THE NIGHTMARE OF JOHN BOOKMAN

John Bookman is the beloved pastor of the First United Church of Cannon Ball Run and on this Sunday night he was feeling mighty proud of himself for the sermons he'd preached, one in the morning service and the second one that evening. He was feeling his sermonic oats that day as he witnessed 15 people walk the aisle as the choir sang "Just As I Am," seven times during the invitation period. 

He'd concluded the two stem-winder preaching sessions with his standard invitation calling on those who wanted to be baptized and join Cannon Ball run to come forward; those who wanted to rededicate their lives to Christ to come forward; and those who wanted to make a profession of faith to change their geographic location and come forward. For those wanting to make a profession of faith and be saved that day, he'd given them a special set of instructions.

He told them that salvation was free but it would cost them everything. John didn't seem to notice the lack of logic in that statement but he'd heard his idol of a preacher say it, so it must be true. Rev. Bookman then went on to say to those wanting to be saved that they had to work up a feeling of sorrow for their sins, then turn from their sins and then give their lives to Christ and then the "free gift" of heaven would the theirs. 

John enjoyed the evening and couldn't wait for Monday morning when he would file his report of the attendance, the number of new members, the number of rededicates, and the number of those who were saved that day at Cannon Ball. As he filled out the forms to turn into the denominational headquarters, he enjoyed his usual surfeit of four slices of pizza and later, a slice or two of chocolate cake. 

It was getting near his bedtime, so he got ready to hie himself off into the arms of Morpheus and within fifteen minutes or so, he was sound asleep. And that's when the Reverend John Bookman dreamed a dream. 

He dreamed that he was watching a woman carrying a water pot and heading toward a well, and lo, and behold, Jesus was there. The dream was so real that he heard their conversation between Jesus and the woman, a conversation all about regular water and what Jesus called, "Living water." He heard Jesus telling the woman that one sip of that living water He was offering would render it no longer necessary to drink again.

It was then that what Bookman overheard really interested him; it was that this woman was immoral to the core. She had been divorced by not one, not two, but five husbands. He was astounded to hear that the man she was now living with wasn't her husband but that he and she were in a seriously immoral situation. 

And this is where his dreamed turned into a nightmare. Jesus didn't command her to feel sorry for her sins. Jesus didn't tell her to break off the relationship with her current boyfriend. he didn't tell her to turn from her sins which were no doubt plentiful. He didn't tell her to give her life to Him from that day forward. There was none of that in Jesus offer of salvation by faith as symbolized by the one drink.

The Right Reverend jerked awake in a cold sweat, grabbed his Bible and went into the den to read John 4 and all about that immoral woman and what Jesus said to her. He read it over and over but he couldn't find, "repent" in there anywhere; he couldn't find "turn from your sins in there either. Nor did he find, "give you life to Me," in the text. 

The Reverend John Bookman didn't sleep much that night. The shock was great. Could his idol have theological feet of clay? He went to I Corinthians 15 to read it with fresh eyes and found that the gospel contained none of works requirements he's been insisting on; instead, he found the gospel to be simple:faith alone in Christ the Son of God who died for John's sins, rose from the dead and offers eternal to anyone, anywhere who trusts His finished work for that eternal life.

 Bookman's entire system of theology had just fallen apart and great was the fall thereof. But after that dream, he began to learn that salvation is offered absolutely free.

THE IRRATIONAL HATRED

 If you were to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, you would find a picture there, a picture of the rabid Jew-hater, Martin Luther. "Among the Protestants’ founding fathers, Martin Luther was particularly anti-Semitic. His writings were precursors of twentieth-century National Socialist texts. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Julius Streicher gladly quoted from Luther’s works, even if he never recommended the physical destruction of the Jews. Luther did, however, advise "burning synagogues in honor of God and Christianity," confiscating Jewish books, and expelling Jews from Christian countries. 

In 1985 the World Federation of Lutheran Churches, embarrassed and in disdain of the above material, distanced itself from these statements of their founding father.

Luther recommended a seven-point program for dealing with the Jews. He wrote: 

Let me give you my honest advice. In the first place the synagogue should be burned and what doesn’t burn must be covered with mud. This must be done in honor of God and Christianity so that God can see that we are Christians and we do not just have patience or approve that his Son and Christians will be publicly subjected to lies, curses, and slander.

In the second place, their houses must be broken down and destroyed. They must be housed in stalls like Gypsies so that they are aware that they are not masters in our country as they proudly declare, but poor prisoners as they incessantly complain before their God. Third, their books must be taken away. Fourth, their rabbis must be forbidden to give lessons on punishment of death. Fifth, they are not to be allowed to move freely. Let them stay at home. Sixth, they should not be allowed to take interest. The money one takes from them must be devoted to helping a Jew who is baptized. Seventh, they must be put to work very hard.

Luther ends by saying: “Honorable rulers and noblemen who have Jews in your country: if this advice doesn’t suit you try and find something better so that we all will be liberated from this unbearable, devilish burden, the Jews.”  He also accuses the Jews of wanting to kill Christians, of ritual murders, and  of poisoning wells. (From The Jewish Center for Public Affairs)

Another of the leaders of the Reformation, John Calvin, played his antisemitic card, although not with the bombastic language as Luther. Calvin wrote of the Jews, calling them ‘mad dogs,’ ‘beasts,’ and "animals."  

This irrational hatred of the Jews, only because they are Jews, makes no sense whatsoever. To see those engaged in their fury against the Jews is to see people who appear to be possessed by some supernatural beings. 

But wait a minute. It makes perfect sense when you read Revelation 12 and learn that behind all the fury is "the god of this world," Satan himself. But why is Satan on a rampage against the Jews? 

We find the answer in prophecy.

The Old Testament prophets declared with clarity that God has a future planed for His ancient people, the Jews. This plan has to do with the Second Coming of His Son who, Scripture says, will fulfill God the Father's plan to institute a Kingdom on earth for 1,000 years (Revelation 20);

This Kingdom was promised to the Jews in the eternal and unconditional covenants God gave them. And it is as a result of those promises that we find the reason for the rampages of Satan against the Jews throughout history. Satan is the "prince of this world" and the Bible says the entire world lies "cradled in his arms."

One thing Satan does not want to give up is his kingdom he assumed at the fall of man. Therefore, if he can annihilate the Jews, wipe them off the face of the earth, that will destroy the fulfillment of God's covenants with Israel. The promises to the Jews of a kingdom under the rule of the Messiah will then be rendered null and void. Christ will not rule from Jerusalem over His people and the world..

How widespread is this Jew-hatred? As of October 7, 2023, a satanic rage against the Jews exploded in England, France, Australia, and America. Tens of thousands poured into their streets for hours and hours of demonstrations against the Jews. 

College campuses erupted in rages against the Jews, calling for their deaths to the extent that in American universities, Jews had to go into hiding for their own safety as they did at Cornell. We get this report from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "Today, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that call themselves the CAA. This is after students from the CAA harassed MIT staff members in their offices for being Jewish and interrupted classes in the past few weeks. All of this has occurred with no clear response from the administration. 

"With each passing day, MIT admin’s silence makes Jewish and Israeli students feel unsafe at MIT. Many Jewish students fear leaving their dorm rooms and have stated that they feel MIT is not safe for Jews. This message is compounded by the public and private warnings of Hillel and many faculty that Jewish students should not enter MIT’s main lobby today, November 9th, 2023."

It was only a few years ago that this would have been unthinkable in these countries, especially in America. But Satan never sleeps. The egg of antisemitism has been hatched all over the world.

We're not only seeing this rage in universities but we saw it also in high schools as witness the parading of the students in San Francisco chanting, "From the river to the sea Palestine shall be free!" A slogan of code words calling for the extermination of the Jews. 

This is where Zechariah 12:3  has something to say to and about America: The Bible predicts a future event in which antisemitism will reach its zenith under satanic direction: "It will come about in that day that I [God] will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely ^[c]injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it."

Did you catch it? There's America in the Bible. America is included in that one word, "all." All the nations of the earth will unite against Israel just before the 2nd Advent of Christ. But Jerusalem will once again prove to be a stone, an immovable stone that no one ever has or ever will be able to move. God's promises will stand sure.,

What we're seeing today is move after move, strategy after strategy of Satan as he tries to ensure his "head will not be crushed" and that his kingdom will remain. All his strategies will be futile. 

What we are seeing today is Satan's age up close and personal.

 

THE ARREST OF A MAN IN ENGLAND

  "A shocking cell phone video purportedly shows a police officer in the United Kingdom explaining how an army veteran was arrested over an anti-LGBTQ post he reshared online that had caused someone 'anxiety.'

"The video was recorded by actor and leader of the British Reclaim Party, Laurence Fox, who shared a meme on social media showing pride flags altered into the shape of a swastika. He said the meme was meant as a commentary on the authoritarian nature of LGBTQ and transgender activists. 

"I don’t understand. I posted something that he posted," Brady said. "You come to arrest me. You don’t arrest him. Why has it come to this? Why am I in cuffs over something he shared, then I shared?" 

"Because someone has been caused obviously anxiety based on your social media posts," the officer responded. 'That’s why you’ve been arrested.'" (From "The Daily Mail")

"‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" is a famous line from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. A man, a military veteran, posted something that "caused anxiety" in someone is handcuffed and under arrest? In the United Kingdom? What in the world is going on? Something is rotten in the United Kingdom. (The arrest causes anxiety in me et al.)

The arrest occurred 4,148 miles from me. Should you and I worry? Yes, because whatever is rotten in England soon smells on our shores. And this brings us to Paul's causing Demetrius to feel "anxiety" because of the gospel: "About that time a major disturbance occurred in regard to the Way.  For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing considerable business to the craftsmen;  he gathered these men together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, 

'Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all.  Not only is there danger that this trade of ours will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be regarded as worthless, and that she whom all of ^[Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.'

"When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began shouting, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

Earlier, we read about the anxiety Jesus' message caused: "Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and left the temple grounds."

 And later, "The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him." Then we read about Stephen's theology/ history lesson to the Sanhedrin and how much anxiety he caused: "Now when they heard this, they were infuriated, and they began gnashing their teeth at him.  But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;  and he said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'  But they shouted with loud voices, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one mind. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.  They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'  Then he fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them!' Having said this, he ^[ak]fell asleep."

The gospel of grace causes anxiety and anger because it's inherently offensive in the hearing of fallen man: The message of the gospel is, "You can't fix yourself." "You are accountable to your Creator." "You are dead in trespasses and sins." "Your good works are as filthy rags." It opposes the hubris of fallen man and cuts him down to size.

It is one small step across "the Pond" into America, where, to slide down the slippery slope only a few feet before we see our posts, our witnessing, our sermons, our writing, our handing out tracts causing "anxiety" and the cuffs are out.  

We need to listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy: :"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and exhort, with great patience and instruction."

 

 

ESCAPING OUR ATTENTION

 There's something going on in the Gospel records that can be overlooked if we're not careful. Let's take a look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

It doesn't matter what Gospel record you choose to read, you find the same overlooked event happening. You'll notice the power of the Word of Christ. For example, He often confronted demonic beings. These unclean spirits are the angels we designate as "fallen" because they took part in Satan's rebellion as recorded in Isaiah's five "I wills." (Isaiah 14:13-14). Their Luceriferian assignment is to snatch away the gospel from the lost lest they believe and are saved. (Luke 8:12). 

During these confrontations, Jesus issues commands to them: "Shut up! Come out of him!" (Mark 1:25). In the famous incident in Mark 5, Jesus orders the unclean spirit, "What is your name!" and the demon obeys by telling Him. It's at this time that Jesus tells them to enter the swine and they obey. These two incidents will suffice; you can read about other interactions with the spirits and Jesus commands to them.

When we read further in Mark's record, we read of Jesus' issuing this command to the wind of a Sea of Galilee gale: "Hush! Be still!" (Mark 4) The winds obey and immediately they became perfectly calm. 

But reading further in the divine records, something very much different occurs. On several occasions, after Jesus heals someone, He issues the same order to them: "Tell no one." For example, in Mark 7:36, after healing a deaf mute, we find this: "And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it." 

Then we read about the egregious case of disobedience when Christ healed a leper: "Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. ⁴³ And He sternly warned him and immediately sent him away, ⁴⁴ and He *said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” ⁴⁵ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that ^[a]Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but ^[b]stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere." (Mark 1)

Now we come to the escaping-our-attention-part. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, forces the wind to obey Him; He forces the demons to submit to His commands. But in the instances given above, He commands but does NOT force obedience. The question is, "Why?" 

The answer is that free will exists and Christ will not violate it. In the Gospels, we see the active opposition to Jesus' Person, work, and claims of Christ mushrooming. But He doesn't stop it, although He could have. 

In the most important issue that faces any human being, "Who do you say Jesus is," the unforced choice is yours--is He the Son of God who did for all your sins, past, present, and future? Did He rise from the dead? Is He the only one you trust for eternal life? God does not predetermine your choice. You choose to have nothing to do with His Son and He will let you have your go your way apart from Him. But remember, Hell will be locked from inside. 

HAMAS

 You won't be surprised to learn that the Hebrew word, "hamas," means "violence." The name is well-chosen. The world is seeing violence on steroids in Hamas' attack on Israel, an attack that continues to the point one commentator, an American Jew, has described it as, "The worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust." 

Hamas is raging through Israel, killing, kidnapping, and burning Jewish houses with fathers, mothers, and children trapped inside, burning to death. And in the horror of indescribable horrors, murdering 100 babies, some by beheading. Can anyone imagine the depth of savage depravity it would take to do that? The Satan-inspired hatred of the Jews in the Middle East and around the world knows no bounds. The mask is off. 

But there's one thing Hamas doesn't know, one thing the elites of our nation and the elites of nations around the world do not know. That ignorance is a willful one. What they willfully refuse to recognize is that what Hamas and those countries helping them financially have done is to attack the "pupil" (literal translation) of God's eye. In this anthropomorphism, the author uses the most sensitive part of the human eye to describe God's regard for Israel. 

And thereby hangs a tale which comes to us from the shortest book, an ignored book, in the Old Testament, written by a prophet named Obadiah. It's a book devoted to warning one Gentile nation and therefore all Gentile nations of which America is one. Obadiah wrote a book about Edom, the nation descended from Esau the twin brother of Jacob. 

Edom had an infection, the Hamas Syndrome--a abiding and fierce hatred of Israel.That hatred was their attitude but the attitude turned into action. Because of that, God issued a stern warning to Edom and, by application, to all Gentile nations who would dare to touch the pupil of His eye. 

Obadiah begins God's warning by shining the divine spotlight on Edom's arrogant attitude: Edom thought herself to be untouchable because of its geography, which, in their way of misguided thinking, i. e. human viewpoint, made it impossible for any nation to come against her. Their geography made them indestructible, a veritable fortress.The arrogant Edomite was Icarus flying high. 

The Edomite believed that because of his position, there was no chink in their geographical armor. But God is the Creator of geography. It is finger work for Him to make a major chink in such puny armor. 

Obadiah relates God's graphic decree issued because of Edom's opposition to Israel: "I will bring you down." "I will ruin you." I will ransack your wealth." "I will destroy your wisest men." "I will destroy your military." "I will slaughter you." And last but not least, "I will destroy you forever." In more graphic terms, "I will wipe you off the face of the earth."

The question the reader his is, "Why? What have they done?"

The answer is a fourfold one:

1. When Israel was invaded by her enemies, Edom did nothing; she stood aloof.

2. When Israel was attacked and looted, Edom gloated, rejoicing to  see it.

3. Edom then took an active participation in the sacking of Jerusalem.

4. Edom set up roadblocks to stop and kill the Jews who were trying to escape the destruction.

Obadiah is telling the Edomites, what goes around come around, only worse. 

Isaiah is equally graphic as he cites God's coming in judgment against those who strike at the pupil of His eye. Isaiah paints a word picture: God's sword will be filled with blood."(Is. 34) 

Isaiah has a word of advice to the leaders of the Gentile nations: "Seek the book of the Lord and read it." It's in Isaiah's book (and Obadiah's) that the Gentile nations can learn what happens when they attack the pupil. 

These warnings are serious ones for America as we contemplate our nation's role in empowering Iran to finance Hamas. It is scary indeed as we see rallies on the prestigious campuses of our educational institutions chanting their support of the savagery of Hamas; it is unbelievable as we hear some our elites in government refusing to condemn the barbaric behavior of Hamas against Israel, therefore "standing aloof" as Obadiah said of Edom; then there are those gloating over atrocities too horrible to even think about. 

Campuses, showing surfacing of the intellectual and spiritual rot that has  been their cancer for a long time, erupting in antisemitism is Edom writ large, a harbinger of the coming discipline cominig to American shores.

And by the way, what happened to Edom? Has anyone ever met or even heard of an Edomite living today? 

JFK, BERNIE SANDERS, AND A MAN NAMED VOUGHT

 Back the day, 1960 to be exact, John F. Kennedy was running for the office of President. Back in the day, he had a problem; he was a Roman Catholic and no Roman Catholic had ever won the presidency. The opposition to a Catholic president was mainly coming from the southern states and one of the strategies of his campaign was to select Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in the hope that such a choice would bring the Lone State's electoral college votes into the Democrat column. Johnson was in a powerful position at the time as the majority leader of the U. S. Senate, a position far more powerful than that  the of the Vice President. 

Johnson, with a sense of the macabre, asked his staff to check on the number of vice presidents who had become presidents due to the death of the president. They did. Johnson then decided that the odds were fairly good, so he accepted the offer.(Was he prescient or what!)

During the campaign, JFK, to combat the anti-Catholic sentiment in what was then the "Solid South," arranged a meeting in which he would address a conference of Protestant pastors to confront the issue. But he did more than that. He pointed out that, according to the Constitution, there is to be no religious test for office. To wit:

"Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This prohibition banned a longstanding form of religious discrimination practiced both in England and in the United States. It provided an enduring constitutional commitment to religious liberty and equality that has influenced the way Americans have understood the relationship between government and religion over the last two centuries.

"In England, religious tests were used to “establish” the Church of England as an official national church. The Test Acts required all government officials to take an oath disclaiming the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and affirming the Church of England’s teachings about receiving the sacrament. These laws effectively excluded Catholics and members of dissenting Protestant sects from exercising political power. Religious tests were needed, William Blackstone explained, to protect the established church and the government “against perils from non-conformists of all denominations, infidels, turks, jews, heretics, papists, and sectaries.”

"At the time the United States Constitution was adopted, religious qualifications for holding office also were pervasive throughout the states. Delaware’s constitution required government officials to 'profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost.' 

"North Carolina barred anyone 'who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion' from serving in the government. Unlike the rule in England, however, American religious tests did not limit office-holding to members of a particular established church. Every state allowed Protestants of all varieties to serve in government. Still, religious tests were designed to exclude certain people—often Catholics or non-Christians—from holding office based on their faith."

Kennedy also stressed during the campaign that nobody bothered to ask him his religion beforehe  fought in WW II.  

That was then, this is now.

Enter stage left the current Democrat Senator from the Green Mountain State whose state motto is, "Freedom and Unity," Bernie Sanders. (I would suggest, "We make pancakes tolerable" but that's another story.) And at his entrance, we see that Senator Sanders is angry, nay, enraged because of the man seated before him, a man named Vought. 

Mr. Vaught is there before Bernie Sanders and a panel of other senators because Mr. Vaught is seeking to be confirmed to some type of office few people have ever heard of. The senator is enraged at Mr. Vaught because his staff has uncovered some "dirt" on the office seeker. Bernie Sanders is in possession of what the the staff has discovered and he is horrified. It's in the form of a sentence Mr. Vought wrote.

Does the quote have anything to do with recommending child molestation? Was it a posting commending Timothy McVeigh? Or did Vought write something scandalous on a statue of Martin Luther King when he was in college? The answer is "None of the above."

Sanders was livid because he had discovered that Mr. Vaught, on January 17, 2016, had written an opinion piece for a publication called The Resurgent in which he said, "Muslims have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned."

Senator Sanders hammered away at Mr. Vought and then summed up his indignation to the chairman of the committee, saying, "Mr. Chairman, in my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world." (One might wonder if the Senator might be upset at the Koran's instruction to "Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them. Hell shall be their home, evil their fate.” (Sura 66:9)

How did the confirmation go? Sanders closed by saying the nominee was "Really not someone who this country is supposed to be about. I will vote no." (Vought was eventually confirmed by a 50-49 vote nonetheless.)

The ecclesiastical system of which JFK was a member holds to this tenet: "Chrsit himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it." The tenet of Islam states: " "And whoever seeks a religion other than Islaam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers." [Aal ‘Imraan 3:85]

 And "There is no-one, Jew or Christian, who hears of me then dies without believing in that with which I have been sent, but he will be one of the people of Hell." .

Vought simply stated a core belief of the Christian faith which was somehow by some strange twist of logic, used to declare that he hated Muslims. He was expressing his beliefs about the theology of Islam, that it was deficient and stating the result of that deficiency and that was used as a religious test for office by the 48 other senators who voted "No" So, who endures the unconstitutional test of religion? The Christian.

One chapter and verse come to mind: "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

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THE SIN THAT WILL BRING AMERICA DOWN

 There is one sin that will bring about the fall of America. Guaranteed. It seems to be occurring, right now, today.

Some may think that sin is the murder of over 63 million innocents since 1973, by the violence of abortion Others may think that it's America's rebellion against God's design for marriage, the in-your-face-sign of which was the recent flying of the so-called Pride Flag taking center stage over the American flag in June 2023, at the White House which included a celebration of the rebellion. Flying that flag was a signal that the movement has conquered the nation. That's what a conquering army does, it takes down the flag of the conquered and hoists their flag.

But, as evil as those sins are, they aren't the one sin which guarantees our destruction. The sin is named in the shortest book in the Old Testament one that details that one heinous sin and it does so in three sections. So, let's go there, to the tiny book of Obadiah, listen, and learn.

The prophet gives four reasons for the fall of the nation of Edom whom God says He will "make small among the nations" because of that one sin:

1. Edom made treaties with those who wanted to destroy Israel.

2. Edom commuted acts of violence against Israel.

3. Edom gloated over the defeat of Israel as it stood with its allies who came against Jerusalem.

4. Edom was inhumane to those Jews who fled the destruction of Jerusalem,"cutting them down" or "imprisoning" them.  

That's it. That's the one sin that will "make America small among the nations:" to side with those who come against the apple of God's eye, Israel.  We call it antisemitism.