Revival: The Only Alternative to Tyranny

President Obama said we should be ashamed for not enacting gun control laws in light of the shooting of a 14-year-old by a 15-year-old at a school in Oregon. The president’s statement, however, is like calling for a band-aid to be put on a cancer. The immorality and violence in our land are not from a lack of laws. They are reflections of deep spiritual problems that include the breakdown of the family, the rejection of moral absolutes by our society, a secularist government that is increasingly hostile to Christianity and a weak, anemic church.

When I was in high school in rural Northeast Texas, practically every teenager owned a gun. My grandmother gave me my first gun, a 410 shotgun, when I was about 14 to use for hunting and target practice. The thought of using the guns for anything else—especially shooting someone—never entered our minds because of the strong family, moral and spiritual influences in the school and community.

What this country needs is not another law, but an open return to biblical and moral principles. We must have another great spiritual awakening. If we do not soon recover a morality and faith that governs us from within, then we will be governed by power-hungry political tyrants from without.

Everyone who follows current events know that there is an all-out assault on Christianity in this nation. This has taken the form of banning prayer and Bible reading in public schools, removing the Ten Commandments from the walls of schools and court rooms, removing crosses from government lands and removing Nativity scenes from public city squares. In addition, Christian businesses are being ordered to provide services to their employees and the public, even if it violates their conscience and Christian faith.

These are acts of tyranny by an overreaching, out-of-control government. It is no time for a quiet, timid Christianity. Our third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

America’s founders threw off the tyranny of King George and formed a nation with a Constitution designed for a moral and Christian people. Such a people would not need a lot of outward laws to govern their actions, for they would govern themselves from within according to Biblical principles. This is what James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, was referring to when he said:

We have staked the whole future of the American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future . . . upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments.

This is what our second president, John Adams, was referring to when he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

When the Founders used the word “religious” they were referring to Christianity. As a nation we are rapidly moving away from our Christian beginnings. In fact, our president stood before a predominately Muslim audience in a foreign land and declared, “America is not a Christian nation.”

Those who think morality and Christian faith have no connection are deceived. I remember listening to a sociologist being interviewed by Charlie Rose and hearing him tell how his studies had revealed that the public display of Christian symbols have a direct bearing on morality. He told of one experiment that revealed that people in a room with a Bible in sight are less likely to lie than if there is no Bible to be seen.

In his farewell address, George Washington exhorted the young nation to remember that, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” He then went on to say:

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion [Christianity]. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Today’s secularist politician sees more laws as the answer for every problem. The Founders would have been more inclined to call the nation to prayer and repentance.

We must have a national spiritual awakening in our land that will restore a national morality and cultural change of character. For this to happen, pastors and Christian leaders must recover their voice and speak truth in love. Otherwise we will see more laws and more control and oppression coming out of Washington, D.C. We will either have revival and be governed by God from within or we will continue our downhill moral slide and be ruled by tyrants from without.

Dr. Eddie L. Hyatt is the co-founder and president of Hyatt International Ministries, and his passion is to see the contemporary church return to the New Testament pattern of simplicity, humility and a radical dependence on the Holy Spirit. He is an author and his latest book, Pursuing Power: How the Quest for Apostolic Authority & Control Has Divided and Damaged the Church, is available from Amazon (including Kindle) and from his website.