America: A Nation Lost
I love the United States; it has been my pride and my joy since my youth. I am proud to be an American. Though, I cannot help but be very troubled over the path America has chosen in regards to its founding and the men who fought and bled for our independence. Many politicians, educators, and lawmakers say that America should be free from religion, thereby forgetting the reason this nation was founded. They also neglect the reasoning behind the Constitution of the United States, and even the true origin of a three-fold governing body in the Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches.
Abraham Lincoln said,” The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.” Since the departure of prayer and the Holy Bible in our school systems, we have seen a tremendous decline in moral values and the rise of relativism, atheism, and secular humanism within the schools and institutions of America. In just the span of 30 years from 1973 to 2003, the rate of violent crime as a whole reaches upwards to a total of 70 million averaging 2-3 millions cases a year and that is a conservative estimate if you believe the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This class of felony involves rape, robbery, aggravated assault and homicide. Birthrates to unwed, single mothers starting in 1950 and continuing to 1996 have risen from 3.9% to 31.7% in the span of 46 years. (http://www.sais-jhu.edu/fukuyama/figures/united.htm)
In the public schools the highest percentage of problems included chewing gum and talking in the 1950’s, but today rape and murder are prominent. We have children carrying guns to the gang infested battlefields and dens of iniquity called public schools and we wonder why the youth of America have become violent, lost, and without hope. Administrators, parents, and teachers lament the current conditions of the public school systems, yet they would rather hand out information and items regarding sexual relations in school when they should be handing out the Word of God in schools if they truly want to make a difference in a child’s life. Only then will there be restoration of the children, only then will the children regain a sense of who they are in Christ and in the eyes of God. Teen suicide rates in 2001 stated that suicide was the third leading cause of death in young Americans 15-24 years of age. http://www.teensuicide.us/articles1.html
We are losing an entire generation of young people in the lies that life is hopeless. When you die, you vanish. Live hard, die young. Gain as much wealth as you can, and only then are you worth something. The odd thing is the pundits who claim we should be free from religion, totally ignore the statements by those who framed our government.
I want to speak the words of righteous men who died over 200 years ago in the infancy of our great nation. I believe you will recognize many if not all of these gentlemen of faith and substance. It may be good to note that most of these men were ardent Anglicans in the practice of their faith. This is something to be proud of, but let it also serve as a warning as to how far Episcopalians and Anglicans have come in the history of our country.
John Adams and John Hancock:
We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! [April 18, 1775]
John Adams:
“The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
• “[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
–John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress
Samuel Adams:
“He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all… Our forefathers opened the Bible to all.” [“American Independence," August 1, 1776. Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia]
“ Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity… and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.” [October 4, 1790]
John Quincy Adams:
“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?
--1837, at the age of 69, when he delivered a Fourth of July speech at Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Benjamin Franklin:
“God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel” –Constitutional Convention of 1787
Alexander Hamilton:
On July 12, 1804 at his death, Hamilton said, “I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.”
"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests." [1787 after the Constitutional Convention]
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
Patrick Henry: Who said “Give me Liberty or give me death!” also said:
“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” [May 1765 Speech to the House of Burgesses]
“The Bible is worth all [the] other books which have ever been printed.”
James Madison:
“We’ve staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all of our heart.”
Thomas Paine:
Delivered in Paris on January 16, 1797, in a
Discourse to the Society of Theophilanthropists
It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue or a highly finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talents of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the works of God in the creation, we stop short, and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the author of them. . . .
The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of the creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter; and jump over all the rest, by saying that matter is eternal.
Noah Webster:
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”
[Source: 1828, in the preface to his American Dictionary of the English Language]
“All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.” [Noah Webster. History. p. 339]
“Education is useless without the Bible” [Noah Webster. Our Christian Heritage p.5]
Benjamin Rush:
• “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism.” “By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds.” [Letter written (1790’s) in Defense of the Bible in all schools in America]
• “Christianity is the only true and perfect religion.”
• “If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into our world would have been unnecessary.”
"Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education”
Letters of Benjamin Rush, "To the citizens of Philadelphia: A Plan for Free Schools", March 28, 1787
James Wilson: A Signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and a Supreme Court Judge appointed by George Washington stated:
"Christianity is part of the common law"
[Sources: James Wilson, Course of Lectures [vol 3, p.122]; and quoted in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, 11 Serg, & R. 393, 403 (1824).]
George Washington:
“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”
“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” [Speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779]
"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian" [May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge]
During his inauguration, Washington took the oath as prescribed by the Constitution but added several religious components to that official ceremony. Before taking his oath of office, he summoned a Bible on which to take the oath, added the words “So help me God!” to the end of the oath, then leaned over and kissed the Bible.
In his prayer journal he wrote:
“O Most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ, my merciful and loving Father; I acknowledge and confess my guilt in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of my sins, but so coldly and carelessly that my prayers are become my sin, and they stand in need of pardon.”
“ I have sinned against heaven and before Thee in thought, word, and deed. I have contemned Thy majesty and holy laws. I have likewise sinned by omitting what I ought to have done and committing what I ought not. I have rebelled against the light, despising Thy mercies and judgment, and broken my vows and promise. I have neglected the better things. My iniquities are multiplied and my sins are very great. I confess them, O Lord, with shame and sorrow, detestation and loathing and desire to be vile in my own eyes as I have rendered myself vile in Thine. I humbly beseech Thee to be merciful to me in the free pardon of my sins for the sake of Thy dear Son and only Savior Jesus Christ who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Thou gavest Thy Son to die for me.”
[George Washington; from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book dated April 21-23, 1752
William J. Johnson George Washington, the Christian (New York: The Abingdon Press, New York & Cincinnati, 1919), pp. 24-35.]
The three branches of the U.S. Government: Judicial, Legislative, Executive
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan to divide the central government into three branches. He claimed to have discovered this model of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;
“For the LORD is our judge,
the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king;
He will save us.”
America has come very far. It has forgotten the God of our fathers and has become a nest of Satan and a willing participant in the creation of the One World Government under Anti-Christ. The Council of Foreign Relations, of which most of our lawmakers were or are a part, is actively seeking to create a single, global government. By 2010 they are aiming to have the North American Union in place to be as ducks in a row for the world dictator, Anti-Christ. Pornography, infanticide, rapes, murders, thievery, arson, violent youth, and so much more are now a common pock on the face of America.
In the name of “progress” and “enlightenment” we have traded God’s Providence and guidance for a sorry excuse for “freedom,” exchanging true freedom in Christ’s Holy Words for the lies of Satan, perverting the word “freedom” and substituting in its place “license.”
Let us remember why this country was founded. Let us remember the character of the men who boldly declared God’s finger in its creation, and pray that repentance comes to more of the chaff so they may be as wheat before the final harvest of souls at the end of the age.
AMEN.
