America is in grave danger. The massacre in Aurora. The child sex abuse scandal at Penn State. The scourge of abortion and pornography and runaway spending and debt in Washington. The list tragically goes on an on. In Implosion, I try to document how serious the situation is, and how a Third Great Awakening is the only answer. In this context, I am encouraged by a new open letter to America written by Dr. Billy Graham. He makes some excellent points. Here are excerpts. Please read them, pray over them, and share them with as many as you can.
Pastors, would you consider reading excerpts from Dr. Graham’s letter at your Wednesday service this week? Would you consider turning your mid-week service into a call to prayer, fasting and repentance, along the lines of 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Joel chapter 2? America urgently needs a wake up call, beginning with the Church. May Christ Jesus use you to preach a clear message of repentance, and to lead the congregation you shepherd before the throne of grace to seek God’s mercy on our country before it is too late.
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Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
She was probably thinking of a passage in Ezekiel where God tells why He brought those cities to ruin. “Now this was the sin of … Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen” (Ezekiel 16:49–50, NIV).
I wonder what Ruth would think of America if she were alive today. In the years since she made that remark, millions of babies have been aborted and our nation seems largely unconcerned. Self-centered indulgence, pride, and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle.
Just a few weeks ago in a prominent city in the South, Christian chaplains who serve the police department were ordered to no longer mention the Name of Jesus in prayer. It was reported that during a recent police-sponsored event, the only person allowed to pray was someone who addressed “the being in the room.” Similar scenarios are now commonplace in towns across America. Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone—except God.
Yet the farther we get from God, the more the world spirals out of control.
My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower—wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s warning, people heard and repented.
I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation. It’s something I long for, and my son Franklin recently shared a vision for perhaps the greatest challenge in the history of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—to launch an outreach called My Hope with Billy Graham that would bring the Gospel into neighborhoods and homes in every corner of America next year.
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- Breakpoint: Eric Metaxas’ excellent analysis of Office Depot promoting homosexuality, Oreo introducing a “rainbow cookie,” and Chik-Fil-A’s president defending traditional marriage
- Federal Government’s Debt Jumps More Than $1 trillion for 5th Straight Fiscal Year
- WSJ: Philadelphia Monsignor Gets Up to Six Years in Prison — “A Roman Catholic monsignor was sentenced Tuesday to as many as six years in prison for allowing a priest suspected of sexual misconduct with a minor to have continued contact with children.”
- Woman dies after abortion at Planned Parenthood clinic
- Fresno’s murder rate surges
- As murder rate climbs, Chicago mayor makes ‘values’ appeal — “Since coming into office 13 months ago, Emanuel has been shouldered with a soaring murder rate. As crime overall has dropped in the city and across the nation, Chicago already has had 275 murders this year.”
- NPR: New Orleans now has the highest per capita murder rate in the country
- 2012 Evansville (Indiana) murder rate being described as “off the charts”
>> Implosion: Can America Recover From Its Economic & Spiritual Challenges In Time?
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