My God and My Country

Tears Over America

by Walter A. Maier (1893-1950)

Edited & Prefaced by R.P. Woitowitz Sr.

Preface:

Brethren, is it not the time for our nation to return to God? We have become so filled with hate, vilifying everyone and anyone that disagrees with our points of view. Can we not come together at one point, that is that our Creator, loves us all, sent his spirit into that of a man; Christ Jesus and redeemed us all from sin? Be well-forewarned friends, God is not a man that he should be mocked, and likewise, take these words from the prophet Amos 4:12 - “Prepare to meet thy God” and likewise from Psalm 46:10 - Be still and know that I am God”

Therefore let us go out and proclaim His name, and bring about a revival in our nation.

R.P. Woitowitz Sr.

If Jesus were with us today, He would undoubtedly weep over America's spiritual life. We have congregations that count their real estate and resources in millions, some of them in tens of millions! Yet that alone means nothing to Christ. The United States likewise is crowded with churches which forget the divine command, "Thou shall love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind" and which, instead of this inner, heart-centered, soul-deep worship of God, permit head and lip worship to creep in, formalism and ceremonies to receive far too much attention. The plain preaching of the Gospel, without which no man can be redeemed, is pushed into the background. Ask the average American: "How do you expect to be saved? What is your hope of heaven?" and you will find first that many of our countrymen do not want to be saved, since they think they do not need to be; and you will also learn that of those who believe in the hereafter, the majority actually like to think themselves so good, so much better than others, that God will welcome them with open arms when they ought to understand that without the Lord Jesus they are lost forever; that their hearts are filled with greed, lust, hatred, their lives marked with secret and disguised sin. Because millions in this nation, founded by Christian pioneers, blessed above all other people on earth through religious freedom, have forgotten their God, neglected their privileges, spurned their blessings, rejected their Savior, we can find Him on Olivet, grief-gripped not only for Jerusalem's Temple, but for churches in the United States that are more concerned about money raising than soul-winning, more intent on gaining popular applause than divine approval. As we hear Christ repeat His warning, "This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoreth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me" may God give us the spiritual insight required to understand that, if America is to come closer to the Almighty, this rededication must start in the churches; that the groups called Christian must receive a transfusion of firm, unquestioning, self-denying trust. To stop the tears of Christ, we must go back to the Bible, back to the blessed Savior, back to the blood of His atonement, back to justification by faith, and faith alone.

From Olivet, the Savior could likewise see the palace of Caiaphas, the high priest He wore the sacred robes and the breastplate inscribed, "Holiness to the Lord." He occupied the highest position in Old Testament worship. He alone could enter the Holy of Holies on the solemn Day of Atonement. Yet that high priest, who should have been closest to God, was an unbeliever, a murderer at heart, a sworn enemy of Jesus, and long ago he had begun to plot the crucifixion. He was surrounded by many Sadducees, who openly attacked Scripture, denied the hope of the resurrection, claimed that life was ruled by chance, that death ended everything. These men, politicians, perjurers, bold unbelievers in priestly apparel, were responsible for their country's downfall. It was true, then, as now, that:

“ When nations are to perish in their sins, 'Tis in the Church the leprosy begins.”

Would not the same Savior who broke into sobs over the treachery of these priestly traitors raise His voice in lament if He were with us today to behold the unbelief in the ranks of the American clergy? The war has not yet brought a real revival of true Christian faith in America. Modernists, deniers of the free and final atonement by the Lord Jesus, are still in control of many congregations and of some denominations, Twentieth-century Sadducees sit securely in high places, Pulpit politicians, who heedlessly step over the line separating Church and State, are on the increase. For political reasons, ministers of the Gospel, in direct contradiction to Christ's Spirit, have decried the sending of food to Europe's starving children. The number of those who teach and preach that Jesus, God's Son and Mary's, our Lord and Savior, our Ransom and Redeemer, our Atonement and Reconciliation to the Father, is the only but heaven-blessed Hope for every sinner, does not increase with rapid strides. Yet, because an unbelieving, Christ-debasing, Bible-ridiculing clergy can bring disaster on the nation, the appeal in this crisis to every servant of God must be: "Preach the Word!" "Call, [the] sinners to repentance! Proclaim the Gospel with all its comforting and sustaining love! Believing American homes must help in safeguarding the Savior's truth. A national magazine presents a survey, taken among "a faithfully balanced cross-section of high school students," which reveals that almost half of the young people do not attend church regularly. Is there any connection between this startling fact and the FBI report which showed an increase last year of more than 55 per cent in the arrests of girls under twenty-one? Ask yourself pointedly, 'Would Jesus weep over conditions in my home?" If you know that He would implore Him to enter your household now and bring your entire family to His unfailing grace!

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked," is the warning America should read in Jerusalem's ruins. If up to this time you have insolently risen up against your Redeemer, turned your back on His arms nailed to the cross but stretched wide in invitation to welcome you, then, with all the life-and-death earnestness of this warning, I tell you that on Olivet Jesus was weeping for you, shedding divine tears because, if you continue to reject His ransom for your sin, you must pay in eternity for every unforgiven wrong, every unremoved transgression! Look at the Christ of sorrows once more! He weeps for you, knowing the peace, pardons, hope, and happiness you have lost without Him; the heavenly home, the seeing Him face to face in the blessed eternity you have spurned, the pain and horror of hell which you, sin-blinded, have chosen. Is your heart stone, that you are not moved by your sorrowing Savior, the Lord of heaven and earth, the God of all might, mourning over your preciously bought but carelessly lost soul? It was too late for masses in Jerusalem to repent and return to God. But, thanks to the Savior's marvelous mercy, it is not too late for you to throw off your stubborn resistance to Jesus and fall on your knees in contrite sorrow over your sins. You unbelieving husbands, unfaithful wives, ungrateful children, you blasphemers and scoffers; you, the self-satisfied and self-righteous; you who are sending your souls to hell by living in sin, helping destroy the morals and the faith of others there is still time for you to kneel before the compassionate Christ and say: 'What a fool I have been to reject my soul's salvation! Now I have found you, at last, my all-forgiving Redeemer. You do not need to weep anymore for me! O Jesus, dry your tears! Wash me! Cleanse me! Purify me through faith!" When you come to the Lord of limitless love with that faith, His face, once stained with tears, will be wreathed in heavenly happiness. The lips which once pronounced the woe over Jerusalem will tell you, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out”.

There is time for every one of you, but not so much time that you dare continue to postpone and delay accepting grace. "Now is the day of salvation.' You may not be with us next Sunday to hear another appeal for return to your heavenly Father. A week ago, while speaking to the men in tie United States Naval Air Station at Lambert Field, Saint Louis, I warned the cadets against the "speed and suddenness with which adversity may overtake us in these darkened days of war," and

I asked them, in these very words, "Who knows what message of sorrow may come into our homes before this day draws to its close?" A few hours later two of those young fliers met sudden death in the first air collision at the training station. So quickly and unexpectedly, by God's inscrutable will, was the truth of that warning proved! Some of you may never have another opportunity to hear that Christ loved you despite your sins, died on the cross as your Substitute. Now, while heaven is still open for you, while Jesus pleads with you, while the Spirit urges you, wherever you are, accept Him! Say, "He is mine, and I am His for time and eternity!" The nation needs men and women with that trust. The first line of America's defense is faith in the Savior. The strongest weapon against enemies from within and without is the power of God through Christ To have the promise of that strength, millions in America must repent. They must return to God. They must acclaim their crucified Lord of love!