America’s Lost Hope

Part 1: Presentation by Dr. David Reagan – America’s Lost Hope

Dr. Reagan: Our desertion of religion and our departure from the founding principle of our nation has occurred very rapidly. It has occurred in my lifetime. I’ve watched our nation put the gun to its head and get ready to commit suicide.

It began with the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and has accelerated rapidly since that time. Our public schools have rejected the teaching of Christian morality, and prayer within their walls has been declared unconstitutional, along with the Ten Commandments. When I was growing up in public schools in Waco, Texas, we began each day with prayer. We began each day with reading from the Bible. We were taught Christian principles. My English reader as a senior in high school, I had an English reader that was about that thick and everything in it was stories from the Bible with morals at the end. And yet it is unthinkable that such a thing could exist today.

In like manner the textbooks of our nation have been cleansed of all references to our Christian heritage. Instead of learning about the essentiality of Christianity to our form of government, our children are being indoctrinated with the so-called principle of the separation of church and state, which is never once mentioned in our Constitution. As a result, most Christians today would be amazed to learn that most of the historical facts about our Christian heritage, facts that were previously contained in American history books have been erased from the modern textbooks.

Take Christopher Columbus, for example, he is vilified in modern textbooks, and no mention is made of the true purpose of his voyage. Here is what he wrote in the log of his ship as he was crossing the Atlantic. It was the Lord who put into my mind I could feel His hand upon me the fact that it would be possible to sail from here (Spain) to the Indies. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus Christ desired to perform a very obvious miracle in the voyage to the Indies to comfort me and the whole people of God.

There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, nearly all of them were Christians. Twenty-four of them were seminary graduates. Five days after the Declaration was adopted, the Continental Congress voted to use public funds to hire military chaplains. And the Congress also ordered the importation of 20,000 Bibles for the American troops. General George Washington sent out a letter to his regiments which stated, the general hopes and trust that every officer and man will endeavor so to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of this country. A general who sent out such a letter today would immediately be stripped of his command. Can you imagine the firestorm of criticism that would occur as a result of such a letter?

Through all 50 states, all of them without exception, all 50 states there runs an appeal and reference to God as the creator of our liberties, and the preserver of freedoms. Here’s how it’s expressed in the Kentucky State Constitution, “We, the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy, and invoking the continuance of these blessings do ordain and establish this Constitution.” The Constitution of Texas has a similar statement, “humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of the State of Texas do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

The New England Primer, first published in 1690, remained the nation’s most popular school textbook for more than 100 years, selling roughly 5 million copies in a nation that only had 6 million people. It was supplanted finally in 1836 by McGuffey’s Reader, which was filled with biblical principles and religious instruction. It ultimately sold more than 120 million copies and was recognized in every state as a public school textbook. Almost every one of the 123 colleges and universities established in the United States had Christian origins and purposes. Truth for Christ. Christ and the Church. Truth for Christ and the Church was the official logo, the official motto of Harvard University. And over the years as our society secularized, that motto was quietly changed, it was changed to Veritas, which just simply means truth. Also, students at Harvard University were told this, “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well that the main end of life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life.” That’s what every student had to focus on when they entered Harvard when it was founded. Yale University, founded in 1701, issued this charge to its students, “Above all, have an eye to the great end of all your studies, which is to obtain the clearest conceptions of divine things and to lead you to a saving knowledge of God and His Son, Jesus Christ.”

The United States government issued Bibles to all the troops in World War II, which contained the following statement from President Franklin Roosevelt, “As Commander in Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries, men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the sacred book words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration, it is the fountain of strength. And now, as always, an aid in attaining the highest aspirations of the human soul.”

And on the eve of June the 6th, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion of Europe, Franklin Roosevelt went on the radio and he read a six and a half minute prayer. Here’s an excerpt:

This day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true, give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

An excerpt from the six and a half minute prayer. Thankfully, when the World War II monument was dedicated in Washington, D.C., in 2014, it was discovered to the horror of many people that although the entire text of that prayer was supposed to be in emblazoned upon that monument, it had been taken off by the Obama Administration. And so Congress later passed a bill demanding that the prayer be added to the memorial and this was finally accomplished in 2022. Thank God.

The words Under God were not added to the pledge of Allegiance by Congress until 1954. That’s just 69 years ago. And yet today it is unthinkable that such words would be put into the Pledge of Allegiance. And furthermore, there are people who are working hard now to take them out of the Pledge of Allegiance. In God We Trust was not adopted as our national motto until 1956. And yet, President Obama consistently told his audiences that the national motto of the United States is E Pluribus Unum, meaning from many one. Both chambers of the House and the Senate at our National Capitol building featured the inscription In God We Trust on their walls.

Now, folks, the amazing thing, the absolutely amazing thing, is that this rich Christian heritage of our nation is being ignored, or erased today in our schools, both on the public school level and the university level. Take, for example, this horrible book titled “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, a professor at Columbia University published in 1980. It has become the leftist Bible of American history. It ignores our Christian heritage. It makes villains of our founding fathers. These so-called historians, they have an overwhelmingly secular, even pagan bias. But the interesting thing is that Jewish leaders in America fully understand the importance of our Christian heritage and have spoken out strongly in behalf of it.

Consider, for example, Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe. This is a Christian country, it was founded by Christians and built on broad Christian principles. Threatening? Far from it. It is precisely this Christian country that Jews have known the most peaceful, prosperous and successful existence in their long history.

Consider Don Feder, a Jewish columnist for The Boston Herald. He wrote, clearly, this nation was established by Christians. As a Jew, I am entirely comfortable with the concept of a Christian America. The choice isn’t Christian America or nothing but Christian America or a neo pagan, hedonistic rights without responsibility, anti-family, culture of fear, culture of death America. And that’s exactly where we are.

And then there is the Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Seattle, Washington, both a prolific author and the host of a syndicated radio talk show. In his profound book, “America’s Real War.” He wrote, “I will argue that America is a religious nation, but I shall go much further than that, America is not just religious but is rooted in one particular religious tradition. As an Orthodox rabbi, I will make a compelling case for America as a Christian nation and the need for our nation to be based on Judeo-Christian ethics in order to survive.” He says, “The origins, legal system, ethos and moral sense of America are entirely Judeo-Christian.” Which is absolutely denied by the professors in our universities today.

Continuing Obama, when he became president, said this over, and over, “We are no longer a Christian nation.” You know what? He was certainly, in a sense true about that. In 1976, 91% of all Americans claimed to be Christians, 1976. In 2022, 64%, that is a horrendous drop in a very short period of time. And only 23% of those Christians claim to be born again. And worse still, polls show that only 9% of those who call themselves Christians can be classified as having a biblical world view. That means that most professing Christians in America today are merely just cultural Christians who are Christians in name only. But this sad fact does not negate the historical evidence that our Founding Fathers established this nation on Christian principles, and that those principles will serve as the basis of our constitutional structure and laws. The problem, of course, is that increasingly today, our society and government are becoming dominated by secularists who are determined to cut America away from its Judeo-Christian foundation. They have a classic European style, Humanistic worldview that despises Christianity, despises Capitalism, and the result is that freedom is in danger. We have become a secular, pagan society, devoid of values that contribute to virtue and civility. And the amazing thing is that it has happened so fast.

The hope we have always had about the future has dissipated because we are now a nation that has forgotten God. A nation that has forgotten God. When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn came to this nation after he was kicked out of the Soviet Union, he went to Harvard University to speak, and they received him as a conquering hero. And when he finished his speech, he had been booed throughout, and he left a pariah. You know why? Because he said, “America is on the same track as Russia.” He said, “I asked my forefathers over and over, why did we suffer 70 years under Stalin, 70 years under Communism? And the answer was always the same, he said, “We forgot God.” And he said, “That’s exactly where America is today.” And that was back in the 1970s. You are forgetting about God. And the result is that we are a deeply divided, fractured nation. Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew, a nation divided against itself cannot stand.

As I said before, our rapid decline began with the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. It’s resulted in an epidemic of immorality and violence. We now spend more money each year on gambling than we do on food. We have murdered 63 million babies since 1973 in the name of Freedom of Choice for women. We’re actively promoting all forms of sexual perversion. And although we constitute only 5% of the world’s population, we consume over 50% of all the illegal drugs in the world. And through our immoral, violent and blasphemous TV programs and movies, we have become the moral polluter of planet Earth.

God has raised up prophetic voices like Dave Wilkerson to call us to repentance. And when we have failed to respond, He has stricken us with remedial judgments like the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. But our response has been one of patriotism instead of repentance. We have cried out, God bless America when we should have been praying, America, bless God.

There are several things that are desperately needed in our nation today. First, we need to remind ourselves that all of our blessings, all of them have come from God and not from ourselves. Second, we need to repent of forgetting about God and rejecting His Word. Third, we need pastors with the courage of Jeremiah, the courage to proclaim the unpopular message that we are a nation in rebellion against God and a nation that needs to repent. And fourth, we need the Christians with the courage of Daniel, determined to live Christian lives in the midst of increasing spiritual darkness.

Instead, we find even evangelical churches all across this nation getting in bed with the world, trying to please the world instead of pleasing God. One of the Jeremiah pastors in our nation today is this man, Kevin Shrum, pastor of the Inglewood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Here is what he had to say in the spring of 2014, in a sermon entitled, The Truth about Post-Christian America, “The slippery slope of morality has now become a proverbial landslide of moral morass. What seemed to be a slow decline has now exponentially accelerated. The parading and applauding, of all things, unbiblical and immoral, has reached its zenith on the shoulders of the autonomous self, where me, myself and I are the arbiters of all things, truthful and spiritual. Gone is any reference to transcendent authority. How does one live as a Christian in an era where same sex marriage is now the norm, where homosexuality is openly celebrated, where hypocrisy of the church is consistently exposed, where atheism is not just an alternative to intellectual opinion, but a hostile enemy, where Christianity is viewed as the enemy and not the founder and friend of America, and where the spiritual shallowness of many Christians, especially evangelical Christians, is being exposed for what it is an Americanized version of cultural Christianity that is not authentic, genuine or biblically orthodox?

Oh, my friends, there is some good news in the midst of all this, believe it or not, there really is some good news. And the good news is that there is both good news and bad news. The bad news is that we are on the verge of national suicide. The good news is that this decline of Christianity, this terrible decline, this outbreak that we have now of immorality and violence is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. We’re told, in Matthew 24, Jesus said He would return at a time when society was once again as violent and immoral as it was in the days of Noah. And my friends, we have arrived. We are in a world and a society that is out of control.

But let us face the future with hope. Our nation may be doomed, but the prophetic Scriptures reveal that Christians have a fabulous future to look forward to. And that future will be presented by the rest of our speakers today. Meanwhile, keep in mind that God is on His throne. God is in control. Even in the midst of all this terrible stuff we see on the News today. God has the wisdom and He has the power to orchestrate all the evil of mankind to the triumph of His Son. So look forward to that glorious day when Jesus will return in majesty and glory to reign over all the world. And with that thought in mind, all I have to add is Maranatha. Maranatha. Maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Hallelujah.

Part 2: Q&A Session

Tim Moore: Someone here is, I would dare say, in need of encouragement over. And the question is this: The church is supposed to be a forgiving and respectful place for all. And yet many times the church has hurt people. And the question is followed up by do Christians hate homosexuals and why? Very pointed do Christians, does the church hate homosexuals? And why? And let’s expand it beyond homosexuality, because right now our culture is enamored with a lie from the pit of hell that you can change your gender and you can change your body or your identity and move away from that which is God given. And we’re going to have a whole lot of people in a few years who are going to wake up from that lie and think, oh, my goodness, what have I done? And is the church prepared to be a haven of hope for people who have been deceived by the lie? So how say you all?

Dr. Reagan: Oh, the church should not hate homosexuals. The church should love them and try to bring them to an understanding of what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. My problem with homosexuals is that normally they take the position that God made me that way, and so what’s wrong with it? Well, all of us have a sin nature. All of us. And it’s manifested in different ways. Are we to say to a serial adulterer, for example, that, well, you know, it’s okay to come and be in the fellowship and we’ll love on you and tolerate you. But we sure would like for you to give up your adulterous lifestyle. No, the church is to confront people about sin. They’re to love them, and they do it in a loving way. But they’re to be confronted about sin. Why should any? You know, I have more and more people today say to me, what do you mean, I need to be saved? What? Saved from what? They have no idea of the fact that they’re a sinner. There’s a fellow in California who is a Messianic Jew, I can’t think of his name, maybe you all can. Who goes out on the streets and confronts people and says, Are you a sinner? And they’ll say, no, I’m not a sinner. He’ll say, well, let me ask you something: have you ever lusted after a woman?

Nathan Jones: Ray Comfort.

Dr. Reagan: Yeah. And he’ll just go right through the Ten Commandments. And every time he gets through, well, yeah, I guess I am a sinner.

Bob Russell: If you see a guy going the wrong way up the expressway ramp, it’s the most loving thing you can do to blow your horn and say, you better stop for your sake and for the sake of other people. And you say, “Why do you hate me?” It’s not because I hate you, it’s because I know the consequences of your behavior. And when Ezekiel talks about, if you don’t say anything and I say a person is condemned in their sins and you don’t say anything, I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you warn them and they still don’t repent, they will be lost, but I will not hold you accountable for their blood. The Bible preacher has a responsibility to say this is sinful behavior, we need to repent of that. You will wind up in Hell apart from God. If we don’t say that we’re not being true to the Word of God and we’re not being loving toward the person in any sin.

I heard a black preacher two weeks ago start his sermon by saying, “I love wife beaters. Some of my best friends are wife beaters. Some of the wife beaters I know are really good people.” He said, “You wouldn’t let me start a sermon like that because you know that’s wrong behavior.” “And yet what I hear,” he’s talking to a group preachers, “I hear you preach on homosexuality or some of these other sins, you start out apologizing for and talking about how these are really good people, and we don’t want to offend anybody.” Jesus offended people. The disciples said, don’t you know the Pharisees were offended? In fact it got Him crucified.

Doug Cobb: We need to remember that there was a Fall, that nothing is the way God intended it to be, including none of us. All of us are broken. Most of us experienced that in our sexual lives in one way or another. But we are living lives of repentance, in the sense that we have repented once at the beginning and we continue to repent. We agree with Jesus. When we fall, we turn back toward what we know to be the right way. He is at work in us, making us the way He wants us to be. The Bible promises that every one of us who follow Jesus will one day be conformed to His image. You’re going to be like Jesus. So we don’t hate anybody. And if you want to join us in this life of repentance, please come join us. It’s a life of hope, and joy, and freedom and the promise of being with Jesus forever. Whatever your brokenness is just come join us. We’re all a mess.

Tim Moore: Paul said it this way in 1 Corinthians 6:9, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived in this age of deception; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves and or the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revelers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you.” Let me just say this, I dare say if Paul had gone on with the list and he could have gone on and on, he would said such were all you, because we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So all of us could get swept up into a category of sin, yeah there’s mine or a half a dozen of those. But Paul says, but you were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Spirit of our God. So we don’t hate anyone. As a matter of fact, again, I hope that our true churches are havens of hope, but not hope in your sin, hope from sin to be delivered from sin, to be saved from sin and into eternal life with Jesus Christ.

Closing

Nathan Jones: While we wish we had the time to show you Dr. Reagan’s presentation in its entirety, you can watch his whole sermon free from the Sermons page on our website at christinprophecy.org, on our Christ in Prophecy YouTube and Rumble channels, or through our downloadable Lamb and Lion App.

And, if you would like to share these messages of hope with your Sunday school or home Bible study, then order the Hope Springs Eternal Bible Conference DVD by contacting us at the information below. This 3-disc album includes the following sermons: “The Hope That Was” by David Reagan, “The Hope That Is” by Nathan Jones, “The Hope of Fulfilling the Great Commission” by Doug Cobb, “The Hope That is to Come” by Tim Moore, and “Simeon’s Song of Hope” by Bob Russell.

This inspirational DVD also includes a 52-minute Questions and Answers session where our speakers answer such difficult questions as: “What prophecies remain before the Lord can return?”, “Will unbelievers see Christians being raptured up to Heaven?”, “Can those left behind still be saved?” “Will we recognize each other once we’re in our glorified bodies? …and many more questions.

For only a gift of $25 or more, and that includes shipping, order your copy of the Hope Springs Eternal Bible Conference DVD today!

Tim Moore: Conferences like these—and the outreach that flows from them—can only be made possible by the generous support of our Prophecy Partners. Please consider partnering with Lamb & Lion Ministries to proclaim the Good News and the hope-filled message that Jesus Christ is coming soon. Details are available on our website by clicking the Donate button.

Lord, willing, we’ll see you next episode as Nathan teaches you all about the Rapture of the Church. Until then, Godspeed!

End of Program