Straight Talk About Real Change

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

By: Franklin Graham

America finds itself firmly in the grip of fear and uncertainty unlike any time since the Great Depression. The almighty dollar is under assault and our soldiers are mired in wars with no end in sight. Terrorists have already attacked us and others are certainly in training and hiding for an opportune time to strike again. The most powerful nation on the planet suddenly seems fragile and we are about to turn over the reins of leadership to a new president.

One who would be president has assumed the mantle of change, promising to bring real change to Washington. The other candidate built his image and campaign as the one offering straight talk, presumably in contrast to political double-talk.

America does need change. We also need some straight talk. While (thankfully) I'm not running for anything, I'd like to propose that the change we need is a change of the human heart--a moral and spiritual change--and we need some straight talk from the greatest manual on life ever written--God's Word, the Holy Bible.

Here's some straight talk from another well-known political leader. "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness." These words were penned by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863; though they could appropriately be used in the next president's State of the Union address without any editing.

It's convenient to point to Wall Street executives, K Street lobbyists, Capitol Hill legislators and the White House as the sources of America's problems--in other words, to blame other people. We describe our actions with words like excessive greed, choice, alternative lifestyle and mistake; but God has always used a single word to describe the root of all human problems--sin.

Sin is simply falling short of God's standard and the Bible teaches that we have all have sinned, and that the penalty for sin is death. That sin separates us from a perfect God who loved us enough to send His Son to die for us and to save us from our sin. Politically incorrect? Perhaps to some. But thankfully, the peace which God offers is non-partisan and is available to all who ask for it.

How long do we think we can selectively take life, marry within our sex and have random sex apart from marriage, take what doesn't belong to us, neglect our neighbor and the responsibility to care for His creation, and worship our money rather than the one who endowed us with the ability to make money without serious repercussions?

Noah Webster diagnosed America well two centuries ago when he wrote, "All the miseries and evils which men suffer from-- vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." Thomas Jefferson once said, "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."

With confidence and trust in our politicians and financial institutions at an all-time low and citizens crying out for leadership, this would be a good time for America's pastors to step forward and call a nation back to the very God who gave us life.

We need leaders who, like the priests and prophets of the Old Testament, will warn us to turn from our sinful ways and follow God's blueprint for living. King Uzziah ruled Judah for 52 years and became so strong and successful that he became proud and acted corruptly, sinning against God. As he went into the temple one day Azariah the priest followed him, with 80 fellow priests in tow to confront and oppose the king who had forgotten God. Where are those leaders today, men and women who have the courage and strength to confront the establishment and the culture?

America needs the same advice God gave to King Solomon in the Old Testament when his nation was collapsing from corruption and moral decay. God told the king "If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land."So here's the kind of change I'm proposing this election season: Let's return to the God of our fathers and put our real hope in the One who made us in His image and blessed our nation far beyond anything we deserve. Let's humble ourselves and seek His forgiveness, rather than the approval of men. Let's look to God, rather than Wall Street or Pennsylvania Avenue, to heal our land.

Franklin Graham is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and international relief organization Samaritan's Purse.

Blogger comment:

I agree in most of Mr. Franklin Graham article, a son of Billy Graham revered by many Muslims. Though we as Muslims consider Jesus (PBUH) a great prophet we unite with good Christians in following his teachings.

We need change at every level and mostly so morality. We understand as Muslims the period before the second coming to be hardship to all of us who deviated away from God commands and laws.

We will have more hardship if we do not reconcile with our creator.