Frank Capra and the Loss of American Values

Steve Shafer.

Well, good afternoon, everyone. This almost seems like a strange experience. It was just under five years ago today I gave my farewell sermon here. It was in August of 2010.

I want to say it's a wonderful experience being back here in this building and being up here. I look at this lectern here and I don't think Larry's here today. I don't believe it. Anyway, Larry Taylor, a lot of you know he's an extremely talented individual. He's the one that suggested we have three tones in the paint color here at this building. There are three tones colors. He said that would really look nice, and it did. Larry Taylor is a wonderful craftsman of wood. He actually built this lectern himself, as well as the rack on the back there. That's how good he is with wood. This is probably the nicest lectern in the United States of America. Really, when you next time you see the president speak, look at his lectern and compare it to this. This is probably about a three or four thousand dollar lectern if you had had to get ordered with something like this. I remember this building when we first purchased it. It was a restaurant. A wall came out over there where the door is. That was where the electric panel was. Dave Charles, who was here last week, he volunteered his time after work, many, many hours for the whole summer of 1995, I think it was, or 96, whatever it was we built the building. Malcolm won't probably know. Anyway, he had to move all that electrical panel from there back to the furnace room. He worked on all summer, volunteered his time. He spent a lot of time up here in the attic, sweating. The only thing original from the vigil building we have here, the main things, we had the chandelier and little lights around there. We thought those were quite quaint in the restaurant, so we kept those. We kept the mirrors there. Everything else was pretty much redone. It's really neat to be back here in this building. A wonderful transformation took place. A lot of men helped. A lot of people helped. Again, Larry Taylor and then Charlie Smith, who was here at the time, too. They repainted the whole inside and outside. Just a lot of volunteer help from everybody to make this building into a wonderful hall that it is. It's really neat to be back here again after being gone for five years now. The last sermon I gave out in Seattle, we transferred there in 2010 to Seattle. I got a call from Denny Luecker, who we've been very close friends for a long time, with Denny Luecker. When he was appointed to be president, I called to congratulate him, and he said, well, would you come out to Seattle? Because I was born and raised in Seattle, and knew the people in Seattle. That's where I started church. I asked him if I'd come out there and pastor for him, helping out with the Seattle and Cedar Woolley congregations, while he served as president. Of course, as we know, tragically, he got cancer towards the end of his first three-year term and died. We've been out there the last two years beyond that time, until they found someone that would be able to take that particular circuit. I actually then retired on May 1st, so I'm now officially retired. It's great to be here. Now, after the last three months, we've been really physically focused on moving, on getting back into our home. Chris and Deb, of course, stayed in our home for the last five years and took care of it for us, which we're very grateful for that. We're now trying to spruce things up and fix things up and so on. That's keeping us focused on physical things a lot. It's really nice to be back where I can focus again a little bit on the spiritual. I was born in Seattle in 1941. I want to introduce my sermon this way. I was born in April of 1941, about eight months before Pearl Harbor.

Of course, Pearl Harbor thrust us into World War II when that happened. I think back as a child, growing up in Seattle, it was a great city to grow up in. Back in the 1940s and 50s, I grew up in Seattle. I thought about the Seattle that I knew growing up and then also the America I knew growing up. The America we live in today is just not the America that I grew up in back in 1940s and 1950s.

Back in the 40s and 50s, Seattle was a great place to be raised. It's a wonderful city. It's very beautiful out there. A lot of mountains, a lot of water. Today, it's deteriorated morally into something that I really could never imagine would have happened when I was a boy growing up in 1940s and 50s. I would never have imagined that Seattle would have deteriorated morally into what it has become today. Today, Seattle has a gay mayor. You watch the news, and the mayor gets up to speak. He's there with his Asian male partner, and they're introduced as Mr. and Mr. Mayor, which is kind of strange. The state of Washington, like Colorado, was legalized gay marriage. As now, for just a reason, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage for all 50 states.

Washington also legalized the recreational use of pot. I remember when that passed, and we were coming back. We had to come back from church. We had to drive through downtown Seattle, because at that time, after Denny Luecker died, we had to move from their home. We were living in their home. We had to move over to my sister had an apartment on Bainbridge Island. We had to cross the sound of the ferry, about a 30-minute ferry ride. We were coming to catch the ferry, coming from Cedar Whooly, I think, and coming down after services and driving through Seattle.

On that Saturday, when pot was first legalized, everybody could smoke our gage a pot. It was like everybody in Seattle was out there on the street smoking pot. I mean, the pot was so thick, we had to roll up the windows, and we were going to get high.

I used to be able to say, I never smoked pot, but I don't know if I can say that right now, because I probably did and he also on that particular day.

You know, the other thing that's really different about Seattle, they used to celebrate good things.

Now, the city of Seattle celebrates every form of deviant behavior you can imagine. Every year, they close down once the main streets in downtown Seattle for a nude parade.

And they show highlights on TV, but they blur everything out, but you can see what's going on.

They also, once every summer, they close down the streets of Seattle so they can have a gay parade.

On another day during the summer, they close down the streets of Seattle, believe it or not, so they can have a transvestite parade, honor transvestites.

And, believe it or not, there's another one.

Once, one day every summer, they close the streets of Seattle down so they can have a zombie parade, so people can dress up and walk like the living dead. Why they want to celebrate that? I don't know, but they do.

That's not the Seattle I grew up in. In the America we live in today is not the America that became the greatest and most prosperous nation the world has ever known because of God's blessing. Today, I want to focus on prophecy just a little bit, on how we became a great nation and where we are today and where we're headed at this point in our history. And, as you all know, we're not headed in the right direction right now. So, I want to compare the America I was born into with the America we live in today and my title, which I'll explain a little bit later, my title is Frank Capra.

Capra spelled C-A-P-R-A. Frank Capra and the loss of American values. First, let's begin with something most of us are familiar with, and that's the promise that God made to Abraham most of us are familiar with, and that's the promise that God made to Abraham so many, many years ago. I'm going back nearly 4,000 years. Let's go to Genesis 12. Beginning in verse 1, this time Abraham's name is still a brahm. It means exalted prince. Now the Lord has said to a brahm, Get out of your country and from your family and from your father's house and go to the land that I will show you.

I want you to think about these words as you read them, these first five verses here, Genesis 12, because they have tremendous meaning for all of us. And if you do that, he said, I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you should be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you.

And in you and your descendants, all the families of the entire earth are going to be blessed because of you and your descendants, God told Abraham. You're going to bless the people of Ram, the entire earth. So a brahm departed, verse 4, as the Lord had spoken to him and Lot went with him. And he was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Then a brahm took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered.

And the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. Again, the conscience of these verses are extremely important to us, especially we look at them spiritually. Because they directly also relate to our calling and to our future that we've been given. And they're very significant.

I know just from coming, going from here out back to Seattle, five years ago, and then coming back here again, it's not easy to make a major move. And the older you get, the more difficult it is. But it's nothing like the move Abraham had to make. We've got to get moving vans to come in and pick up all your furniture for you, and you have your company pay for it for you, usually. And they make it a pretty easy, pretty comfortable move, overall. Still can be traumatic. But back in Abraham's day, it was a little hard to make a major move.

He had to leave his family, leave some of them, and you'd never see him again. But the more possessions you have, too, the more difficult it can be. And Abraham had a lot of possessions, as we know, and a lot of servants. It was a big deal for him to move. Involved well over a hundred people in a lot of positions.

But here's the thing about Abraham, and you think about it, that really makes it difficult, is how would you like to move? When you weren't told why God wanted you to move, and even more disconcerting, you weren't told where you were going. He said, just get out of your country, leave your people, and just follow me, and I'll eventually tell you where you're going.

I'll tell you where to go, but I'm not going to tell you now. Just follow me and leave. Get out of your country and from your family, he said. Leave your country and leave your immediate family, and go to a land that I'm going to show you. I'm not going to tell you where it is right now. And he was 75 years old. How many of you would be cheering to do that? Oh boy, I can't wait! This is exciting! I get to go to... I don't know where, and I don't know why, but oh man, this is really exciting. I'm ready for it. Let's go.

I don't think so. It'd be a pretty difficult decision. But without even asking any questions or expressing doubts as to why God was saying this to him, although I'm sure there are a lot of questions going through his mind, he says, Abhav departed as the Lord had spoken to him. Now you think, when somebody had that kind of faith to make that major a change and follow God and believe in God, that you would receive tremendous blessings after that, wouldn't you? What happened next? Was Abhav greatly blessed for departing in faith as God had directed him? Ardeans did encounter one trial and one problem and one difficulty after another.

Well, I'm not going to read it, but I'll just summarize some of it. First, there was a severe famine which forced Abraham to go south to Egypt. Genesis 12 verses 9 and 10 tells us that. Then in Egypt, he found his life could be in jeopardy as well as his wife Sarah, that they were in jeopardy because of the kings of Egypt. Other people might want to take Sarah for a wife and so on, and their lives could possibly be in jeopardy.

Then after leaving Egypt, he went further south to where the land could not support him with all of his flots and herds. You read that in Genesis 13, the first six verses. Then there was strife between Abraham and Lot. Then they encountered the Canaanites and the parasites as Abraham and Lot separated.

Then they got caught up, and we don't know all the details of this, but in a major battle that involved a number of kings, in Genesis 14.

And just prior to that battle, kings of Genesis 14, God said this to Abraham, whose name at this point is still Abram. Let's turn to Genesis 13, verse 14. Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift your eyes now and look forward to the place where you are, from the place where you are. Look forward from where you are right now. He said, look as far as you can to the east, to west, to north, to south, as far as your eye can see, for all this land which you see, I'm going to give to you in your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise and walk in the land through its length and width, and from I'm giving all this to you. Then Abram moved his tent and went and dwelt in the tavern of threes of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and he built an altar there to the eternal.

So he made this promise to Abram. He says, I'm going to make your descendants as a sand of the sea, and they'd be so numerous, you're not going to be able to keep track of all of them or count them all. They become an innumerable multitude. Too many to number. So what did God then do to fulfill that promise? He called Sarah's womb, so she couldn't have any children. And he waited until she was past childbearing age before he did anything.

Read a little bit of that in Genesis 15, beginning in verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, and I'm your exceedingly great reward. I'm going to award you beyond your imagination. I want you to think about this spiritually, because that is in essence what God has told each and every one of us, what the colony has given us. If you hang in there and you remain faithful, I'm going to award you exceedingly. But you have to hold on. Live by faith. Verse 2, but Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless. And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. I mean, he and Sarah have been trying to have children, I think, for about 20 years and still no children. Now Sarah's getting up there where she's past childbearing age. It's too late. Or is it? Then Abram said, Look, you have given me no offspring. Indeed, one born of my house is my heir. But the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. And then he brought him outside at night. He looked up clear night, and he looked up at the stars. He said, Look now toward the heaven and count the stars if you're able.

He said, Soak shall your descendants be. He said, See all the innumerable stars? That's how many descents you're going to have.

And here Sarah's way past childbearing age. No children. Would you believe God told you that? Well, verse 6 says, And he believed God. I'm sure he wondered why in the world God was going to do this, but he believed God and God accounted to him for righteousness.

And we have to wonder if we would do that after all those trials, one right from another, with nothing to show for it at this particular point, if we would believe God as Abraham did at this particular point. But here's a question for all of us. Why is this story in here? Why did God have Abraham go through all of this? What is the point of this? Why didn't God just fulfill his promise to him? Why did God take Abraham on this particular journey and have to fulfill his promise in this particular way? Why did God cause and or allow Abraham to go through all these trials before giving him the land of Canaan as he had originally promised?

I mean, you look at this point, the story likes everything is going against Abraham. Everything's going against him. Only the voice of God is saying, hey, hang in there, Abraham. I'm going to fulfill my promise. You just keep walking in faith and I'll do the rest.

The question was, would Abraham continue to believe God or not? And here's the thing. Abraham's journey basically is our journey, spiritually speaking. The only difference is God's promise to Abraham at that particular point was physical, physical land of Canaan and physical blessings he was going to give him. In our case, the blessings God wants to give us is eternal life in his kingdom. Far greater reward. But this example of Abraham is for all of us. And I think it can show us something very important. No matter how bad things are in the world we live in, in our own lives, the different trials we face one after another, something happens. You can't understand why would God allow that to happen. This story is here so we can be encouraged and realize that no matter how bad things are, God can work things out. And he's going to work things out according to his promise if we hang in there.

You know, Abraham himself never ended up something in the land of Canaan. He never really got there, got settled there. That would be fulfilled by his descendants. He died first, not having received the promise. And sometimes we will, too. We'll die when not having received the promise. That doesn't mean the promise isn't going to be fulfilled.

Let's go to Hebrews 11, or not Hebrews 11. Hebrews 12, which kind of reiterates this story. Yeah, what I say, Hebrews 11, excuse me. Hebrews 11, verse 8, where it summarizes this by saying, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out, called to go out to the place which he would receive his inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was going or why he was going there. By faith he drove the land to promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. The heirs with him of the same promise. And he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He was going to wait for something that God was going to bring about, that he couldn't bring about. And by faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age of childbearing, because she judged him faithful who had promised to give her a child. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars in the sky immolitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. And these all died in faith. Not everyone received the promises, but that did discourage them, because they had seen them afar off in their mind, and they were assured of them, and they embraced them, and confessed that they were just strangers and pilgrims here on the earth. This is a temporary dwelling we have here on this earth. Our permanent future is with God and His kingdom.

So no matter how rough the road gets, no matter how many trials we go through, we have to keep moving forward just like Abraham did, living by faith.

I'll go to another question. Was God's promise to Abraham ultimately fulfilled? Well, we know it was fulfilled in a sense by the 10 tribes of Israel who became a great nation. The northern 10 tribes of Israel who became a great nation. And Abraham's descendants did eventually become like the stars of heaven. They multiplied exceedingly, and they came a new multitude down through the years. But of course, the 10 tribes of Israel never did really follow God. They had a lot of bad kings that took them in the wrong direction.

After David and Solomon, they eventually fell to Assyria because of their disobedience, and they lost all the blessings that God had given them and promised to them. But here's the point that today's all about. There was also to be a latter-day fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham. We read that in Genesis 49. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 49.

Genesis 49, beginning in verse 1, Jacob called his sons, and of course, Jacob at this point is right at the very end of his life. You can barely see he's going blind. He's given a final promise to his sons. Final blessing, I should say. And he gathered his sons and said, Gather together that I may tell you what shall be for you in the last days. He was inspired by God to say, Here's what's going to happen. Is this just for you? This is your descendants? It's going to happen to your descendants in the last days leading up to the time that Jesus Christ is going to return to set up God's kingdom on the earth. Gather together and hear, you sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel, your father. Dropping down to verse 22, Joseph, and of course we are descendants of Joseph today, great Britain and the United States. Joseph is a fruitful bough, fruitful bough by a well. His branches run over the wall. You think about the United States of America and the latter-day blessings God has poured out on the people of the United States of America. Joseph's descendants, Abraham's descendants in the latter days. Our influence, our influence at one time in the 40s and 50s after World War II, the influence of the United States of America went way beyond his borders to bless the entire world in many, many ways.

Verse 23, the archers that bitterly grieved him, shot him, and hated him, had a lot of enemies, wanted to destroy him. World War I, World War II, other wars that we've had. But his bow remained in strength. It remains strong. Yesterday, it was the strongest military in the world. Still is, probably, if we would have the pride and our power to use it. But where does our strength come from? A lot of people think, well, we just formed ourselves. No, no, that's not what God's word says. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong. How? By the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, to fulfill his promise to Abraham for the latter days. From there is a shepherd, the stone of Israel. By the God of your Father, who will help you. By the Almighty, who will bless you. With blessings of heaven above him, blessings of the deep, blessings of the breast and the womb, blessings of your Father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors up to the utmost bounds of the everlasting heels. They have been on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers. And the United States has been the recipient of those latter-day blessings, to make it the greatest nation in the world they'd ever known up to this time. The widest middle class, where almost all the sit-ins are blessed, even the poor are blessed in the United States.

Because all these promises were fulfilled by Great Britain and the United States. Of course, after World War II, the United States became the most prosperous and nation the world had ever known. I look back on my life, and I was born at a really opportune time to see this fulfilled, this promise, because I was born at the precise time in history that the United States of America was about to reach the pinnacle of God's blessings that he was going to pour upon them to fulfill that promise to Abraham for the latter days. And I've also now lived long enough to see it all unravel before my very eyes. We're losing all those blessings.

Our blessings today are being removed, and many cursings are replacing those blessings, just as God promised would happen if we as a nation abandon God's values. As you can read in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. But what does all this have to do with the man that I've gotten my title? This is all that have to do with Frank Capra, with Frank Capra and the loss of American values. Again, I asked this in a second, a few people raised their hand. How many of you know who Frank Capra was? A few of you do. Okay, well quite a few. Several of you do. He was a filmmaker. He made American films, but ironically he was not an American himself. He's not by birth or not by blood. He was born in Sicily back in 1897 to Sicilian parents who brought him to America in 1903, the very year my father was born, back in Dayton, Ohio. But Frank Capra, they came to America in 1903 and came there with his parents at the age of six. They caught a train out in New York and they took a train all the way from New York to Los Angeles where they settled. They settled in Los Angeles. His parents were relatively poor, but he wanted to be a part of what he saw as the American dream. He saw great potential for America. So he worked hard to put himself through school to get a good education. I hope all young people do that because there's still lots of opportunities there if you have a good education. He wanted to make sure he got a higher education. He ended up going into filmmaking in the 1930s during the time of the Great Depression.

He looked at America in terms of what he saw as the values his people held back at that time. Even though it was a Great Depression raging and people were poor and they didn't have much of anything, it was a lot of people. They held on to those values, family values that they had, and they helped one another during very difficult times. He saw some values there that the average person had. He saw moral principles being displayed by many Americans back there at that time of the Great Depression. Moral principles of right versus wrong that can be shared by any who live by those values.

Of course, we know that those moral principles are based on God's Ten Commandments, God's laws and principles, His judgments. He knew that those values are universal. That is, it doesn't matter who you are, what your situation is, how well you are off financially or not. It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor or what the color of your skin is or what your background is or what your circumstances are. He's realizing that any average person who keeps those values and lives by them is going to be blessed. He wanted to make sure. He thought, you know, one thing we need to do is we need to make sure that the American people never forget how valuable those principles are they're living by right now, as he saw it back in the 1930s. So he wanted to put those values in films. So those films could be seen by all of America, and they would never lose sight of those values, and they'd be passed on from one generation to the next.

His films then elevated ordinary citizens who lived by those high moral principles. In the 1930s and 40s, his films were nominated for 35 Academy Awards, and they won eight Academy Awards. Films such as Mr. Deed Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, It's a Wonderful Life. You all are familiar with that one. And Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. They were all said to embody what was the very best in America and American values that were displayed by the average citizen. He elevated the average citizen in his films. In the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which made in 1939, just prior to America being thrust into World War II, just before Pearl Harbor. And Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Jefferson Smith, who was played by Jimmy Stewart, is appointed by the governor of his state to fill a vacated senate seat. And Jefferson Smith is appointed because it's felt that he can easily be manipulated. He's just an average citizen. He's not a politician. We're just going to put somebody in there to fulfill this seat until we can have a proper election to fulfill this vacated senate seat. And we figure, well, this fellow, he can be manipulated, and he can do our bidding, and so on. But Jefferson Smith, in the movie, played by Jimmy Stewart again, he runs into corruption. He sees the corruption in politics, you know, in this film. And he refuses to yield, especially after being inspired by the Lincoln Memorial, by Abraham Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln's values. So he stands up for moral principles and becomes a thorn in the flesh of these politicians at that time in this film. Now, back when this film was released in 1939, politicians at that time did not like this film, did not put some politicians in the good light. And some even wanted a band. Interesting, when you look at the history of this particular film, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, it was banned in Hitler's Germany, it was banned in Mussolini's Italy, it was banned in Frankl, Spain, and it was banned in Stalin's USSR. They all banned that film.

In 1942, there was a ban in France, a ban was placed in Germany, Germany had occupied France by 1942, and there was a ban on American films, it was imposed on all in France, on German occupied France in 1942. So when they gave a date when this ban on American films was going to take place, some theaters, three days leading up to that ban, that ban was going to take place, they played Mr. Smith goes to Washington every night for 30 nights. And there was one theater in Paris that continued to play it 30 days after the ban went into effect.

When Capra made that particular film in 1939, he had doubts about making it, because he realized it was a very popular but somewhat socialist present White House at the time, and this was kind of anti-socialist film, elevating the individual, individual rights, individual responsibility, not depending on the government, and so on.

Well, he had doubts about making the film, and then what happened to change his mind, he went to the Lincoln Memorial, and he saw a boy. He writes this in his autobiography. He saw a boy reading the words written above the Lincoln Memorial. Of course, the Lincoln Memorial got this huge statue of Abraham Lincoln, and he read the words inscribed above Abraham Lincoln. You can go online and read them for yourselves, but it says, well, Lincoln, that statue of Lincoln, it says this, in this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever. How Abraham Lincoln saved the Union? It wouldn't be a United States of America if it hadn't been for Abraham Lincoln.

Capra wanted to help ensure that the future generations of Americans would never forget and abandon those ideals, that that Union, future Americans, would preserve the Union of the United States and hold it in tack and hold the values intact. That's always inspired by those words above the Lincoln Memorial. And, of course, that's what it tells us in Deuteronomy 6. God says, you know, here's my laws, my commandments, my principles to live by that are going to, you can receive tremendous blessings, which I'm going to command you, verse 2 of chapter 6. I mean, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life that they may have belonged. Then dropping down to verse 6, these words which I command you, they need to be in your heart, so become a part of you, so you'll never lose them. And you should teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and they should be as frontless between your eyes. So, the future generation, your children, your children's children, will never forget the value of those laws and commandments.

Now, where are we today?

Today, the Bible and the Word of God is banned from our public schools. You know, as Mr. Murray was talking in his sermon, you know, back at one time, we had a hundred percent literacy rate. Parents taught all their children how to read. They made sure their children knew how to read. Why? Because they wanted them to be able to read the Bible.

Today, it's banned in public schools, just the opposite. Frank Capra's last great movie was, It's a Wonderful Life, made in 1946. Like I said, they still show just about every December. And it summed up Frank Capra's philosophy of filmmaking, which he put in his autobiography as this, to exalt the worth of the individual, to plead his cause, and to protect any degradation of his dignity, spirit, or divinity. See, Frank Capra, in his mind, he realized man was made in God's image. And mankind has a divine purpose, which goes way beyond this life. And that gives mankind tremendous dignity. Frank Capra died in 1991 at the age of 94. What would he think of America's movies today?

In 1971, 44 years ago, in his autobiography, he wrote practically all of the Hollywood filmmaking of today, again, 1971, is steeping to cheap, salacious, excuse me, is stooping to cheap, salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art, which should be a great art, which is no longer great art, according to him, in 1971. And now what they're doing is they're competing for the patronage of deviates. That's the way he saw films in 1971. He said, that's the direction the filmmaking is going. How much worse is it today? There are some good movies out there still, but they're few and far between. But Frank Capra sought to exalt man's worth, and even to plead his dignity, spirit, and divinity. He believed mankind had a divine purpose. And of course, that's what tells us right there at the beginning of God's Word. God exalts mankind as far as his potential goes, right at the very beginning of his Word in Genesis 1, verses 26 and 27. We said, let us make man an R image according to our likeness. That could be special. Give the indimidian over everything else. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, you can't have any more value or worth than being created in God's image and likeness, with the potential to become like God and to live in God's realm forever. Of course, that's God's going to be on the earth as we know. But that gives tremendous value to man and in kind. You can't have any more worth or dignity than that. Of course, Satan has come along now and turned the world upside down, hasn't he? He's now the godless world. He's deceiving the whole world and he's taken the whole world, especially the great nation of the United States of America that received all these blessings. He's taking it the other direction to where all those blessings are being removed.

America that we live in today is definitely not the America Frank Capra portrayed in many of his movies. Where are we today? Let's look at just a few of these. What would happen if we abandoned God in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Just a few verses there. Leviticus 26, verse 14. God said, if you obey, if you do not obey me, do not observe my commandments, but you despise my statutes. You know, that's the thing that's unbelievable. There are people today in leading positions of leadership who despise God's values. Not that they just don't want to live by them, they despise them. They think they're way out of date.

If you despise my statutes, if your soul abhors my judgment so that you do not perform all my commandments but break my covenant, I will do this to you, verse 16. The first thing he says is going to do, I will appoint terror over you. Why do we have terror overs today? We do, don't we? We have terror overs. Something happens almost every month. Just this past week, of course, a terrorist murdered four marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We have a terror appointed over us today.

And then it goes on in verse 16, and wasting disease and fever which will consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. That's one of the biggest problems we have in America today is health care, health care costs, health concerns, problems we have with health.

And you have everybody, big thing over health care insurance, and you know, the government pays for it. It's going bankrupt because it's so expensive, and the average person tried to pay for their own health care. They would lose everything before they died. They'd have nothing left to pass on to their children. Health care and health related costs and health problems are causing tens of thousands of people to have sorrow of heart, just as it says here, what happened. Verse 17, I'll set my face against you. You should be defeated by your enemies. And we have been defeated by our enemy after World War II, especially Iraq and Afghanistan. We pulled out of that with not really winning that decisively. Left it, and others have moved in now to take over, and it's more unstable now than it was before we went in.

We are being defeated by our enemies, even though militarily we are still the strongest nation in the world, but we are being defeated.

On to part verse 17, as something to think about, those who hate you shall reign over you. Those who hate you shall reign over you. I think about that, and I thought, you know, what about our leaders today? And I think, what do they see? How do they portray America? What do they see? I think a lot of our leaders today, they hate the America that I grew up in in the 1940s and 50s. They don't like that America. They want to transform it into something else, more of a socialist model. They don't like the America that guaranteed freedom, freedom of thought, that elevated the individual.

I mean, that's happened. A lot of our leaders don't like the America that we lived in, that we lived in in the past. They want to change it.

They want to transform America into a more government-controlled socialist model.

In essence, they hate the America that God made into the greatest nation the world has ever known.

Verse 19, I'll break the pride of your power. The pride of our power has been broken. We no longer value using our power. We just made a terrible deal with Iran. Iran got the advantage because we weren't going to stand up for our power. We backed down. And from all people looked at it as a bad deal. It's a good deal for Iran, a bad deal for America, the nuclear treaty they made. I'll make your heavens like iron, your earth like brass, like bronze. Of course, California is having one of the worst droughts ever. They've been in drought now, situations of eardrough for about four years, and the whole west coast is pretty dry. Even Seattle is getting into drought conditions. You think of Seattle, you think of lots of rain, but as far as the last three summers, they've had hardly any rain. They've had enough rain to keep things green out there, but during the summer months, they've been very, very, very drought-ridden.

But everything's dropsickly changing today. I saw almost a few scriptures in Deuteronomy 28 just quickly here. Deuteronomy 28 verse 30. You should be throw the wife, but another man shall lie with her. You know, there aren't... you know, you marry your wife, and you be married for life, but now divorce has happened. A lot of things happened. Most families break up. A large, very large percentage of children grow up without their natural mother and father in broken homes. Broken homes was a huge problem in America today.

They be throw the wife, but they don't stay together forever. They separate, and marry somebody else, and that doesn't work. This is being fulfilled right here. The latter part of verse 30 is also quite interesting. You shall build... or the next part of it, I should say. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. That middle section. You should build a house, but not drown it. You know, you look at the prosperity of America. People can live in wonderful homes in America that are very affordable. It used to be, at least, anyway. They're not in Seattle much anymore, but in some places they still are. But, I mean, you can live... The person in the middle class, the average person, can live in a very nice home in America. But, you know, there's millions of homes now in America that are abandoned. They buy the house, or they build it, and nobody's dwelling in it.

Actually, you go online and look at 14.2 million homes in America as of 2013 are abandoned. 14.2 million. Detroit... Detroit has 70,000 abandoned buildings and 31,000 abandoned homes.

Right here in Flint, there are 5,600 abandoned homes, and we just got a grant for 20 million dollars from the federal government to tear down and demolish 1,600 of those 5,600 abandoned homes. They're still going to leave, you know, 4,000 more to go, because it costs a lot of money to tear down those abandoned homes. And, of course, they're used for drugs, and they're dangerous, and so on. That's a big plight across America. Millions of abandoned homes that were built or purchased, and nobody's living in them.

I also have an abandoned auto plant, I think, here in Flint as well. They're going to tear down the Ramada Inn and the Meyers across them, but those have both been abandoned, but they're finally going to tear those down. We have an auto plant that's been abandoned. Very interesting we saw, and Evelyn told me it was on the Weather Channel, we saw this, they had a documentary. It shows what happens to a huge building if it's just abandoned and just let it go for the wild. Well, the rain comes through the roof lakes, the rain comes through the roof, and gets into the cement that freezes and expands and breaks up the cement and comes down. They actually showed in this documentary, if you take a building like an auto plant, for example, and even used an auto plant, one of the Detroit auto plants has been abandoned as an example of what could happen over the period of maybe 200 years. Eventually, the whole thing just let it go. It'll crumble to the ground, and then seeds will be planted there, and trees will start to go and pretty soon becomes a mound you wouldn't even know existed. It goes back to nature. It's amazing.

Verse 43, the alien is among you, shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him, and he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. We used to be the greatest lending nation in the world, now we're the greatest debtor nation in the world. Our national debtors we know right now is over 18 trillion dollars. We can't even imagine anything that big. That's over 56,000 dollars per every man, woman, and child in America. It took two hundred and five years to accumulate our first one trillion dollars of debt, which occurred in 1981. It's taken only 34 years to go from there to 18 trillion dollars in debt of where we are today. And since President Obama has been in office, it's gone from 9 trillion to 18 trillion, just the six and a plus years of his presidency. And it'll be over 20 trillion by the time he leaves office.

Within not too many years, I should say, the interest alone on our national debt will equal 100 percent of our debt. And where do we get the money to pay that debt? A lot of it comes from foreign countries like China.

Going on, Deuteronomy 28, verse 44, he shall unto you, but you shall not lend to him, he shall be the head, you shall be the tail. Moreover, verse 45, all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of eternal your God to keep his commandments and his statutes. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder and they're going to go and pay a behest on to your descendants. If God doesn't intervene, what are children and grandchildren going to have to live with and deal with in the years ahead? They're going to inherit all these problems, and they're becoming unsolvable problems. The bottom line is this, America is in the decline and no longer the leader of the free world. That's where we are today. And, of course, once we we're no longer the leader of the world, some other nations come along to fill that void, and they probably will not be favorable to the United States of America.

And what will that pretend for the world?

Now that we see where we are today, what will the future bring? Let's go quickly here to the latter part here, this sermon here. Let's go to Revelation 13.1, which you know is a prophecy of many beast powers coming over, crossing over many centuries, but just going to summarize this. Revelation 13.1, then I stood in the sand of the sea and looking symbolic of the sea of humanity, and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his head to bless from us' name. You know, when the United States steps no longer a factor in the world, as it's becoming no longer a factor as it was, to fill that void in another nation like into wild beasts will rise out of the sea of humanity. In his final resurrection, he talks about the different resurrections of that beast power here, in his final resurrection we'll take on the form of the Holy Roman Empire, as we know, which is the most dangerous of all forms of power, which is church, state, form of government, where religion can be imposed onto all the people. If that ever happened, how would that affect the people of God? They're not going to form the truth on them, that's for sure.

It can lead to an imposing of a certain form of religion on all those subjects, if you have church, political government, church, state government. You know, America is one of the only nations in the world that was ever founded on freedom of religion and freedom of speech. And America becomes no longer a factor in the world. It's going to be a much different world, and it'll be very, very difficult, especially for the two people of God when that happens. That takes place, and we're rapidly heading in that direction. And to live through those times to come, it's going to require a great deal of faith and patience. It's going to require the faith of Abraham.

Final scripture, or next to final scripture here, I got just a couple more sections. One more is Revelation 14, verses 12 and 13. Revelation 14, verse 12. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God, and they have the faith not only of Abraham, but the faith of Jesus Christ. And then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, those people who have lived into that time, right up to the very end, who had that faith to lay down their life for what they believe. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on, because it's going to come to that to hold on to our faith and may require death. I don't know. Or some it will. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on, yes, says the spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works will follow them. Their reward is going to follow them.

You know, Frank Capra did all he could in his movies to promote what he felt made America great. And for Frank Capra, what made America great was its values it had. And he saw values in ordinary citizens living through very rough times in the time of the 1930s, the Great Depression. Virtues and godly principles lived by the common man that he saw at that time. And today, that's all that disappeared. Now, there are some people who still have those values, believe me. I know there are. But today, many of our leaders see no connection of the past to our present. The past has come to seem no longer relevant or meaningful to them. And today, the amazing thing is that deviate behavior is often celebrated more than virtuous behavior. That is really strange. That's horrible to stop and think about. But that's what's happening. Now, just to mention to you, the information regarding Frank Capra came from this publication. It's called Impromise. It's put up by Hillsdale College, right here in Hillsdale, Michigan. And as people give speeches there, and they repeat the speeches, as a speech was given in March from John Marini, M-A-R-I-N-I, entitled Frank Capra's America and Ours. He's told this story from which I got all this information about Frank Capra from that particular article.

And here's how Professor Marini concludes his article, or his speech, I should say, that was given in March at Hillsdale College. He says, looking ahead, I'm afraid the moral regeneration of America. He's talking about how America needs moral regeneration. Looking ahead, I'm afraid the moral regeneration of America that Frank Capra had hoped to bring about in his movies will require more than a Capra. It's going to require a Lincoln. Unfortunately, I don't know if we're ever going to have any more Presidents like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. We might, but even if we did, I think it's too late. I'm not sure it can be turned around. Maybe things could be delayed for a while, but I'm not sure. I think most Presidents would have their hands tied as far as really making a huge difference. I think we're now at the point where Judah was just before they fell to the Babylonians to the point where, as it says in 2 Chronicles 36 verse 16, they got to the point where there was no remedy. Have we gotten to that point here in America? I think very likely we may have gotten to that point where it's beyond the power of any politician to do anything to change the course that we're on right now.

What's going to require to change things? Is it bringing back the moral regeneration of the world, let's say? It's going to require Jesus Christ ruling with the saints. Let's conclude by going to Revelation 19. Revelation 19 verse 11. I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse, and you said on him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. Verse 13. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies of heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. That would be all of us who follow Jesus Christ wherever he goes, even right on to the end of our lives, as it talks about in Revelation 14. Verse 15. Out of his mouth goes the sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations. And he himself will rule them with a rod of iron, and he himself treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That is what is going to be required in order to bring about the moral regeneration of America and the whole world. And you know, you think about it, that's what all of us have been called to be a part of. Never lose sight of how valuable you are to God, how valuable your calling is. Never lose sight of what we're going to have a part in doing and transforming the entire world to God's way of life. So the entire world can again be blessed. And so we can rule with Christ, so God's laws and values can be restored to the entire world. When that happens, they no longer have to be talking about Frank Capra and the laws of American values.