"THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOU CHRISTIANS TO GET UP OFF YOUR KNEES..."

By the zenith of the 1980 Reagan/Carter election run, President Jimmie Carter, under absurd policies such as "detente" and "peaceful coexistence" had drastically crippled America’s strategic military defenses. At the same time the Soviet Union had focused every effort on development of a first strike nuclear attack to be delivered by intercontinental bombers, land-based ICBMs, and submarine-launched missiles. Few American citizens had any concept of the weakening thread by which their freedoms hung. Even Henry Kissinger spoke publically of the gravity of the crisis.

General George J. Keegan

General George J. Keegan, a committed Christian, decorated combat soldier, head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, fully understood the imminent threat we faced and took early retirement in order to be free to alarm the American people. He tirelessly delivered speeches and radio broadcasts, and spoke out with an unprecedented passion. I was with General Keegan when on a Sunday morning he addressed a national television audience from the podium of one of the largest churches in America, Coral Ridge Presbyterian PCA, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Dr. D. James Kennedy yielded a full half hour to him.

Imperative for Christian Action

General Keegan delivered his thundering oration to a jam-packed sanctuary, detailing the critical military peril to which Jimmie Carter had brought us. He stressed the imperative for Christian action at the voting booth. I shall never forget General Keegan’s final words as he leaned over the podium and swept his finger across the stunned, tension-filled audience:

“The time has come for you Christians to get up off your knees, NOT to stop praying, but to obey Jesus Christ and get out onto the battlefront as you are commanded to do!”

That telecast was replayed countless times throughout America, and the sound track was distributed on cassette tape into every state and into over 100 countries.

Victorious President Reagan's immediate emergency action

As you know, the victory went to President Reagan who, understanding the gravity of the military crisis, immediately ordered drastic maximum-effort stopgap defensive measures which I will not enumerate here, except to pose a teaser question: If a vital element in a Soviet first strike strategy was to destroy our intercontinental bombers on the ground, what if there were no bombers on the ground? Thank you President Reagan! The USSR leaders were so stunned that they were caught off guard. Soon came President Reagan’s checkmate known as SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), that is, space-based weapons for defense designed to attack and destroy a Soviet nuclear first strike in flight.

General Keegan’s words, which bear repeating, still ring in my head: “The time has come for you Christians to get up off your knees, NOT to stop praying, but to obey Jesus Christ and get out onto the battlefront and do what Christ commanded you to do!”

One man

Consider the impact this one man had on the destiny of our country - of our God-given freedoms. Morning, noon and night he delivered hundreds of speeches.

What happened to General Keegan? He died…like many of our country’s founding fathers, long before his time, from absolute burnout and exhaustion.

Upcoming blogs

My upcoming blog essays will focus on why and how millions of well-meaning Christians are today on their knees praying for God's intervention, instead of prayerfully being on their feet exerting their maximum effort to save their loved ones and our country.

They are on their knees and not on their feet mainly because of confusion about the timetable for the "rapture", the "tribulation", the return of Christ; confusion over the theology of pre-millennialism, a-millennialism, and post-millennialism; Preterism (which contends that Christ already returned in 70 AD, and many other last-days, end-times theories.

Thus far there have been over 200 speculated dates regarding the day and even the hour for Christ's return. The paralysis of action resulting from such confusion has been and is like a deadly cancer to our freedoms. As you will see in my upcoming blog posts, it constitutes lame, gradual surrender of our God-given freedoms, in the name of Christ.

My essays will constitute a series which will leave no doubt that America was born in the pulpits and will perish there unless the deadly neutralizing paralysis induced by the abandonment (of duty) clergy can be overcome.

John W. Chalfant
www.greatness.com
johnc@greatness.com

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