In 1952, while I was a young pastoral student at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo., Dr. G.B. Vick asked the students, "What do you hope to accomplish with your life?"

The question has preoccupied my thoughts for more than five decades.

About 40 years ago, God spoke to my heart about saving America. At that time, our U.S. Supreme Court - in 1962 and 1963 - had thrown prayer and Bible reading out of our public schools. Ten years later (1973), Roe vs. Wade declared open game on our unborn. Today, we have nearly 45 million dead unborn babies as a result of this decision.

And now, America - a nation under God for 200 years - is about to completely abandon the God of our founding. In recent days, our federal courts have legalized sodomy and declared illegal the Ten Commandments.

In the past year, the Boy Scouts have been bitterly disparaged because they uphold time-honored moral traditions, we have seen our Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional, and we have witnessed a major denomination promote a homosexual priest to bishop. (This man, in fact, should have been defrocked when he abandoned his wife and daughters, choosing to shack up with his male lover.)

Patrick Buchanan noted, "In the West, the God of Christianity has been superseded by the gods of modernity: money, sex, fame, power. These gods give a good life, but they cannot sustain life. As Christianity is a dying faith in every Western nation, every Western nation is dying."

Here are four things that I believe have caused our nation's moral collapse:

(1) SITUATIONAL ETHICS
American has rejected the biblical absolutes that defined our culture during our founding and for most of our distinguished history. Instead, we live in the ambivalent world of situational ethics, moral indistinctness and ethical corruption.

(2) CULTURAL SEDUCTION
During the recent MTV Video Music Awards, rock icon Madonna kissed on the mouth young singers Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. We are witnessing the willful blurring of sexual roles before our eyes. And the target audience is our children.

Kids are being seduced by what they read in school, watch on TV, see at the movies and discover on the Internet. The message is not a new one - whatever feels good is fine.

Sadly, many of our nation's pastors and church leaders are not teaching parents and children of the wrongness of those lifestyles that counter the biblical mandate for man-woman marriage relationships. The bottom line is that all sex outside of marriage between a man and woman is forbidden by God.

It's not a culturally popular doctrine, but it is God's doctrine.

(3) CULTURAL ACCOMMODATION
The Scriptures are being distorted and changed in order to accommodate issues like abortion and homosexuality.

Psalm 139:13-16 tells us, "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

There is simply no way to support abortion without contradicting these verses.

Romans 1:26-27 tells us, "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet."

There is simply no way to say homosexuality is acceptable without contradicting these verses.

(4) INCLUSIVE SALVATION
Politically-correct theologians believe all religions are equal to God. They teach that Jesus is not the only way to Heaven. But John 14:6 tells us, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

This week, I told our 6,647 students now enrolled at Liberty University that I am counting on them and the 69,500-plus Liberty alumni to impact this world for Christ beyond their wildest dreams.

Has America crossed the line of no return?

Some believe so. But I continue to claim II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Let us pray and work together to see an unparalleled revival in this great nation. This is the only hope for America.

Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell.com

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