Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
Click to get our FREE MOBILE APP and stay connected
| PentecostalTheology.com
Excerpts and Quotes From “Awake America”
This book Awake America examines where we are today.
Have we fallen victim to John Winthrop’s stern warning of being on our way to being a “byword throughout the world” or are we on our way to keeping our “rendezvous with destiny” (Ronald Reagan) and becoming that “shining city on a hill”?
The choice America chooses and the course America takes will be determined by the Body of Christ.
- Our Heritage
- Erosion of Freedom of Religion
- God’s Divine Favor
- A Nation at Risk
- The Price of Freedom
- Secular Humanism
- Apathy
- Attack Upon the Name of Jesus
- The Plan
Our Heritage
America is a country established as a Christian nation from birth. The motive of its citizens that settled this nation was to settle a land where people would be free; free to worship and free to live in a free society where each person’s rights were respected and a government that guaranteed those freedoms.
Author Larry Pahl in The Late, Great USA wrote that a pillar of America’s strength “is undoubtedly her epochal constitutional government with its written commitment to nationally protect the sanctity of the individual conscience. This was a grand and unique advance in mankind’s search for political freedom. For the first time in world history no Pope was to regulate faith, no Caesar was to punish heresy, no monarch, royalty, king or state was to dictate morality. There was to be no religious test…required as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
(Article 6, Section 3 of the US Constitution.) The congress was forever prohibited from establishing any religion or ‘prohibiting’ the free exercise thereof’ (Amendment 1 of the US Constitution).”
Erosion of Freedom of Religion
When the New York Board of Regents attempted to compose a simple universal prayer, The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. (Engle v. Vitale, 1962).
The Prayer: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”
In ruling against this simple prayer that doesn’t identify any religion or denomination, The Supreme Court in my opinion stated that America:
- Did not acknowledge any dependence upon God;
- Did not ask for God’s blessings to be upon the citizens of America;
- Did not ask for God’s blessings to be upon our parents;
- Did not want God’s blessings upon the teachers in our classrooms; and, did not want God’s blessings upon this country.
Could this be one reason there are as many incidents of guns, knives, drugs, and discipline problems in our schools? Why do children carry guns to school and open fire on classmates and teachers seemingly without provocation? The liberals will say guns are the culprits. No! It is the hearts of young people who no longer are exposed to prayer and who are no longer taught the Ten Commandments and the Word of God, and who no longer possess the restraints from evil around the, because of the removal of prayer and the Bible from their lives.
David Limbaugh Addresses the Engel v. Vitale decision in his book Persecution: “That Engel is now the law of the land doesn’t alter the fact that many still believe that the Supreme Court wrongly decided it in the first place, based on its misreading of the Constitution and American history.”
Justice Potter Stewart wrote in his dissent against the decision, “For a compulsory state educational system so structures a child’s life that if religious exercises are held to be an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and
state-created disadvantage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercise for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion.”
The only way for government to be neutral is to allow religious exercise for those who desire it, and not require it for those that are against it.
Presidential candidate Alan Keyes said, “Where do we find the most persecuted Christians in the world? …in the classroom of our government schools, where the assault is not upon the body, but the soul.”
Today, the activist judges, certain courts, the antichristian militant groups all seem united to remove any symbol, expression or record that America was ever a Christian nation. Christianity is under attack in America. It is absolutely necessary that the people of Faith, the people of God, unite in prayer and at the ballot boxes to turn America back to God. Yes, there is something Christians can do. What we do as the Body of Christ will determine the direction of America.
Patrick Henry, one of the 55 signers of the Constitution, said, “…Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed… so long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger.”
God’s Divine Favor
For nearly 100 years the battles America has fought have been on foreign soil and our own country has been relatively free of invasion. God has not only liberated and protected America but has made her a liberator and protector to the weak and vulnerable nations of the world. As God has blessed America, she has in turn been a generous benefactor to the world.
Our military has been a big brother to the Global community. Our armies have patrolled a world in conflict. Our navy has sailed the high seas to keep the oceans free from tyranny. Our air force fills the skies to keep a vigilant watch over freedom loving people. However, our strength is not in our military alone, nor our navy, nor our air force, but in the One who watches over us and who, I believe, brought America to her place of destiny.
The blood of Americans soaks continents around the world. American cemeteries dot the landscape of many of these countries. America is a courageous people; a generous people, and primarily a people who believe in God.
The cancer that has eaten the heart out of other countries could not attach itself to the life blood of America because America has been a country divinely favored of God. This was my firm conviction. But the reasons for our divine favor have changed and now we find our nation at risk.
A Nation at Risk
Instead of America being a government by the people and for the people, the voice of the majority is silent. The voice is silent because there isn’t a forum except in Congress and the ballot box, where the voice of America can be heard. Yet the blood of the soldiers who have fallen in battle to GAIN our freedoms, and to DEFEND those freedoms, as well as the blood of our forefathers, who carved this great nation out of a wilderness, cry out from the ground.
We, the present generation, should applaud the former generations before us, who paid such a terrible price for us to be free. We should honor the heroic gifts of their lives to us and for us, and we should stand up and shout, “Our forefathers did not die in vain.”
If the generations before us paid such a terrible price for our freedom of speech and freedom of religion, shouldn’t we have the courage to stand up here in America and demand accountability from our elected officials and stand up to appointed judges and demand they honor the Constitution and be responsive to the citizens of this country which they represent?
The Price of Freedom
The price for freedom cannot ever be paid by one generation. Just as there was a price to gain those freedoms, there will always be a price to maintain them.
Each generation must have a corresponding commitment equal to the previous generation to keep those freedoms secure. When a nation loses those freedoms, it is usually because the generation that lost them either forgot or never learned what it cost to gain them in the first place.
Franco-Czech writer Milan Kundera once said, “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.”
Four hundred years ago, men and women were willing to face the dangers and hardships to settle a new world for the privilege of enjoying the freedoms America has enjoyed for so long. However, they never paid the debt in full because no generation can pay that price. A payment on the price of freedom has to be paid by every generation.
- George Washington and the Revolutionary army paid the price in 1776-82.
- The price was paid again in the war of 1812.
- Another generation paid the price in the Mexican-American war.
- The price was paid again to preserve the Union in the bloody Civil War.
- Another generation paid the price again in the Spanish-American war.
- Millions died in the field of Europe as another generation paid the price of freedom in WWI.
- The war of all wars, WWII, covered the entire globe and that generation paid the price to keep America free.
Now, the enemy isn’t on the outside knocking on our gates, but is destroying the foundation of America from within. It will take greater courage to fight this enemy than possibly any enemy America has ever faced.
Secular Humanism
Secular Humanism is now the god of America. The forefathers didn’t declare it. The Constitution didn’t mandate it. Congress has not made any laws respecting the establishment of secular humanism as the established religion, but in my opinion The Supreme Court has by judicial legislative decree has established secular humanism as the god of America.
Unfortunately, the sacrifices they offer on their god’s altars are the decisions they make destroying the religious freedoms of this nation. Justice Potter Stewart said “…a refusal to permit religious exercise thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.”
Thomas Jefferson warned about the unchecked authority of The Supreme Court.
“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional
questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy…. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal.”
Justice Antonin Scalia said, “Day by day, case by case (the Court) is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.”
This usurpation of power by the Supreme Court has been referred to as “judicial legislation.”
Dr. Thomas Absheir states, “To vest sole authority to judge Constitutionality in the Judiciary puts us at risk of falling prey to the whims and enforced ideology of the 9 Black Robed Oligarchs.”
Where are the elected members of Congress who is the only branch of government authorized to make laws? While Congress fiddles and the Executive branch spends too much time in their bunkers, the American people are being robbed of their freedoms.
Currently, the Congress and Executive branches of elected representatives of the people, have acquiesced to the Supreme Court and have stood by and watched from the stands as the Supreme Court continues to destroy the underpinnings of this nation.
Apathy
The divine favor of God has turned into divine judgment. The judgment falls upon us because of our silence, because of our apathy, because of our comfort zone and because we are more interested in “business as usual.”
Twenty million more people voted in the 2007 American Idol contest than voted in the preceding presidential election. We have abdicated our privileges and responsibilities as citizens of a free country. We stand condemned because we will sell the posterity of our children and the next generation for our bowl of pottage today.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” He added, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
I love the beautiful words by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes –
The rest sit round it and pluck Blackberries.”
Those blinded to the dangers to America, instead of seeing the bush on fire, are busy plucking blackberries without even being aware of the call to arms by our Lord.
Attack Upon the Name of Jesus
In Awake America there is case after case where the activist judges rule that the name of Jesus cannot be used in school functions and in opening prayers of state and national legislatures. The activist judges are trying to bury Jesus. Somebody needs to inform them, they did that 2,000 years ago, but on the third day, He rose again. Neither Herod, nor Pilate, nor the Roman army, nor those who lied against Him, nor the devil, nor demons could keep Him in the grave.
My message to His enemies is that The Supreme Court of the United States can’t bury Him. The ACLU can’t bury Him. The liberal politicians can’t bury Him. The atheists can’t bury Him.
Rev. 1:18 “I am He that lives, and was dead; and behold I am alive forever more. Amen: and have the keys of hell and of death.” He will never appear in man’s courtroom again. The next time He appears in a courtroom will be when He is the Judge.
The battle facing the Church is a spiritual battle. The answer is a revival and renewal within the Body of Christ. Now, society is influencing the Church when the Church is the “salt of the earth” and should be influencing the world.
We must have renewal in the Body and revival outside the Body and in society. We must have revival for the survival of this nation. We must have revival for future generations or we will reap the harvest of generations growing up without the benefits of the Bible and prayer.
It is time for the entire Body of Christ to unite together in prayer and cooperation to impact America. It is time for the Body of Christ to fan the flickering flames of revival until they burst into a raging forest fire that sweeps across America and burns out the dross and apathy, and where the American people will once again return to their destiny as a nation.
America needs a revival that is so powerful that the fire will burn down the walls that separate and divide the people of God; where they will join hands in this war against satan and secular humanism; A revival so powerful that once again America will be known as a Christian nation, and prayer and the Bible will be returned to our schools and government buildings; a revival so sweeping, until America from Washington, DC to the pacific and Atlantic oceans; to the Canadian border, and to the Gulf of Mexico, will again learn to trust in our “Superintending Providence” and that God will “shed His grace of thee.”
The Plan
God revealed a plan to me to implement the vision I shared at the beginning of this book. Central to the plan is the Unity of the Body.
In surfing the internet I discovered there are many groups involved in some area of the plan God gave to me. The problem is while each group is doing an outstanding job, there will never be the results that can be achieved until we learn how to work together; to network and coordinate our efforts. The Body will never be truly successful as long as each member of the Body acts independent of the rest of the Body.
Varnel Watson
Its a comin and there is no way around it
Robert Erwine
Brought on itself and deservingly so.
Varnel Watson
electing Trump or else?
Robert Erwine
go back back further . kind of like when Reagan armed the Taliban and then they use those same weapons against us later
Varnel Watson
but they say he fixed the church today
Robert Erwine
* chocked on morning coffee
Varnel Watson
are you saying the church is not winning?
Robert Erwine
losing ground everyday .
Varnel Watson
so you subscribe to pessimistic eschatology 🙂 I’ve been meaning to ask if the new justice appointment will overturn the gay marriage law but then I dont know should I
Robert Erwine
they might even expand it
Varnel Watson
you think? – what was the point of the hall protest, contest and re-test prior to the nomination then?
Robert Erwine
smoke and mirrors
Varnel Watson
oh well what do you do
Robert Erwine
Troy Day pray for God to bring justice
Varnel Watson
that HE will
Louise Cummings
I believe that’s true. I don’t know when. But I also believe the will be an awakening on. But I’m going to live like it isn’t. Because I want to be sure lm prepared , either way.
Varnel Watson
Amen And Right On
Louise Cummings
But i want to pray for Mercy. The way the world is living. If we as a whole doesn’t change the way we are living. If the Rapture hasn’t come at time. Things will be bad if America doesn’t repent. In thinking the Rapture would take place. I didn’t think I would ever think I would America living I guess the way it is. Most nations , as far as I know are th