By: Larry Young
Nostalgia has always played an important role in our country and in our personal lives, but I never realized that until I was old enough to look back and yearn for things to go back to an earlier time. My grandpa and I listened to Paul Harvey News & Comment every time we were together. Paul would start out each broadcast with “Hello Americans… standby for NEWS!!” Paul Harvey and his wife were members of the Camel Back SDA church in Phoenix, Arizona for over 20 years.
Many others impacted our lives both spiritually and politically, especially the powerful evangelist Billy Graham and even radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who claimed daily that he was “on loan from God”. There was the nightly deep spiritual incites of Bill Pearce on “Night Sounds”. My soul is still touched by the wisdom, truth, and spiritual guidance presented by these and other now-silent voices.
As a young family visitor here in Portland in the early 1950s, my uncle used to park his unlocked car with the keys left in the ignition downtown… without any fear. Today, there would be no trace left of that car ever again. There has been an unmistakable hard shift in morality, values, and beliefs in our beloved country. We used to look UP to those who exhibited love, faithfulness, honesty, and just plain common sense. Now we are being pushed hard to look UP to influencers, power, money, and every form of self-centeredness and self-gratification.
In a nostalgic sense, can we as a country ever return to a theoretically earlier time of greatness? Have we crossed the line of no return? Can we still be spared? God is giving our country another chance at repentance and redemption, but is there a national will sufficient for that, as the City of Nineveh faced in ancient times? In the Bible, Nineveh was portrayed as a great and wicked city, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and was the primary setting for the Book of Jonah. God sent Jonah to preach repentance to the Ninevites, who ultimately listened to Jonah’s message and repented, leading God to spare the city.
Who are we looking UP to in this unrelenting storm? It is… and forever must be the man and our creator and savior Jesus Christ. “He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.” (Mark 4: 35-41) Only by surrendering ourselves completely to Jesus at the foot of His cross will the whirlwind of darkness, deception and lies being thrown at us every day be reduced to background noise. Then Thessalonians 5: 4 -6 can come alive: “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.”
If you would like to experience Bill Pearce with “Night Sounds”, his uplifting programs are available on-line at: https://www.nightsoundsradio.org