America’s Problems Are of Our Own Making
Which ingredient poured into the foundation did America’s Founders consider crucial for sustainable freedom? One such man you may have heard gives us the answer:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”—George Washington.
John Adams, Washington’s colleague and our nation’s second president, said, “It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.”
Given the complete turnaround from such views as expressed by the Founders, is it any wonder that American culture falls to pieces while even we Christians wallow in ignorance and apathy?
Which of the Founders pointed to political, military or economic greatness as the cornerstone for freedom and liberty? None. They were thankful for God’s blessings in these arenas, but they understood economic prosperity to be the result of spiritual and moral strength—not nefarious schemes and dealings. “The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and He adds no sorrow with it” (Prov. 10:22). Prosperity comes from God; righteousness brings blessings.
The problem facing America began when we surrendered to secularism and sinned by refusing to fight against untruth. But by conceding the culture to secularists, we have allowed a pagan ideology to alter the foundation laid by America’s Founders. And secularism has produced the very opposite of what America’s Founders designed American culture to be.
Spiritually, God has allowed secularism (like the Canaanites of the Old Testament) to test the fidelity of each succeeding generation, “so that through them I may test Israel and see whether or not they will keep the ways of the Lord, to walk in them as their fathers did” (Judg. 2:22).
Each generation stands before Jehovah, longing for Him to effect His program of redemption through the promised offspring. But in the interim, each succeeding generation is left to fight against untruth or be condemned to experience the ramifications of cultural anarchy for refusing to confront evil. The last few generations of Christians in the U.S. have failed in this regard. Will we?
The Founders established the Bible as the fixed point to judge society. But in 1963, eight unelected and unaccountable Supreme Court Justices decided that they would be Supreme. The standard then became perverse, now presently, as John N. Oswalt put it in his Isaiah Commentary, “the law of the jungle prevails, trouble and iniquity have as good a claim to be followed as goodness and truth, and the result is social collapse.”
America is being taken apart brick by brick. Why? God defines sin, and His Word is correct and never needs to be retracted. He defines sin, not us: adultery, lying, stealing at the 7-Eleven, murder, same-sex intercourse and marriage and so forth. Sin destroys, and it begins by overturning the very nature of things. Thus, with America’s abandonment of God in the public square for the last three-quarters century and its embrace of Secularism, the biblically based culture designed by the Founders has collapsed. We have become the very opposite of what we were conceived to be.
You ask how do we know their intentions? Arriving at Jamestown in 1607, America’s Founders erected a cross and Robert Hunt prayed, “We do hereby Dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth.”
In 1620, before debarking the Mayflower, they wrote, “Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith … .”
Does this sound like the mission of present-day America?
Let the devil and his secular revisionists with all of their bullying, bluster and browbeating take a hike (or learn the history that has been excised out of the school textbooks). Go to the sources! It was Christians who founded America—not pagans, neutral religionists, agnostics or secularists.
And the fruit of the Christian founding was freedom, liberty and justice for all.
So what do we do?
Only a spiritual resurrection can save America. The resurrection will be established by God’s people. Repentance begins in the house of the Lord with born-again Christians confessing the foolishness of our ways and owning our sin. We’ve allowed secularists to remove God from American education, City Hall and the public square. God is our only hope, and repentance begins with a broken heart. We must feel genuine contrition and heartsickness over what we Christians have allowed to happen to a once Christian nation.
The good news is that there is hope. God involves Himself in the affairs of mankind, and He dwells with the crushed and lowly.
Some believers have buried the gospel truth that all things are under God’s rule and control, and that nothing happens without His direction or permission. Countless Scriptures attest to this: the Exodus, manna from heaven, water from rocks, the Promised Land, the conquest, the Judges and God raising leaders like pagan Cyrus to deliver His people from a foreign satrap. I’ll make a guess that the Jews in Babylonian captivity were shocked to learn that their deliverer was a pagan who did not know or recognize the Lord, Yahweh.
We simply need a Gideon or Rahab to stand.
