Jesus' Deity and the Problems in the USA

The following quote is from probably over 70 years ago from a man who had unique understanding of our rights and privileges in Christ. He died in 1948. What He says here so clearly frames the problems in America today. Now more than ever, we need these simple truths.

This is taken from the book,  The wonderful Name of Jesus by E. W. Kenyon:

The deity of the Man of Galilee is the crux of Christianity. If this can be successfully challenged, then Christianity has lost its heart and it will cease to function; it will become a dead religion.

There is no denial that the challenge of His Deity has already had it reactionary effect upon society.

If Jesus is not Deity, He is not Lord. If He is not Lord, then He cannot interfere with our moral activities. If He is not Lord, then the laws that have been founded upon His teaching have lost their force. The morals that surround marriage with its lofty ideals have no basis of fact. If Jesus of Nazareth is not a revelation from God with Divine authority, then He is but a man. If He is but a man, all we have built around Him must be destroyed, and we have built around this Man our modern civilization.

He has been the inspiration of young men: they have kept themselves clean and pure as they have looked upon His wonderful life and sought to win His smile. Young women in the secret of their chamber have looked upon the face of the Man of Galilee and have pledged to preserve the purity of their womanhood that they might be found worthy of the love and confidence of the Man Who died two thousand years ago for humanity. 

Children have been incited to obedience and purity by the example and teachings of this man. Business men have been deterred from crooked dealings by the consciousness that one day they would meet that Man and give account of the deeds done in their office.

Men of all walks of life have felt a strange kinship with this man Who walked the shores of Galilee, solitary among a multitude. To say He was but a good man is an insult. To say that He was the highest expression of Deity in humanity is to throw the lie into His face. Jesus is or He is not what He said He was. We have no record of His sayings nor of His doings outside the four gospels, and if we repudiate them, then we have but a mythical picture of the Man. If we challenge one of them, we have a right to challenge all of them: either He stands or falls on these four biographical sketches. If He is not the Son of God, who is He?

I want to believe that He is an incarnation. I want to believe that He dealt with the sin problem. I want to believe that He died for my sins and that He rose again for my justification.  I want to believe that He is seated at God's right hand today as the Intercessor and Mediator of the human race. I want to believe that what He said about heaven is true: In My Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself.

Skepticism holds no guaranty for my future. Civilization has not only been builded around their man, but He has been builded into civilization. If you destroy His character, His standing, His place, then civilization must disintegrate. The wave of crime and lawlessness that is sweeping over the land is but a byproduct of the modernists' challenge of His integrity.

Taken from The Wonderful Name of Jesus by E. W. Kenyon (Lynnwood, Washington: Kenyon's Gospel Publishing Society, 1964), pages 13-14.