Will
America Bless God?
Happy
Birthday America! This July 4th will mark the 240th anniversary of your
independence. You have endured wars, political strife, economic depression and
natural disasters. Thousands of your citizens have died to defend you and keep
you free. You have risen to great heights in technology, education, finance and
culture. You have produced men and women of noble character who have had a
profound impact on world history. You are the “land that I love” and I pray
daily in your behalf.
But
something has happened to you dear America. You have lost sight of the values
and guiding principles upon which you were founded. You have turned from your faith
in God, belief in the Bible and your passion for religious freedom. What has
happened to you? These were foundational principles for those who came to the
shores of this new world so long ago. You respected the Bible so much that your
Continental Congress voted in 1777 to appropriate $300,000 to purchase Bibles
that would be distributed throughout the nation.
Your
first president, George Washington, took the oath of office by placing his hand
upon the Bible. After taking the oath he bowed and kissed it. Following his inauguration
he and his family participated in a worship service that lasted two hours. He would
later write, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the
Bible.”
Dear
America, when the French writer Alexis de Toqueville visited you in 1831 he spent
years investigating your rapid rise in power and prosperity. He wrote, “I searched
for the greatness of the United States in her large harbors, her ample rivers,
her fertile fields and boundless forests. It was not there. I sought for it in
her mines, her vast world commerce, public school system and in her institutions
of higher learning. It was not there. I looked for it in her democratic
congress and her matchless constitution and it was not there. Not until I went
into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame in righteousness did
I understand the secret of her genius and power.
America
is great because America is good and if she ever ceases to be good she will
cease to be great.”
I am
concerned about your future America because you have turned your back on
the things that made you great. You have
embraced greed and materialism above humility and righteousness. You have
perverted and twisted the beauty of sexual intimacy to fulfill your corrupt
lusts. You have embraced false Gods and bowed before the idol of “political
correctness.”
On
your 240th birthday I will pray and sing, “God bless America,” but
in my heart I will ask, “Will America Bless God?”
-
Steve W. Reeves
