Almost three hundred years later we are becoming involved in a war supposedly for "humanitarian and moral" reasons. With such monstrous sin and immorality in OUR camp (abortion, sodomy, idolatry, greed, lying, murdering, militant feminism and unbiblical manhood, witchcraft and New Age spirituality, lawlessness, apostasy, heresy, hatred of God, etc.), how can we expect God to be with OUR civil and military leaders as they make decisions today? As you will see, Williams explains that God MUST withdraw His presence and even fight against us, unless our leaders lead us in repentance.

Following are excerpts from his Lecture "God in the Camp": 

"When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing." (Deuteronomy 23:9)

"The bounded duty of God's people when the army goes forth to war is to keep yourself from every wicked thing, words denoting the highest care, and endeavor to approve themselves a holy people to the Lord...

"In their preparations for war, their special and particular concern and care should be to engage a holy God on their side, and with their forces which cannot be done while they take a liberty to indulge themselves in sin...

"In the prosecution of this truth consider this particular - that the gracious presence of God with the armies of His people is a great mercy, and absolutely needful for their prosperity. It's only through God that they can do valiantly...

"People who have the gracious presence of God with their armies, must carefully watch against all God-provoking evils...

"From the holiness of God we may argue His righteousness in frowning upon the armies of a sinful people, and refusing to go forth with them. From the holiness of God we may argue that it is inconsistent with the honor of God to give uninterrupted success to the armies of a degenerate covenant people. When a people won't approve themselves a holy people, God says, that the staff in His hand of their enemies, is His indignation...

"God gives His people sufficient encouragement in a way of holy obedience and thorough reformation, to expect His gracious presence with them in all respects but on no other account. 'If His children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgment, if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquities with stripes.' (Psalm 89:30-32)

"How very faulty and blameworthy are all those that indulge themselves in God-provoking evils to making the land guilty before God? It's sin at any time, but this gives a further accent to the sin of the people, and is a real aggravation of their sinfulness, that they refuse to amend their ways and their doings, when their armies are in the field...

"Sirs, your ways and your doings procure these things. I may say, our apostasies from God and holiness kill our friends, and open the grave for many of our acquaintance. You are hereby an occasion of a great deal of dishonor to the Holy God, and the Holy Religion you profess...

"Our armies would be a terror to our adversaries, and would have been very victorious, were it not for our apostasy. You blame them that do defy our enemies; but much blame belongs to you... You are dreadfully in love with your lusts, or you would not be thus gratifying them, to the prejudice of religion, to the endangering the land, to the reproach of the armies of the God of Israel. Your hearts are removed far from God, who cannot at such a day and under such circumstances, be prevailed with to be a holy people to the Lord. May we not say, 'You are the troublers of God's Israel'...

"You are dreadfully stupid under, and unaffected with the wrath of God that burns so against us this day. God has brought such desolations that have made the ears of them that hear them to tingle...

"You are very presumptuous while you look for great successes to your forces in such a way of unreformedness...

"God stands with His drawn sword in His hand to awaken you to a necessary reformation. He does not only threaten; but He gives you to hear what armies He has in a readiness, either to drive you to your duty, or punish you for your refusal of obedience. God has already mixed many a bitter cup for us to drink, to put us upon considering and says to this day, that His anger is not turned away but His hand is stretched out still; you can't resist God and prosper. When the trumpet is blown to warn, how sad if by our security and bold impenitence we provoke God to sheathe His sword in our bowels, and cause the slain of the Lord to be many...

"Your being holy and keeping from sin will be every way beneficial to yourselves. God will do you no harm if you repent and turn to Him; He will crown your forces with success...

"If we can't bear to have our sins witnessed against to put us upon reforming and amending, we must yet prepare to bear the indignation of the Lord, and must feel the affects of God's wrath...

"Let us then labor to get a right knowledge what the God-provoking evils are that are among us, and carefully set ourselves against them...

"All whom God has commissioned to preach in His Name, should in life and doctrine endeavor a reformation, and improve their interest and power for the suppressing of sin. All heads of families should engage in a speedy and thorough care that we may be a people saved from our degeneracy, and become a holy people to the Lord." (We have made several editorial improvements to make the old English more understandable.)

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*An in-law of Cotton Mather, John Williams was the Pastor in Deerfield, Massachusetts. During a period of French and Indian depredations in the midst of Queen Anne's War (which started in 1702), Williams' wife and two of his children were murdered.