“Which do you think is greater,” he asked, “the moral distance that separates us from the most monstrous of Nazis or that which separates us from God?”

“Beware of the good Nazi...Because they compared themselves by the standard they themselves created. Each, in his own eyes, was a good Nazi, a moral Nazi, a decent Nazi, a religious Nazi, and a Nazi no worse than the next. For by seeing themselves in their own eyes, they become blind. But their judgement would come in the form of destruction, and their sins would be exposed before the world...You can never judge yourself by your own standards and your own righteousness, but only in the light of His righteousness.”

“You see, the one who wills for judgment is man, not God. The heart of God wills for salvation. Greater than His judgments are His compassions.”

“If America upholds God's eternal standards and follows His unchanging ways, then it will be blessed with His favor...His protection...His prosperity....But if America should depart from the ways of God, if it should disregard His eternal standards, then the smiles of heaven, the blessings of God, will be withdrawn-its prosperity, its protection, and its powers would be taken away. He's giving a warning to the nation: The day America turns away from God will be the day that begins the removing of its blessings.”

“A nation is turning away from God. Its hedge of protection has been removed. Why? To cause them to turn back, to wake up, to save them from a greater judgment. And what are they doing in light of it? Or rather, what are they not doing? They're not returning to God? Exactly. Instead of listening to the alarm, instead of turning back, instead of even pausing for a moment to reexamine their ways, they boast their resolve. It was'nt about rebuilding at all. It was about ignoring the warning and rejecting the call to return. So they missed their warning. They did more than just miss it. The defied it. Notice the words. They weren't vowing just to rebuild what was destroyed, but to make themselves stronger than before, to become invulnerable to any future attack. So what they're saying is this: We will not be humbled. We will not search our ways or consider the possibility that something could be wrong.”

“America was founded on prayer. Therefore, the removal of prayer from its public life was a central part of its fall from God. A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it.”

“And America has done much good. And there's no shortage of nations far exceeding any of its faults or sins. But no nation in the modern world has ever been given so much. None has been so blessed. To whom much is given, much is required. If a nation so blessed by God should turn away from Him, what then? It's blessing will be replaced with curses? Yes. And has America turned away from God? I asked. It has turned and is turning. How? In the same way Israel turned. It started with a spiritual complacency, then spiritual confusion, then the merging of God with idols and then, ultimately, the rejection of his ways. Just as with ancient Israel, America began ruling God out of its life, turning, step by step, against His ways, at first subtly and then more and more brazenly.”