Keep America Beautiful

KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL!

Romans 10:15

INTRODUCTION

I believe out of all of the 200 some odd countries in the world, America is the most blessed.

Do you believe that America is a blessed nation?

If you don’t, all you have to do is take a few international trips to some foreign countries and survey their people and their culture to see that America is indeed blessed.

In most countries, when you get a chance to speak to the average citizen and you ask them which country they would prefer to live in if they could, almost always they will say, “America.”

Even though there is some Anti-Americanism over seas, there are still many people who admire America and given the opportunity would jump at the chance to move here and make a life on our soil.

• Why is America the envy of the world?

• Why is the American dollar valued over every other foreign currency?

• Why is America’s Army The Most Elite Military Force in the world?

• Why did the great inventor, Alexander Graham Bell refuse to put on his grave stone any mention of his numerous inventions and honors but rather put this instead:

Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor-Teacher

Born

Edinburgh

March 3, 1847

Died

A Citizen of the U.S.A

1922

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” - Psalm 33:12

Turn that verse around and it simply says:

“The nation whose God is the Lord is blessed.”

Now, some people who read this verse would immediately throw their hand up and say:

“Wait a minute. A nation isn’t supposed to espouse any God at all. A nation should be religiously neutral. Remember, separation of church and state.”

The phrase separation of church and state is very misleading.

It really is a misinterpretation of the 1st amendment of the United States.

1947 was the first time the Supreme Court used this phrase in it’s explanation of one of its decisions.

The actual words, separation of church and state, are not found in the constitution of the United States.

Some people say that originally, the founding fathers meant by the 1st amendment that religion and government should be neutral.

But I don’t think that was their original intent.

As I was researching for this message, I ran across the requirements that the State of Delaware imposed on its delegates who were chosen to represent them at the Constitutional Convention.

If you were going to represent the State of Delaware at the Constitutional Convention, listen to what Article 22 in the Constitution of Delaware said:

“Every person, who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust…shall…make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: “I, ___________, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”

This is just one example of the kind of faith that our founding fathers expressed as they formed the constitution of the United States.

It doesn’t sound like their intent was to keep God out of Government or the public sector.

As a matter of fact, listen to this quote from President James Madison, who was the fourth president of the United States and considered the most influential contributor to the Constitution of the United States:

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

America was born making the Lord its God.

And as Psalm 33:12 says, “Whenever a nation makes the Lord its God, it is blessed.”

Without a doubt…America has been blessed because at least in the beginning, it started out honoring God and His principles found in His Word, The Bible.

And so, we sing songs like, “America The Beautiful which has lines like: ‘God shed His grace on thee’.

America is blessed, indeed America is beautiful, because God has shed His grace on us.

And why would God shed His grace on us?

Well, notice these verses from Romans 10:15.

“As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who brings glad tidings of good things!”

God looks at those who take the Gospel to other people, cultures and lands as beautiful.

He looks at their feet, which have carried them from where they lived to where other people lived, and says that when those feet were used to carry the Gospel message, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they were beautiful feet.