Talks:
Ezra Taft Benson, “A Witness and a Warning,” Ensign, Nov. 1979, 31
Quotes:
Sheri Dew:
My dear friends, here is the sobering reality: our constitution was written for a moral people. It will not survive a people who collectively lose their virtue.
Sheri Dew, No One Can Take Your Place
Mark E. Petersen:
No people can fight God and live! Every nation will feel a chastening hand if it turns its back upon the Ruler of Heaven and violates his eternal precepts…
His commandments are clearly set forth. His standards of morality, honesty, and the other virtues are well known. But sadly enough, they are noted more for their rejection than for their acceptance. Does this mean that desolation might come upon us in some form?
Why should legislatures condone immorality, whether homosexual or otherwise? Why should officers of state condone vice and even protect it? Why should lawmakers—why should the courts—oppose prayer and reading of the scriptures, doing so in the name of the constitution of this land, where we daily affirm, “In God is our trust” (“Oh Say, Can You See,” Hymns, no. 131)?
Are they for Christ or against him in this Christian land? Can there be any neutrality with respect to God? Christ says no! We are either for him or against him (see Matt. 12:30).
Why should legislatures favor a wholesale violation of the Sabbath day and defeat Sunday closing laws? Why should so-called Christian peoples put up with it?
Almost like children, we fret over our fuel shortages and other inconveniences. We resent restrictions upon our pleasure-seeking activities. Why don’t we admit like grown men and women that a rejection of God is at the very root of all of our troubles? Why do we refuse to wake up to the facts in our situation? Why must we blindly plunge on into catastrophe?
Should we not take right and proper steps to overcome our conflicts, our crimes, and all of our corruptions?
There is but one sure and certain way: return to God! And that must include a sincere acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ, with full obedience to his precepts.
What would he do even now for America if this nation would truly accept him! What would he do for England, for Mexico, for Scandinavia, for Germany, for the Orient, for South America, and for all peoples if they would turn to him, repent of their transgressions, and accept his divine invitation!
…
Listen! Can you hear his call? He is saying even now, “O America, America, how often will I yet gather you—if you will but come.”
“O England, O Scandinavia, O Mexico, O Germany, O Japan, O Korea, and all other lands.” Can you hear? He is calling you—now, today. He will gather you even now, and nurture you and prosper you and give you peace—if you will but come to him in humility and repentance.
In this land we often sing “God Bless America.” Let us continue to do so as a prayer. But why not also sing God bless England, and God bless Scandinavia, and God bless South America and Mexico and the Orient, and God bless Australia and New Zealand, and God bless all other lands? He will bless them—every one—if they will turn to him with full purpose of heart. But there is no other way.
He can end their wars, their internal conflicts, their poverty, their unemployment, and their need of doles. He can eliminate their crimes, their moral corruption, and all the diseases that follow in their wake.
He can give them peace—genuine peace—mentally, physically, spiritually, economically, and politically. But they must pay the price, which is sincere obedience to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why, in the name of common sense, can we not see it? Why in the name of reason do we not turn to him, readily and cheerfully? It is the only safe course.
This is no meaningless rhetoric in which we engage here today. We speak of hard facts, of the realities of life.
There was a time in ancient America when such blessings came to this land and lasted for two hundred years. Peace and prosperity were everywhere. There were no wars, no crimes, no jails, no poverty, no moral corruption, and none of the diseases which sins produce—not for two hundred years.
This is no storybook tale. It was a great reality. It was a vital chapter in world history that came but has never been repeated. Yet it can be repeated now in our day, on the same terms.
The billions we spend on armaments could be directed to peaceful pursuits. The billions that are lost in crime could be diverted toward improving the human race. There would be no racial conflicts, no strikes, no boycotts or lockouts, no armies or navies, and no satellite spy operations.
It is all within our reach as a great physical reality. The price is far less than what we now pay, and the rewards are indescribably greater.
O Jerusalem! O America! O England, and all other countries! The Lord says to all, “Come unto me, … and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Mark E. Petersen, “O America, America,” Ensign, Nov. 1979, 12
Scriptures:
