their comfort zone to realize, things aren't getting better and they are not in control. Perhaps some might come to the end of themselves and cry out to God. Now's a good time to proclaim God's Sovereignty!

Here are excerpts from a news story By ALAN FRAM and EILEEN PUTMAN, Associated Press Writers Sat Jun 21, 3:14 PM ET. I emphasized in bold.


WASHINGTON - Is everything spinning out of control?

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year's presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order — and hope.

Even so, a battered public seems discouraged by the onslaught of dispiriting things.


"It is pretty scary," said Charles Truxal, 64, a retired corporate manager in Rochester, Minn. "People are thinking things are going to get better, and they haven't been. And then you go hide in your basement because tornadoes are coming through. If you think about things, you have very little power to make it change."

Recent natural disasters around the world dwarf anything afflicting the U.S. Consider that more than 69,000 people died in the China earthquake, and that 78,000 were killed and 56,000 missing from the Myanmar cyclone.

Americans need do no more than check the weather, look in their wallets or turn on the news for their daily reality check on a world gone haywire.

Floods engulf Midwestern river towns. Is it global warming, the gradual degradation of a planet's weather that man seems powerless to stop or just a freakish late-spring deluge?

It hardly matters to those in the path. Just ask the people of New Orleans who survived Hurricane Katrina. They are living in a city where, 1,000 days after the storm, entire neighborhoods remain abandoned, a national embarrassment that evokes disbelief from visitors.

Food is becoming scarcer and more expensive on a worldwide scale, due to increased consumption in growing countries such as China and India and rising fuel costs. That can-do solution to energy needs — turning corn into fuel — is sapping fields of plenty once devoted to crops that people need to eat. Shortages have sparked riots. In the U.S., rice prices tripled and some stores rationed the staple.

It's not the first time Americans have felt a loss of control.

American University historian Allan J. Lichtman notes that the U.S. has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Depression of the 1930s.

"All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored," he said. "Of course, that doesn't mean it will happen again."

Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House.

Why the vulnerability? After all, this is the 21st century, not a more primitive past when little in life was assured. Surely people know how to fix problems now.

Maybe. And maybe this is what the 21st century will be about — a great unraveling of some things long taken for granted.

Endquote.

Jeremiah 17:5, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.’”

Man cannot give true comfort, answers, and peace to the increasing unrest, failures, and spiritual darkness clouding over our country. But I can see how a world ruler could easily step in and "save the day". People are getting desperate and they will continue to do so, as God moves history according to His plan and will. They will look for answers in politics, the economy, and religion (anything but the Truth of Scripture). Folks, this includes professing "evangelical Christians". The junk in the world is the junk in the "Christian" bookstores.

I'm so glad we know what's ahead, for HE is faithful to Himself and His children, and we know Jesus Christ the Lord will return as King, Judge, and Warrior! Do NOT put your hope in man, whether its a politican, government, schools, even your church leaders or friends and family. Put your trust in He who is faithful and True:

Rev 19:11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.

Rev 19:12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and He has a name written that no one knows but Himself.
Rev 19:13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which He is called is The Word of God.
Rev 19:14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses.
Rev 19:15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
Rev 19:16 On His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.