Don’t Give up on America
There has never been a nation that hasn’t suffered a decline and eventual death and America is not going to be an exception. BUT it doesn’t have to be now. It is true we have never had more major crises internally and abroad at once, but don’t give up on America. Our greatest threat is in America giving up on God.
Abraham Lincoln, in a Proclamation appointing a National Prayer Day, got it right when he noted: “Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins, and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope, that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
Lamentably there is no such mood prevailing in our nation. Prayer is perceived to be so void in America that a delegation of South Korea Christians recently came to America to conduct prayer vigils across the nation.
Three times before America has been in a position as desperate as an elephant hanging over a cliff by its trunk to a bush. In each of three instances America was as devoid of a spiritual base as we are now. Three times a moral malaise has engulfed the land. In each instance God responded to concerted prayer and renewal followed.
1714 – 1770 a religious and social awakening resulted.
1790 – 1820 a great frontier revival swept the land.
1890 – 1920 a social gospel dispelled despair.
This type of national revival is not true just in America. There was such a spiritual movement in Wales some cities dismissed their police force feeling there was such a moral response they were not needed. That is a lesson on how to do it in America for those wanting to dismiss the police.
I believe God is waiting to see our response and determine His role.
One of the bloodiest Civil War Generals, William Tecumseh Sherman, had a spiritually maturing experience with the Lord in his latter years. Soon thereafter his beloved wife died. He wrote one of the most popular ministers of the day, DeWitt Talmadge, the following.
“I am sure that you know that the God who create the minnow, and who has molded the rose and the carnation giving each its sweet fragrance, will provide for those mortal men who strive to do right in this world which He Himself has stocked with birds, animals, and men. At all events I will trust Him with absolute confidence.”
Regardless of the result of our national spiritual conduct, may we follow the example of the Old Testament leader Joshua who charged his people to serve the Lord and said “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” May our response be that of his people, “So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods…” (Joshua 24: 15, 16).
Don’t give up on God lest God give up on us.