God’s Prophetic Voices: Past Voices

Part 1

Tim Moore: Greetings in the name of Jesus our Blessed Hope and welcome to Christ in Prophecy! I’m Tim Moore, the Senior Evangelist of Lamb & Lion Ministries.

You know, America was originally founded by Pilgrims, Christians motivated by God to find a place to exercise their faith. They aspired to demonstrate that a society could be built on Biblical principles. So, the writings of these earliest settlers to the New World spoke of entering into a Covenant with God, committing themselves to live by Judeo-Christian values and seeking to build a city on a hill.

While not all of America’s founders were committed Christians, and our nation has not always lived up to those lofty aspirations, America grew and was blessed. Indeed, there can be little doubt that God did shed His grace upon this land, multiplying its population, its material blessings, and its ability to be a conduit of blessing to the rest of the world. America itself came to represent liberty to people longing to live free around the world.

But as we grew more prosperous we began to wander away from God.

Following in the pattern of ancient Israel and Judah, this land of blessing forgot the God who blessed it. When it did, God raised up prophetic voices to call America to return to Him, and to warn of the judgment that will inevitably fall on people and nations that turn their back on Him.

Voices warning America not to stray were already sounding even before our nation was born.

For many years, America’s national leaders also understood the dangers of turning away from God. But those preemptive warnings were not heeded.

Early in the 20th Century America began to emerge as a world power, engaging the rest of the world with economic might and moral clarity. By the end of World War II, America had become a global superpower, counterbalanced only in nuclear and military might by the USSR. But decay had already entered our bones. Growing materialism was infecting the soul of America, while the academic and cultural elites were dallying with secularism and paganism. The seeds of our spiritual downfall were being planted deep.

It was about this time that God began raising up a chorus of prophetic voices. They have continued to sound the alarm, calling those with eyes to see and ears to hear to wake up, turn back, and repent, before it is too late!

Part 2- Peter Marshall

Tim Moore: The first of these voices we will consider was an immigrant preacher from Scotland who rose to the highest corridors of power in Washington, DC. His name was Peter Marshall.

Marshall immigrated to the United States in 1927. He attended seminary in Georgia and quickly distinguished himself as an eloquent preacher. In 1937, he was called to pastor at the New York Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. the church known for years as the Church of the Presidents. His influence and respect was so great that in 1947 he was asked to serve as the Chaplain to the United States Senate. At that point in history, America was emerging as the prime superpower in the world. Our influence was instrumental in crafting the post-War order, and the Christian foundations of our society were still evident and celebrated.

But Peter Marshall’s most famous prophetic moment came in the midst of World War 2. He delivered a sermon in New Orleans in 1944 that shocked his audience, and still has the power to shock us today.

Marshall’s sermon was titled “Trial by Fire.” He recounted the spiritual battle that pitted the prophet Elijah against the prophets of Baal. We’re all familiar with that Old Testament account. King Ahab’s pagan wife Jezebel had elevated Baal worship throughout the northern kingdom of Israel. Determined to honor the true and living God, Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest. Both he and they would prepare sacrifices, and the god who was able to rain down fire would be proven true. The prophets of Baal carefully prepared their sacrifice and cried out to their false god. They worked themselves into a frenzy and cut themselves, trying in vain to convince Baal to show himself.

Elijah ridiculed their efforts even as he awaited his turn. He even drenched his sacrifice and the wooden altar he had erected with gallons of water. When it was his turn to pray, Elijah raised a simple prayer to Jehovah. The Lord God responded dramatically, and fire fell from heaven to consume the sacrifice, the altar, and even the water filling the trench Elijah had dug. The people of Israel fell on their faces and cried out, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

Peter Marshall made a bold declaration to his New Orleans audience. Decrying America’s slide into moral confusion and the rampant materialism already creeping into our national psyche in 1944, Marshall said, “Millions of people in America live in moral fogs. They move in a sort of spiritual twilight. Modified morality; modified dishonesty is the practice of millions more. Surely the time has come to be honest about it. If we have thrown away our national heritage. If we no longer believe that this nation was founded under God. If contrary to what is stamped upon our coins, our trust is not in God but in Baal, Let us say so!”

He went on to say, “America needs a prophet like an Elijah, a prophet who will have the ear of America and will say to her now.”

Well, let’s just listen to how Peter Marshall declared:

Peter Marshall: “We need a prophet who will have the ear of America and say to her now, how long will you halt and stand between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him, but if Baal be God, follow him and go to Hell.”

Tim Moore: Wow! That’s the kind of preaching you don’t hear very often these days. But let’s be frank: that’s the kind of preaching that was not very common in 1944 either. And that’s why Marshall’s conclusion shocks us out of our complacency even today.

The trends Peter Marshall observed in our nation have only accelerated in recent years. You don’t have to wonder just how appalled he and other faithful Christians from the past would be to see how far we’ve fallen; the clarity of their convictions convicts the shallow apathy of most of the Church in America today.

Just consider this evidence of bygone American attitudes. During his sermon, Peter Marshall read from an editorial that appeared in “Life Magazine’s” Christmas issue in 1942. He quoted:

“The lackadaisical days when it didn’t matter much whether you were a Christian or not may be numbered. In coming days, you may have to declare yourself more definitely than you ever expected as to whether you believe in the Word of Christ or not.”

Once again, wow! Can you imagine a leading national magazine featuring an editorial like that today?

Like Elijah of old, Peter Marshall offered a challenge, not to a group of false prophets, but to his listeners then and by extension, to us still today. Will we go along with the slow slide into paganism and idolatry permeating our culture? Or will we fall on our faces and cry out, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

Just as He did with the children of Israel, God has offered us a choice: life or death. Following God leads to life; disobeying Him and pursuing false gods leads to destruction and death.

Peter Marshall’s warning echoes loud and clear 77 years later: If the Lord be God, then follow Him! But anyone who follows a lesser god has already made a choice… to go to Hell!

Part 3- David Wilkerson

Tim Moore: The next voice was a very young Pentecostal preacher from rural Pennsylvania. God inspired David Wilkerson to move to New York City and minister to violent street gangs, then propelled him out of obscurity and into the national spotlight. He recounted his testimony in his autobiographical book, The Cross and the Switchblade, which was made into a movie starring Pat Boone in 1970.

In New York City, Wilkerson witnessed the excesses of America’s rebellion against God. Then, in 1973, God gave David Wilkerson a vision of what lie ahead for America. In his book titled, “The Vision,” he faithfully shared a warning of judgment and destruction.

He predicted an outbreak of natural calamities, and a flood of filth. He said that America would eventually embrace homosexuality to the point that “students will be told that homosexual love is normal” and “homosexuals and lesbians will be ordained and given places of authority.” These predictions have already come to pass. Pornography permeates our culture. The internet provides seemingly anonymous access to the vilest and most degrading deviancy imaginable. And our nation now celebrates sexual license, completely normalizing homosexuality and casting itself adrift even from a biological, let alone a Biblical understanding of sex and gender.

David Wilkerson also said the breakdown of the family would lead to an epidemic of bitterness between children and parents, a haze of addiction to alcohol and drugs, and sky-rocketing divorce and illegitimacy rates. All of those predictions were spot on and disastrous to the stability of our society.

The only hope for individuals or societies facing such a witch’s brew of ungodliness is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Wilkerson said that culture and government polices alike would become antagonistic toward Christianity, to the point that Christians would be openly persecuted for their faith in Christ. We have certainly arrived at that sad state of affairs.

David Wilkerson discerned the danger that many Christians are only waking up to today. He wrote, “I believe that we have passed the point of no return.” That was a bold statement in 1974.

For a period of time, American society and culture continued under their own momentum. The internal disease was not yet evident to those without keen spiritual discernment. But eventually, the whole system breaks down. William Herberg, a Jewish philosopher, and theologian calls our condition “cut flower culture.” He said, “The attempt made by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of western civilization from their Judeo-Christian context has resulted in our cut flower culture. Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So, with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity, the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.”

David Wilkerson understood that and offered a warning to America 48 years ago. His unpopular message echoed that of Jeremiah, who proclaimed God’s word of judgment to ancient Israel:

He said, “Your wound is incurable, and your injury is serious. There is no one to plead your cause; no healing for your sore, no recovery for you…because your iniquity is great, and your sins are numerous.”

Also, like Jeremiah, David Wilkerson’s prophecies were not appreciated or heeded in his day. But he will be vindicated by God for his faithfulness to be a prophetic voice crying in the wilderness.

Part 4- Francis Schaeffer

Tim Moore: Francis Schaeffer also hailed from Pennsylvania but became famous while ministering outside America. After serving nine years at a series of churches in Pennsylvania and Missouri, Francis and his wife Edith went for a brief visit to Europe. The rising apostasy they witnessed there convinced them to become missionaries to the very countries that had once been stalwarts of the Christian faith.

In time, scores of disaffected young people from the United States streamed to their ministry in Switzerland called “L’ Abri Fellowship.” Schaeffer recognized the spiritual crisis at home in America and became an outspoken opponent of the Humanism infecting Western societies. His book and accompanying film series, “How Should We Then Live?” was acclaimed internationally. Schaeffer described it as a “sweeping epic on the rise and decline of Western thought and culture.”

True to that claim, Schaeffer reviewed Western civilization over the past 2,000 years. He pointed out where the West began to stray from its Christian foundations, and decried the impoverished values chocking America, a desire for personal peace and affluence.

Schaeffer, described personal peace as a desire “to have my personal life pattern undisturbed in my lifetime, regardless of what the result will be in the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren.” Our addiction to affluence compelled pursuit of what he called “an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity, a desire for a life made up of things, things and more things.” Those attitudes explain why our government continues to budget trillions in deficit spending that future generations will owe.

Francis Schaeffer aptly described the threat many Americans are waking up to right now when he said, “As the memory of the Christian consensus which gave us freedom is forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum.” Governors and bureaucrats across America are proving that true today.

He warned that societies would be ruled by an arbitrary elite with arbitrary values, and highlighted three looming dangers:

Scientific tinkering with the human genetic code.
Growing manipulation by the media, particularly television.
And reliance on shifting public opinion as the basis for law instead of a consistent interpretation of the Constitution.

Forty-seven years later, all of those dangers are upon us in full force.

Schaeffer was alarmed by America’s slide toward Humanism. As a response to the guiding documents of that ideology the “Communist Manifesto” of 1848, the “Humanist Manifesto I” of 1933, and the second “Humanist Manifesto” in the early 70’s, Schaeffer wrote “A Christian Manifesto” in 1973. He warned that Humanism is “an exclusivist, closed system which shuts out all contending viewpoints, especially if those views teach anything other than relative values and standards.” It is as he said, “completely intolerant.”

He cited Supreme Court Justice Frederick Vinson who asserted, “Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes.” Certainly, Humanism rejects Christianity and its dependency on God and God’s law. Steeped in Humanism America no longer recognizes a Supreme Judge beyond mankind. Instead, we have become like Israel in the time of the judges: everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

In contrast Schaeffer popularized a phrase that has come to describe the entire biblical belief system: Christian Worldview. Summing up that worldview, he wrote, “Unless the Bible is without error, not only when it speaks of salvation matters, but also when it speaks of history and the cosmos, we have no foundation for answering questions concerning the existence of the universe and its form and the uniqueness of man. Nor do we have any moral absolutes, or certainty of salvation, and the next generation of Christians will have nothing on which to stand.”

Schaeffer’s greatest frustration was with the Church, and what he described as “the failure of the Evangelical world to stand for truth.” In the face of demands to secularize, Schaeffer said most of “the evangelical church has accommodated to the spirit of the age by holding a weakened view of the Bible and no longer affirming the truth of all the Bible teaches.”

Francis Schaeffer’s prophetic warning and challenge echoes into the present and should rally us to stand firm on the Word of God, lest we drift into oblivion.

Part 5- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Tim Moore: The final past voice I’ll recall today was another immigrant to America. As a matter of fact, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent most of his life in the atheistic, antagonistic enemy of the United States, the Soviet Union.

Solzhenitsyn’s father died before he was born, and his mother raised him in the Russian Orthodox faith. He served as an officer in the Red Army during World War II but was condemned to prison for privately criticizing Stalin’s execution of the war. His experiences in the dehumanizing Soviet prison system led him to reject Marxism and return to his early Christian faith.

When he was released from prison after eight years, Solzhenitsyn was forced into internal exile in Kazakhstan. In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev denounced the brutal excesses of Josef Stalin and called for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. Released from his exile, Solzhenitsyn became a high school math teacher and began writing.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was quickly recognized as truly gifted Russian writer. So, even when the openness initiated by Khrushchev was closed again during the 1960’s, Solzhenitsyn’s status offered him a degree of insulation and he continued to write and publish. His notoriety heightened when he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970. Three years later, his seminal book on his prison experience, The Gulag Archipelago, was published in France. The book represented an existential threat to the Soviet regime, so in 1974 Moscow stripped Solzhenitsyn of his Soviet citizenship. He wandered around Europe for the next two years before settling in Vermont in 1976.

The arch of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s life hit all the stops. Like the Apostle Paul, he experienced the extremes of poverty and wealth, plenty and want, hunger and satisfaction. One would think that upon arriving in the United States he would have been exceedingly thankful to be free of want and oppression. But instead, he was burdened with the recognition that America was succumbing to moral decline.

His first public speech in America was delivered at the Harvard University commencement in 1978. The intelligentsia there expected him to celebrate American Humanism and intellectual freedom. Instead, he decried our lack of courage in confronting international evil, our exercise of liberty without self-restraint, and our obsession with legal solutions to every problem. In a speech delivered in Russian and translated into English, he warned of “the abyss of human decadence, such as the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people with a culture of pornography, violence, and horror.”

Solzhenitsyn explained the source of the West’s moral poverty as the elevation of Man over God. Thirty-three years after that speech was delivered, the “Harvard Magazine” called it one of the most “brilliant, iconoclastic, thoughtful, articulate, and challenging addresses every delivered at a Harvard commencement.” But, reflecting on the whirlwind of denunciation he received in 1978, it recollected that he “chastised the arrogance and smugness of Western materialistic culture and exposed the adverse effects of some of those achievements that Western democracies had long prided themselves upon.” Indeed.

In 1983 Solzhenitsyn delivered another speech with great prophetic significance. He shared how elderly Russians used to explain the calamities that befell their nation with the realization that “Men have forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.” Gazing back on the 20th Century and endeavoring to explain the looming downfall of Western civilization in general and America in particular he said, “I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had to descend into the pit of the Soviet Gulag before he discerned the light of God’s truth planted in his heart as a child. With a lifetime of experience and a prophet’s insight, he warned America of its destiny without God.

Do we have ears to hear?

Part 6- David Jeremiah and Franklin Graham

Tim Moore: We could devote an entire episode of Christ in Prophecy to each of these men. What do they all have in common? Certainly not their origins or their pedigrees. Like the prophets of old they heralded from a variety of backgrounds.

In the weeks to come, we’ll feature interviews with most of the living prophetic voices from Dr. Reagan’s book. All of those one-on-one interviews were conducted at the home base or headquarters of the person being featured, no small feat with the threat of Covid still hanging over the world.

The only two individuals that we could not connect with were David Jeremiah and Franklin Graham. Lamb & Lion Ministries has great respect for their ministries and hope that circumstances will allow us to bring you a taped interview with both of these Evangelical leaders in the future.

David Jeremiah is the well-known and respected pastor of Summit Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California. His book, “I Never Thought I’d See the Day!” from 2011 prophetically describes nine developments in America he never thought he’d see in his lifetime:

The rise of angry atheists
The intensifying of spiritual warfare
The dethroning of Jesus Christ
The redefining of marriage
The loss of our moral compass
The marginalization of the Bible
The growing irrelevance of the Church
The growing influence of rogue nations
And the erosion of support for Israel

We’ve decried those same developments here at Lamb & Lion Ministries for many years. David Jeremiah also asserts that we reflect the attitude of Judah, whose collective rebellion led to such depravity that God’s Shekinah Glory departed from the Temple.

But, like us, Pastor Jeremiah points to a glorious promise. He wrote: “In all the New Testament, there is not one single statement to warn Christians of the coming Great Tribulation or to help them prepare for it. If it were our lot to endure the wrath that will devastate the earth during those seven years, isn’t it strange that God never gave us one tidbit of information, encouragement, warning, or instruction on our preparation for it? The reason for that omission is clear: the church will not be present at all when the Tribulation comes.”

I just say, Hallelujah!

Franklin Graham is another prophetic voice from Dr. Reagan’s book. He is the head of Samaritan’s Purse and an outspoken Evangelical voice. Unlike his gospel-preaching father, Billy, Franklin has not avoided calling out America and its leaders for straying from Biblical truth.

As Dr. Reagan reminds us, Franklin Graham demonstrates that the spiritual gift of prophecy can be manifested in three ways:

Supernatural knowledge of the future.
The ability to understand and teach Bible prophecy.
And the ability and compulsion to apply the Scriptures to current national and international trends.
Franklin obviously excels in the third category.

I’ve crossed paths with Franklin at a National Day of Prayer gathering in Washington where we laid hands on one another and prayed for each other and at a prayer rally in Kentucky, at the state capitol while I was serving in the Kentucky legislature and chairing the Prayer Caucus. The rallies he organized across the nation in 2016 summed up his insightfulness as a prophetic voice. He said, “The only hope for this country is Almighty God and His Son. We can’t sit idly by any longer. LGBT activists, abortion rights advocates, aggressive atheist groups, and other who ignore God’s Word are trying to shove their agenda down our throats.”

Then, Franklin repeated the statement he shared in all 50 state capitols, he said, “I have no hope in the Democratic Party, and I have no hope in the Republican Party. Zero hope. Instead, our only hope is God.”

That sentiment is shared by all the prophetic voices we’ll bring to you in the weeks to come.

God’s prophetic Word is foolishness to those who are perishing. The prophetic voices He has raised up only impact those with ears to hear. The signs He sends are only discernable to those with eyes to see.

If God has given you spiritual eyes to see and ears to hear, the prophetic voices we highlight in the weeks to come will resonate in your heart. More importantly, they will inspire you to be watchful for our soon-returning King, even as you obey His commandments and live ready for His call.

We’d like to conclude today’s show with the new application segment that we plan to include as often as possible. In honor of Francis Schaeffer’s prophetic voice and his book it will be called “How Then Should We Live?”

Nathan Jones will share insight on how today’s message applies to you.

Part 7 – How Then Should We Live

Nathan Jones: What a variety of prophetic voices! Each man came out of a different background and unique giftedness, yet all felt driven by God to use that aspect of the gift of prophecy called, forthtelling.

People often overlook the fact that the Hebrew prophets were forth-tellers as well as foretellers. In fact, the prophets spent most of their time using God’s Word to spotlight societal problems; they called their listeners to repentance, true worship, and personal holiness. Forth-tellers call society back to God’s moral law.

Well, maybe you’ve been wondering if you, too, have this gift of prophecy. What do I mean? Well, we here at Lamb & Lion Ministries believe that the gift of prophecy manifests differently today than when John completed Revelation. Today, people with the spiritual gift of prophecy have a passion to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others in the short time we have left. They do not prophesy future happenings and dates apart from the Bible, rather they discern where the signs of the end times are leading society and provide warning.

As you can see, every Christian then has the gift of prophecy especially if they are truly passionate about the Lord’s soon return. If you are watching this program, I’d imagine that you have that giftedness as well. God wants you to use your special spiritual gift that He’s given you.

But maybe you don’t believe you’re the right person for the job. Look then to the variety of prophetic voices Tim’s shown us today which remind us of this biblical truth: God calls many different types of people. And look at the examples from the Bible. God has raised up shepherds and kings, priests and cupbearers, fishermen and carpenters, all to serve Him. He still raises up people from every walk in life.

So, I implore you to answer the call God’s placed on your life. Instead of being a mere spectator, become a forth-teller. Start by telling the people around you what Jesus has done for you using your own personal testimony.

We hope you’ll join us again next week on “Christ in Prophecy.” Until then, this is Nathan Jones saying, “Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

End of Program