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 Lisa Bourne / LifeSiteNews

DES MOINES, Iowa, January 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The Reverend Franklin Graham believes the United States of America is in danger, and will only be saved by turning back to God. And this can only be accomplished by Christians praying and bringing their faith to the public square.

America’s problems are across the board, Rev. Graham said; spiritual, economic, and even racial, an area in which he believes the country is actually going backward. And he insists the answer is not found in politics.

“We have economic problems; we have political problems,” Rev. Graham stated yesterday in Des Moines, IA. “And no political party is going to be able to turn this around, okay?”

In Des Moines, Graham kicked off his Decision America Tour 2016, with which he intends to challenge Christians in each of the 50 U.S. states to live their faith in all aspects of life – at home, in public, and when they vote.

“I have no hope in the Democratic Party,” Rev. Graham exclaimed. “Listen to me, I have zero hope in the Republican Party. I have no hope in (the) Tea Party or any other party. My only hope is in almighty God and His Son Jesus Christ.”

“The moral and political walls of our nation are crumbling. Walls are meant for protection to keep bad people out, gates can be opened, and when the threat comes the gates can be closed. But our moral walls and gates are down.”

“We’re here because we understand our country’s in trouble,” he said. “It’s in big-time trouble.”

Rev. Graham recently renounced the Republican Party for failing to stop the recent spending bill that fully funded Planned Parenthood, despite the abortion giant’s role in trafficking the remains of human beings aborted at its facilities.

The son of renowned preacher Billy Graham and president of the evangelistic ministry that is his father’s namesake, as well as the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, Graham has been vocal about upholding biblical values in the past as well.

In June of last year, he called for a boycott of businesses that promote the homosexual agenda, and backed it up by moving accounts for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse from Wells Fargo bank because of the company’s promotion of homosexual “marriage” in its advertising.

Back in 2012 Rev. Graham vowed he would break the law before he would have his organizations comply with the HHS Obamacare contraception/abortifacient Mandate, saying, “I guess at that point, I would just have to break the law and take it all the way to the Supreme Court and fight it if I have to.”

Men and women of faith, living their faith, in all aspects of life, is the only way things will get turned around in the Unites States, he told the Des Moines crowd at the first stop of his national revival tour.

“Our job as Christians it to make the impact of Christ felt at every phase of life,” Rev. Graham stated, “religious, social, economic, and political.”

“The most important thing we can do as Christians is pray,” he told the 1000-plus crowd gathered in 30-degree temperatures at the Iowa Capitol. “God hears prayer and God answers prayer.”

Rev. Graham likened the walls of Jerusalem being broken and the city’s destruction in Nehemiah Chapter 1, verse 2 with the U.S. today, faulting in part, political correctness.

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“The moral and political walls of our nation are crumbling,” he stated. “Walls are meant for protection to keep bad people out, gates can be opened, and when the threat comes the gates can be closed. But our moral walls and gates are down.”

“Any type of wicked thought and activity can come and go,” he continued. “And our educators and our politicians and our churches seem many times to be more concerned about political correctness than God’s truth and His righteousness.”

“It’s not that the enemy is at the gate, they’ve come through the gate,” said Franklin Graham. “We’ve left the gates wide open and allowed our moral walls to fall down.”

He also prayed with the Iowa crowd to confess the nation’s sins. “Where do we begin to confess the sins of our nation?” Rev. Graham pondered, listing several social moral ills. “Our sins are so great.”

“I think about the entertainment industry and the sex and the violence that we export all over the world,” he said. “Abortion; the murder of children in a mother’s womb. We have sinned greatly. Same-sex marriage is celebrated in our nation today. We have sinned greatly against almighty God.”

He called sin a disease of the human soul, and prayed with the crowd again for forgiveness from individual sins.

After winning the Cold War against Communism, the U.S. felt relief, he recalled, but then then he condemned the secularism that followed as Godless and the root of many of the nation’s problems today.

“While we were taking that sigh of relief, secularism crept in to our federal government, it crept into our state government. It crept into our local governments,” Graham said. “And secularism and Communism, there’s no difference. They’re both Godless, okay? Godless.”

“And what’s happened is Godlessness has come into this nation of ours whose foundations were built on biblical principles,” he stated. “Our laws, all that we have has come from God. And the secularists are wanting to take it away. They’re wanting to take God out of government, take Him out of our schools, take him out of our society. And the progressives want to push us off to the side.”

Rev. Graham then told the Iowa crowd, “Well I’m here to say I’m not going without a fight,” yielding enthusiastic cheers.

An estimated 20-30 million evangelical Christians stayed home from the polls in the last election, he said, and Christians must be willing to vote in the next election, supporting candidates that stand for biblical truth and biblical principles, who are also willing to live them.

“America is being stripped of its biblical heritage and its God-inspired foundations,” he said.

Rev. Graham was clear that he would not tell anyone who to vote for, but he also shared how his father encouraged people of faith to get involved in the political process and run for office. Rev. Billy Graham did not believe that Christians should withdraw, rather in fact that it was a duty for Christians to study the issues and candidates and go to the polls, as well as offer themselves for elected office.

“I feel that we’re going to have to meet our political obligations as Christians and make our voices known if America is to be preserved with the type of Christian heritage that has given us the liberties we know enjoy,” Rev. Franklin Graham stated. “For unless America turns back to God, and repents of its sin, and experience a spiritual revival, we will fail as a nation. I believe God honors leaders in high places who honor him.”

The choice may not always be clear, he said, and sometimes it may be a case of voting for someone that most closely represents biblical values, but it is imperative for Christians to vote.

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While national elections tend to get the most of the attention, Rev. Graham also stressed the importance of local elections, such as for mayor, city council, county commissioner, judges and school boards.

He encouraged Christians to vote in these elections, and vote for men and women of faith, also telling them to form prayer groups in their homes and communities, bringing in people of varying political persuasion and ethnic backgrounds.

As part of the Decision America Tour, the preacher is asking Christians to sign a Pledge to God and country, which includes in part striving for purity in and out of marriage and also supporting candidates that uphold biblical principles such as the sanctity of life and the sacredness of marriage.

The pledge also calls for Christians to pray for America and vote.

“Our country’s in trouble,” Rev. Graham concluded before the Iowa crowd, “but we’ve got a great God, we’ve got an awesome God.”

You have to invite the Lord in, he said, because He doesn’t force himself into your life.

“God gave us the freedom of choice,” said Rev. Graham. “We can accept him or reject him.”

“Let’s elect men and women to office who will lead this nation back to really being one nation under God, that can truthfully say once again, in God we trust.”