The is a follow up to my previous post about the demise of the church in America (CLICK HERE).
People bemoan how low the morals are in America. They talk about how things have never been worse than they are now. Seems everyone is convinced sin is rampant in the nation unlike ever before in our history.
But they forget it used to be called (In the USA), “The Wild West.” They forget about “The Roaring 20s” much less remember the violence of the mob and gangs during the 1920s to 1930s.
For years I’ve tried to tell people, “It has been worse than it is now! We’ve just forgotten.” So now please consider a few immoral highlights from our nation…
In the wake of the American Revolution (following 1776-1781) there was a moral slump. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of a population of five million… 300,000 were confirmed drunkards; they were burying fifteen thousand of them each year. Profanity was of the most shocking kind. For the first time in the history of the American settlement, women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.
What about the churches? The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most wintry season. The Presbyterians in general assembly deplored the nation’s ungodliness. In a typical Congregational church, the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennos, Massachusetts, in sixteen years had not taken one young person into fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost, quit functioning; he had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment.
The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church ‘was too far gone ever to be redeemed.’ Voltaire averred and Tom Paine echoed, ‘Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.
Take the liberal arts colleges at that time. A poll taken at Harvard had discovered not one believer in the whole student body. They took a poll at Princeton, a much more evangelical place, where they discovered only two believers in the student body, and only five that did not belong to the filthy speech movement of that day. Students rioted. They held a mock communion at Williams College, and they put on antichristian plays at Dartmouth. They burned down the Nassau Hall at Princeton. They forced the resignation of the president of Harvard. They took a Bible out of a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey, and they burnt it in a public bonfire. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790’s that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.
What could possibly change a nation so immorally bankrupt? Revival. What followed was The First Great Awakening in America. What had to happen for revival to take place in such a godless culture? God’s people praying and seeking His face to send revival and awakening. Historically, revivals have ALWAYS been preceded by God’s people praying for revival!
Yes, The United States has moral problems. The only thing more troubling than these moral problems is that it seems that believers wring their hands or protest or condemn INSTEAD OF SEEKING GOD TO SEND REVIVAL! That is the real tragedy…
Neither election Trump or Clinton will change America the way it needs to be changed. Financial prosperity will not change the morality of this nation (Or any other). A strong military cannot defeat immorality either. America needs awakening. Churches need revival. But neither will take place unless God’s people hit their knees and faces in prayer pleading with God to send both.
Prayer starts with one person… one group… one church… that spreads. Will we be part of a prayer movement asking God to send revival and awakening?
Ecclesiastes 7:10……Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this………..
God is able. I too have given some thought to the dilemma; are we (America) worse off than we’ve ever been? And I’ve thought about what about those good old days. They weren’t really all that good. In the world at various times things have been worse. For America something different is happening specifically to her. In my view worse for America. In the past morals declined but there were still cultural mores that were somewhat biblical and somewhat accepted by the vast majority of citizens. Today our cultural mores are crumbling along with the morals of her citizenry. I say worse because it is the outright onslaught against all two-isms. There is no evil or good, no truth or lies, no God or Satan, there is no boy or girl. There is only one-isms. Happiness at all costs, relativism, everything is god, no genders. This successful attack makes today quite different in its scale and depth of depravity. The bend toward me-ology is worse than we have ever experienced.
All that being said we probably aren’t any worse off than the Ninevites who God through Jonah’s warning chose to save. In the case of America we are sadly in a very dark place, though exactly where God wants us. Perhaps to save us…perhaps to return soon, time will tell.