What’s Wrong In America?
I may talk too long here to make a point, but I finally will. Do you remember a book called “The Cross and the Switchblade?”
Pat Boone later played the lead when it was made into a movie. It was written by a young country preacher in Phillipsburg,
Pennsylvania, when he read about seven gang members on trial for murder in New York City.
He couldn’t get them out of his mind, so he went to the trial of the boys and tried to speak up, so was put in handcuffs
and removed him from the court room. He ended up moving into the slums of New York to help young people like these, and opened
the first “Teen Challenge” Center. This has evolved into other ways of helping the destitute there, including
his opening the “Times Square Church.” He’s doing a great work among people in such squalor that most of
us would be afraid to meet on the street.
He puts out a publication about once a month, and in the issue dated July 12, 2004, he mentions that King Asa, leader of
Judah, whose warriors faced a million-man army of Ethiopia. But he trusted in the Lord and the Ethiopians were beaten. And
the Bible says, “A great peace came upon his land.”
But later, when Israel came against him, instead of trusting the Lord to help, he hired Syrian troops. They won, but since
Asa had turned his back on the Lord’s help, the Bible says, “Thou hast done foolishly; therefore from henceforth
thou shalt have wards.” All this is in Second Chronicles, the 14th through the 16th chapters.
So what am I getting at? Do you remember that story that came out after the children were killed in the shootings at Colombine
School in Colorado? The story goes that a mother cried out, “God, where were you when all this was going on!”
And God answered, “I was told to stay out of America’s schools, and so I did.” The story may have been made
up, but the facts remain.
I don’t make a habit of crying “doom,” but our leaders, our Supreme Court among them, seem to have taken
the path that will lead us there. Our Country started out with our leaders calling on God’s help. Today’s courts
have forgotten that and are taking the other path…the wide and easy one. I don’t have to go over the list of things
that are mocking God; you know them. Even those of you who are fighting for those things you call “rights” know
right from wrong. I pray for what will happen to us as we move closer and closer to the predictions in the Bible’s Book
of Revelations. If you haven’t accepted Christ, I have a feeling that time is running out. Talk to the Lord about where
you’ll spend that time, and the eternity that will follow.
37BT Bill Thornton July 20, 2004
