It is a popular bumper sticker. There is even a song with it as its title. The phrase is well worn, but retains its aura, despite having lost its standing among the purveyors of pop culture.
You hear it at the end of a lot of political speeches. Often, it makes one wonder whether the speaker is just a servant of custom, trying to appease his audience, or maybe even just possibly could mean it. The phrase, of course, is "God Bless America."
Once upon a time, near the founding of this nation, we had a legitimate standing to ask God to Bless America. Many of our forefathers came to the new world seeking the freedom to worship God according to their understanding of the dictates of the Bible, rather than those of the unholy alliances of churches and states. Later, when in the course of human events it became necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which had connected them with another, they were careful to seek the guidance of the God of Abraham; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Imperfect though that Union was, they purposefully laid the ground work so that slavery, that great shame on humanity, would shortly be removed from this land so that their words, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, could finally ring true for all men in this land. Surely at that point in time, it was proper for us to implore God to Bless America, for one of the blessings that Christian men prayed for was the abolition of slavery.
But just as it played out time and time again in the Old Testament, apostasy is ever the grandchild of true religion. Just as they were not all Israel, which were of Israel, America has never been all Christian, but there was a time when the vast majority of us claimed true religion and most, at the very least, lived that way. Today, there may still be a majority that claim the name of Christ, but it seems that God has only reserved a remnant who he will claim as his. Most will undoubtedly hear "I never knew you" on that day.
It is difficult to pinpoint a moment, or one event, that was the start of the great downward spiral of this once great nation. Some might say it was when we gave away our cultural values, acquiescing to sexual wantonness of every type after decades of Hollywood proselytizing. Surely this is not the case though. Being given over to a reprobate mind is but one of the symptoms of a much deeper, and older disease.
Maybe it was when our nation began to allow our children and grandchildren to be murdered on the alter of convenience, in the name of choice, by those who have declared their own deity. As dreadful to contemplate as such savagery is, it too is only symptomatic.
Could the decay have begun with the removal of prayer from schools in the 1960s, or could it perhaps be traced back even further, to the time when the Bible was removed as a textbook? Again, that is certainly just another symptom, which, though it does its damage to the body, is not fatal on its own.
But if not that, what was it that set us on the path towards destruction? We may be nearing the mark if we suspect it was the introduction of the theory of evolution, though that wicked system is merely the schoolmarm for Communism, and not its master. Or is that the other way around? The two are so intertwined that it may no longer be possible to to judge.
Communism and its cohorts, Marxism,Socialism, and Progressivism, as wielded by ungodly men, are some of the greatest threats ever to man's freedom. Worldwide communism boasts over 100 million murdered, and counting. But once again, they are the infection that attacks the already weakened body.
No. None of these horrific pestilences are the root cause of this nation's demise. In fact, I don't believe that we can pinpoint a time. But I do believe that we can name the cause. You see, as Psalm 33 says "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." We will be blessed as a nation if our God is Jehovah. But we continue to call on God to bless America, even while we reject him as our lord.
We need to take a cue from Ezra as found in Nehemiah 8:6 "And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground."
You hear it at the end of a lot of political speeches. Often, it makes one wonder whether the speaker is just a servant of custom, trying to appease his audience, or maybe even just possibly could mean it. The phrase, of course, is "God Bless America."
Once upon a time, near the founding of this nation, we had a legitimate standing to ask God to Bless America. Many of our forefathers came to the new world seeking the freedom to worship God according to their understanding of the dictates of the Bible, rather than those of the unholy alliances of churches and states. Later, when in the course of human events it became necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which had connected them with another, they were careful to seek the guidance of the God of Abraham; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Imperfect though that Union was, they purposefully laid the ground work so that slavery, that great shame on humanity, would shortly be removed from this land so that their words, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, could finally ring true for all men in this land. Surely at that point in time, it was proper for us to implore God to Bless America, for one of the blessings that Christian men prayed for was the abolition of slavery.
But just as it played out time and time again in the Old Testament, apostasy is ever the grandchild of true religion. Just as they were not all Israel, which were of Israel, America has never been all Christian, but there was a time when the vast majority of us claimed true religion and most, at the very least, lived that way. Today, there may still be a majority that claim the name of Christ, but it seems that God has only reserved a remnant who he will claim as his. Most will undoubtedly hear "I never knew you" on that day.
It is difficult to pinpoint a moment, or one event, that was the start of the great downward spiral of this once great nation. Some might say it was when we gave away our cultural values, acquiescing to sexual wantonness of every type after decades of Hollywood proselytizing. Surely this is not the case though. Being given over to a reprobate mind is but one of the symptoms of a much deeper, and older disease.
Maybe it was when our nation began to allow our children and grandchildren to be murdered on the alter of convenience, in the name of choice, by those who have declared their own deity. As dreadful to contemplate as such savagery is, it too is only symptomatic.
Could the decay have begun with the removal of prayer from schools in the 1960s, or could it perhaps be traced back even further, to the time when the Bible was removed as a textbook? Again, that is certainly just another symptom, which, though it does its damage to the body, is not fatal on its own.
But if not that, what was it that set us on the path towards destruction? We may be nearing the mark if we suspect it was the introduction of the theory of evolution, though that wicked system is merely the schoolmarm for Communism, and not its master. Or is that the other way around? The two are so intertwined that it may no longer be possible to to judge.
Communism and its cohorts, Marxism,Socialism, and Progressivism, as wielded by ungodly men, are some of the greatest threats ever to man's freedom. Worldwide communism boasts over 100 million murdered, and counting. But once again, they are the infection that attacks the already weakened body.
No. None of these horrific pestilences are the root cause of this nation's demise. In fact, I don't believe that we can pinpoint a time. But I do believe that we can name the cause. You see, as Psalm 33 says "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance." We will be blessed as a nation if our God is Jehovah. But we continue to call on God to bless America, even while we reject him as our lord.
We need to take a cue from Ezra as found in Nehemiah 8:6 "And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground."
What we really need to do is refrain from calling on God to bless America and begin to call on America to bless God!
1 comment:
Excellent post! Well written, well said, and I agree.
God has blessed America up to our eyeballs making us at one time the most powerful and prosperous nation on the face of the earth--but it seems like the more this nation turns away from Him and races into more and more decadence, the more that blessing seems to be slipping away.
As much as I (on my own blog) rant and rave against Democrats, the answer is not the Republicans (who may only serve to slow down the decline).
The answer is another Great Awakening in which America repents of her sin and turns back to God.
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