Rev. Jimmy Swaggart raises his fist to make point at news conference at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles, Friday, March 27, 1987. Swaggart denied accusations that he master-mined a plot to take over the rival PTL ministry, and said PTL leader Jim Bakker has yet to fully repent an extramarital sexual encounter. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)
“Jimmy Swaggart Dies at 90; Passionate Televangelist Was Ousted by Scandal.” This is how the New York Times headlined its coverage of the well-known evangelist’s death this week. Other outlets similarly linked his passing and the moral failures that plagued him in his ministry.
However, here’s the part of the Times story that caught my eye: It was written by a reporter who died five years ago.
David Stout is listed as the author of the article. But at its end, we read, “David Stout, a reporter and editor at The New York Times for 28 years, died in 2020. Hannah Fidelman contributed reporting.”
Clearly the latter merely updated an article written at least five years ago by the former. So we know that the Times has, for several years, planned to run a profile of the evangelist that was written years before his death.
The good news is that, with God, our story is never over until it’s over.
My purpose is not to minimize Jimmy Swaggart’s faults. Rather, it is to point to the transforming grace of Christ whereby no sinner is beyond the reach of repentance and redemption.
“The transcendent glory of the American Revolution”
This amazing grace is the foundational hope of our nation as we approach our 249th birthday. Our system of governance, as enlightened as it was when it was forged and as it remains today, cannot change a single heart or transform a single soul.
If America is to be what Americans pledge to be—“one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”—we must truly be “under God.” We can be “indivisible” only if we are united in a cause higher than ourselves. We can selflessly and sacrificially offer “liberty and justice for all” only if our sinful and selfish hearts are transformed by God’s grace.
As my wife noted in her blog yesterday, Ronald Reagan was right: “If we ever forget that we’re One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”
John Quincy Adams would have agreed. Our sixth president and son of our second was the most intelligent man ever to serve as the chief executive of our nation. Modern experts put his IQ at around 165, in company with Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein. He was fluent in seven languages and could read in several more.
As the young child of one of America’s most instrumental founders, he had a front-row seat to the birth of our nation. He later explained its greatness this way:
The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this—it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the precepts of Christianity.
If Adams was right, these “precepts” are as vital to our future as they were to our founding.
A Cuban pastor explains American history
Put yourself in God’s position for a moment, as audacious as that sounds.
You love all people equally because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). But as a Father, you can bless only that which blesses your children. Your holy nature requires you to judge sinful nations and to elevate nations that elevate your word and will (cf. Deuteronomy 30:15–20).
The psalmist’s declaration is therefore only logical: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Psalm 33:12).
As a result, any nation that ignores biblical truth and rejects biblical morality places itself in peril of losing God’s favor and incurring his judgment. Conversely, any nation that embraces biblical truth and practices biblical morality places itself in position to experience his best for the people and, through them, to the world.
Our family once hosted a pastor friend from Cuba for dinner. During our conversation, he told us that he had been studying American history and had decided why God had blessed America so fruitfully. His explanation: God has blessed America because America’s Christians seek to bless the world.
His assertion is both reasonable and biblical.
A maxim that frames our nation
Of course, any nation as populous and disparate as ours will comprise both those who embrace and share God’s word and those who ignore and even reject it. It was so at our founding and remains so today.
The psalmist asked, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). The answer is simple: rebuild them.
How? Two responses are obvious but nonetheless vital.
One: Make Christ our personal king each day so fully that our lives display his glory and draw others to him. It should be our humble aspiration to be able to say to our fellow Americans what Paul said of himself: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
Two: Intercede fervently for the Holy Spirit to advance spiritual awakening across our nation in humility and repentance so that God will “hear from heaven and will forgive [our] sin and will heal [our] land” (2 Chronicles 7:14; cf. Psalm 85:6; Habakkuk 3:2).
The psalmist advised, “It is better to take refuge in the Lᴏʀᴅ than to trust in man” (Psalm 118:8). This is because the Lord offers transforming grace found nowhere else: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15). Conversely, “‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked’” (v. 21).
The old maxim is therefore the principle that frames American history from our founding to this moment:
“No God, no peace. Know God, know peace.”
Which will be true for you—and because of you—today?
Quote for the day:
“The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained.” —George Washington
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