For several months I have been urgently impressed by the Spirit of God to take up my pen and write one of the most seriously-in-earnest articles I have ever written. So intense has been the Spirit's dealing that I have felt compelled to interrupt. our current series of Studies for one month, to share this important message. Our beloved country — the United States of America — now faces TOTAL DISASTER. It is already happening! The climax will come soon. Not this year. Not next year. Probably not by 1982, as some suppose — but much sooner than many think! We ourselves have already CAUSED IT! I can declare to you by the Word of the Lord that this nation is now heading rapidly into the most terrifying havoc the mind of man can contemplate. I will give it to you plain and simple — and I will give you the CAUSES and the AUTHORITY by which I speak. It is not in my constitution to be a bearer of evil tidings; it is not of my own will that I sound this warning! Take time to read it all. It's a matter of life and death for us all.

First I would stir up your pure minds to reflect upon the greatness of the heritage of our people and our land. It will now be to our edification to examine how we became a people and &nation. Standing on the western shores of Europe 500 years ago, you could not see nor visualize a great continent that lays to the west; only what seemed to be an endless stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet there was a great continent out there to the west. Now may I ask you, "Did Jesus Christ know of this North American Continent?" Your only answer could be, "Yes, of course He did." Let me ask another question, "Did Jesus Christ know that a great nation would be established here?" "Of course He did!" Still another please — "Did Jesus know this great nation (yet to be born) would be Christian from its beginning?" Of course He knew that, for He Himself is the author of that true walk with God which we call "Christian."

From the inception of this nation, the peoples who colonized America had a burning conviction that they had a special mission to fulfill in life. The early American colonists sincerely believed they had a "divinely appointed destiny!' and thought of themselves as "being chosen for a special mission in the world." In 1630, John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote: "We shall find that the God of Israel is among us... The eyes of all people are upon us." When the Pilgrims waded ashore at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620, according to their first governor, William Bradford, "they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them from all the perils and miseries." I would like to have heard the prayers and expressions of thanksgiving offered by those inspired mariners as they landed on this shore: they who founded a nation which inscribes on the coin of the realm, "In God we trust."

Let your mind picture, if it will, a little shallop tossing on the Atlantic Ocean near the tip of Cape Cod. There, encompassed by the waters, before a single foot was pressed on Plymouth Rock, our fathers called a solemn convocation in the stuffy cabin of the Mayflower and drew up what is known as the Mayflower Compact:

"In the Name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten,
having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of
the Christian faith, a voyage to plant the first colony... do by
these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God,
combine ourselves into a civil body politic."

Pray tell me, what other nation was ever founded "for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith"? This much is certain: recorded history of that day contains such statements as, "Nonconformists (to the established religious systems of the day) who were determined to' seek new habitations and to found another Canaan on the western side of the Atlantic." We also read of such men as Mr. Winthrop, who gave as his foremost motive for founding a settlement in America as, "the carrying of the Gospel into America and erecting a ‘bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist" (See Channing's History of the United States, Vol. 1, chap. 12).

That was the beginning of our politics — "In the Name of God, Amen." With increasing accessions from the godly people of the old lands, the number of colonies grew from one to four and federation became desirable. A man of God drew up the Articles of Federation:

"Whereas,' we all came into these parts of America with one
and the same end; namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord
Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity,
we therefore conceive it our bounden duty... that, as in
nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue one."

That declaration made us a people. It was the forerunner of our government. It is interesting and important to note that when our Christian Pilgrim Fathers departed from Europe, when the force of persecution could no longer be evaded, they were not like frightened, scattered sheep, but a strong federation of Christian families gathered in a CHURCH. We must never forget that the real beginning of America was a little believing Church. America was, in fact, A CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS A NATION! We should marvel at the guiding and defending hand of Almighty God that, in spite of kings and prelates, in spite of all the power of the ruling babylonian church system, caused that little Church to be gathered. Let us always remember that the planting of the United States of America, the hereditary strain that determined our country’s character, was a SPIRITUAL PLANTING. The fathers who planted this nation were spiritual men — Christians. They came on a specifically Christian venture. Get it fixed in your mind, beyond the power of any false history to erase, that the planting that determined the genius of this nation was a CHURCH — not a town, not a colony, not a trading or exploring venture, not a gold rush, but a CHURCH. Indeed, a little Pilgrim Church crossed the sea for the sake of its spiritual life — that is the true origin of our United States.

Sometimes we become aware of an agitation to "put God in the Constitution" and it is implied that we have been a godless nation because Deity is not mentioned in our Constitution. However, the Constitution is not our greatest national document. The Mayflower Compact made us a civil body politic. The Articles of Federation made us a people. The Declaration of Independence made us a nation. All of them are based on the people's commitment to God. Not one of them ever has been or ever can be amended.

I dare say that not one in 100,000 of our people know that Hebrew almost became the official language of the United States. When the Pilgrims landed here in 1620, aboard the Mayflower, they drew up a set of laws by which to govern themselves in the new colony. Many of these laws were based on the teachings of the Hebrew Bible, which they knew so well. They also discussed adopting Hebrew as the official language because some wanted to make a complete break with England and its language.... There were no Hebrew scholars aboard the Mayflower, however, so they abandoned the plan. Had they adopted Hebrew we all would be speaking this language in America today. The conditions under which the Pilgrims lived for the first seven years were similar to those of a kibbutz in modern Israel. All work was shared alike for the gains of the new colony. The Pilgrims studied the Bible in the evenings. The first harvest was celebrated by the Pilgrims after the model of Succoth, and it became America's first Thanksgiving Day. Children were given biblical or Hebrew names. Our forebears compared themselves with the ancient Hebrews who escaped Egypt and the Pharaoh to seek freedom to serve and worship God.

An unusual event occurred in Sarasota, Florida, on January 27, 1961. At that time I was associate pastor of the Revival Tabernacle in Sarasota, ministering with pastor Gerald Derstine. I will now share the story of what happened there at that time in Bro. Derstine's words as published in the April, 1961 issue of HARVEST TIME magazine:

"We had been conducting a revival for two weeks with John H. Osteen as the Evangelist. With only three nights remaining of the revival, he felt led of the Lord to return home. I wondered who God would provide for the remaining three nights, but He sent three men from Miami, Florida. They said the Lord had told them to come to see me at Sarasota. That night they retired not knowing that an unusual event would happen. At five o’clock I heard a knocking on my door, with someone crying out, ‘Brother Derstine! Brother Derstine!' When I opened the door, one of the men, trembling all over, pleaded: ‘Oh, Brother Derstine, please lay your hands on me and pray for me! God gave me a vision of the wrath of God, the judgment God is going to send upon the world and our land. Oh, my God, my God, I wish I had not seen this. Before I could pray for him, he cried out: ‘I feel I must go up and down the streets and tell the people!' I asked God to comfort him and give him peace.

"Upon returning to the room where he and the two other men had been sleeping, the Lord came into a portion of the room and the power and the brightness was so intense that the men shielded their eyes with their arms and cried out for the Lord not to come any closer, for they could not stand His presence! The fear of God was upon them. Then the Lord spoke through Brother Robert Lambert, as his voice and his whole being took on a different form, giving forth this message:

"The next evening, we had a service for the public and a minister from Orlando, Florida, was led of the Spirit to come to this particular meeting to have fellowship with us. He did not know about the visitation we had, until he heard the speaker relating the testimony of the great vision. With great fear, this visiting minister of Orlando told us of his terrible dream (vision) he had the same night concerning the great wrath of God coming upon our land. He told us he saw such terrible things that he wished he would have never seen this dream. This was identical to the vision Bro. Lambert had on the same night. Three days later, we received a letter from missionaries in Haiti telling us of a great unusual visitation of God which they experienced on the night of January 27. The missionary, in writing this letter, stated what his wife experienced in her vision that particular night: ‘The Lord showed her terrible persecutions that are coming on the earth and how that men will be killed and maimed. She saw a large city whose buildings were falling upon people and huge fires were to be seen everywhere. Some knelt before idols for help and the idols fell on them. The saints were hidden during this time, but THE SPIRIT-LED SAINTS WERE WALKING AROUND VIEWING ALL THIS TERRIBLE CONFUSION, DEATH, AND WEEPING. The people that were tormented asked why the Spirit- led saints were not affected by all this trouble, and they said it was because they were led by the Lord, and He had overcome the world, arid that THEY TOO had overcome the world through Him.’

"Several days later, I attended the Regional Convention of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International at the Continental Hotel, Washington, D.C. I was called upon to speak and in my message I was proclaiming that which God showed and revealed to us here in Sarasota. Amongst the many men from all over our United States and Canada was a man from Kitchner, Ontario, Canada, who stood to his feet and trembling, began to tell the congregation in this meeting that he also had an identical vision from the Lord of the great wrath of God coming on the North American Continent. He said it was such a terrible sight, he wished he had not experienced this. The significant fact was that his vision also came on the same night as the other three afore mentioned." (End Quote).

I remember those tremendous days as though they were but yesterday. The awesomeness of the presence and power of God still grips my soul and heart and causes me to truly know that God has spoken concerning our nation. The Scripture tells us that in the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established (Mat. 18:16). Again, consider with reverent heart the statement found in Amos 3:7, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets." Not only was there the manifestation of the presence and glory of God with visions and dreams, but throughout those three dreadful days prophetic utterance flowed like effusive rivers as the Spirit exhorted us to rend our hearts and not our garments and turn unto the Lord with all our hearts, to lay hold upon the blessed prize of Sonship to God. The Holy Spirit said that He would in these days purify unto Himself a people, that He would in these days establish Zion, even A PEOPLE to show forth His glory in the midst of darkness and chaos, a people to bring the reality of the Kingdom of God to pass in all the earth; but that in this process Judgment WOULD FALL UPON THE WORLD AND UPON AMERICA — and the time is NOW!

Over and over again we received the message: The Day of the Lord is — NOW! The judgment of America is — NOW! I shall pour out My wrath upon this people and upon this land — NOW! So terrible were these words that I literally walked about for days gazing into the sky, fully expecting to see Russian missiles attacking at any minute! But, of course, the years dragged on and to the undiscerning eye nothing cataclysmic transpired. Apparently all things continued on as they had. But did they?

Years later as I meditated upon the visitation I asked, "Lord, did we misunderstand you? Where is the judgment you promised?" Then suddenly, like a bolt of lightning flashing from within some tortuous cloud, the revelation burst full upon my astonished spirit as a vast panorama of events spread clear as crystal before my wondering eyes. I saw! I understood! The judgment has come exactly as prophesied! The judgment is here! NOW! And like a gigantic tidal wave rushing through the sea it surges on to a swift and certain conclusion!

In my opinion there is no greater certainty than that the judgments of God upon our beloved country began just when God declared they did in 1961! It should be clear to any man or woman with one eye to see and half sense, that during the past two decades America’s power, pride, prestige, and purpose HAVE BEEN BROKEN. In 1945, the United States emerged from the war as the strongest military and economic power in the world. She had more than half the gross national product of the non-Communist world, and the monopoly of atomic weapons. How times have changed! Yet it was only a little over three decades ago when the above situation prevailed. This condition continued for about fifteen years. Since 1961, however, things have changed drastically, and the United States has not been successful in any effort in which she has engaged. In 1961, shortly after the visitation of God in Sarasota, Florida, the Bay of Pigs attempt to rid Cuba of Communist rule took place. The Bay of Pigs invasion was one of the most bungled operations in American history. The invasion was a total failure and more than 1,000 of the Cuban exiles were captured. President John F. Kennedy admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the U.S. had planned and helped the attack, and with government encouragement American firms gave Castro more than $50 million worth of drugs and food to ransom the prisoners. The President of the once invincible United States had come face to face with the Words of the Almighty and his invasion was doomed to failure; for God had decreed Judgment UPON AMERICA!

The following year, 1962, U.S. reconnaissance planes discovered that Russian nuclear missiles were being installed in Cuba by Russian experts. President Kennedy placed a naval blockade on all shipping to Cuba and threatened invasion unless the nuclear missiles were withdrawn. But President Kennedy then effectually sold out the United States and the hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees who had fled to our shores, by agreeing that if Soviet Premier Khrushchev took the nuclear missiles back to Russia WE WOULD NEVER ALLOW OUR SOIL TO BE USED AS A BASE FOR ANTI-CASTRO CUBANS TO ORGANIZE FORCES TO OVERTHROW CASTRO! To our shame and sorrow we have lived up to that infamous agreement perfectly! And now, Fidel Castro is exporting his communist revolution not only throughout Latin America but around the world. Yet America still had pride in its power — until Vietnam.

The next year, 1963, the nation was shocked by the assassination of President Kennedy. In subsequent years the nation was further shaken by the assassinations of the President’s brother, Robert, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King. During this time the nation became beset by domestic disorders, minority group rebellions, and riots, entire sections of our great cities being looted, demolished, and burned, while mobs fought with police and blood flowed in the streets. The hippie movement swept like a plague across the land. Millions of our children became drug addicts, unemployed dropouts, migrants, drifters, angry with the world, hostile to parents and all authority, and out-of-joint with society. It was during this same period the U.S. became embroiled in the war in Vietnam with the side-effect of the Communist inspired anti-war movement whose militant student dissent, protests, and tumult sowed turmoil, fear, confusion, and disorder throughout the land.

After the decade long agony in Vietnam during which President Lyndon Johnson continually emphasized that "it is our will which is being tested," it was America's will which was found wanting. An expenditure of $300 billion and 55,000 young American lives all proved to be in vain. Vietnam was lost. Once again a President of the United States had been defeated by the Words of the great God... "I HAVE COME TO MY BURSTING POINT AND WILL SPUE OUT MY WRATH UPON THE LAND." The Vietnam experience has hung like a stifling cloud over American foreign policy ever since. Every foreign policy problem, it seems, is viewed as a potential Vietnam; whether it is or not. The United States, along with major Western allies, was on the verge of a major victory against Soviet and Cuban backed forces in the Angoian civil war in 1975 until the U.S. Congress — fearful of "another Vietnam" — got cold feet and backed off. The Communist supported side won by default. Ever since the Angolan fiasco, U.S. policy in Africa has been a colossal failure. Even more tragic, we were the co-architects of a plan to bring a Marxist regime to power in Rhodesia, which plan has now been successful!

And now in Asia new policies are being set in motion — the recognition of Communist China at the expense of Taiwan, for example — which can only guarantee a tragic end to whatever influence we had left in the Far East.

Now, add to all this the national trauma and disgrace of Watergate!

Nowhere is the plummeting world role of the United States more in evidence than in the Panama Canal issue. The new treaties relinquishing U.S. sovereign rights to the waterway were sold on one condition and one condition only: If America doesn’t give the Canal away — and kick in a few extra billion in outright extortion (masquerading as "foreign aid") — Panama will riot! And America is apparently no longer willing to defend its own territorial rights — against a country, to boot, which has no standing army, and whose 7,000 man National Guard is at any given moment outnumbered by 9,300 superbly trained U.S. troops permanently stationed in the Canal Zone (to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of reinforcements available). The sheer absurdity of Panama’s defiant threats of violence staggers the imagination. Not since Swift's Lilliput has so little challenged so much! When will we stop lying to ourselves? Behind the new treaties lies weakness posturing as maturity, and appeasement masking as moral superiority. Ah, yes, AMERICA IS UNDER Judgment!

On top of all these multiplied troubles we now see the continual shrinking of the dollar on the world money markets, the energy crisis, spiraling inflation, soaring interest rates, crippling recession, weak and inept leadership, and the unceasing encroachment of godless Communism on all fronts.

Now throw in the humiliating aborted effort to rescue our hostages in Iran! Now another President has come face to face with the Words of God! America IS under judgment!

Coupled with the tragic collapse of U.S. willpower is the awesome reality of the Soviet military buildup. While the number of strategic nuclear missiles in the Soviet arsenal increases, while Soviet warships now appear for the first time in distant waters which no Russian navy ever thought necessary or desirable to patrol, while Soviet conventional forces are strengthened and multiplied on the Western front, while Soviet conquests are made in Africa through Cuban surrogates with the evident intention of enabling the Russians to control the sea lanes vital to the commerce of the entire West, while the Soviet armies invade Afghanistan, while the Russians control government after government in the Persian Gulf area from whence flows the oil which is the lifeline of all Western economies, while all this and much, much more goes on, those who attempt to warn the American public of the growing might of its main adversary are rewarded for their pains with accusations of hysteria, warmongering, paranoia, servility toward the Pentagon, and worse. And why not? None other than President Carter has exclaimed that Americans today are ready to shed their previous "inordinate fear of Communism." The climate in the U.S. government today is comparable to the feverish period of appeasement which prevailed in Britain in the 1930's, which blinded the British people to the grim realities of Adolf Hitler's terminal threat to their very existence.

And now the dominoes keep falling in Central America, and the U.S. State department keeps giving them helpful nudges. As occurred a year ago in Nicaragua, Marxist revolutionary forces are making an all-out effort against the anti-Communist regimes of El Salvador and Guatemala. Also, as occurred in Nicaragua, the Carter administration has responded to the Marxist onslaught by putting heavy-handed pressure on the governments that are attacked. Even as the Carter State Department is working to funnel $75 million in aid to the Communist Sandinistas, it has been turning the economic screws on Guatemala and El Salvador to force through so called "reforms," which "reforms" themselves are virtually MARXIST IN CHARACTER! Among other demands the State Department made of El Salvador as the price of U.S. aid against the terrorists are NATIONALIZATION OF THE COUNTRY'S BANKING SYSTEM, GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL ‘OF FOREIGN TRADE, AND BREAKUP OF LARGE FARMS AS PART OF A LAND REFORM. As one State Department spokesman explained it, the Salvadoran problem is that "there is a need to ‘redistribute' the wealth." The actions of our government GUARANTEE the Communist takeover of Central America. The situation in El Salvador and Guatemala will get worse in the months to come. Barring a miracle, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the other Central American countries will fall to the Marxists, and THEN THE REVOLUTION IS SCHEDULED TO BEGIN JUST ACROSS OUR BORDER, IN MEXICO! America, wake up! You’re under judgment!

Yes, American power, pride, prestige, and purpose has been broken "bone by bone" over the years since 1961, to the point where the patient is almost an impotent cripple. The America of 1945 — sitting atop the very pinnacle of world power — no longer exists. The leadership of present-day America is as far removed from both turn-of-the-century and World War II U.S.A. as could possibly be.

Why has this erosion of American power taken place? Why has the most powerful single nation in modern history skidded so far in two short decades? The answer is not hard to ascertain! Long centuries ago a wise man flashed out the warning signal: "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people" (Prov. 14:34). More than any other nation we have been the custodians of the knowledge and the glory of God, and the missionaries of the good news of God’s salvation have embarked from our fair shores to nearly every nation under heaven. When Great Britain served God and honored Him in all their doings, the sun never set upon her Empire, and her navy ruled the oceans. But when she forsook the Lord, and listened to the gods of humanism, secularism, love of pleasure, sex, immorality, perversion and debauchery, the mighty British Commonwealth, once representing almost a billion people, began to disintegrate and has now fallen into irretrievable decay. Today it is just a shadow of its former self, and its decline hasn't stopped yet.

When America honored the Lord and His Word in her Congress, and in her schools, and in the daily lives of her people, and in all her doings, she was in truth the land of the free and the home of the brave. But now God and His holiness and His name are dishonored. His law is broken down! Before the children of Israel entered into the Holy Land, Moses, that man of God who spoke to God face to face and mouth to mouth, gave them detailed instructions as to what their future would be. Warning them of evils that would overtake them should they turn from the law of the Lord and corrupt their way before the Lord, he said, "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, and the increase of thy flocks. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed... because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken Me. The Lord will make the pestilence cleave unto thee.., the Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them.., and thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away. The Lord will smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart... and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled... and no man can save thee. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof... thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto other people.. and there shall be no might in thy hand." Please read Deut. 28:15 to the end of the chapter. These are but a few of the curses pronounced upon the children of Israel for their disobedience to God, and have we not in our day disobeyed God? Have we not been His people? Are we not the Israel of God? And history records that every nation that has honored God and been made great by Him, when they have corrupted their way before Him HAVE RECEIVED THESE VERY CURSES UPON THEM IN THE DAY OF THEIR JUDGMENT. Consider Israel, Germany, and Great Britain, each in their turn. And now, our nation, whose very foundations were laid in God's truth is now turning to every imaginable abomination against the Lord, who, when we honored Him, made us great in the earth. America! The hour of your judgment is come!

God cannot violate His own Word and help, or bless a nation that has degenerated to the point that ours has. The unhindered demonic attack has reduced this country to A DEN OF INIQUITY, while the so called Church CLAIMS THAT 53% OF THE PEOPLE ARE BORN AGAIN! I can tell you that 53% of the people on our block are not born again! 53% of the people where my son is employed are not born again! 53% of the people in El Paso are not born again! Crime is rampant. Bank robberies are happening at an epidemic rate. New York City alone has between 500 and 1,000 bank robberies a year, and as many as 14 in one day. Rape is out of control. Murder has become common place. You can forget about reporting a household burglary, for there are just too many for the police to contend with. Thievery, dishonesty, cheating, slandering, lying, violence, and whoremongering have developed into a terrible crescendo. Sexual vices, stirred by drugs and the satanic jungle beat of rock music, are bringing this nation to its FINAL DAYS.

Most Christians would not believe what is going on in this nation's "pleasure palaces". Pornography has become a FOUR BILLION DOLLAR a year business. Movies, and TV programs have become an open cesspool that promote witchcraft, devil worship, crime, violence, fornication, and perversion throughout the country. The abomination grows with each "new season." No nation has been able to stand when its decadent corruption finally developed to openly flaunting its homosexuality. History proves it! Not only is it prevalent in our land, but it is growing at an alarming rate and our civic and national leaders are demanding that we pay it respect. Homosexuals are interviewed on TV as acceptable people. History and the Bible thoroughly demonstrate that when homosexuality becomes an acceptable life-style by a nation’s people, then you can know, THAT NATION’S DAYS ARE NUMBERED! That is the final sign, that gives forth the final proof that THAT NATION CAN NO LONGER STAND, its corruption has gone too far, and there is nothing left for it to do but crumble and fall! As our nation stands today, if God did not send judgment, He would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah...

Evil teachings, incredible in their filth and degradation, have crept into the schools on every level. Prayer and the Bible have been thrown out and openly ridiculed. Children have been-taught by the teachers that parents are old fogies and that they should rebel against the restraints at home. Under the guise of sex education in schools young people have been encouraged in all kinds of promiscuous living. They have been told that their parents do not understand sex and homosexuality. The result of this corruption is that a generation has arisen who know not God and have no respect for His law or righteousness and who seek only to partake as fully as possible of all the corruption of the flesh. Television is systematically used to corrupt the morals of all people until we have an immorality unparalleled in the history of our nation. On the TV shows fornication and adultery is all a big joke, just something funny to laugh about. Ah, America, your sin will find you out! ‘You shall now come face to face with the Words of the Almighty: "THE VILENESS AND THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN HAS COME UP BEFORE ME AS A STINK IN MY NOSTRILS AND I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STAY MY HAND ANY LONGER... I ... WILL SPUE OUT MY WRATH UPON THE LAND."

And where shall it all end? Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, and now that the judgment of God upon our land is well advanced, we must expect a great acceleration of evil right up until the hour of the manifestation of the Sons of God whose rule and authority shall bring to pass the blessed promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, "And he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON; AS THE VESSELS OF A POTTER SHALL THEY BE BROKEN TO SHIVERS" (Rev. 2:26-27)

It is not my desire to scare those who read this paper; neither do I desire to lull any to sleep or to give a false sense of security. We must be quick to understand, beloved, that the problems facing our nation are NOT ECONOMIC, NOR MILITARY, NOR SOCIAL, NOR POLITICAL. The problem is SPIRITUAL and can only be solved SPIRITUALLY! Therefore, there can be NO ECONOMIC, MILITARY, SOCIAL, OR POLITICAL SOLUTIONS TO OUR PROBLEMS! What America needs to do is REPENT of her sins that she might be saved. Then would the Lord deliver her from all her troubles.

Ah, beloved reader, look not to the coming elections to solve America's problems or to turn away the hand of God's wrath. ALL who trust in MAN or POLITICAL PARTIES or POLITICAL SYSTEMS or POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES to save America in this hour must be reckoned among the vast numbers of the deceived and deluded. THE ELECTION WILL MAKE LITTLE DIFFERENCE, IF ANY. I can tell you now, by the Word of the Lord, that until the hearts of the people turn from their evil ways and turn thoroughly UNTO THE LORD, the downward skid to oblivion shall continue uninterrupted. Jimmy Carter *[Barark Obama] can't stop it! And Ronald Reagan *[John McCain] can't stop it, either! Nor can John Anderson *[Sarah Palin] stop it! Let me put it as simple and plain as I can. Regardless who wins the election THINGS ARE NOT GOING TO GET BETTER. They WILL GET WORSE. I do not mean that there will not be times when conditions are not better than at other times, temporary improvements in areas, but the general trend will continue to be toward economic, political, and military DISASTER. *[inserted by proof reader (E.R.) to bring up to date].

Millions of dollars are being spent by the candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Most who contribute to these campaigns do so for SELFISH ADVANTAGE, hoping to GET SOMETHING out of it. The winner will have his hand on one of the greatest throttles of POWER possessed by any man on earth. And that is what the candidates COVET! It makes me think of a 15 year old boy who can hardly wait another year to get his hand on the POWER under the hood of an automobile. Usually those who covet power are not competent to wield it. Whatever happens in the elections, the country LOSES. We might continue to criticize our leaders and heap an abundance of BLAME on them, but the simple fact is that they cannot help themselves! GOD HAS PLACED A VEIL over the minds and hearts of our leaders, to cause them to walk about as men in a dense fog, cloaked with a spirit of stupidity, that they may absurdly preside over the nation's demise. GOD is doing this! "For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13:1). Nothing can change the kind of leadership we have but NATIONAL REPENTANCE! Whoever is elected President in the upcoming election will, despite his best intentions and efforts, come face to face with the fateful Words of the almighty, eternal, omniscient, and immutable God: "I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STAY MY HAND ANY LONGER. I WILL SPUE OUT MY WRATH UPON THE LAND..."

The Lord God of heaven is calling loud and clear to all His apprehended ones, that you may know arid understand of a surety that these are perilous times, indeed, but FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS God has apprehended YOU, He has called you out unto Himself, and in ways that are far stranger than any fiction ever written, He has and is processing you to become His instrument of righteousness to bring blessed deliverance from the evil of these times. Our minds cannot in any way grasp the portent of our calling, nor how it shall be fulfilled. His ways are past finding out! The way He has always moved to bring deliverance in times of great darkness has always been the greatest surprise in the world. But we are confident that when He has fully wrought His work within, clothed us with righteousness and incorruption, and we have put on the mind of Christ, we shall not only be ready for His use, we shall know what to do, and how to do it.

The prophet Isaiah, speaking of these days, sums them up in these wonderful words, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and HIS GLORY SHALL BE SEEN UPON THEE. And THE GENTILES (nations) SHALL COME TO THY LIGHT, and KINGS TO THE BRIGHTNESS OF THY RISING. The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 60:1-3,14). What a vision! What a hope set before us! For such a time as this, a time of great darkness, difficulty, trouble, distress, and calamity — and yet a people to be clothed upon with the effulgent glory of the Lord, to neither be confounded nor brought to shame, but to bring wonderful deliverance to those who sit in great darkness and in the shadow of death. Truly this is the handiwork of ‘God! And this people shall be to His praise, to be the manifestation of His salvation, the glory of His redemption.

Time's clock is striking the hour and the time is near at hand for the manifestation of the Sons of God, and what a manifestation it is going to be! All creation from time immemorial has groaned and travailed for the manifestation, of God's Sons, but soon their cry will be answered in this mighty people who shall arise in the image and glory of God's Christ. This is not the time for God's elect to get excited about the worsening condition in the world and the nation, nor is it wisdom to try to turn the tide of events in the world. How necessary that God's saints, above all else, UNDERSTAND THE PROCESSES OF GOD'S Judgments. God's judgments are first of all TO DIVIDE THE EVIL FROM THE GOOD; second, TO ESTABLISH THE RIGHTS OF THE OBEDIENT; third, TO REWARD THE EVIL WITH ITS OWN EFFECT AND FRUITION; fourth, TO BREAK, CORRECT, AND REDEEM THE EVILDOER that he may turn and discover the ways of peace and life. Every evil has in itself the seeds of its own destruction. Judgment will always come! But when God pours out His wrath God doesn’t just "get mad," or "angry," as HUMANS DO in their flesh nature. God always remembers that "mercy rejoiceth against judgment" (James 2:13). And let every man know that the almighty Father's wise and kind heart extends to all men and nations the same spirit of judgment spoken to Israel of old, declaring, "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy REDEEMER" (Isa. 54:7-8).

I exhort you, beloved friend, not to become filled with fear or panic because of the conditions which are in our land, and which will negatively unfold in the months and years ahead. SEE IT, AND KNOW, but also SEE WHAT GOD HAS PURPOSED through it all, and how that after the judging, after the shakings, after the famines, the earthquakes, the disasters, yes, after the economic collapse, the riots, the wars and the persecutions, yea, after the STORM, shall THE KINGDOM OF GOD TRIUMPH IN THE LAND. I tell you now that you may believe it when it comes to pass, God shall bring the whole world and our nation to the very brink of TOTAL DESTRUCTI0N, but in the judgment, through the judgment, and after the judgment shall the glory of the Lord be revealed and righteousness shall be established.

ONE OF THE AMAZING ASPECTS OF THE WORKING OF GOD IN THESE DAYS WILL BE THE WAY HE PRESERVES ALIVE IN THE MIDST OF THE YEARS OF Judgment AND SEVERITY AND CORRECTION, THOSE WHOM HE HAS APPREHENDED TO BE THE FIRSTFRUITS OF REDEMPTION!

Those of us who can see the handwriting on the wall must prepare now to survive the coming worldwide crisis. The answer does not lie in having a cache of guns or food — or a big oil tank in the back yard — but in being filled with the supernatural life of God! There is only one safe place to be in the coming days, and that is IN THE WILL OF GOD, placed where He places you, covered by His Spirit. The 91st Psalm shall be literally fulfilled, and there are those who shall know the blessedness of dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, abiding in the shadow of the Almighty. They need not get caught up in the motivations of fear which are now causing many to plan and scheme with their own carnal minds for a way out, but they shall be led by the Spirit in all the affairs of daily life, and HE shall be their daily refuge. THE COVERING OF THE SPIRIT WILL KEEP THEM. Yes, God shall lead His people through the valley safely, to the amazement and consternation of all the ungodly. Clothed upon with the Spirit and power of God they shall be untouched by the evil about them. God's Word is clear, His promise is sure, and we shall take courage arid believe what He has spoken!

With this bright hope within our hearts I now share, in closing, a prophecy given in the spring of this year (1980) through a dear prophet of God in whose word I have great confidence and whom I hold in high esteem. Read and meditate deeply and reverently upon these tremendously important words:

"Why are you shaken up so easily over such small things? And why are you distressed and fretful in your spirit? The Holy One within doth lead and direct thee, and bringeth thee ever upward into the city and unto the brow of the hill. For it hath been decreed that thou shalt be conformed unto His perfect will. Surely these are perilous times and the day is evil, even for him that looketh with the' natural eye, and on an order that is of man. But doest thou not understand that the order of man has already been satisfied, being judged in this hour and in this day? This shall come not only into frustration, but shall surely pass away at the order of thy God which shall be instituted and come to perfection. The Sun of Righteousness shall arise and come with healing in His wings. In the Word and in the Spirit of thy God there shall be a healing of spirit, soul, and body for CREATION, that they might rise and sing. This is the order of thy God, not of man. Are you not called to be conformed into the likeness of His will? Were you not predestinated to be, yea, even glorified in Him that when He appeareth, you shall be like Him? Not to judge in a carnal way, but to judge that first which is in thyself that there might be even a circumspect walk before thy God, even in the presence before thy brethren. For God bringeth man into a place of Himself in this hour, and he shall no longer walk in his ways and unto his own thing, but shall walk in the way ordered of the Lord, and he shall walk softly and confidently. For the persuasion of the Spirit within him shall cause him to walk in a new and living way that he has never walked in the other days. For a new day has dawned on thee this day. Rise up and walk for God has passed thy way, and know this day that the blinds be no longer on thine eyes and thy vision be in part, for God hath come and has passed our way that we might see and know the thing that God doeth in this hour. In the natural, yea, can you not hear the worrying, even of the armaments of the skies, and can you not see even all that man would do in his desire for conquest of all that lies before him?

 "Surely understand this, that there shall come forth missiles of destruction. From the south shall come even the hoards and from the east they shall come. For there shall be an invasion of this land. But know that there is a ministry, a body, that standeth and is prostrated himself between the porch and the altar and crieth out that the people of the lord be even spared. And surely God shall rise with a fury in His nostrils and He shall stretch out His arm, and then shall deliverance come. So be ye not disturbed over these things, for they cannot come until there is a man (spiritual) full grown. They cannot arrive until the man has been brought upon the sea. A many membered one it shall be even in the form of the Christ that stands in the heavens and also on the earth. He shall walk in the triumphant splendor and emergeth in the grandeur of His God. But his ambition shall not be, yea, to live in the heavens.., his desires shall be TO DO THE FATHER S WILL and walk in the loneliest places of earth that there might be, not only the rain, but even the dew with its refreshing portion, even in the early morning and in the twilight of the Day..."

Ah, it is a black night through which our nation and the world must pass. Yet, praise God, there will also be THE DAWNING OF A NEW DAY, a regeneration process, a full and complete manifestation of the Kingdom of God upon earth. Glory!

J. PRESTON EBY                      

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