AMERICA’S ONLY HOPE
I do believe I wrote an article with a similar title as this some time ago. But more water has gone under the bridge since then. Dr. George Barna of the Barna Institute has released his latest report on American Christianity, and the Census data has told us that millions of pew-warmers have vacated their pews over the past decade. You can read Dr. Barna’s report here………………….
https://www.assistnews.net/christianity-in-america-rotting-from-the-inside-out/
I read a report about the Census data somewhere, and I cannot remember where that was now, but I am sure you could find that if you knew your way around a computer and on-line data.
However, I wrote a book long before either of these facts were released. That was after I spent two decades in America, researching Christianity, myself. The reason I did that was due to a vacation my wife and I, along with our two youngest sons visited America for, in 1989. We spent three months travelling all over the USA and West Canada. We were invited into homes that were occupied by ‘faithful followers of Christ.’ What we witnessed in five out of six of such homes was something that broke my heart. These folks were all in leadership positions at their local churches or faith-based ministries they were involved with. I will not inform you of what we experienced in these homes, but I can assure you it was the exact opposite of what anyone who had simply read a bible, let alone studied one, would expect in such homes. There was zero conduct, behavior, or attitudes on display that would have given anyone a clue that these folks were God’s children. [or even had ever attended a church at any time]
I lived with abject sorrow and deep grief for two years in my home country of New Zealand before I couldn’t handle it any longer. I desperately wanted to help such people to realize there was a life that was available to them that was beyond anything they could ever think or even imagine. I was, at the time, learning to experience this life. I had spent several years desperately searching for God’s truth regarding salvation and the true Christian life-style.
I had been brought up in a fundamental evangelical home where us four siblings had ‘known the Lord’ since a very young age. I had ‘accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior,’ and begged Him to forgive my sins, and come and live in my heart, so many times, I dare not even hazard a guess as to how often I did so. From the age of about twelve, I was mastered by a terrible urge to see, or to touch, female flesh. I had no sisters, so I really had no clue what the female form looked like. But, sadly, I had inherited an overabundance of testosterone which I could not control. I left home when I was eighteen, and gave my life over to this testosterone. When I was 26, I met a gal who I married, soon after. She had two sons from a previous marriage, and I desperately wanted a better life for them than what I had experienced for the past eight years. So, I decided to go back to church and have the boys learn the truth about God, and how He wants His kids to live. Of course, I had to do that for my self as well, and I literally spent hundreds [maybe even thousands] of hours studying several versions of the bible. My primary purpose for this desperate search for truth was due to the fact that I despised myself. I truly hated this sexual addiction being in control of my life. As much as I attempted to be a ‘good Christian’ [godly man] I was exceptionally aware of the fact that I could NOT truly tell God I loved Him all the while I was lusting at every good-looking young gal my eyes beheld.
Well into my search I was suddenly made aware of the fact that what I was doing was rather selfish, to say the least. My search for God/truth was all about me. I wanted to feel good about myself. Maybe God had ‘spoken to me?’ I cannot categorically declare that, but I have a distinct feeling that He did. After all, one reason I wanted to feel better about myself was so that I could feel better about telling Him that I loved Him. And I really did want to love God, and live a life that pleased Him. So, I changed my motive from being self-centered to God-centered. After many more months of searching, God revealed Himself to me, and I learned to fear Him.
At about that stage in my search for truth, my wife and I decided to go back to America and teach these folks that God had a life for them that was so far beyond what they were experiencing. Our youngest son was just sixteen and sill at home, so our best friends offered to take care of him until he had finished school [later that year], and then put him on a plane to join us. His older brother had left home a few months prior, and was picking fruit down country somewhere, as I recall. We had found out that we could get green cards by working for a ‘religious organization’ for two years, so we were pretty sure we could volunteer our services for that amount of time, before we ran out of money. So, we sold all we owned except the house, and flew out of Auckland, for Los Angeles. We left the home with a real estate company, to sell for us. Six months later, the son who had been picking fruit joined us. He arrived with about fifty dollars in his possession. We had about the same! After several months, our home sold, and we had money again. But due to the exchange rate, what we got for our mortgage-free home was about halved when we received it in the USA. I could tell you about so many miracles that God performed as He provided for us once our money had been all used up. He blessed us in unbelievable ways, over and over again.
Our youngest son left our friend’s home to go and stay with some folks we have never met, down country. He got into bad company there, and did not join us in the USA. He had met these folks on a Kings Kids [that is a YWAM ministry] trip to Europe. They felt sorry for him because his parents ’had deserted him.’ That was the ‘story’ they had heard from his uncle who was in charge of this Kings Kids outreach. It was all very sad, and hard to accept, but God kept us strong. Our decision to leave NZ and move to the USA was the hardest thing I have ever done. My parents and siblings never could understand how I could just up and leave family, friends, a successful business etc. Our son began working [volunteering] for a church in San Bernardino, California, and he lived with the assistant pastor. Maureen and I volunteered with several different ministries around southern California. We were fired from them all after some time because I had offered some advice as to how the CEO could run his ministry in a way that glorified God. I simply could not stay silent as I watched what went on. These ‘ministries’ all gave us a home to live in, and help with food. But we ended up in Branson, MO, working as managers [in training] of a Christian Conference center, ten years after we had moved to the USA, and they had an immigration attorney apply for religious workers visas for us. They were approved, and we were able to be paid, at last. But a year after being ‘employed’ there, they fired us for the same reason as the others. At the precise time of that firing, we had to return to New Zealand suddenly, because our youngest son had been severely burned over much of his body. I took a letter from a church in Branson requesting a religious worker’s visa for me to be the assistant pastor at his church. The Embassy approved that while we were in New Zealand, and we went back to Branson for me to take this position.
At my interview for the job, [where both our wives were present] the pastor had assured me I would be paid a salary of $32,000, and if I wanted more than that I would have to gain support from friends/family/philanthropists or whoever. His letter to the Embassy assured them that I was going to receive ample salary to care for us both. After a month of work, I asked when I was to be paid, and this guy looked at me as if I was out of my mind. He assured me that I had been told I would have to seek support and, ‘how much had I gained to date?’ You can imagine just how that ‘relationship’ evolved over the year I spent there. As you guessed, he fired me eventually, against the direction of the group of overseers who watched over this ‘ministry.’
By this time, I had ‘worked’ for two years with a religious worker’s visa, so I applied for a green card, and was denied. Their reason was that the conference center was not a church. So, I went to the attorney the conference center had employed, and asked her to help. By this time our son had applied for a green card because he had volunteered for that church for two years, and the attorney told us that if he was a citizen, [which he could be after five years with a green card] he could apply to sponsor us for green cards. I pulled out my cell phone and called him. One month later he was a citizen, and a month after that we had green cards. That was twelve years after we moved to the USA.
During this time, my faith grew phenomenally, as you can imagine, and God set me free from my sexual addiction, and I was indwelt with His Spirit and was enjoying that awesome and miraculous journey of living in Christ, as John describes it in 1 Jn 3:4-10.
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
No one who lives in him sins. No one who sins has either seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
No one who is born of God will sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot sin because they have been born of God.
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
God makes it very clear that nobody can receive the Holy Spirit if they have not repented. And in God’s economy repent literally means to stop sinning. This is logical and reasonable because God cannot dwell with sin.
For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people cannot dwell. Ps. 5:4.
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38
Our ‘American’ son married an American gal, and they decided they wanted to bring up their children in New Zealand rather than America, so they moved back to NZ. They begged us to ‘come home’ so their children could have grand parents’ input into their lives. We did so, but twenty months later they decided to go back to America again. We could not do so, due to various reasons. They live in Tyler Texas and have four children now. We see them on Skype fairly regularly.
However, with America being in complete turmoil, and the churches still preaching the same old false gospel that has caused Christianity to rot from within, and millions of folks leaving their churches, one would think that many people [especially church leaders] would be extremely concerned about this, and be asking why this is happening. The book I wrote ten years ago explains exactly why this is happening, and how it can be turned around. I was so excited when I read the data from the census and Dr. Barna’s report because I was sure it would persuade people to buy my book. Sadly, that has not been the case.
I have been telling as many as I can, on social media, that my book is the most influential book on the market today. I can say that with absolutely zero pride, boasting, or ego, because all the other hundreds of books that are coming available every week are simply the author’s opinions as to why America is being destroyed etc. And they may well be at least partly correct, but my book is not a man’s opinion of where America is at, at this moment. I have copied and pasted hundreds of passages, straight from God’s own life instruction manual, to the pages in my book. I have offered the reader many passages that preachers have not even mentioned for over a century, because they don’t agree with their false doctrine/gospel. Those passages above are just a couple of examples of truth that is never heard from preachers today. If you have any belief in God, and His great wisdom and mercy, then you simply must read this book to find His true gospel message that will absolutely transform your life, and when enough people enjoy that brand new creation that God promises to those who know, fear, love and obey Him, He will heal America. Guaranteed!!!
So, to all of you who consider yourselves God’s children, I can guarantee that the truth found in my book is NOT rotten, and will not persuade you to give up on Christianity like those millions have done recently. I have experienced that brand new creation that God promises to all His kids. It is, as He declares, far beyond anything that you could ever ask, or even imagine in your wildest dreams.
For me, that is in spite of Satan trying to take my life in many ways over many years. Five years ago. I was diagnosed with aggressive, stage four, prostate cancer, metastisised into my right femur and lower spine. Then three years ago I was told I had up to twelve blockages in the arteries in my heart. They wanted to put two stents in to give me a little more time before I died. I refused and told them I wanted to have open-heart surgery to by-pass as many of these blocked arteries as they could. They refused, telling me that due to my serious cancer, my body could not possibly cope with the brutal punishment that open heart surgery would put on it. I argued with them for two years, living with all these blockages, then they sent me to a bigger hospital to talk with a heart surgeon. He told me the same thing, and I had to sign that I had been warned that I would die as a result of this heart surgery. I can assure you that I am still alive, in spite of my own doctor telling me that I could not survive for two years with a heart with that many blockages. Just over a year ago, I had open-heart, bypass surgery, and apart from a big scare two days after the surgery, when my heart started beating at more than 250 beats per minute, here I am. All the arteries were blocked in several places, from 53% to 90%, and one was blocked 100% at the beginning so there was no way to tell how many other blockages were in that artery further down the line.
Maureen and I have been forced to live off the pension for ten years, and because we had nowhere near enough to buy a house when we came back to NZ, we have had to rent, which takes up most of our pension, leaving us very little to live on. Our life-style is far from glamorous and most would find it hard to believe that anyone could be content or happy, living as we do, I have zero regrets for any of our past decisions, and God has put an amazing peace and contentment in my heart that I truly wish for everyone else to know and experience. From my own personal experience, I can guarantee that this is available to any person who believes whole-heartedly what God says in His word, and embraces that. My book clearly informs the reader what God does actually say, which is far from what the preachers have been telling us all for a very long time. The truth that God tells us is repeated all through His life manual, and it all fits together like a giant, beautiful jig-saw puzzle. It was no surprise to me that the Barna Institute came out with that report that Christianity is rotting from the inside out. And it was also no surprise to me that millions of folks were giving up on Christianity during the past decade. The only surprise was that it took so long for this to happen, considering how far from God’s truth the gospel has been proclaimed for so long. It is beyond my understanding how so many folks can faithfully attend churches and proclaim that they are Christians who love God when they also unashamedly admit to sin in their lives. I found that an impossibility, personally, even though I truly believed Jesus had ‘died for my sins’ and ‘paid the price’ etc.
I truly believe that my wife and I will return to the USA in a few years and we are really looking forward to that with much anticipation. I expect God to incite a massive reformation and spiritual awakening which will transform millions of lives from sinner to saint, and cause righteousness to reign across the land, so He can bring healing to America. He promises us that righteousness exalts a nation. Wouldn’t you love to be part of that?
My book is ‘A Nation Broken,’ and Amazon and B & N have it