Such admission
has been soundly resisted for an entire generation. We have
decried the moral drift in the White House, while refusing
to see the same drift in the Church House. And the light
in America's lighthouse now flickers faintly, barely visible
through the soot and sin that shrouds the windows of our
own souls. Admission of personal and collective spiritual
drift will take us across the threshold of truth into a
place of hope and healing. But there must also arise a holy
fear of divine judgment.
We Must
Fear Judgment
"Our nation
has become like Sodom and Gomorrah, only worse," wrote
Dr. Bill Bright. We are not only destroying ourselves but
are playing a major role in helping to destroy the moral
and spiritual values of the rest of the world as well."
We Americans, pastors and people alike, tend to see ourselves
as the exception to every rule...even God's rule. Power
and prosperity have proudly convinced us that we are not
to be concerned about divine judgment from a holy God for
our unholy ways because, after all, we are Americans. Yet
we stand in awesome danger of God's judgment even as we
revel in the hope of a godly heritage.
We are in massive breach of covenant with the God who "hath
made and preserved us a nation." The Scriptures record
that "judgment must begin at the house of God."
God will order it to "begin at My sanctuary."
If God would Renew the Soul of America, His church must
turn from her wicked ways.
We Must
Weep
"The First
Great Awakening largely missed Virginia in the 1740's leaving
her one of the most materialistic of the colonies."
In 1762, Devereux Jarratt, an Anglican, stood alone, "not
knowing of one clergyman in Virginia like-minded."
To his hearers, his preaching was both "strange and
wonderful." Just before the Revolutionary War, Jarratt's
preaching was "attended with such energy, that many
were pierced to the heart. Tears fell plentifully from the
eyes of the hearers, and some were constrained to cry out."
"It is time
to weep," writes Stephen Hill. Spiritual turning in
the Congress will follow tears of repentance in the Church.
Mission America President, Dr. Paul Cedar, declared, "It's
time to sit down in the presence of God and each other,
to repent and weep over our sins."
Will America
Be Given Another Chance?
"A spiritual
revival is not important to the church and to America. It
is imperative!" This moment is "the darkest in
our nation's history and, for that matter, in
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world
history," warned Leonard Ravenhill. The painful truth
is that the nation's survival depends upon the Church's revival,
and the Church's revival depends upon you and me. Without
God we can do nothing, but without us, God will do nothing.
We must repent! And repentance demands preaching and living
righteousness.
For a generation we have exhorted sinners to repent while
the saints persisted in their sins. We now see that if light
is to shine in national darkness, the saints must first turn
from their own wicked ways. "Our nation is standing at
the brink of judgment," writes Cindy Jacobs. "Our
spiritual crisis requires a desperate response." "No
matter how fervently we pray," warns Chuck Colson, "the
Lord will not grant renewal to a nation that does not honor
Him. First, we must repent."
Chicago Pastor, Erwin Lutzer, asks, "Will America be
given another chance?" His answer... "Whether America
has another chance is up to God; whether we are faithful is
up to us." The apostasy of a nation and her people does
not happen over night, but with each compromise and accommodation
to the lure of popular culture, with the inexorable shift
from pleasing God to pleasing people. The reflection of America's
future may be in your mirror. If so, what is America's future...from
God's viewpoint? VIEWPOINT determines destiny.
The above article is a collage of excerpts from Charles Crismier's
new book, Renewing the Soul of America, endorsed by 30 national
leaders.
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