America's Greatest Need # 3

America's Greatest Need # 3

3. America Needs a Higher, Nobler and a More Sincere Faith in God

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

What we are as a nation we owe to our underlying faith in God: the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock on their knees; Washington at Valley Forge praying for guidance and strength in the crisis of battle; Lincoln calling the country to national repentance in the midst of civil conflict. These are memorable portraits of our basic faith in God as a nation. If we have any success as a nation, we must attribute the glory, the honor and the praise to a benevolent God who has guided, with omnipotent hand, the course and destiny of our fair land. In most of our wars, many of our greatest generals were professed Christians, and their decisions and strategy were mingled with sincere prayer and dependence upon Almighty God.

Could any fair individual say the prayers offered by devoted mothers and by the churches all over America had nothing to do in bringing about victory for our armed forces? Suffice it to say, the enemy forces, which refused to honor God by seeking His wisdom through prayer, went down into bitter defeat and their systems vanished into oblivion as all civilizations have which left God out of their program. Abraham Lincoln struck a keynote when he said, "The important thing is not that we have God on our side, but that we make sure we are on His side."

Faith in God often becomes the balance of power when two matched forces are joined in combat; or, more often, the victory often goes to inferior forces when God's power and blessing are upon their efforts. As Moses said, "How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord shut them up?" (Deut. 32:30).

When as a lad David dared to face the giant Goliath, he trusted not in swords and staves but in the Lord. He faced the towering giant undaunted, unafraid and said: "Thou comest to me with a sword and spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel" (1 Samuel 17:45-46).

At forty years of age, I had never been inside a church for any reason whatsoever; but out there on a raft in the middle of the Pacific I met God. I heard Bill Cherry pray, and a rain cloud that had passed us turned around and came back over us and drenched us with water when we were about to die of thirst. It was there I saw God and learned to say, "I believe." These words are from a hardened military man who found God the hard way. Afterwards, he traveled throughout the land telling the marvelous story of how he met God. Many of us will never have the unique experience of meeting God under those unusual circumstances, but we can know Him nevertheless.

I would rather the citizens of our beloved America should know Christ personally than for America to have the greatest military might in the world. I would rather have it said that we are a people who love God and worship Him than for America to have the security of the atomic bomb. I would rather that Americas should be reverent and humble in their attitude toward Jesus, the Son of God, than to have the rest of the world acclaim us as the mightiest of the nations. I want to close in the spirit of that touching little poem:

"I Met The Master"

I had walked life's way with an easy tread,
Had followed where comforts and pleasure led;
And then one day in a quiet place,
I met the Master, face to face.

With station and rank and wealth for a goal;
Much thought for the body, but none for the soul;
I had thought to win in life's mad race,
When I met the Master, face to face.

I met Him and knew Him and blushed to see
Those eyes full of sorrow were turned on me;
And I faltered and fell at His feet that day,
While all my castles melted away -

Melted and vanished, and in their place
I saw nought else but the Master's face;
And I cried aloud, "Oh, make me meet
To follow the steps of the wounded feet.

And now my thoughts are for the souls of men;
I've lost my life, to find it again,
E'er since that day in a quiet place
I met the Master, face to face.
(Author Unknown)

~B. R. Lakin~

(The End)