Words to Ponder – Past Presidential Thoughts
It is well known that God has blessed the U.S.A. His grace has poured over this nation for many years. However, it is possible for one to ponder the query of how is it possible for humanity to “bless” God. While I am not a reformed theologian, I do agree with the understanding offered by John Piper in an article entitled, “What Does It Mean to Bless God?” I quote from his opening paragraph, “My thesis is that in the Scripture when God blesses men they are thereby helped and strengthened and made better off than they were before, but when men bless God he is not helped or strengthened or made better off. Rather man’s blessing God is an expression of praising thankfulness . . . It is an exclamation of gratitude and admiration.” He continues on to point out numerous passages of support for his thesis, one passage used is Deuteronomy 8:10, “And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.”
While it is imperative that it be understood that the U.S.A. is not in a national covenant with God, as Israel was, the principle still seems applicable in our nation. We too have been a “land flowing with milk and honey.” Moreover, the majority of churches have, since the foundation, stood firmly on the word of God as a moral compass. And because God had blessed us, we in return, blessed Him. But is that practice still existent in this nation? Is it possible that our willingness to reject God and His will is why we are now seeing the vast chaos? I hold that it is not only possible, but very highly probable. Abraham Lincoln thought this was the case in his day:
We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
It was Ronald Reagan who once said, “If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” George Washington stated, “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.” James Madison penned powerful words, “The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.” And one can find many others such quotes from every time frame within our history. Indeed, we (the nation collectively and many churches as well) have opted to wander a different path of moral correctness. We have abandoned the Christian worldview for one of humanism and postmodernism. In such a system there is no moral compass because there is no absolute truth. Thus, moral correctness will be ever changing and subject to the sin sick desires of humanity. It seems to me that we are beginning to reap from the corrupt tree which has been planted in the place of the tree of life. In such a society it becomes difficult to bless God, and it might just be that He will remove His blessings for our great and numerous perversions.
God demands repentance! I close with the words of Ulysses S. Grant: “Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.’” The time has come for all Christians to step up and return to being the salt and light of society. It is time to start blessing the Lord once again. It is time to take a stand! Our forefather’s did it for us, we must do it for our decedents.
