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REVIVAL OR RUIN
AUTHOR: Unknown
PUBLISHED ON: April 10, 2003
DOC SOURCE: CCN
PUBLISHED IN: Christian Living
TAGS: America | revival

REVIVAL OR RUIN

      I stand before you a husband by choice, a father by desire,
but an American by birth. Like most of us, I did absolutely
nothing to deserve the freedom that we enjoy.

     I want to say at the outset of this message that I am
an old-fashioned, flag waving American who believes that America
is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. I don’t say that
just because I am an American, or because I am prejudiced, but
because I believe that the facts bear it out.

      While other nations have, for decades, built walls and put up
barbed-wire fences to keep their people from getting out, the
United States of America has always had along line of people
waiting to get in.

     But America did not become great because of her vast
resources, he superior intellect, or her sheer willpower.
America became great because God made her great. The Bible
says that righteousness exalts a nation, and that the nation
whose God is the Lord is a blessed nation. In 1 Samuel
2:30, God says, ” they that honor me I will honor.”

     God honored America because America honored Him and
upheld His standard of righteousness. This nation was forged
out by men who recognized their dependence upon Almighty God.
In fact, many of those founding father had more respect as lost
sinners for the living God and His Word, than many so-called
believers in the church today. They knew that neither they,
nor their nation could make it without the assistance of God.

     In this generation we’re looking for better methods to
deal with the perplexing problems of our day, but God is still
looking for better men, men like our founding fathers who were
willing to risk everything for what they believed.

     Many of these men had much to lose in the struggle for
liberty. But one common thread bound their hearts together,
and it was for this that they risked their wealth, their sacred
honor, and their very lives to give birth to the great experiment
of freedom that we call America.

     These were men of conviction who stood for what they believed,
no matter what they cost. They were men of character, who refused
to give up in the face of adversity and hardship. They were men of
creative wisdom. For example, they didn’t form a democracy based
on the changing whims of each passing generation. Rather, they formed
a republic based on the unchanging, eternal absolutes of God and
His Word.

     They were also men of commitment. They were committed  to God,
to His authority, and to the foundational principles of His Word.
They did not hesitate to legislate morality. For the past 160 years
of our history, most of our laws (e.g.,blue laws, divorce laws,
property laws, criminal laws) were based on the laws of God.

     The charter of every one of our original colonies stresses
our spiritual roots. For example, the charter of Rhode Island (
1638) states, “We submit our persons, lives, and estates, unto
our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of King sand Lord of Lords and
to all those perfect absolute laws He has given to us in His
Holy Word.”

     In fact, upon investigation, you will discover that all the
documents that formed the United States, the Declaration of
Independence, the Bill of Rights, all the constitutions of the
various states, the inaugural addresses of it’s presidents, and the
statements indelibly etched on many of our national monuments in
Washington D.C., all bear unmistakable testament to the fact
that America is one nation under God, founded for the furtherance
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

     Unfortunately, the secularists and humanists of our dayhave
rewritten history, so that as to exclude the truth regarding our
spiritual heritage as a nation.

     These men of conviction, character, creative wisdom, and commitment,
purchased with their blood the freedom that you and I enjoy today.
Because they honored God, God honored them, and we are still reaping
those blessings today.

     In just 200 years, God elevated America from a place of infancy
to world leadership in almost every field of endeavor including technology,
industry, medicine, agriculture, aerospace, business, science, electronics,
and  communications. When you stop to think of it, it is really incredible!
And it never could have happened apart from heaven’s aid.

     But as we bask in the glory of past blessings, we have cause
for great alarm, for the same God who was true to His Word and blessed
America, must exercise judgement if we do not repent.

     America has a heritage that cries,”We cannot go without God.”
Yet for the past few decades we’ve tried. We have sown to the wind
and now we are reaping the whirlwind. In the60’s we began to openly
tolerate that which was vile and sinful. In the 70’s, we began to
legitimize, condone, and excuse what we had already accepted. And
in the 80’s, we have actually begun to legislate that which is
immoral and contrary to the laws of God’s Word.

     Sex has become humiliating, filthy, and violent. Brazen
magazines carry articles on sex with children and sex with animals.
Male hustlers stand on street corners pouncing on passerby.
I’m talking about “Christian America!”

     One out of every 10 adults is a slave to alcohol. Dope peddlers
are destroying the minds of America’s youth. This countries illicit
drug industry is estimated at more than 75billion dollars a year.
The suicide rate among 15-24 year olds has risen over 300% in the
last 20 years. In “Christian America” we now have the highest divorce
rate in the history of civilization. Child abuse is epidemic.

     We have rejected the sanctity of human life. We are murdering
over 1.4 million innocent, unborn babies each year. In one state alone
last year, these were more babies killed by legal abortions than all
of the servicemen who lost their lives in the Viet Nam, Korean, Mexican,
1812, and Revolutionary Wars combined.

     Our economy is on the brink of collapse. Our efforts to stop
this runaway deficit are nothing more than band-aids on a
hemorrhaging economy. Our families, which form the basic unit of
society, are crumbling. Television programming is polluting the
souls and brainwashing the minds of our young people, and destroying
the spirit of our homes. We have paraded the reputation of
sodomy down main street as an acceptable lifestyle.

     As a nation, we have provoked the fury of Almighty God in
heaven. America simply is not big enough to shake her fist in the
face of a Holy God and got away with it.

     Some who share this concern are saying. “We had better clean up
our act or God is going to judge us.” Dear friend, the question
is not, “Will God judge us?” It is  just a matter of how far God’s
judgement will go if we don’t repent.

     God destroys those nations that forsake Him and reject His
laws. Psalm 9:17 says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell and all
the nations that forget God.” “Righteousness exalts a nation, but
sin is a reproach to any people.”Speaking through Hoses, God says, ”
Seeing that thou hast forgotten the laws of thy God, I will also
forget thy children. I will go and return to my place until they
acknowledge their offense before me.”

     America is on a suicidal course with destruction and judgment
because we have forgotten the God of the Bible and have forsaken His
commandments. Did our founding fathers die in vain? Is this noble
experiment of freedom to end in the graveyard, alongside of past
civilizations that like wise rejected God? Is there no hope for
our children and their children?

     Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph
is that good men do nothing.” That’s exactly what too many of us
have done. Absolutely nothing. We are to busy making money, watching
television, fixing our yard, and going to the ball game to save a
nation.

     You and I live in a democratic republic, a government of the
people, by the people, and for the people. That makes us the ultimate
decision maker, and, before God, ultimately responsible for what takes
place in this nation. We must rebuild this nation before it is to late.

     When a nation becomes as morally depraved, as spiritually blinded,
and as steeped in humanism, hedonism, materialism, as America is,
there is only one power in the universe that can meet and overcome
such evil, and that is the power of the living God. What we need
is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a visitation of the manifest
presence of God. And that, my friends is revival.

     Desperate times demand God’s personal intervention, and on the
stage of history that has always been called a revival. The only hope
that God will be exalted, the only hope that he will be lifted up again
as Lord over this nation, the only hope as our survival as a free people.
The only hope for our children and grandchildren, is an old-fashioned,
Holy Spirit empowered revival that will sweep back the tide of sin
and restore the basic principles of God and His Word that made her great.

     Back in the 1700’s and 1800’s America experienced several such
revivals and awakenings. But we are now 89 years into the 20th century
and with all of our greatness and all of our bigness, we have the
greatest churches, the greatest preachers, the greatest singers,
the greatest programs and schools ever in Christendom. Yet this
is the first century in the history of the United States that God
has not been bleesed to pour out His spirit and touch down in this
nation a national revival.

     The only hope for turning this nation back to God is for
those of us who claim the name of Christ to turn back to God.
God’s cure for a nation proves what the real cause was all along.
God said if he could find ten righteous souls in Sodom and Gomorrah,
He would spare the cities. But He couldn’t. He said if he could find
one man in Israel’s day, He would spare it. But He couldn’t. God said
in II Chronicles 7:14. “If my people which are called by My name shall
humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked
ways, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin, and
will heal their land.”

     The reason our nation is facing judgment is because of the
spiritual condition of the church. It is not because of the corruption
in th halls of Congress or the reprobation in San Francisco and Hollywood.
It is because of those of us in who call ourselves Christians.

    “Oh, you say, “but look at the growth of our churches and
mission programs, and the renewed interest of people in religion.
“Behind the glimmer of much growth today, the piercing all-knowing
eye of a Holy God has been witness to what has been taking place behind
the walls of our homes, our places of business, and in the privacy
of motel rooms.

      A recent Gallup poll pointed out that though there has been in
the last decade or so a surge of those professing to be Christians,
there has been during that same period of time a corresponding
escalation of crime, rape, incest, child abuse, divorce, and moral
perversions of all kinds.

     There is something critically wrong with the kind o freligion
that has no effect whatsoever in its society. Further more, there
is something wrong when people can confess Christianity and continue
to live in their godless lifestyles. There is something wrong when
church men can watch HBO and Showtime pornography and then teach
Sunday School the next morning.

     There is something wrong when people can abort babies during
the week, and then sing in the choir on Sundays. There is something
wrong when men can be unfaithful to their wives, abuse their children,
and live with unresolved conflicts in their home, and have
absolutely no conscience or conviction over the matter.

     There is something wrong when men can live their lives and
order their priorities for the almighty dollar and temporal things
and then be recognized as a committed, dedicated believer, just
because of all of the money they give to the church.

     There is something wrong when people can life selfish, immoral
lives, be proud and bitter, self-centered and self-sufficient, and
still occupy positions of leadership in the church.

     America will be judged, not because of the wickedness of the
lost, but because of the back slidden condition of the church.

     In fact, our nation’s sins are nothing more than a magnified
reflection of the sins of the church. We complain that our children
can’t pray or read the Bible at school. But I wonder how many of
us consistently read the Bible and pray with our own children at
home, where we are still free to do so.

     We are overwhelmed by our nation’s staggering deficit. But
I wonder how many us are financially free. We are outraged by
the moral perversion, adultery, and sodomy being flaunted on television,
movies, and books. But I wonder how many of us men are morally pure
in our thoughts, our words, our habits, and our lifestyles.

     We’re alarmed at the spread of AIDS. But I believe that even
this dread scourge may be a reflection of the condition of the church.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome destroys the immune system, and
leaves a person susceptible to disease and death. What an apt description
of the church!

       The church in our day has turned a deaf ear to the voice of God
and to His prophets who cry against sin. We have adopted a philosophy
of life that allows people to be comfortable at church, while living
in adultery, materialism, and selfishness at home. Though we should
certainly love sinners, we need a Holy Ghost revival that will cause us
to live such holy lives and to preach so powerfully that unrepentant
believers will be miserable every time they leave the church.

     The church is the cause of God’s judgement on this nation, and,
according to God’s Word, revival in the church is the only cure.

     Revival is a divine military strategy to conteractspiritual
decline and to create spiritual momentum. Nothing else will do. Our
combined best efforts have been to no avail. God is simply looking for
men who are available, men who are wholly His, through whom He can
reveal Himself mighty and strong.

     The days of King Ahab were dark ones in Israel’s history. Elijah
was the man God chose to use as His instrument in turning the heart
of the nation.  God which can purify mens heart. But it cannot happen
unless first, the Christian comes clean before God.

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