Habakkuk was disgusted by the unrighteousness of his nation (Hab 1:2-4).  God told Habakkuk that He felt the same way, so His plan was to bring suffering to Judah (Hab 1:5-11).  This plan would bring Judah back to reality and back to dependence on God. The plan was to bring Babylonian armies to demolish and conquer Judah. Habakkuk was horrified by this plan because Habakkuk felt that God owed something better to Judah (Hab 1:12-17).  God answered his confusion in Habakkuk chapter 2. God’s only encouragement was to say that the Babylonians would also suffer for their injustice.

Last week I couldn’t even pray because I was angry at God for not preventing America from descending ever farther into unrighteousness. So I asked myself why I felt entitled to have America remain righteous. I never felt entitled that another country be righteous when I lived there.

I thought of the often cited 2 Chron 7:14, “If My people, who are called by My name, humble themselves…I will …heal their land.” This was a promise given to Israel, a nation in which 100% of the people (at the time) were His people. In the USA, only 10% to 30% are born again.  So not all US residents are His people. If 100% of Israel repented, of course it would be healed.  But if between 10% and 30% of a nation repent, the majority of the nation can still keep abortion legal.

Islam conquered 4 out of the 5 historic apostolic centers of Christianity.  None of those four centers have returned to Christianity since then. There is no guarantee that the USA will retain Christian morality or values.  Those apostolic centers had more reason to expect God’s intervention than the US does.  

Sometimes suffering is the way that God purifies a nation, leading it to repentance.  If it doesn’t lead a nation to repentance, His judgment at least glorifies His own sense of holiness and honor.

What happened in Judah when only a minority repented? Habakkuk tells us: judgment and suffering. Judah had much more right than the US to expect God’s help. 

There are almost 200 countries in the world. The US is one of only 7 countries that allows abortion after 20 weeks gestation, and one of only 6 countries that allows abortion after 24 weeks gestation (North Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Netherlands, US).  Only three countries have less restriction on abortion than the US.  https://journalgazette.net/news/fact-check/20171009/is-us-one-of-7-countries-that-allow-elective-abortions-after-20-weeks-of-pregnancy

The US leads the world in support for the transgender agenda, something that exceeded the reported sins of even Sodom and Gomorrah before God judged those two towns.

It’s time to give up on the US empire. Perhaps a remnant of the territory of the US can secede, and thereby avoid participation in the sins of the blue states and their evil federal judges. Perhaps a federation of red states could even avoid most of the judgment that will fall on this continent.

In the Bible, people like Daniel didn’t blame God when their nation was unrighteous. They repented on behalf of their people.  Some Psalms writers began their psalms by lamenting and complaining about corrupt judges and rulers.  But they ended their psalms differently.  They understood that evil is not God’s desire. It comes from the free will of men and devils. It is a feature of a fallen world, after Eden, in which God gives us time and freedom to discover that we would prefer to live in harmony and obedience with Him, rather than in sin away from Him. There will come a time when God will abolish the fallen world and restore His kingdom in its fullness in the New Heaven and the New Earth.  God wants more than anyone to make a nation righteous, but to override free will would defeat the purpose of this portion of history in which we get to choose between God and sin.

It is not God’s fault if a nation follows evil leaders. It is the followers’ fault. I think it is dereliction of duty to be passive about governance at this stage in US history.   I don’t think we should throw up or hands about our own roles as citizens and defenders any more than we can throw up our hands about our roles as financial providers for our family.

Let’s change our thinking.  We don’t have the power to force 330 million US residents to conform to our desires or our values.  Most US voters vote for unrighteousness (Hab 1:4), and will continue to do so (although some future horrible suffering might improve or worsen their voting pattern, depending on how they react to it). The Left has more control than we do over the information that voters hear (Hab 1:4).  It’s time to give up on the US. It’s time to save the American parts of America.

In Habakkuk’s time, secession was not the answer.  But the Bible explicitly says that secession was the answer in a previous century.  It was God’s will to split Israel into the Northern Kingdom and Judah, so that Judah could remain righteous for awhile longer and avoid the judgment that was coming on the Northern Kingdom; see https://redstatesecession.org/does-christianity-call-us-to-meekly-forbear-evil-or-to-courageously-use-the-power-at-our-disposal-a-defense-of-secession/