Pray For Our Nation - God & Government
John Rogers, the first martyr under Queen Mary, Feb. 4, 1555, followed by the "Oxford Martyrs" Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley in October
"May the Lord awaken the people of this land."
Jeremiah 18:9-10, 22:3
If I announce that a nation is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
1 Peter 4:17, 1 Corinthians 5:12
It is time for judgment to begin with the family of God...
(And starts with the shepherds - Ezekiel 33:6 & 34, Acts 20:26-28, James 3:1)
The Mayflower Compact, Nov. 21, 1620
Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.
The seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629) depicted an Indian and the words from Acts 16:9 “Come over and help us.”
The colony’s charter stated that ‘the principal end of this plantation’ is ‘to win and incite the natives to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind.’
John Jay, 1st Chief Justice of the United States
Federalist Paper No. 2, "Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence"
This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.
A letter to Jedidiah Morse, 1797
Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.
Thomas Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18 (In his denunciation of slavery as an extreme depravity, despite being a slave owner.)
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/JEFFERSON/ch18.html
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.
George Washington
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness.
George Washington's faith
https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/25423-george-washington-s-christianity
James Wilson, signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and an original Justice of the Supreme Court
Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of Divine law...religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.
Roger Sherman, Congregationalist of Connecticut, was the only Founding Father to sign The Association of 1774, the Declaration of Independence (he was one of the 5 Drafting Committee members), the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/08/roger-sherman-constitutional-calvinist.html
Let us live no more to ourselves, but to Him who loved us, and gave Himself to die for us.
Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and no longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men.
Roger Sherman’s Confession of Faith
https://books.google.com/books?id=mWYsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA272&lpg
I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost...that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God...that God did send His own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners, and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the Gospel offer.
I believe that the souls of believers are at their death made perfectly holy, and immediately taken to glory: that at the end of this world there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a final judgement of all mankind, when the righteous shall be publicly acquitted by Christ the Judge and admitted to everlasting life and glory, and the wicked be sentenced to everlasting punishment.
James Madison
We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
"Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments of 1785"
It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to Him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.
Letter to Frederick Beasley, Nov. 20, 1825
The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it.
John Adams Nov. 22, 1800, in a speech to Congress offered a benediction for the unfinished Capitol and the City of Washington
It would be unbecoming the representatives of this nation to assemble for the first time in this solemn temple without looking up to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and imploring his blessing.
May this territory be the residence of virtue and happiness! In this city may that piety and virtue, that wisdom and magnanimity, that constancy and self-government, which adorned the great character whose name it bears, be forever held in veneration! Here, and throughout our country, may simple manners, pure morals, and true religion flourish forever!
John Quincy Adams
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?
Benjamin Franklin (a Deist) in a speech to the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention
In the beginning of the contest with Britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence. To that kind Providence we owe this opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance?
I have lived for a long time (81 years), and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.’ (Psalm 127:1) I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall proceed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.
W.S. Tyle, Professor of Greek at Amherst College, Massachusetts, 1836 to 1893, and a Congregational minister, Prayer for Colleges, 1854
Unless Christians can be stirred up, and that speedily, to more earnest, constant and believing prayer for the church, the country and the world, and especially for our (schools and) colleges; in which, as we shall now endeavor to show, the hopes of the church, the country and the world, all centre; worldliness and ungodliness will continue to come in like a flood, sweeping away the dearest interests of men for this life, and their brightest hopes for the next, till at length, in answer to the supplications of a more prayerful and believing age, the Spirit of God shall lift up a standard against them.
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, delivered March 4th, 1865 during the fourth year of the Civil War
Each (party) looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces…(but) the prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” (Psalm 19:9b)
President Eisenhower regarding the National Day of Prayer, established by Congress June 14, 1954
In this way, we are affirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war.
God and Government
Thomas Helwys, with John Smyth established the General (Arminian) Baptists A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity , 1612
For men's religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure. This is made evident to our Lord the King by the scriptures.
Section 17 of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message on Religious Liberty
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom, no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power.
Both sides of the "separation" issue are guilty of dishonest historical revisionism, but MUCH more so the Progressives who, by out of context cherry picking, have portrayed the Founding Fathers as flaming atheists DESPITE The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, July 4, 1776
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
John Hancock, President, Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 1774 and 1st signer of the Declaration of Independence
Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual…Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.
Our rights are given by our Creator, not by the state, and were secured by the blood of patriots.
It is true that Jefferson and Franklin were humanists/deists, James Madison a Unitarian, and George Washington an 18th century Anglican/Episcopalian. Jefferson made his own bible, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth", by removing the parts he disagreed with, as do many today. BUT it is absurd to argue that each were not acutely aware that 'Providence' had a hand in the formation of this country, and the nation and its people were dependent on its Creator.
John Adams wrote:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Of the original colonies, Mass. was BY LAW Congregational, Maryland Catholic, Virginia Anglican, part of New York Dutch Reform. Roger Williams (a Puritan, briefly a Baptist, and proponent of 'separation' of church and state) founded Providence after being banned in Mass., and Rhode Island became a safe haven for Separatists, Baptists, Quakers and Jews.
In The Bloudy Tenent (principle) of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, 1644, Williams repeated that “God alone is Lord of the conscience.” (Westminster Confession, Ch. 20.2)
Williams’ and John Clarke’s Charter granted under Charles II in 1663 declared ‘full liberty in religious concernments’ and that ‘no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be any wise molested … for any differences in opinion, in matters of religion, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of our said colony.’
From George Washington's Letter to the Touro Synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island, 1790
“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.”
"The Wall of Separation", Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802
https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" thus building a wall of eternal separation between Church & State.
The inspired brilliance of the Founders was in:
1. Protecting individual exercise of religion from the state
2. Protecting the state from a theocracy
3. Protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority
They would have been astounded at the idea that our Nation was not established under Judeo/Christian principles and that religion should have no voice/influence in affairs of the state.
John Newton Olney Hymn #65 December 13, 1776
O, may the pow’r which melts the rock
Be felt by all assembled here!
Or else our service will but mock
The GOD whom we profess to fear!
Lord, while thy judgments shake the land,
Thy peoples’ eyes are fixed on thee!
We own thy just, uplifted hand,
Which thousands cannot, will not see.
How long hast thou bestowed thy care
On this indulged ungrateful spot?
While other nations, far and near,
Have envied and admired our lot.
Here peace and liberty have dwelt,
Thy glorious Gospel brightly shone;
And oft our enemies have felt
That GOD has made our casue His own.
But ah! both heav’n and earth have heard
Our vile requital of his love!
We, whom like children he has reared,
Rebels against his goodness prove.
Additional Resources
Tony Evans on God and Government
Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
James Hutson, The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations
Phil Webster, 1776 Faith
Allen Wooten, America, Christianity, And The Forgotten Link
The Founders' Faith http://lehrmaninstitute.org/history/the-founders-faith.html#found
CAUTION I
A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) The Set of the Sail, a collection of editorials written while editor of Alliance Life Magazine in the 1950s
It is Satan's wiliest stratagem to use our virtues against us, and this he often does with astonishing success. By means of temptation to sin he strikes at our personal lives; by working through our virtues he gets at the whole community of believers and unfits it for its own defense. A parallel to Satan's technique may be seen in the activities of certain subversive political groups who use the Constitution of the United States as a shield while they work to destroy that Constitution. By unctuous pleading for the right of free speech they seek to destroy all freedom of speech. By talking piously about government by law they push our country toward the place where there will be government by dictatorship and all laws will mean what a ruling clique of base, cynical men want them to mean. So diabolical is this method that one can only conclude that those who use it learned it from their father the devil, whose they are and whom they serve.
The clever proponents of evil political ideologies are spending millions to make us Americans ashamed to love our country. By the use of all available media of communication they are persuading our people that there is little left worth defending and certainly nothing worth dying for. They are building up in the public mind a picture of an American as a generous, tolerant, smiling chap who loves baseball and babies but is not too much concerned about fringe political theories. This synthetic American subscribes to the doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and lets go fishing - everything will be all right.
And so in religion, especially among the Protestants. Let a man rise to declare the unique Lordship of Jesus Christ and the absolute necessity of obedience to Him and he is at once branded as a hatemonger and a divider of men. The devil has brainwashed large numbers of religious leaders so successfully that they are now too timid to resist him. And he, being the kind of devil he is, takes swift advantage of their cowardice to erect altars to Baal everywhere.
The Bible is a book of controversy. The Old Testament prophets were men of contention. Our Lord Jesus while on earth was in deadly conflict with the devil. The Apostles, the Church Fathers and the Reformers were men of controversy. They fought the devil to the death and kept the torch of truth burning for all succeeding generations. Is our contribution to history to be the ignoble one of letting the torch go out?
The Next Chapter after the Last, “Standing for Truth”
Isaiah 59:15 – “Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.”
We have developed in recent times a peace-loving, soft-spoken, tame and harmless brand of Christian of whom the world has no fear and for whom it has little respect. We are careful, for instance, never to speak in public against any of the false cults lest we be thought intolerant. We fear to talk against the destructive sins of modern civilization for fear someone will brand us as bigoted and narrow. Little by little we have been forced off the hard earth into a religious cloud-land where we are permitted to wing our harmless way around, like swallows at sundown, saying nothing that might stir the ire of the sons of this world.
That Neo-Christianity, which seems for the time to be the most popular (and is certainly the most aggressive), is very careful not to oppose sin. It wins its crowds by amusing them and its converts by hiding from them the full implications of the Christian message. It carries on its projects after the ballyhoo methods of American business. Well might we paraphrase Wordsworth and cry, "Elijah, thou shouldst be living at this hour; America has need of thee." We stand in desperate need of a few men like Elijah who will dare to face up to the brazen sinners who dictate our every way of life.
Sin in the full proportions of a revolution or a plague has all but destroyed our civilization while church people have played like children in the marketplace. What has happened to the spirit of the American Christian? Has our gold become dim? Have we lost the spirit of discernment till we can no longer recognize our captors? How much longer will we hide in caves while Ahab and Jezebel continue to pollute the temple and ravage the land? Surely we should give this some serious thought and prayer before it is too late—if indeed it is not too late already.
CAUTION II
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
We are on dangerous ground when we begin to talk about 'Christian civilization' and 'Christian' or 'Western' values...the substitution of the social and political for the particular and personal in Christian matters is a terrible danger...because I have probably ceased to examine myself.
(While the rule of law, the Calvinist work ethic [Colossians 3:17], and obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ [Matthew 28:20] should define Western Civilization, God's revelation in His word is not a social improvement program, but His plan of redemption and regeneration for each person in particular [John 20:31, Luke 19:10].)
CAUTION III
A.W. Tozer The Next Chapter After the Last
One thing must be kept in mind: We Christians are Christians first and everything else after that. Our first allegiance is to the kingdom of God. Our citizenship is in heaven. We are grateful for political freedom. We thank God for democracy as a way of life. But we never forget that we are sons of God and citizens of another city whose builder and maker is God. For this reason, we must not identify the gospel with any political system or make Christianity to be synonymous with any form of government, however noble. Christ stands alone, above and outside of every ideology devised by man. He does not join any of our parties or take sides with any of our great men except as they may come over on His side and try to follow Him in righteousness and true holiness. Then He is for them, but only as individuals, never as leaders of some political faction. The true Christian will be loyal to his country and obedient to those in authority, but he will never fall into the error of confusing his own national culture with Christianity. Christianity is bigger than any country, loftier than any civilization, broader than any human ideology.
O Christ, You are praised and worshiped today in hundreds of languages and cultural forms. You are no more my Lord than the Lord of other Christians around the world.
"The Confessing Church" of Germany and the Barmen Declaration of 1934
http://www.ekd.de/english/barmen_theological_declaration.html
CAUTION IV
John Knox on Civil Disobedience
Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.
http://wrs.edu/Materials_for_Web_Site/Journals/6-1%20Feb-1999/Huff%20-%20John%20Knox.pdf
Similarly John Ponet's Shorte Treatise of Politike Power, 1556
Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex, p.34
Tyranny being a work of Satan, is not from God, because sin, either habitual or actual, is not from God: the power that is, must be from God; the magistrate, as magistrate, is good in nature of office, and the intrinsic end of his office, (Romans 8:4) for he is the minister of God for thy good; and, therefore, a power ethical, politic, or moral, to oppress, is not from God, and is not a power, but a licentious deviation of a power; and is no more from God, but from sinful nature and the old serpent...
John Gill
If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the Government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A Knock at Midnight, June 11, 1967
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.
CAUTION V
William Cowper, “Expostulation”
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/cowper/works/files/expostulation.htm
When a nation is to perish in its sins, ’tis in the church the leprosy begins.
CAUTION VI
Psalm 146:3, 124:8
Do not put your trust in princes (the powerful and prominent), in mortal men, who cannot save. Our help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth
Casting Crowns "While You Were Sleeping"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqhG2yT-58
United States of America
Looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies
That save the trees and kill the children
And while we're lying in the dark
There's a shout heard 'cross the eastern sky
For the Bridegroom has returned
And has carried His bride away in the night
America, what will we miss while we are sleeping
Will Jesus come again
And leave us slumbering where we lay
America will we go down in history
As a nation with no room for its King
Will we be sleeping
Will we be sleeping
Psalm 33:12
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD...