Chapter One

America's Hope

Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34).

STANDING on the shores of the Mediterranean during a recent tour of Europe, I meditated for a few moments. My thoughts centered about that great land four thousand miles away which we call "America." Somehow a person looking at America from another country can get a clearer picture of her and can analyze more correctly her status among the nations of the world. Millions throughout the world are looking to America today for leadership, materially, economically, socially and spiritually. The eyes of the world are on America! Whether we are conscious of it or not, whether she wants this responsibility or not, her place in the affairs of nations is foremost. In Paris some time ago a Frenchman said to me, "America is at her zenith. Her fantastic twentieth-century civilization has reached the top." Has it? I began to consider other civilizations of the past that have risen to glorious heights but are now found only in the history books of the world's libraries.

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I. THE TESTIMONY OF THE PAST

   A. Antediluvian Civilization

      "Archaeology substantiates Noah's Flood," said the London Times in 1929. The article that followed also gave an archaeologist's view of the civilization that existed prior to the Flood. The Bible also gives a vivid account of the corruption and the sin of that day. At least two thousand years of human history had intervened since the spotless purity of Eden. During that same period there had been a vast increase in population with woeful deterioration resulting in appalling moral corruption. The ultimate issue of this corruption is described in the Genesis account. Sin, crime, immorality, the breaking of home life, unnatural affection, murders, demon possession — these were common characteristics of the civilization immediately preceding the Deluge. God, looking down from heaven upon this sin, said, in substance, that He repented that he had made man. He decided to destroy every living thing by the fearful judgment of a flood. This He proceeded to do, and the great civilization that had taken two thousand years to build was destroyed in the space of forty days. I make bold to say that the Flood never destroyed the people of that day! Sin had done its deadly work of eating out the heart and core of the antediluvian civilization before the Flood came.

   There is a fundamental law of God, a law apparent from Genesis to Revelation, that says, "The wages of sin is death." The wages of a nation's sin, the wages of an organization's sin, the wages of individual sin, is death. No nation, organization or individual who has continued in its sin has escaped the judging hand of God.

   B. Israel

      Beginning with the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Israel became a mighty nation. Not only was she entrusted with the knowledge of the true God,

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but she was also a great military power to be reckoned with on any battlefield. Morally, spiritually, economically and materially under David and Solomon she became one of the "great" powers. However, sin, corruption, idolatry and immorality entered her way of life. "The wages of sin is death." She fell from her pinnacle as all the nations before her fell.

   In 586 B.C., the Babylonians invaded and destroyed her capital city. Today the people of Israel are scattered throughout the world. Israel has suffered more than any other nation. I say again that the Babylonians did not defeat Israel twenty-five hundred years ago. Sin had done its deadly work before the Babylonians arrived.

   C. Babylon

      During the age of Hammurabi, two thousand years before Christ, Babylon was the dominating power of Asia. By the time of Nebuchadnezzar Babylon controlled an empire that included thousands of square miles. Her capital was located near the Garden of Eden, a spot world-renowned for its splendor and wonders that amazed even inquiring scientists. Babylon's palaces and towers were second to none. Her hanging gardens were among the seven wonders of the world. She was the commercial center of the world at the crossroads of antiquity. Contemporaries said that Babylon was destined to rule until the end of time, but sin began to do its deadly work. One fatal June night during a drunken spree directed by the young king Belshazzar, the Medo-Persian army changed the course of the Euphrates River, marched under the mammoth protecting walls, and that night Babylon fell never to rise again. Again I say that the Medo-Persians never defeated Babylon. Sin had done its deadly work by gripping Babylon's society before the enemy arrived.

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   D. Greece

      Under Alexander, Greece became a great power in the world of that day. Beginning at the dawn of mythology in the age of Homer, continuing through the union of the Hellenic states, the famous battles of Marathon and Salamis, and the brilliant era of Pericles and Socrates, character and culture attained a zenith unreached by any civilization. Her athletes were world-famous. At the age of twenty, Alexander the Great assumed command of the great army that swept like a meteor eastward over the lands that had once been ruled by Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia. Within four years the entire world lay at his feet. At his death, however, art and culture began to deteriorate. Sin, immortality and corruption entered. Although there were many other factors, the basic cause for the humiliating defeats at the hands of the Romans and the ultimate occupation was the fact that sin had brought about moral weakness. Greece was unable to protect herself against the day of trouble.

   E. Rome

      The greatest city on earth, the center of history, for one thousand years the dominating power of the world, the "Eternal City," a city of a million and a half and the capital of the mightiest empire the world has known, built on seven hills and founded by a strong, sturdy people of the soil — that was Rome. Gibbon, in his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, lists five contributing factors in the disintegration of this mighty civilization. (1) the rapid increase of divorce and the consequent undermining of the home; (2) the craze for pleasure; (3) the building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within; (4) the decadence of the people; (5) the decay of religion. That which caused the destruction of Pompeii, that which was the contributing cause of the downfall of the great

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nations of the past, entered the heart and the core of the Roman way of life until in 410 A.D. Rome fell without a battle. Where were her mighty legions? Where her strong shields and bucklers? Where the mighty generals? They were powerless under the grip of the dread disease of sin! They were like flies in a spiders web. Mighty Rome toppled and fell. The foundations that had made her strong had been eaten by cancerous sin.

II. THE TESTIMONY OF THE PRESENT

   Some months ago I was a guest in the home of Mrs. J.W. Van De Venter at beautiful Temple Terrace, Florida. As we were sitting on the verandah talking I noticed suddenly that the house next door was unoccupied. It looked as if it had been standing for some time without inhabitants. I remarked to my hostess that this seemed strange in view of the appalling housing shortage. She told me this story: "That house has been standing unoccupied for several years. A heavy wind could blow it over. Termites have eaten the foundations. The superstructure could fall at any time." I wonder if that could not be said concerning the nations of our day!

   A. France

      Some weeks ago I stood on a hill overlooking Paris. The sun was sinking in the west. The evening shadows were beginning to gather. In the distance I could see the dome of St. Paul's. To my right, towering above the city of light, could be seen the Eiffel Tower. The lights were coming on, and Paris' famous night life was about to begin. I let my mind wander back to 1940 when Hitler's legions had marched down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. France had been beaten and shamefully crushed.

   After the First World War, France became one of the great nations of the world. She had the proudest army in Europe. She had one of the finest navies on the seven

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seas. Her empire extended around the world and she had friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Besides all this she was safely behind her Maginot Line, which had been called the finest defense mechanism in the history of the world. France was invincible. France could never be defeated.

   Smug in their complacency, the parisians went on with their dancing, eating, drinking and merrymaking. "Gay Paree" was the center toward which nobility, playboys, gamblers, dope smugglers and harlots moved. If one wanted to have a fling, he went to Paris, where there was moral corruption and lasciviousness such as the world had not seen since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sin is a reproach to any people! "The wages of sin is death," says the law of God. Could France continue and get away with it? Never! No more than a leopard can change his spots. The day of reckoning had to come.

   France had forgotten God; atheism was rampant; agnosticism had been substituted. Frenchmen had no time to think of God. They were too busy with their sensual pleasures and money-making schemes.

   The invasion of the Low Countries, the hammering of the Maginot Line, the sweep of the Panzer divisions — atheistic France fell, and a stain is on her flag, a stain that will require generations to remove. Again I say that the Germans never defeated France. Sin had done it's deadly work before the Germans ever marched under the Arc de Triomphe.

   B. Germany

      Germany has long been regarded as the world-center of culture. German universities were long regarded as the best in the world. German scientists, German chemists and German musicians were the world's best. Germany was the home of the Reformers. The Germany of Martin Luther, the Germany of Goethe, the Germany of Schiller,

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the Germany of Wagner was known throughout the world as a country where God was honored, the Bible was respected, and where culture was at its highest. But the learned people of Germany, the sceptic people of Germany, the aristocratic people of Germany, decided to throw out God. Modernism swept the churches. Higher criticism became the theme of her theologians; atheism was rampant among her political leaders; she gave herself over to hate, rapine (plundering), murder and beastliness. Could Germany survive? Could she rule the world by murder, lies, broken treaties, hatred for the Jew, atheism and immorality? No! Never! "The wages of sin is death." "The nation that sinneth shall die!" "Sin is a reproach to any people." Before the Russians reached Berlin, before the Americans and the British reached the Ruhr, Germany was defeated by the sin of atheism and corruption at home.

   C. America

      Someone has said, "Europeans came to South America seeking gold, and they came to North America seeking God."

   America has been a land of religious freedom; a land of law and justice; a land of revival; a land whose foundations rest upon the Bible. During the past two hundred years in every great crisis our godly leaders have, without exception, found true, Scripture's declaration that "the Throne is established by righteousness" (Proverbs 16:12). When at Valley Forge George Washington prayerfully knelt in the snow asking God for help, there came to him by divine revelation a vision for the future of our great republic. If the infant nation would be properly established it must be by righteousness, not by appeasement on the one hand, nor by alliances on the other; not by total reliance on huge armies or navies or military might, for of these Washington had none. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord," was the truth in which Washington trusted.

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   At the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia representatives from thirteen colonies came together, each with his own opinion, each so dogmatic that he would not budge an inch. When, after some deliberation, they had almost decided to go back to their homes and form thirteen separate nations, Benjamin Franklin stood and said, "I have lived a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see that God governs in the affairs of man, and if a sparrow cannot fall without His notice, is it probable that a nation can rise without His aid? 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' Without His concurring aid we shall proceed no better than the builders of Babel." A prayer meeting followed, and out of that prayer meeting came the Constitution of the United States, whose laws and policies are based largely upon the Word of God. Our founding fathers were men of God. In 1812, on the third Thursday of August, President James Madison proclaimed a day on which all should acknowledge the "transgressions which might justly provoke divine displeasure" and seek "merciful forgiveness on." This attitude did not go unrewarded. Andrew Jackson once remarked concerning the Bible, "That Book, sir, is the rock upon which our republic rests." Daniel Webster uttered a solemn warning when he said, "If we abide by truths taught in the Bible we will go on prospering, but if we do not, catastrophe may suddenly overwhelm us."

   After every great crisis in American history we have always had a revival. The people have felt the desperate need for calling upon God, and God has always answered with a gracious outpouring of His Holy Spirit. Anthropologists tell us that there are three factors in society: social, spiritual and material. Socially and spiritually America reached a high point immediately preceding the First World War. The effects of the Moody campaigns were evident everywhere. Billy Sunday was

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stirring the nation. Church attendance had reached one of its highest points. Higher criticism had scarcely begun to make itself felt. An atheist was still looked upon as a social outcast. There was lawbreaking but not as we observe it today. Divorces were not nearly so prevalent; there was only one divorce for every thirty-three marriages. Materially we were advancing by leaps and bounds. New scientific discoveries by American inventors were beginning to shape our way of life and fashion the most fantastic standard of living the world had known. We fought the First World War to "save the world for democracy." When President Wilson came to the Palace of Versailles he was hailed as a Moses to lead Europe out of destruction, bondage and disillusionment into the light of a new and glorious day. America rejected her responsibility as a world-leader. She crawled into her shell of isolationism. She went on a gigantic spree that started an era of decline which has become so rapid that our politicians and statesmen are beginning to tremble.

   Termites are at work eating the heart out of American civilization. Hundreds predict that if our country continues to decline at its present rate, America as we know it today cannot possibly reach 1975.

   Let us take a brief glance at our beloved nation.

   No one dares to deny that socially there is at this moment an unprecedented moral decline and breakdown of the home. Licentiousness and adultery have swept nation after nation out of existence. Immorality brought fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. It carried Rome, Pompeii and Naples to ruin. We in America have become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Forty years ago there was one divorce for every thirty-three marriages; today there is one divorce for every three. The home has always been the basic unit of society. When the home begins to break, the nation begins to slide. No nation

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of the past has done away with its home life and survived for long.

   Reno has set a fast pace, and other cities and states are fast following in her wake. We are eating, drinking and making merry, marrying and giving in marriage. Idolatry and immorality are openly and unashamedly practiced. No longer are girls and fellows considered social outcasts if they have an "affair." It has become the natural thing. In her dress, manners and morals, America has become sex-conscious. America has overtaken France as the leader among the nations in sex-consciousness. Trial marriages are openly advocated in colleges and universities. The behavioristic philosophy of giving vent and expression to one's feelings and emotions has invaded every realm of American thought. Our youngsters of ten and eleven "know more" than their parents did at twenty.

   The crime situation is alarming. Sixteen million crimes were committed last year, and the staggering bill was seventeen billion dollars. There has been an 800 percent increase in crime during the last forty years. Most of the arrests made last year involved seventeen-year-olds. Prostitution among young people is increasing at the rate of 40 percent each year.

   "Petty crimes among high-school young people have reached an alarming state," says J. Edgar Hoover. Drinking among high-school students has reached the tragic figure of 70 percent.

   In 1933 it was said that the old saloon would never return. There are now 750,000 saloons in America! Each year 40,000 people are dying on our highways, and 90 percent of these deaths are caused by drink. We are drinking ourselves to suicide. We spend two million dollars a day on narcotics. What is the cause?

   Hoover declares further, "These conditions are secondary in importance to the disastrous decay of religion. Over sixty million of our fellow citizens profess no religion;

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many of them don't believe in God. This is America's greatest peril."

   America's greatest enemy is not the "hammer and sickle." America's greatest enemy is the internal decadence that is causing us to rush faster than any civilization before us toward destruction and hell.

   In the educational realm we are talking about a "false culture." There are many zealous hearts that think education is the answer, but our entire educational system is rampant with evolution. Our universities and colleges that were founded as a result of revival are now teaching either atheistic or theistic evolution. As a result thousands of young people are coming out of our educational system either as skeptics, agnostics or atheists with little or no regard for God.

   In his book The Origin of Species, Darwin uses more than eight hundred times such expressions as "we infer' and "we may well suppose."

   Guided by these flimsy phrases, we are expected to reach the conclusion that man, impelled by internal forces, climbed from beasthood and before that, from a single cell, without intervention from God

   Through the years other schools have added to and taken away from what Darwin supposed or inferred. On this frail foundation of inference, supposition and the wild guesses of those who hate the Bible and have little love for God, the theory of evolution was built.

   Evolutionists deny direct creation as taught in the Bible. They deny a personal, creating God. They are taught that man, noble man, is growing stronger and wiser and better every day; is climbing upward in the light. Evolutionists deny the fact of sin. They teach, instead, the "trial and error" method by which man is supposed to make himself better and better in every way every day.

   Present-day events and scholarships have removed, one after another, the props of the evolutionary theory. Man

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is not growing better! Man is not climbing upward. Monkeys are not making men of themselves. Evolution is in reverse. We now have devilution.

   Instead of progress in man himself there is degeneracy — degeneracy of body, mind and spirit. Man is going downhill socially, but, alas, our poor blind leaders of the blind are still teaching, in the classroom, to students who are still swallowing it hook, line and sinker, the falsehood that evolution is accomplishing progress, that we are climbing, and that a new day is about to dawn.

   Yes, socially, America is fast degenerating!

   Spiritually, we have wandered far from the faith of our fathers. Their faith is not living still!

   One of our state governors declared, "America is sick because it has forgotten God. Democracy can be saved only by the spiritual strength of its people, and spiritual life is needed today as it has never been before." No nation which relegates the Bible to the background, which disregards the love of God and flouts the claims of the Man of Galilee, can long survive.

   Is there not now a decay of religion? Less than 5 percent of the citizenry of our land frequented a place of worship last Sunday night. Is there not something wrong? The President of the Ministerial Association of the greatest churchgoing town in America told me some time ago that 85 percent of the people in his city never darken the door of a church or attend Sunday school. Is there not something wrong when during the last ten years ten thousand churches have been forced to close their doors? Is there not something wrong when last year seven thousand churches reported not one convert? This means that seven thousand ministers preached for an entire year without reaching one lost soul. Using a low average, suppose that they preached forty Sundays, not including extra meetings, which would mean that these seven thousand

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ministers preached five hundred and sixty thousand sermons in a year. Think of the labor and the money expended on salaries to make this possible, and yet five hundred and sixty thousand sermons preached by seven thousand ministers in seven thousand churches to thousands of hearers during the last twelve months failed to bring one soul to Christ! There is something radically wrong somewhere. There is either something wrong with these seven thousand ministers, or with their five hundred and sixty thousand sermons, or both!

   John Wesley said, "The Church has nothing to do but to save souls: therefore spend and be spent in this work. It is not your business to speak so many times, but to save souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance."

   Thousands of these men have denied that the Bible is the Word of God. Thousands of men standing behind the sacred desk today lied when they spoke their ordination vows. They deny the blood atonement; they deny the virgin birth; they deny the bodily resurrection of Christ; they deny the total depravity of man. One segment of the Church has gone into apostasy, another segment has gone into a state of lethargy, indifference, passionless, cold, formal, orthodoxy. Another segment has gone to the extreme of so-called "ultra-Fundamentalism" whose object is not to fight the world, the flesh and the devil, but to fight other Christians whose interpretation is not like theirs. Thus the Church has lost its power. Our beautiful sanctuaries have steeples that tower toward the sky, but the millions of dollars that are being spent every year are making less impact upon the nation today than at any other time in our history.

   The Church should be setting the pace. The Church should be taking its proper place of leadership in the nation. But, alas, it has failed sadly, with the result that millions of the new generation never enter a church. They

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walk the streets without God, without Christ, without any religious instruction whatsoever. God help the Church to wake up!

   Another sign of the terrible and awful spiritual degeneracy is sin in our fine arts, such as music and art. Music is degenerating from Beethoven, Chopin and other masters to the weird "boogy-woogy" of our day. Modern jazz originated among the Hottentots of Africa. Art is degenerating also. The man who can paint the greatest monstrosity is declared to be the greatest artist.

   Our magazine racks are filled with crime and sex pulp-magazines that are being read and devoured by millions of young people. Tragically, our government is powerless to fight the evil.

   Eighty million of our young people are seeing each week the trash that Hollywood produces. Truly our children are "movie mad." One of the greatest curses in America is not the moving picture itself but the use to which it has been put by the ungodly, sex-crazed, demon-possessed money-grabbers of Hollywood.

   A few years ago films began to be shown on Sunday, and church attendance was reduced by thousands. To some extent, however, the Church was at fault because it offered only formalistic and ritualistic philosophy and book reviews.

   Yes, socially and spiritually, America is on the way down.

   You may say, "But materially — that is where America really shines!" There are more telephones in New York City than in all Great Britain. There are more bathtubs in New York than in all of Europe. We have set the pace in aviation and in other modes of transportation. We have invented the atomic bomb and have done more research in the field of atomic energy than any other group. One of our scientists declared recently, "The world would be startled if they could

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but know what American scientists were doing in their laboratories." Can you see the danger? Socially and spiritually we are going down, while materially we are going up. We are not maintaining proper balance. We are progressing and at the same time degenerating.

   But I wonder if we have progressed materially. Perhaps our two highest achievements in the field of research and science are the atomic bomb and the airplane. What have we used them for? Their greatest use has not been for peace-time development but for the destruction of the very civilization on whose foundations we expect to build a new and better world.

   One of our great leaders said not long ago, "We are involved in a civilization that seems stirred by a will to death, maddened by a thousand forces and frustrations. In very truth the front page of every morning newspaper looks like sheer lunacy.

   The President of the British Board of Trade said recently, "I do not believe the people of the world have yet realized to the full what the atomic bomb means for the future. It is quite idle to imagine that it could be preserved as a secret. If there is another war in ten years or thereafter, our civilization will be destroyed. War has become certain national and international suicide."

   Plans are being made to prevent another war. Unfortunately the world's past record is not an encouraging one.

   D. R. Davies tells us that there have been ten major wars in Europe in the last eighty years; that since 1100 A.D. England has spent half her time at war. Fifty years of war for every fifty years of peace! Since 1440 B.C. there have been eight thousand peace treaties, and their average life has been two years. What have we been fighting for? We have been fighting for peace!

   At the moment our nation seems to have fallen into a treacherous unseen hand. It seems that a strong and mighty arm is carrying our nation over a precipice. If

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we are not destroyed by weapons which other nations create, it seems almost certain that we are bound for destruction on the inside by the fifth columns of the devil. It is the prevailing belief that momentous events are before us — events uncontrollable by man.

   Is there no way out? Is everything hopeless? Is there nothing we can do? Must we continue to commit national suicide? What is America's hope?

   1. It does not lie in a political party. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have the solution to our present problem.

   2. It is not in social improvement. We have the greatest social organizations and institutions in the world, and yet we are the most lawless nation under the sun. Social reform is not the solution.

   3. Education is not the answer. There is less illiteracy in America than in any other nation. This is certainly not the solution to our problem.

   4. It does not lie in the U.N.O. The U.N.O. has solved few of our problems and has proved to be as weak and helpless in the face of world-conditions as was the League of Nations.

   5. Our hope is not in a higher standard of living. Our standard of living is two or three times higher than that of any other nation.

   To use the words of President Truman, "The only hope of America is a spiritual reawakening. If we don't have it, we are done for."

   The Word of God says, "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 will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (II Chron. 7:14).

   The Psalmist cries, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."

   Abraham Lincoln gave this reply to an officer who requested,

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"Pray, sir, that God will keep on our side." "Never," replied the President. "Rather, let us pray that we may be on God's side."

   One of our great Western university presidents said recently, "America's salvation is an old-fashioned revival of the Wesleyan type. As the preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield saved Great Britain from the French Revolution, so we need a revival to save America."

   General McArthur warned, "We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem is basically theological."

   Wake up, America! Stir thyself! If righteousness will exalt a nation and merit God's favor, then sin will prove its ruin. "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save," cries the Prophet, "but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2). Sin is a stigma, and not until we repent individually and nationally of our wickedness will God fulfill His promise of divine reinforcements.

   A United States Congressman asserted, not long ago, "Most of our present-day troubles are due to the fact that we have forgotten the faith of our fathers and no longer do we, as a nation, follow in the footsteps of the Lord."

   There is a fundamental law of God which declares that we reap what we sow. "The wages of sin is death." "The [nation] that sinneth, it shall die." "Your young men have I slain with the sword . . . yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord."

   God definitely spoke to us during the recent war, but we have forgotten our war dead. We have forgotten the voice of the Lord and we have gone on in our pleasure-mad, money-grabbing spree. God help us to return before it is too late!

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   In his famous call for national repentance, Abraham Lincoln said, "We have forgotten God. The awful calamity of war that now desolates the land is divine punishment."

   Jeremiah saw the fate of his nation in the event of a victory by either the Babylonian or Scythian armies; yet in the face of threatened invasion and national dilemma, he demanded repentance toward God as the only alternative.

   Someone has said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." A national revival is desperately needed today.

   There are many indications that revival may be on the way:

   1. The recent move by many denominational and Christian organizations toward child evangelism has been used of God to win hundreds and even thousands to Christ.

   2. Such laymen's organizations as the Christian Business Men's Committee, the Gideons and the National Laymen's Association are doing a tremendous job of rousing America to the need for revival.

   3. Such Gospel broadcasts as the Young People's Church of the Air, directed by Percy Crawford, the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, directed by Dr. Charles Fuller, the Lutheran Hour, led by Dr. Walter Maier, Jack Wyrtzen's Word of Life Hour, the Haven of Rest broadcast and numerous other radio programs are covering the nation like dew with the glorious soul-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such radio stations as WMBI and others which broadcast nothing but the Gospel from morning to night are being used mightily of God throughout the nation to awaken the people and instruct the nation in paths of righteousness.

   4. Bible conferences and Bible camps are springing up everywhere and are presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands every summer.

   5. New Christian Bible schools are springing up everywhere and the established institutions are growing rapidly.

   6. The great Youth for Christ movement that has spread

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like a meteor from coast to coast and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes claims a million in attendance every Saturday night and conducts giant rallies at which ten, twenty, thirty and even seventy-five thousand are in attendance.

   7. Evangelists in America have united in wielding the sword of the Lord in citywide campaigns from coast to coast.

   All these, I say, are indications that a great and mighty revival may be just around the corner.

   As the pastor of the first Presbyterian Church of Cheyenne, Wyoming, said some time ago, "We may be in the midst of a revival now and not know it." Perhaps we are, but I doubt it!

   I think we are seeing indications of revival, but there is no sign of a nationwide turning to God as yet. We are still reaching only a small percentage.

   America, I present to you a spiritual call to arms. "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath . . . smitten, and he will bind us up." America cannot organize her way out, nor buy her way out. She must pray her way out.

   Someone has said, "The man who can bring us to our knees in contrition will do most to mold this generation aright and will prove the nation's greatest benefactor."

   To safeguard our democracy and preserve the true American way of life, we need, we must have, a revival of genuine old-fashioned Christianity, deep, widespread, in the power of the Holy Spirit. May God forgive our sins, change our stupidity, help us to repent, turn and pray, and hurl us into the spiritual conflict!

   Our only hope is revival.

Chapter Two  ||  Table of Contents