As far as I am concerned if you don't like our country get out of it and find somewhere to live where you can be proud of it. But since that nation will be a wimpy nation it will be a matter of time before satan raises up armies against it.
Now Billy Graham is retired who do we have to leave this nation to repentance? How can one say that Billy Graham is under the colors of America where it has been stated in his ministry “If God doesn’t judge America, He will need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
Billy Graham's wife was the daughter of missionaries to China.
Mr. Graham did not coin the phrase you quoted, but he did alter it.
In the heyday of Christian missions in China, the city of Shanghai was a sesspool of humanity. Anything you wanted could be bought there whether it was moral, legal or not. The physical living conditions weren't much better either. Shanghai was the cross roads of the world and a European or American with the desire and will to make a fortune for himself found ample opportunity to do so. Among other commodities drugs and human slaves were peddled openly and legally. Kidnapping and the slave trade was so active that the name of the city came to be synonomous with the crime. To this day, to be 'shanghaied' means to be kidnapped into slavery.
Missionaries AND EVEN A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GERMAN NAZI PARTY, were horrified at the human abuse, suffering and squalor that existed alongside the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy classes.
The blatent raw sin and human degradation that was everywhere prompted one missionary to write to a Christian journal that
"Shanghai is so wicked that if God doesn't judge it, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!" That's where Billy Graham got the phrase.
Judgment came in August of 1937 in the form of the invading Imperial Japanese Army. Absolutely everything that had been built in sin was destroyed along with most of the general population. BTW World War II began in Manchuria in September of 1931, not in September of 1939 or December of 1941 as most assume. The war in China has been conveniently forgotten AND IS NOT EVEN TAUGHT TO JAPANESE STUDENTS. When asked about World War II recently, some Japanese children asked who was in it and who won.
To this day, no official of Japan has EVER apologized to the people of China for the atrocities of their soldiers.
As an aside, it should be noted that there were numerous heroic efforts made by Christians on behalf of the suffering Chinese people in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. Some worked so long and so hard that their health was permanently affected and resulted in an early death from the rigors of exhaustion. These were Americans, British, French and even Germans and their story has gone untold for decades. There were even some astounding miracles performed by a Russian Orthodox priest. After the war the saintly man moved to San Francisco where baseless accusations by the heathen there broke his heart. Although innocent he died before his time and was posthumously vindicated. To this day, officials of the Russian Orthodox church in San Francisco will not comment on the matter.
Shanghai was a boil on the surface of the planet and was scoured by the hand of God. Billy Graham may have edited the phrase about Shanghai, but it is no less applicable.
America IS under divine judgment.
To deny it is to suffer a fool's errand. Divine judgment upon America is not yet as severe as that which was suffered by Shanghai. The fact that it isn't is a testament to the patience and mercy of God, not His slackness; Billy Graham notwithstanding.
It has been said that people deserve the government they get.
It has also been said that God is merciful toward individuals, but not toward nations.
Neither is the Almighty a respector of persons - or the star spangled banner.
