When God is exceeding displeased
with a people, it is not necessary in order
to their punishment that he should bury them alive by an earthquake,
nor destroy them by lightning. If only he leaves them to themselves,
withdraws his blessings from their counsels, and his restraint
from their passion, their ruin follows on course according to
the necessary order and connection of causes and effects. If God gives up a people to the
way of their own hearts, they will, they must perish. Now you probably think I got
that from some religious newspaper yesterday. That was written 200
years ago by John Newton. The worst thing in the world
that could happen is for God to not be active in his church.
For us not to be hearing from God. A religiousness without God. As a young man, I began to ask,
I began to have invitations to speak at primarily Republican
events. They'd want me to do the prayer.
I want to read just a couple. This is 2014 at the Oakland County
Republican Convention. Dear God, tonight As at former
conventions, we plead for you to intervene in the affairs of
our meeting. Amen. Intervene. Many of us wish to invoke your
presence and power into the process of electing our leaders. Boy,
this week I've been praying about that. We invite, we plead, and
ask that you revisit this land. No longer be a stranger, but
a resident God. We know that a sparrow does not
fall to the ground without your notice and that a nation cannot
rise without your aid. And so we ask that you keep us
from ruin. We have learned our lesson and
will no longer disengage ourselves from the culture in which we
live. Don't disengage yourself from electing people to go to
Washington or to be your mayor or school superintendent. Find
out if they know God, if they know Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior. We will not leave the soul of
America to the federal government. Thank you. I got one. We know
that America's vitality is her people and that a country where
the people rule must be a godly country. The spiritual weapons
of our nation are our most powerful resource in peace and war. Emancipate
us from the blindness of bigotry and from the cruelties of intolerance. With your spirit upon us, we
can again learn to be servants of others, volunteers, and contributors. Every prayer, I noticed one thing. Every prayer had this plea. God, please come back. God, please visit us. The course
of my life has been that of praying that God will visit America and
that God will save America. And quite frankly, what I believe
we need is a church somewhere that's alive with His presence
and that you're mighty happy about it. It's not cold dead
religion, but you're actually rejoicing and happy about God.