16 Facts That Prove America Is in Deep Trouble and Why 'The Return' Is so Critical

16 Facts That Prove America Is in Deep Trouble and Why 'The Return' Is so Critical - Jonathan Cahn and Kevin Jessip - https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2020/may/16-facts-that-prove-america-is-in-deep-trouble-and-why-the-return-is-so-critical "Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts."-Malachi 3:7 Is this the generation that will witness the end of America? Throughout human history, every great society has eventually entered a period of decline,and sadly that is happening to us as well. 'He Has a Plan for Us': Poll Shows Americans Believe COVID Is a Wake-Up Call from God It is the hope of a committed group of national leaders that a worldwide event called "The Return" on September 26 will wake up the American peoplewhile there is still time. Our prayer is that our nation will return to the values and the principles upon which this nation was founded. "I know your works. You have the reputation of bei ng alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you."-Revelation 3:1-3 Here are just four reasons why "The Return" is so critical and why the time is now: •The course that America and much of the world is on •The upcoming election •The shaking of the virus •The need for world revival Without revival, America and its future will be lost. Therefore, we have a window of time we may never have again. Most of us don't want to look atthe negative, but few positive glimmers here and there give a false sense of security to what is really happening in our nation. Below are 16 facts that prove America is in deep, deep trouble: #1 When Ronald Reagan won his first election, the U.S.national debt was less than $1 trillion. When Barack Obama entered the White House, the debt sat at $10.6 trillion; when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, it was about $14 trillion, and we now have reached the $25 trillion mark-andclimbing due to COVID-19 aid. We have been stealing money from our children and our grandchildren at the rate of more than $100 million an hour, and yet most Americans don't seem to care that we are rapidly bankrupting our nation. #2 In 1956, approximately 5% of all babies in the UnitedStates were born to unmarried mothers. Today, things have obviously changed tremendously; 2008 was the very first year in United States history when 40% of all babies were born to unmarried mothers. We stayed at that level for eight straight years. #3 In the early 1970s, well over 60% of all Americans wereconsidered to be "middle class," but in 2015, that number dipped below 50% for the first time ever. #4 In 2001, nearly 16 million Americans could not affordthe homes that they were living in, but by 2015 that number had more than doubled. #5 Our system of public education is a complete mess. Astudy of millennials in 22 major industrialized nations conducted by the Educational Testing Service found that only two countries were worse than the U.S. when it came to literacy proficiency, and the U.S. was dead last in math. #6 In the early 1970s, 70% of all men in the United Statesfrom the age of 20 to the age of 39 were married, but today that number has fallen to just 35%. Instead of getting married and starting families, many young men are still living at home with their parents. Today, 35% of all young men from the age of 21 tothe age of 30 "are living at home with their parents or a close relative." #7 Many Americans don't realize this, but the United Stateshas the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet. But we actually have an even bigger problem with legal drugs. According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70% of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and an astounding20% of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs. #8 According to the CDC, 110 million Americans currentlyhave a sexually transmitted disease, and there are approximately 20 million new STD cases in the United States every single year. #9 Thanks to decades of unchecked illegal immigration,membership in criminal gangs has absolutely exploded all over the country. Today, there are 150,000 gang members living in the city of Chicago alone, and they outnumber the police by more than a 10-to-1 margin. #10 Today, there are more than 4 million adult websiteson the Internet, and they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. Addiction to these websites has become a major national crisis, and yet very little is being done. One major survey found that 64% of all Christian men in America view "adultmaterial" at least once a month, and a different major survey found that 68% of all Christian men in America view "adult material" on a "regular basis." #11 When a federal income tax was introduced in 1913, itwas fairly simple, and most taxpayers were taxed at a rate of just 1%. Today, the tax code is more than 2 million words long, and the regulations are more than 7 million words long. #12 Our government continues to waste money in absolutelyinsane ways. For example, the U.S. military actually spends $42 million a year on Viagra. #13 We are an extremely, extremely unhappy nation. If youcan believe it, doctors in the United States write more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants each year. #14 In 2007, 54% of all Americans were opposed to gay marriageand only 37% wanted it to be legalized. Today, 62% of all Americans support gay marriage and only 32% are still against it. #15 The average rate of economic growth over the past 10years has been exactly equal to the average rate that the U.S. economy grew during the 1930s. We were stunned when we discovered that the U.S. economy had only grown at an average yearly rate of just 1.33% over the past 10 years, and that is the exact sameaverage yearly rate that the U.S. economy grew during the decade of the 1930s. #16 Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, nearly 60 millionAmerican children have been murdered in America's abortion mills. Sadly, the number of children aborted each day in this country is roughly equal to the number of Americans who lost their lives on 9/11. We are in a critical time in America. We have been warned. God in His mercy has afforded us a time of reprieve to turn and repent for our land to bespared from destruction. It's a Nineveh moment! "The Return" is a chance for America, 40 days prior to our next election, to turn back to God, just like Nineveh. "The Return" is the gathering to spark a movement to gather, fast, pray and repent for our wickedness. "Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not yourgarments." Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drinkoffering for the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride herchamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep and say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"-Joel2:12-17 Why America Is In Real Danger - Dennis Prager - https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4230 Americans have long been proud of the fact that, unlike European countries, America never went the route of totalitarianism as embodied in communism, fascism and Nazism. This achievement may be coming to an end. In order to understand why, it is first necessary to understand why European countries embraced -- or fell victim to -- totalitarian doctrines. Until World War I, the primary beliefs that gave life meaning, both on a national and personal level, were Judeo-Christian religions and patriotism (love of one's nation).What gave people moral guidance were Judeo-Christian values. For most Europeans of the younger generation, World War I, with its seemingly senseless slaughter of millions, ended belief in Christianity and, in many cases, ended thepeople's faith in their nations. God was deemed absent; religion was deemed unnecessary; and national identity was widely seen as a cause of the war. That left a void that was almost immediately filled by communism, fascism and Nazism. In Russia, World War I led directly to the Russian Revolution. Even before the war ended, in 1917, the czar was overthrown, and later that year, the Bolsheviks (the Russiancommunists) took over. As awful as the czar was, there was far more freedom under him than there was in the Soviet Union until the fall of communism 72 years later, not to mention the murder ofmore people -- 20 to 40 million -- under the Soviet regime. In Italy, the rise of fascism followed World War I. And in Germany, the Nazis came to power just 15 years after the end of the Great War. Nazism conquered most of the Europeancontinent during WWII, and after Germany's defeat in 1945, the Soviets imposed communism over all of Eastern Europe. Though there were communists, communist fellow travelers, Nazi sympathizers, racists and anti-Semites in the United States, neither communism nor fascism nor Nazism tookroot here. The primary reason was that, unlike most Europeans, Americans did not lose their faith in Judeo-Christian religions and values or in America after World War I. America remainedso religious that, in 1954, the words "under God" were inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance recited daily in American schools. However, by the 1950s, faith in America, Christianity and what we call bourgeois middle-class values was largely limited to older Americans. The post-World War II baby-boomergeneration was already being indoctrinated in secularism and anti-Americanism. As early as 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school prayer was unconstitutional. By the late 1960s, vast numbers of baby boomers were attending demonstrations that were as much against America -- routinely characterized as an imperialist and colonialistaggressor country with an evil military -- as they were against the war in Vietnam. It was not uncommon to see America spelled "Amerikkka" or "Amerika" at protests and in graffiti. When I was in graduate school at Columbia University in the early 1970s, I was taught that men and women are not inherently different from one another and that the ColdWar was between two superpowers (equally at fault), not between freedom and tyranny. Another generation has passed, and the post-Christian, left-wing baby boomers have come close to achieving complete success. The mainstream print and electronic media, universities,high schools and elementary schools, the arts and now sports have all been conquered by the Left. Except for sports, from the beginning of the 20th century, they were almost all liberal, but now they are Left. We now have the answer to the question: What will happen to America if Americans lose faith in God and country as the Europeans did after World War I? What will happen toAmerica when Christianity dies as it did in Europe after World War I? The way things now look, America may have its bout with some totalitarian doctrine -- almost surely some form of leftism. Liberty has never been a left-wing value. FromLenin on, wherever the Left has come to power, it has suppressed liberty, beginning with free speech. Already, despite a Republican president and a Republican Senate, America has less free speech than at any time in its history. Exactly one year ago, I testified before aSenate subcommittee and wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal about YouTube (owned by Google) placing more than 100 Prager University, or PragerU, videos on its restricted list. And things have gotten much worse. Last week, PragerU was locked out of its Twitter account for retweeting a press conference of eight physicians in Washington, D.C., whichhad already received 17 million views, and Facebook has just informed us that if we even cite studies that show possible benefits of hydroxychloroquine (with zinc) in the early stages of a patient with COVID-19, we will lose our Facebook account. And then there is the "cancel culture" -- which is merely a euphemism for leftist suppression of dissent. People are booted from internet platforms, fired from their jobsor have their reputations smeared and their businesses ruined for differing with the Left -- on anything. We are also undergoing a nonviolent (as of now) version of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, with individuals forced to issue humiliating public recantations of their beliefsand attend reeducation sessions (we don't yet have reeducation camps, but they should not be ruled out as a possibility if the Left is in control). Another communist norm taking root in America is the rewriting of the American past. We are living a famous Soviet dissident joke: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known;it is the past that is always changing." On almost all social issues and many economic ones, the American Left is more radical than the Left in Europe. Europeans across the political spectrum are more wary of ideologicalfanaticism because of the vast scale of death and suffering that resulted from communism, fascism and Nazism. One might say that Europe was inoculated against fanaticism. Europeans are more preoccupied with working less, traveling more and being taken care of than with ideologicalmovements. But America, which has not suffered under fanatical, irrational, liberty-depriving ideologies, has not been inoculated. Without such a vaccination, what replaced Christianity in Europe may well do the same in America.