Psalm 33:12 tells us, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. . .”
It cannot be denied that the early founders of America thought they were founding a nation whose God is the Lord. Christopher Columbus sailed to carry the light of the gospel to nations that had not yet heard. His very name meant “torchbearer for Christ,” and he tried to live up to his name.
The early pilgrims came over on the Mayflower to make known the name of Jesus Christ and to worship Him in freedom. Inscribed on the walls of the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C., is the Ten Commandments. Our three branches of government were gathered from the principles laid out in Isaiah 33:22: “For the Lord is our judge (judicial), The Lord is our lawgiver (legislative), The Lord is our King (executive); He will save us.”
George Washington, our first president, said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, said, “The highest glory of the revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with those of Christianity.” John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said, “It is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
The early Congress ordered ten thousand Bibles for distribution among the Indians. They authorized a chaplain and decided to open all their meetings with prayer. The largest church in America used the Halls of Congress for a meeting place for years.
When Thomas Jefferson was President, the Presidents at that time were also Superintendent of Education for the Washington, D. C., school district. Jefferson ordered that every student should study the Bible and the hymnal. When Jefferson penned the words in our Declaration of Independence, he deliberately appealed to the Creator. He understood that liberty was not a subjective choice, but a divinely ordained condition for which people are designed. Therefore he referred to “self-evident truths” and to “Nature’s God.”
Teachers today can be fired for doing and saying what our founders did and said. Our nation has forgotten what our founders knew: without God there is no liberty.
Without God there is just an empty universe with no meaning, no unalienable rights, and no proof that liberty is better than tyranny or life is better than death. Without God there are no rights and no wrongs. Everything becomes a matter of opinion and power. Yes, without God, we have a world where thugs roam the streets; corruption rules many offices; and the weak, elderly, and unborn are at risk of being terminated.
Let’s remember what made America great. Let’s return to our declaration of Him-dependence. Let’s live all out for Jesus and help turn our nation back to the Lord who so greatly favored us in years gone by. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Yours in Him,
Bill Patterson
Posted on
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
by Erica Sutphin