“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
—Mark 8:34
Tobiah Steinmetz took up his cross. Literally.
Steinmetz stood humbly behind his tall, wooden cross in the hot sun at the 37th Decision America Tour stop at the Montpelier, Vermont, State House.
Just as Franklin Graham is holding prayer rallies in all 50 states, Steinmetz is taking his cross to every state (unrelated to Decision America), telling people about Jesus Christ’s love for them. He claimed a spot on a broad green lawn Wednesday among an estimated crowd of 1,800, many huddled underneath the shade of tall maple trees.
Franklin Graham didn’t mince words at the rally, challenging the people in Montpelier to stand up for God and biblical truth in a quickly changing America—where right is now wrong and wrong is now right.
As many Christians ask whether it’s too late for America, Franklin Graham tried to erase those doubts at Vermont’s rally: “God hears prayer, and can this nation be turned around? You betcha with prayer. God can do anything.”
In 2010, Steinmetz was in deep prayer when God gave him the vision of a man carrying a cross clear across America. He thought it was crazy, but as a born-again believer, he knew God was calling him and obeyed.
Steinmetz, then in his mid-20s, was soon walking from California to South Carolina with a wooden cross of his own—which then had a wheel attached to the bottom—taking it through the desert, up hills, in the pitch dark and through drenching rain. He was constantly engaging people with the Gospel along the way.
Six years later, this 31-year-old is doing it again—this time in a motor home with his pregnant wife, two children and a dog in tow. He heard about the Decision America Tour while in Maine on his second cross walk and knew he had to attend a 50-state rally for God.
Wednesday, listening to Franklin Graham talk about the danger of being politically correct and the importance of fighting for our country, Tobiah said he couldn’t agree more.
He isn’t the only one who is taking up his cross, either.
Semi-retired pastor Michael Gantt brought 30-plus people to Montpelier’s prayer rally. He didn’t ask them; he told them, “We need to be there. We need to be engaged in prayer.”
Gantt has a heart for his community and his country to once again be a God-fearing nation, because he’s seen what can happen when God isn’t in the picture.
His church sits in a district of Vermont where drug use is an “epidemic,” he said. He’s seen people in and out of prison, parents unable to care for their children, and others left homeless due to addiction.
Yet he’s hopeful because he knows what an impact God can have on people. In fact, many who have attended his church are former drug addicts and alcoholics.
Seeing the effect God can have on people’s lives is one reason Franklin Graham boldly shares the Gospel at every Decision America rally and encourages other Christians to unashamedly follow Christ—at home and in public.
For the nation to turn back to God, its people must first turn to Him individually, putting their total trust in Christ who sacrificed everything for them on the cross, he has said.
“There’s not many roads to God,” Franklin Graham told the crowd Wednesday. “There’s only one and it goes through the cross.”
