Where Did It All Go?

By Guest Columnist Rev. Gerri Janeway

Let me begin by saying, it did not happen overnight. Little by little, America began its downward spiral to moral decline. As a nation, it opened itself up for an attack by Satan, who had long awaited the opportunity to discredit and destroy the Godly influence of America, not only on all Americans, but also on the entire world. The Scripture foretold of this time, describing it as a time that never was, and never will be again.

It seems the entire world has gone crazy and has fallen apart overnight, but it didn't happen overnight. It was a subtle move. A little here, a little there, conditioning our people to accept the vile and immoral acts as commonplace and the norm. America accepted the attitude, "live and let live," and "what someone else does, doesn't effect me." (So wrong!) We sat idle as people like Madalyn Murray O’Hair campaigned and won her stand to take prayer out of schools.

We sat still and allowed mainstream TV to promote profanity first, and then sex and violence. And now, on the legacy (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and cable networks, homosexuality is being shown as “normal,” and making fun of Christianity has escalated into calling them right-wing terrorists bent on destroying America.

While men slept, the enemy came in and sowed tares among the wheat and now those tares are choking the very life out of America and smothering all signs of Christianity and morality. We have played our part in setting the stage for the “new world order” and the Anti-Christ. Our only hope is repentance as individuals and a nation for our sins and complacency and to fall on the mercy of Almighty God. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “IF my (Christian) people which are called by my name (Christians) will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then will I (God) hear from Heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land."

So, what do we do now?

The answers are very plain. We must acknowledge our sins, both personal and collective sins as a nation, walk in humility, and pray and turn away from those sins. God will then hear us in Heaven and will forgive our sins and heal our land (nation). It is now up to the Christian community to repent and cry out for mercy.

First, the Christian community must repent and pray seeking the forgiveness and mercy of God, then present a time of repentance to the nation(s), much like Jonah did to Nineveh. We can sit idle and take this lightly, shake our heads and say this is a terrible time, or we can move to action and do our part to turn America and the world back to God. America's destiny IS in our hands and IS within our grasp. We all have a personal responsibility to participate in this united time of prayer of repentance.

It is my sincere hope that God will hear us and send Holy Ghost conviction into every heart and into every home, business, school, legislature, courtroom, place of entertainment, and visit the media with a call to repentance, one that no one can or will want to shake off. I pray that there is a renewal of the “fear of God” birthed in every heart of the people of America.

It is my prayer that every parent, both Mom and Dad, will take their place as parents and accept the responsibility of their children's destiny and restore family altars and guidance in both moral and Christian principles.

I pray that any and all who are involved in leadership positions – both secular and religious – will accept the responsibility of repentance and set a moral and godly example of purity and honesty

My prayer is that schools that have taken the responsibility to educate our children will once again promote moral principles, both by guidance and practice, and refuse to instill any immoral or ungodly instruction in the hearts of our children.

I pray that elected leaders, officials, and legislators will embrace Truth and be people of integrity and people who are trustworthy again, putting away the reproach that all politicians are corrupt and liars.

It is time that we have judges sitting on the bench who will understand that they have a tremendous responsibility to make righteous and true judgments as men and women who have been entrusted to this high office of responsibility. They should also be held accountable to those who entrusted them to this office.

There is a need for business people to repent and stop selling out godly principles and stop bowing to the pressures of the world and stop promoting immoral agendas for mammon (money). No wonder the Scriptures state that the love of money is the root of evil. We must become people of integrity again who refuse to compromise the destiny of our children and nation for a few dollars.

We must understand that human life is valuable and that we would repent of abortion and so-called "mercy-killing,” which are out and out murder and suicide. We must realize that God is the only one who has the right to give and take life, and all others will be held accountable to him. We must repent over killing millions of babies who we disvalued and murdered through abortion, covering every corner of our land with the blood that cries out, “why was I not allowed to live?”

We must begin once again to love and not hate, show respect and honor instead of moral decay and deceit. We must become a people of integrity and godly principles based on the Word of God as our forefathers had done. This nation was great because good men and women of God, men and women of integrity, men and women of faith and moral responsibility, gave all that we might have this freedom and opportunity to live free:

Free of war;
free of oppression;
free to raise our children in the ways of the Lord;
free to follow our conscience and convictions as God leads us;
free to work and provide for the necessary needs of our families and communities without oppression;
free to choose how we believe (i.e. freedom of religion);
and free in knowing that with any responsibility comes accountability to our families, to one another and to our God.

It time (past time!) to pray. We can no longer exercise the right of silence but must cry out to God in repentance and sincerity for forgiveness and mercy that God will heal our land. The answer lies within us as Christians to shoulder our responsibility on our knees in humility and repentance. What will you individually do for your nation? What are we willing to do collectively as the Christian community of America? Are we willing to pray and repent, or will we be momentarily be stirred but remain unchanged? We are responsible for our own destiny and entrusted with the destiny of our posterity (our children). Can we humble ourselves long enough to sincerely repent and join a united effort to turn America back to God?

Where do we begin?

A time of National Prayer has been called for the 30 days from April 15th through May 15, 2009 at 9:00 pm Eastern Time, for just 15 minutes of united prayer strictly for repentance and asking God to have mercy on our land. Then, on July 18, 2009, marches, demonstrations, outreaches and events will be happening all across America and in many other countries of the world as a united effort to call our people to repentance.

May God bless you and may God bless America again.