America's Continuing Crisis, Part 1

[0:00] The only thing better than getting away for a few days is getting back. So, you look good. Appreciate your presence this morning.

[0:12] And Nathan, I especially appreciate the stalwart job you did in filling the pulpit in my absence. Thank you. Thank you so much. I do appreciate it.

[0:25] Folks have been asking us where we were or where we got to or what all about the trips we were taking. And during the three or four weeks that I was absent, we got all the way to Beaver Creek.

[0:46] And she found a real bargain there in one of the stores. And so, the whole thing was not a bust. It was worth it just for that, you know.

[0:57] You ladies, you have any idea how few things are made for petites nowadays? Yeah, well, my sweetheart struggles with that everywhere she goes.

[1:07] And she hit the gold mine in this last one. And it was really, really nice. She got something just absolutely beautiful. I want to share with you right up front an encouraging text that I got just this morning.

[1:26] And it's regarding Tsuji Banks. And this text is from her husband, Dave.

[1:36] It says, And by the way, in addition to the chemo and the cancer that she's dealing with, her original diagnosis was and still is in place is Parkinson's disease.

[2:02] So, this lady has a double whammy that she's working on. And it's got to be a real struggle. It says, She's still very weak, but we're working on that.

[2:14] We sold our house and bought a much smaller, more manageable home. Our most sincere and heartfelt thanks to our wonderful family at Grace Bible Springfield for all the cards and prayers.

[2:28] May God richly bless you all. Love to you all. Dave and Tsuji. So, appreciate it if you would continue to remember Dave and Tsuji in prayer because this is a difficult time that they're going through.

[2:42] And I was reflecting on the realities that we must face even as believers as we were singing that first hymn, Victory in Jesus.

[2:54] And the thought came to me that as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are in a win-win situation. Doesn't matter if you're on a sickbed preparing to draw your last earthly breath.

[3:09] You are still in a win-win situation. Of the golden rule.

[3:23] Yeah. Therein is the beginning of the problem. This is what virtue is all about. The golden rule. It is agreeing to forego some personal advantage for the betterment of one's neighbor and society.

[3:42] As a modern historian epitomized it, quote, In a republic, however, each man must somehow be persuaded to submerge his personal wants into the greater good of the whole.

[4:01] This willingness of the individual to sacrifice his private interest for the good of the community, such as patriotism or love of country, the 18th century termed public virtue.

[4:20] The 18th century mind was thoroughly convinced that a popularly based government cannot be supported without virtue.

[4:33] The 18th century is a lack of virtue. This nation has a lot of assets and a lot of liabilities, and one of our biggest liabilities is a lack of public virtue.

[4:49] you know it as well as I do. And we have come to a place where we have radically departed from the old ways.

[5:06] And more and more of us who can even remember the old ways are dying off. and the younger ones coming up have never known those ways.

[5:21] And you can't expect them to. They were not alive during that time. They were not exposed to what we were. So they've got a different mindset and a different value system.

[5:32] And it is radically changing the direction of this country. Because with every passing month and year, there are more of them than there are of us.

[5:51] And it is being added to dramatically by an influx of welcomed illegals from nations all around the world, particularly Central America.

[6:07] And that too is part of the mix that is changing and will radically change America. So I do hope that you'll get this article and read it and read it seriously and read it prayerfully because it is very, very enlightening and it puts the finger on where we are today.

[6:25] Now, would you take your bulletin again, please? And I want to begin this morning's message simply by reading what we've got here. This will be part one of what will be an ongoing series.

[6:39] I don't know how many will be in it, but probably three or four different sessions because we'll be addressing a number of things that are taking place in our nation right now. And this morning's message will simply be introductory to that.

[6:52] We will be spending almost all of our time in the Old Testament looking at the nation of Israel and asking ourselves whether there is any counterpart in the U.S. of A.

[7:06] and not only the U.S. of A. but England and France and Germany and you will see I think as time goes along. So it is entitled America's Continuing Crisis Part 1.

[7:21] Moral, spiritual, and political turmoil the likes of which we have never faced before continues apace. it seems like a new abnormality is introduced monthly.

[7:41] How about that? The abnormality of the month. We have been teaching here for five decades and a principal observation that we have made and have tried to make as clear as possible is that when our first parents disobeyed God and partook of what would be hereafter known as the fall which has to do with the moral and spiritual failure of our first parents and their disobedience to God and the fact that as a result of that they took some dynamic that we do not really understand we understand the implications and we understand the consequences but they took some kind of new additional dynamic to themselves that God did not put in them and it altered our first parents it morally spiritually altered them in a way that we do not understand but it forever changed their psyche and that change is generated from them to the next generation and from them to the next generation and from them to the next generation and so on down to us and the most obvious and principal consequence of that is death death physical death and spiritual death and another consequence that has come from that is that when Adam and Eve disobeyed

[9:22] God and took their authority from the serpent or Satan rather than God it dramatically affected their thinking process and we've tried to make the point I don't know how successfully we've tried to make the point that as a result of that the human thinking process and ability our logic and reasoning powers have become skewed damaged broken which allows us to process information in an inaccurate way and reach an inaccurate conclusion and act on that producing some really hurtful stupid things because we act out of what we process and believe to be true so our whole thinking skills our intellectual apparatus is damaged that's part of the fall we really need to understand this because this is so basic and it is this damage this inherent damage that allows people to reach some of the and I don't know what else to call it and I'm trying to be kind to reach some of the harebrained conclusions that they do such as and this is a biggie

[10:57] I'm not surprised I wouldn't be surprised to find that this is probably 90% of the origin of this and it has to do speaking of origins with origins because origins the reason origin is so important is because origin determines value and purpose and objective and destiny is there intentionality and purposefulness in our existence well if you are committed evolutionists you can only answer that no no there is no meaning there is no purpose there is no value other than what you assign to yourself that's it there's no intentionality and there is no destiny and when you die that's it everything is over there's no heaven there's no hell there's no consciousness there's no awareness of existence there is just nothing nothing that is the evolutionist position apart from

[12:05] God and the Bible of course begins with Genesis 1 1 it tells us that there is intentionality there is purposefulness there is a mind behind what we see and it is called God creator and sustainer of all things now depending on which of those positions you take that's going to affect your value system it's going to affect your priorities it's going to affect your agenda it's going to affect everything so when you hear people saying things like defund the police how's that for a harebrained idea defund the police you might as well say just go out and jump off a cliff defund the police are they serious they are serious reimagine the police and what is happening in law enforcement today

[13:10] I do not know well I guess speaking from the standpoint of a civilian we do not have any more in our society who could wear the badge of a critical hero other than the men and women in law enforcement most of us have no idea how essentially invaluable these people really are if you don't well I'm not going to go there because that would be the rest of my message but it probably deserves so here's what we're going to do depending on where you are if you want to know how these people reach these conclusions such as choose your own sex when you go to school if you decide that you would be more comfortable as the opposite from what you are what your birth sex is whether male or female if you want to change it you can now that that defies everything really where where do you get that how could you possibly arrive to listen listen now

[14:45] I want you to see the connection if you don't get the connection this is worthless if you buy into something like it if you buy into the evolutionary hypothesis that there is no intelligent creator thus there is no destiny there is no anything then why not same sex marriage why not a girl deciding she wants to be a boy why not what's the problem there is any problem if you're coming from that position it's to each his own you create your own reality person A can hold this position person B can hold a position that is completely contrary to person A and guess what they're both right isn't that amazing that's called create your own reality that's what's taking place in our country today this is the thinking that's out there and that way nobody has to be wrong it is called moral relativism where if you want to engage in sex outside of marriage why not it's the natural thing to do everybody's doing it all of these things that are damaging our culture today that threaten the very existence of the nation as we know it virtually all of it stems from your view and assessment of origins and destiny and these people who are suggesting all of these things that we call weird and crazy and abnormal and everything with them there is no abnormality there is no right or wrong it's to the individual whatever you want and nobody has the right to say anybody else is wrong and this is where we're going with religious pluralism that takes all faiths

[17:01] I mean everything Judaism Christianity Buddhism Hinduism Islam you name it atheism puts them all on the same level and guess what they're all right they're all right nobody's wrong now let me ask you this question what does that do to the concept of Christian missions it puts it right out of business and you know something comparatively speaking that's pretty much where it is you just do not hear of people coming to faith today like we did 20 30 40 years ago it happens less and less because religious pluralism puts everything out there and this this by the way is causing more and more negative reactions to things called Christian you know the problem with these

[18:03] Christians don't you they think that their way is the only way how absurd how obnoxious how narrow how bigoted and do you know what most Christians do regarding that message we dummy up we are intimidated into silence because we don't want to be ill spoken of we don't want people to think us being narrow and bigoted and I want to give you this quote again from Dr.

[18:45] John Lennox I know I've shared it with you before I want to give it to you so many times you won't be able to forget it a great quote he taught mathematics he's retired now but he taught mathematics at Oxford University he's on the same faculty with Richard Dawkins and had debated him on a number of issues and Dr.

[19:05] John Lennox said why should Christians be considered narrow and bigoted for accepting something from Jesus Christ that no one else even offers don't you forget that line you're going to need it we are swimming upstream but you know what for those who are related to God in our day and age related to God through Jesus Christ which is different from what we're going to be looking at now because the Jewish people in the Old Testament were not related to God through Jesus Christ but they were related to God in a covenantal kind of relationship whereby God specifically chose these people descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and entered into a special pact a special covenant with him unlike anything that he did with any other nation and I want you to see as we read these passages whether there is a parallel

[20:17] I've tried to make it very clear in the past that these passages we're going to be reading are to be interpreted about Israel Christians are not the interpretation and Christianity is not the interpretation but what I'm asking you is is there an application that works across the board you see the interpretation is one thing the application can be many when Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 10 and I think verse 4 if it didn't move he said whatsoever things were written aforetime now when Paul was writing that in the New Testament the things that were written aforetime referred exclusively to the Old

[21:17] Testament New didn't even exist then whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience that's staying power hanging in there when the going is rough that through patience that we through patience and hope I forgot the rest of the verse whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and hope scriptures might have hope yes that's it that's Romans 10 so if you will go please first of all to Jeremiah chapter 9 and we're going to be moving rather rapidly so I want you to see what we're getting at here because our nation is in crisis and Israel was in crisis and do you know something Israel is still in crisis I don't know that these dear people have ever lived apart from crisis they've just gone from one to another and in a sense so has the United

[22:23] States Israel's crisis was born in Egypt and they've been in a crisis mode ever since one way or another and the United States of America was born in 1776 and we no sooner survived that crisis that we entered into another and it was called the War of 1812 it was nothing more than Great Britain trying to get even and if you move on through the 19th century into the 1860s we've got another crisis and it's called the Civil War and it just tore this nation apart and then in 1917 1914 when war broke out in Europe we were determined to stay out of it because it wasn't our fight but in 1917 we got in it and that too was a crisis and December 7th 1941 was another crisis see do you get the picture that humanity is fraught with crises one after another nature is red in tooth and claw we are a people who go from one crisis to another what's wrong we are we are we are what's wrong that famous line of pogo the little possum that lived in the swamp years ago in the cartoons says we have met the enemy and they is us that's what's wrong so it's our fault yep it's our fault

[24:08] God created us with a capacity to make choices he gave us a volition a will you don't have to obey him if you don't want to and most people don't want to most people want to just march to their own drummer and do their own thing and that too is part of the consequences of the fall because and understand this this is another really important principle and I'm hammering these things because I know I'm not going to be here too long and I want to make sure you get this before I leave when Adam and Eve were created their focus was upon God he was their everything and he should have been but when they rebelled against him disobeyed him and took the advice of Satan their focus that was on God switched and it turned away from

[25:18] God inward you know what you call that self centeredness every one of you is a self centered individual and by the way when I'm pointing my finger at you I'm pointing three back at me we're all self centered it's just natural it's systemic to humanity that's the way we are doesn't make any difference how nice a person you are you're still self centered we all are it's part of the fall and if you were not then you would be one of those who is perfect and that means of course that you won't die because the wages of sin is death but if you don't have any of those things you just live forever and you won't die so that kind of nonsensical listen all right let's look at Jeremiah because this is oh my this is such critical stuff

[26:22] I'm going to read Jeremiah 9 and the first nine verses this is a lament over Zion and of course that has to do with Jerusalem Israel and so on and the prophet Jeremiah and he's called the nickname that has been assigned to Jeremiah down through the years is the weeping prophet that's what he's called this man probably shed a lot of tears and you know to be very honest with you this is probably this is probably one of the deficiencies deficiencies of the Christian public today and I'm certain to include myself in that how many tears have I shed over the waywardness of this nation Jeremiah says oh oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people oh that I had in the desert a wayfarer's lodging place that I might leave my people and go from them for all of them are adulterers an assembly of treacherous men and by the way the adultery that he's speaking of here is not shacking up with someone else's mate the adultery here is spiritual adultery

[28:03] God says that he's married to Israel as a husband and that Israel is the wife and that she has consistently left him and gone whoring after other lovers and the other lovers are Baal other false gods Dagon you can name them half a dozen of them in the Old Testament foreign deities dumb idols statuary made by the hands of men and then bowed down and worship those are the adulterers that he's speaking of and they bend their tongue like their bow lies and not truth prevail in the land do you see any parallel there with the U.S.

[29:06] of A lies and not truth prevail in the land for they proceed from evil to evil and they do not know me declares the Lord do not know him but these are the chosen people these are the covenant people of God let everyone be on guard against his neighbor and do not trust any brother because every brother deals craftily that means you can't trust anybody read the fine print and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer and everyone deceives his neighbor and does not speak the truth they have taught their tongue to speak lies you know as well as I do that the citadel of untruth is in

[30:09] Washington D.C. this place spews untruth from the capital rotunda and it is pervasive consistent convincing and paid for at the taxpayer's expense they weary themselves committing iniquity your dwelling is in the midst of deceit through deceit they refuse to know me declares the Lord hey you gotta remember this was written 500 years before Jesus was born you know what this is a picture of it's just a picture of the human race across the board all generations of all times of all centuries of all millennia this is humanity on parade this is what it is this is the stuff we're made of and it's not pretty and it's because of this stuff it's because of this stuff that there was a cross and a savior upon it and an empty tomb therefore thus says the

[31:23] Lord of hosts behold I will refine them and assay them you know like like a metallurgist would assay ore to determine the true value of it I will assay them evaluate them because of the daughter of my people their tongue is a deadly arrow it speaks deceit with his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor but inwardly he sets an ambush for him shall I not punish them for these things declares the Lord on a nation such as this shall I not avenge myself you know the Bible is from Genesis to Revelation it's really after God in its sights sin the Bible makes so much of this ugly three letter word sin sin sin sin everywhere you go what's the big deal about this thing called sin anyway and why is it that God hates sin so much the answer is simple if you know anything about the scriptures the reason

[32:30] God hates sin so much is because he loves people so much that's the problem sin is self destructive and all of the commandments that are given particularly thinking in terms of the ten commandments and all the law of Moses etc.

[32:49] for the children of Israel who alone by the way had received the law was all for one reason all for one purpose for their own benefit the law of God was designed as a hedge as a protection for the people it was for their own good but when you are infected with this thing self-centeredness I will determine for myself what is my own good thank you that's the self-centeredness speaking so the tendency is to kick over the traces and tell the almighty that I will decide what's best for me I am a free moral agent thanks to you oh my goodness this is shall I not punish them for these things declares the Lord on such a nation as this shall I not avenge myself now there is no question and I would be very strong about this and you know that

[33:52] I am in so far as the interpretation of all of this is concerned it is exclusively Israel as a nation this is not talking about the United States of America it's talking about Israel that's the interpretation but is there an application is there a parallel and if there is and I am convinced there is because these are principles these are principles they're tried and true principles and it has nothing to do with this nation or that nation it's across the board biblical spiritual principles are valid you can look at the lives of the patriarchs in the Old Testament and things that happened in connection with their relationship with God and well you just take for instance well we could pick almost any of them and start with Abraham because he's one of the best known considered the father of the faithful and certainly the father of the Jew he's also the father of the Arabs and the father of the Muslims and the father of

[35:06] Christians Abraham covers waterfront and God had certain objectives and plans for Abraham and Abraham's seed such as through you and your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed and so on and God did all kinds of things on behalf of that patriarch Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as well and then of course Jacob's 12 sons and God's particular dealings with them were such that it was not true of any other nation even as he wrote even as he wrote to Amos in chapter 3 and I think it was verse 2 and he takes Israel to task and he says you only of all the nations of the earth you only have I known that is in an intimate personal kind of way you only of all the nations of the earth therefore

[36:16] I will punish you for your iniquities for your sins because the principle is unto whom much is given shall much be required and nobody was given more information than Israel and God is going to hold them accountable you see you and I are responsible for what we do with the information that we get the idea of church and of preaching and of teaching when it comes right down to it is to inform people so that they have information to process and decisions to make so that when they go out of here they will make a difference and theoretically at least you and I are supposed to be a more responsible vehicle when we leave this place than we were when we came in simply because we've gotten more information so what are we going to do with it and

[37:27] Israel is in a peculiar situation where they are going to receive the cream of the crop information because everybody else is steeped in paganism and the worship of idols and images and false gods and demons and all the rest of it but not Israel oh no oh yeah they're right in there in the thick of the pack right with the rest of them that which they were supposed to abhor of their neighbors they are participants in and how could you do this how could you how could you leave me I have given you so much I have provided for you I have protected you I have birthed you and this is the thanks I get is there an application there for the United States of America I believe there is in fact I believe it's inescapable no it's not interpreted of us but it applies to us and I'll tell you something else it applies to Germany too it applies to England too it applies to virtually all the nations that have had the benefit of information from what we call the word of God and what we have done with it

[38:48] I must hasten on now that we've been in chapter 9 I want you to see what the essence of this is and why Jeremiah feels the way he does and this is the conclusion that he's reaching here in verse 9 he wishes that his head were waters and his eyes a fountain of tears that he might weep day and night and it all started with his description of what is happening and let us begin if we may and Isaiah I'm sorry Jeremiah chapter 3 I must hasten on or our time will be gone Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 1 God says if a husband divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man will he still return to her and of course in that time and culture the answer would be oh absolutely not because she would be a defiled person she would be a contaminated person will not that land be completely polluted and the land he's talking about here is a woman theoretically but you

[39:54] Israel you are a harlot with many lovers yet you turn to me declares the Lord God they want to play their fun and games with their idolatry and all the rest of it but when times get difficult they expect and want God to bail them out lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see where you have not been violated by the roads you have sat for them like an Arab in the desert what's he talking about here he's talking about pagan places of worship where they worship and serve these false gods these idols and you have polluted a land with your harlotry and with your wickedness now I don't have any doubt at all that there was plenty of the old fashioned kind of harlotry going on too I'm not dismissing that the kind of marital infidelity that has always existed of course that was going on too but what this is really talking about is the nation's idolatry it is spiritual moral adultery that's what he's talking about therefore the showers have been withheld what does that mean

[41:09] God says I'm not going to give you any rain and there has been no spring rain yet you had a harlot's forehead you refused to be ashamed and a harlot's forehead is a depiction of the woman with services for sale and this is what he is accusing his people of have you not just now called to me my father thou art the friend of my youth will he be angry forever will he be indignant to the end behold you have spoken and have done evil things you have had your way and then the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king have you seen what faithless Israel did she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and she was a harlot there this again is idol worship for seeking the true

[42:13] God and by the way you can start with what is the very first or second commandment thou shalt have no other gods before me thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image I mean that's right from the get go and her head after she has done all these things she will return to me that's what I want to talk to you about return return can America will America return return and then the question becomes return to what well for starters we could say return to what we were sixty years ago before the downward path really began and you know when it really began 1963 when the nation via the supreme court refused to acknowledge

[43:36] God and prayer was taken out of schools and listen it's no big deal I don't know that the prayers of school children across this country amounted to all that much most of them didn't even understand the issues or what they were praying about but here's the problem and this is a big big problem this is what we're dealing with now when you take prayer out of the schools you are abandoning your acknowledgement of God see what I'm saying this is the start this is the beginning abandoning the acknowledgement of God our founding fathers were so committed to the God of heaven and his having a direct hand in the birthing and sustaining of this nation that they splashed valuable words of scripture all over our federal judicial buildings and the legislative buildings and all the rest of it

[44:48] Washington D.C. is awash in quotations from the Bible and positions that were taken by our founding fathers and that's what we've walked away from that's what we have left in the dust is there any possibility or desirability of returning to that I don't know but I want to tell you something as plainly as I know how to put it if we don't we're done we're done this nation you will not recognize in less than 10 years this will not be the America that you think it is it's going to be radically radically changed and the only way that can be prevented is if there is a return and I don't know whether there will be or not there is a pertinent article in your bulletin today that I deliberately put in there even though it was a

[46:00] June 20 publication in the devotional is revival possible yep it is it is possible question is is it probable well that's something else that needs to be answered and I wish I could give you an authoritative answer but I cannot do that so with the few moments we have left it is imperative that I cover with you another passage and it's in Jeremiah also chapter 3 and look if you will at verse 14 return return return oh faithless sons declares the Lord for I am a master to you and verse 22 return oh faithless sons I will heal your faithlessness chapter 4 of

[47:03] Jeremiah if you will return oh Israel declares the Lord then you should return to me and if you will put away your detested things from my presence and will not waver and you will swear as the Lord lives in truth in justice and in righteousness then the nations will bless themselves in him and in him they will glory and chapter 4 I'm sorry chapter 5 and verse 1 roam to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and look now and take note and seek in her open squares if you can find a man if there is one who does justice who seeks truth then I will pardon her that's not a very bright prospect is it you just find one and although they say as the

[48:11] Lord lives surely they swear falsely oh Lord do not thine eyes look for truth thou hast smitten them but they did not weaken thou hast consumed them but they refused to take correction they have made their faces harder than rock they have refused to repent and repent means change your mind and if you change your mind you will change your direction and you will change your attitude and you will change your agenda so it all becomes part and parcel with the changed mind in chapter six and verses nine and ten to whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear behold their ears are closed and they cannot listen behold the word of the Lord has become a reproach to them they have no delight in it

[49:13] I want to conclude this with just a very simple illustration that will tell you a little bit about where we've come from and how far we've come and I'm going to take you all the way back to an army barracks in Fort Richardson Alaska in 1954 and 5 that's where I was stationed in the U.S.

[49:43] Army to to this day I maintain the honor and the reputation of having been the only company clerk in the U.S.

[49:54] Army and the history of the Army that never knew how to type my claim to fame so help me that's another story but I won't go there but we had some cold winter nights there in Alaska you know 40 below stuff and although we all got paid the first day of the month by about the 10th or 15th most of us were broke money lost in card games money lost in booze and what not and oh by the way you need to know this was BC this was before I came to know the Lord okay and we would sit around in the barracks and there would be maybe 12 or 15 of us sitting around the circle in our foot lockers in the barracks and just to show you how bored we were we were so bored we all whipped out our little

[50:58] New Testaments that the Gideons gave us at the induction center when we were sworn in I I'm not sure that the Gideons are even allowed to distribute those anymore but we all had a little Gideon New Testament and we would sit around the barracks there for sometimes two or three hours reading and talking about and discussing the things in the Bible and there wasn't a one of us that knew what we were talking about and some of the guys were Catholic some were Protestants some were Jews some were like me which was nothing and we would pool our ignorance and we talk about these things and you know the interesting thing is we never actually had any arguments but the thing that fascinated me most as I look back on it is something that you'll never find I don't think today and that is every one of us guys most of whom were between 18 24 years of age there was not a one of us that did not believe that little book was the word of

[52:15] God if there was anyone in our group that didn't believe that they never made it known it was revered and it was talked about and we would read it and we took it seriously and we really believed it to be the word of God no question about we didn't understand what we were reading we didn't understand the implications but there was a respect there was an awesomeness that was directed toward that book because we were convinced of who the author really was you're not going to find that today that mentality does not exist today and if anything is completely contrary well you know the Bible I mean it was just written by a bunch of old guys wearing robes with long beards and they just wrote about life as they saw it in their opinions and their contradictions in the Bible and blah blah blah blah and on it goes and that's the kind of stuff that you get today we've come a long way from that and listen these young men one of whom was yours truly all came from for the most part as far as I know parents and backgrounds that believed that also that instilled that in them and you know

[53:33] I don't recall any of those guys actually making a big deal about going to church or going to chapel or anything like that but there was an awe an awesome respect and recognition for that book being what it was where has that gone what happened let me close with this said it before I'll say it again and I'll keep saying the issue the issue is authority authority always has been always will be you pattern your life you make your decisions based on what or whom you consider to be your authority do you know the authority for most people is today themselves themselves and we knuckle under to other authorities only because we have to because there would be a price to pay if we don't but inside we know who's in charge and that's

[54:47] I myself and me that's where we are is there any returning I don't know I don't know but I do know this if we don't return we're done this nation will cease to be what it has always been you won't recognize it in another five to ten years if there's going to be any change you know where it's going to start right here hey don't expect the world to affect the change don't expect unbelievers out there the hoi polloi to take this seriously they're not what is needed is a genuine heaven sent real revival the world is not capable of being revived you know why because they've never been vived you can't be revived if you've never been vived revived means to be alive revived means to be made alive again so the revival has to begin with those who've already been vived and that is the body of

[56:06] Christ and I don't know whether we've got enough believers who are serious minded enough to see that this nation is right on the prefaces hanging on for dear life and we've got some sterling people in Washington D.C.

[56:25] that are doing everything they can to preserve the America we've always known but they are a minority and they know it yeah would you stand please we'll be dismissed our father we recognize that we've been talking about really really serious things they were serious in Jeremiah's day twenty five hundred years ago and mankind has not changed one bit we're facing the same kind of problems same kind of issues same kind of self centeredness and yet we as they had the promise that if we will return you're waiting with open arms nothing would delight the heart of yourself more than for this wayward indulgent nation to recognize its roots desire desire to return to them and oh

[57:39] God could it begin with us because as believers we have an appreciation for history that this world knows nothing of we look to you for wisdom and direction we know we're lacking in it but we want what you have to give us we want to be open receptacles willing and eager to take whatever truth you give us and disseminate it however we can thank you for the potential that is represented here in this small assembly and thank you for others like ours all throughout this great nation may there be a great burning desire for an awakening with the people of God so it can spread to those who don't know you we love this nation we love what you've done for us we want to see it preserved we want to offer ourselves to you for your service in any way you see fit thank you for the testimony and the life of this principled man

[58:51] Jeremiah for the price he was willing to pay may we be willing to do likewise in Christ's name we pray amen