This sermon emphasizes the importance of returning to God and the foundational principles of biblical values that shaped the nation. It discusses the significance of prayer, the dangers of drifting away from God, and the need for individuals to stand up for righteousness in the face of moral decline and societal challenges.

Deuteronomy 28.1, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord and observe all that He has commanded you, He will set you high above all the nations of the earth. Psalm 33.12, blessed is the nation whose God is Lord. Now, two things you can do with that. You can say, Shane, contextually that's dealing with Israel, not America. Nice try. And that's true. That's the context of the scripture, but I believe the principle still applies. I mean, you can't just, well, let's throw these scriptures in the trash. Because you have to go back to 1620, 1630, the pilgrims, the Puritans coming over, signing the Mayflower Compact, saying that we rely on God, we trust in God, they're fleeing religious persecution in Holland, coming to our nation, and starting to plant these seeds of religious freedom. That's why they came, is to worship God freely. That was the foundation on which it was built. And let me just throw this in here. A lot of people ask, you know, is America a Christian nation? Well, a Christian is a person who has surrendered their life to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they're a Christ follower, they're a Christian. So technically, a nation can't be a Christian nation, but it can have its foundation built on biblical principles. All you have to do is go back to the early writings of those who founded the nation. You have to go back to all these different things and look at the foundation that was built. And to me, seeing a nation adrift is not much different than seeing a person drift. You ever see a person drift away from God, and we see a nation, a group of people, drift from God, and with the person we're concerned, but with the nation we shouldn't be? It doesn't make a lot of sense in that regard. So let's remember a few different areas. I'm going to quote Henry Wilson. Henry Wilson was the 18th U.S. Vice President of the United States. Remember ever and always that your country was founded by the stern old Puritans, whose first act on touching the soil of the new world was to offer on bended knees thanksgiving to Almighty God. Alexander Hamilton, signer of the Constitution, the law, the law, the Bible, dictated by God Himself, of course, is superior in obligation to any other law. It is binding over all the globe and in all countries, and at all times, no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. Can somebody send this to the president and the Supreme Court? Just send his quote. Just if any law is contrary to the word of God, the word of God supersedes that law, not the other way around. So when God says that marriage is between a man and a woman, that's the law. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? Benjamin Franklin. I mean, many of these men, to clarify, weren't Christians. A lot of them were deist. Not all of them were Christians. I understand that, but they at least had a fear of God. I mean, even Thomas Jefferson, who pulled out certain portions of the Bible, has his own kind of Bible. I don't think he ever knew the Lord. He said, I tremble for my country when I see that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever. So these men had a fear of God and women. Well, don't take my word for it. Let's read the U.S. Supreme Court in 1892. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation that this is a Christian nation. Supreme Court said it. 1790, Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, said this about the public schools. The religion I mean to recommend in this place is that of the New Testament. John Jay, the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, said, unto him who is the author and giver of all good, I render sincere and humble thanks for his manifold and unmerited blessings and especially for our redemption and salvation by his beloved Son. So you don't think we've drifted off course? How about Harvard? Harvard University, is that conservative today? Is that focused on God? Princeton, Yale, are they focused on God? Why? They were founded as seminaries. They were founded to teach the Word of God. Let's just look at the rules of Harvard from 1642. Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore lay Christ at the bottom as the only foundation of all knowledge and learning. That's your rules, Harvard. That's what you're built upon. So you can't come out and say, no, no, that's true. Stop watching, stop watching all these things about the Illuminati and masons and all these things. The truth is men and women built the nation on the Word of God. Newsweek magazine, 1982, said how the Bible made America. Historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document. Now why can they say that? Because the founding fathers building the nation would reference the Bible four times more than any other source. They would reference it. They're making law, making jurisdiction, all these things they would reference it. The Delaware Constitution initially required that everyone appointed to public office must say, I do profess faith in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ and His only Son. Can you imagine that? If you want to run for office, you had to say, I believe in God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and His Son to even run for office. Now if you say that, it's the opposite. Oh, you can't run for office. You're too conservative. You've got to find the middle ground there. You're too out there. I mean, in my opinion, we lost the ability to have a true Christian president many years ago. It's not going to happen because now they're looked at as lunatics and weird and out there, even though everything before that was built on that. God forbid you say, I'm going to seek the heart of God before I make legislation and pray. Oh, can you believe what this guy said? Unbelievable. That's what the media, they would have a field day. What about Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut? They all said the same thing. You have to trust in God. But on this issue, we can't throw out the baby with the bathwater because initially, things like slavery does come up, and it's a terrible mark on a nation's history. But I like what the president of Congress, Henry Lawrence, said. He said, I abhorred slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British kings and parliaments as well as by the laws of a country ages before my existence. Benjamin Franklin, in a letter in 1773, said whenever the Americans had attempted to end slavery, the British government had indeed thwarted those attempts. And I've got pages and pages and pages of quotes because see, here's what people say. See, America's bad. They weren't Christians. They all had slaves. No, no, no. Do you know who worked against to free slaves and worked for 30 years? A man by the name of William Wilberforce, happened to be a friend of John Newton, who just happened to write that song. We just sang Amazing Grace. My chains are gone. These are the men and women who came before us, who set the course, who planted the seeds. They planted the seeds of the fruit that we're now consuming. So Christians made a difference. Christians went out and ministered to the Native Americans. They didn't just take their land. That was a wicked and evil government. Christians went and ministered to these Indians. You ever heard the word David Brainerd or the man David Brainerd? Read his journals. You'll be, if you're anything like me, I was so convicted. How do people live like this? Fasting for a week and prayer and supplication. My body's dying, but my spirit's strong. I'm like, wow. He prayed so much that even the great Jonathan Edwards was convicted about his own prayer life. And these people went and they prayed. They went to these people. So what we do is we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Now look what we did to the American Indians. Look at what we did to slavery. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. That is not true for the majority of true followers of Christ. That would be like saying, look at America killing all those babies, throwing us into that same group. How would you like that? Now that we've accepted all the gay marriage and all these different things, I want to be careful because I minister to those who struggle with this lifestyle. We love those who struggle with this lifestyle. And I tell them, you struggle with that. I struggle with this. They struggle with it. We're all in the same boat, but you better jump into the Savior boat. We're all sinners. We're all, now we're called saints, thank God. Better clarify because I'll get somebody else mad at that. But we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We're not isolating one sin over the next. We're saying, we're showing how far we've drifted. And now it's out in the news. Muslims think that the US, the United States of America has gone completely insane over the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender issues that we are now accepting. And I want to say, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. See, that doesn't include me and millions of other people. You see how we do that? That's the same thing that has happened to our nation. We try to make it out to be something it's not. This evil empire that needs to be dethroned and defunded. And where we really got off course was a long time ago that the whole point of the nation, the whole point of a government, the point of it is, we're not doing it now, is to protect those who obey the law from those who protect it. They're supposed to administer justice. They're supposed to handle those things. And the states were sovereign. And the church would be left up to being the conscience of the people. The government was never supposed to step in and influence the church. Well, separation of church and state, Shane, well, that's a bunch of baloney. Separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. It's not anywhere that you'll find it other than in a private letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist in Connecticut. They were worried that Episcopalian, Anglican, or some other group would come in and have a national denomination. So he said, don't worry, there'll be a wall of separation of church and state so that cannot happen. The churches will be able to worship freely. How do we know? For 150 years, the church worshiped freely without any government intervention. And then now they use this famous clause, no, now church be quiet. Separation of church and state. No, actually, it was the church. I could bring in a pile this high of pastors who used to preach on candidates, who used to preach on issues and tell the people, here's what the Word of God says. Compare it to this person. Compare it to this law and go out and make your voice be heard. That's biblical. Where in the world do we get this mindset that we're just to lay down, be the, let all this stuff just permeate the culture and not say anything? Now, am I saying that politics is the answer? No. The number one problem in America is a spiritual problem called sin. But when we are ordaining things that God calls an abomination, when we are discarding life, when we are doing all these things, we're supposed to speak up. We're supposed to speak up and say, church, remember, remember, go back to that nation, wake up and remember, remember. I mean, I don't know what it would cost, but I would pay whatever I could to let Joel Osteen air this type of sermon instead. Wake up, nation. Wake up, church. You need to return back to God. And I often read the prophets, and my heart beats with them. Jeremiah. God actually told Jeremiah in chapter 2, he said, Jeremiah, go out and cry to my people. Cry to my people. Tell them when you were a little infant, I nursed you, I held you, I gathered you, you're safe in my arms. I remember the faithfulness of your youth. I remember our engagement, how much you loved me. You sought after me in the wilderness as a child, looking for his father. Holiness. Israel was holiness unto the Lord. Enemies would come against you, and I would slaughter them. And then God says, but I have this question. Why have your forefathers forsaken me? Why are they following things that do not profit? Two evils I have against this people. They have forsaken the God, the fountain of living water, and they have hewn out for themselves cisterns that hold no water. Modern application means they're finding, trying to find fulfillment in everything but me. And it gets so silly that the people say, to the trees you are my mother, and to the stones you gave birth to me. How could they? You know, we don't say that to trees. We park our things in the garage. Our idols aren't on the shelf. It's a 55-inch entertainment center in your house. We have idolatry, folks, just the same that they did back then. And God's remedy is always the same. Cry out and return. Return. Jeremiah, go to my people and tell them. I loved you. I brought you out of Egypt. I walked you through a barren desert where people died. A million people, a couple million people walked you through this desert. I held your hand. I was with you. So why, when you walk into the promised land, did your fathers forsake me and turn to these abominations? Why, Jeremiah, tell the people. In other words, he's saying, I don't want my wrath to fall. I want to relent. Jeremiah, I want to relent. Would you please tell the people to turn back to me so my anger will be subsided? Please, Jeremiah, cry out to them. That's the heart of God. So next time you think God is just a mean, angry God, He's not. He's knocking. He's warning. He's convicting. He's drawing. But at some point, when a nation or a group of people continues to turn from God, the hammer of God will fall and there will be judgment. And I think what happens is, you've heard the saying, don't confuse me with the facts. Right? All these facts. You can grab the book on your way out. I listed 20 other facts showing how far we've drifted, showing that the nation's in trouble. And the heart of God is to tell the people you're in trouble. I mean, you go to a doctor and they find out you have cancer, you're going to say, I'm not going to tell him anything that's going to upset him. Or does he tell them the truth? Don't confuse me with the facts. Now they're saying, don't upset me with the facts. Isn't that what's happening? If we give all these facts, here's what God's working. Don't upset me with the facts. I don't want them. And the scary thing also is something I read probably 10 years ago now. It's stuck with me ever since. It was in a study of history by Arnold Toynbee. I don't know if you've heard of him. He wrote a study of history. Now granted, this is 1961. Okay. He said of the 22 civilizations in all of history, there's only been 22 civilizations since the world, since we can record and go back. Of the 22 civilizations in history, 19 of them have collapsed when they reached the moral condition that America is in today. I mean, if you go back and you read Rome, the great empire, right before its fall, you know what was happening? High taxation and the need for pleasure and entertainment were at the top of the list. And to devalue the military strength. And we're seeing the same things. You think I want to come up here and talk about this? No. But God's word, I believe, compels us to share the heart of God. Because it's almost like watching a prodigal son destroy his life. And I wasn't joking about that they will put baby parts in trash cans. That's what happens. And we have legislators that want to pass laws where you can go in and begin to remove the limbs of the child until the child is gone from the womb. If that doesn't sicken you and cause you to want to pray and fast, I don't know what will. Because that's beyond comprehensible. In my opinion, that's beyond comprehensible. And we continue to do this daily. I don't even know the number. Something like 4,000 abortions a day? How many just happened during my message? And I know it's going to upset people. They'll email me and I don't care anymore because that child didn't deserve it. What's that child going to tell me? If that little baby could talk? It's actually silent screams. If that's what they would say, stop. So why doesn't somebody do something? And I don't know about you, but I'm ready to do something. What we need to do is Micah 6.8. He has told you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to live justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God. And I'm going to repeat this because we need to do it at the end of the sermon message. We need to go into a time of prayer like never before. Prayer moves the hand of God. One nation under God, the history of prayer in America said this, prayer stands as one of the most critical and indisputable factors to have influenced the course of American history. Prayer. That's what dictates. That's what controls. If we would see change. Charles Spurgeon, have you ever heard of him? He said, I would rather teach one man to pray than 10 men to preach. And that's probably coming from one of the best preachers our generation over the last couple hundred years has ever known. He was out of London. I would rather teach one man to pray than 10 men to preach. Why is that? Because I know 10 good preachers, but they're not prayer. They don't pray. Oh, let's say a quick one, Lord, help me with my sermon preparation. But I'm talking about a man that would sit before God and pray and pour out his heart. Because a truly inspired, anointed sermon from the heart of God only comes from a prayer closet. Yes, you can decipher the Greek and look up the Hebrew and grab your Strong's Concordance and look at your pneumatology and your eschatology and your homiletics and your hermeneutics and wonderful. But the bottom of all this, you better be a man on your face before God. And of course, a woman at home and a church. We need more of them. All of us, we need praying men and women. So let me close with this. Why didn't somebody do something? I don't know, maybe it's me, but those five words still haunt my thoughts today. I actually heard them in 2008. I was listening to Mike Huckabee speak in Los Angeles. I was invited to this thing in Los Angeles. And he talked about taking his 12-year-old daughter to a Holocaust museum. And he took her through this museum, and she was visibly upset. She was looking, I mean, can you imagine seeing that for the first time? Bodies piled up, I mean, a pile of shoes, eight feet high. And seeing these pictures and tears coming down her face, and he's thinking, maybe she was too young for this. But they got in the car and all the way home, two hours, she didn't say a word. And he's thinking, oh, I blew it this time. She's upset. I hurt her deeply. And they got home, and she looked at him, and she said, Daddy, why didn't somebody do something? And my concern is, are we going to hear those same words from our children and grandchildren? We could. I don't know about you, but I don't want to go down saying that. I was too busy watching ESPN, and the Dodgers, and Angels, and too busy planning this, and going here, and all these things. Now, can you watch the Dodgers? Of course, please. But you know what I'm talking about, the heart is not there. So why didn't, can you imagine our kids coming, I don't know, grandkids or whatever, you can make it work, coming to you in 20 years saying, how did this happen? In Canada, they're getting ready to pass legislation that'll put a pastor in jail for two years for speaking out on the transgender issue. Folks, wake up. We have to wake up. I'm not talking about carrying American flag down Leona Avenue. I'm talking about prayer. Prayer moves the hand of God. This should inspire us to pray. I'm hoping this inspires you to change your whole life. If it were me, I would put the television out in the garage for a month, and I would seek God at night. Oh, the kids aren't going to like that. That's right. It's about time we start showing the kids what's right instead of what they like. They need to see the heart of God through the parents. Judges 2.10, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord. So let it not be said of us today, there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord because the church was apathetic, lazy, and dead to the things of God. We need to remember, and we need to return.