Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
July 5, 2015 - W1527

Our forefathers were wise to follow the instructions of the Patriarchs of the Bible instilling in us to remember who we really were. So, they inscribed those values and those ideologies in stone and in sacred documents so that we would never stray. It would be like the altars in the wilderness of which Joshua talks about when he says to the Israelites “these will be a sign among you so that when your children ask later saying what do these stones mean, you shall tell them”. You, see, one of the greatest faults of the Israelites is that they kept forgetting who they were.

We are like the Israelites because we, too, often forget. We forget the eternal flame that protected us and gave us the motivation to cross the Atlantic, to begin that first colony in Jamestown in 1607. They came so that they could be free to live their faith and serve God, to not only believe in God, but to live according to what they believed.

Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, these three men, these early Americans immortalized in our nation's capitol, have left an indelible mark on our country, one that cannot be erased. On the shore of Washington D.C.'s Tidal Basin stands the statue of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and our nation's third president. On the walls of the structure which houses him are covered the inspirational words he spoke and wrote over his lifetime.

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions and matters of religion."(Thomas Jefferson)

Jefferson believed in the freedom of religion, not in the secularization of all things public.  He allowed the U.S. capitol and other government buildings to be used for church services, and he wrote the first education plan adopted by the District of Columbia which used the Bible and a hymnal to teach reading to students.

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"(Thomas Jefferson)

Between the White House and Jefferson’s memorial stands the tallest building in the capitol, the Washington monument. This obelisk is dedicated to the victorious commander in chief of the continental army during the American Revolution and the country's First President.

"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of all mighty God and to obey His will."(George Washington)

At his inauguration at the end of the oath, Washington added the phrase "So help me God." His was a life full of faith, and fittingly so his memorial houses, in its cornerstone - a Holy Bible and on its capstone an inscription reads "Laus Deo" Latin for "praise be to God." 

To the west of the Washington monument is memorialized the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Though his life was cut short, his legacy surpassed many.  Lincoln led the U.S. through a bloody civil war which left more than 620,000 dead. In the midst of the fighting, the President wrote,

“… we must believe that He [God] permits it for some wise purpose of His own, mysterious and unknown to us ..." 

Carved into the stone wall at the Lincoln memorial is the president's second inaugural address. The speech mentions God 14 times and quotes from the Bible twice. This sermon?like message concludes with a charge that speaks to us still today,

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in."

So when we look at these memorials, we must not see illegal references to religion. Though in time there will be those that try to have them removed as such, we must see the wisdom of God spoken through our forefather, and we must heed the warnings of those that laid our nation's foundation. We must secure the liberties that had been gifted to us not by our founding fathers but by our Heavenly Father.

1) David Barton,

David, the founder of Wall Builders, is going to give us a historical walk to the foundations of our country, the principles upon which we were built, and why we exist.

“When we talk about building America as a ‘Christian nation’, one of the biggest things we have to do is define the term because our opponents will say, ‘oh, you're trying to exclude everyone who is not a Christian, you're trying to create a theocracy’. That was never the definition. The founding fathers were very intentional about a ‘Christian nation’, but they were also very deliberate in saying don't ever confuse America as a Christian nation with European Christian nations. The European Christian nations had state?established religion. In America, you always got your choice.

“In 1892 the U.S. Supreme Court gave a unanimous decision saying that America is a Christian nation. Three years later a Justice on the Supreme Court said ‘we've been that for 200 years, but I'm not sure that today's generation still knows what that term means’, so he wrote a book defining that. And he said, ‘In what sense can we be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that everyone here is a Christian because it's never been that way. He said a Christian nation is one whose society, whose culture, and whose institutions have been shaped and formed by principles of Christianity.’ 

“The founding fathers pointed out that Christianity is what shaped the free market economic system. It's what shaped our republican forms of government. It's what gave us the rights of conscience because Jesus said, hey, a lot of people won't agree, but you do not coerce your faith on anyone. It's Christianity who said we'll just tell you, and you make your choice, but we're not going to force you. That was what a state?established church did. That was never Jesus or Christianity.

 “One of the things I’ve argued about is why people don't understand enough to treat religious speech like free speech.”

2) Colonel Oliver North

Colonel North has gone through various experiences, highs and lows, being accused, being exonerated, but through all of his experience, he's come to grips with us as a great country in need of faith. 

 “I don't pretend to comprehend everything that goes on around me, but I put it in the context of prayers being answered. I have a son?in?law who's the pastor of a church, and he'll pick me up at the airport when I get back from one of these long missions overseas and he'll e?mail me a lot when I'm over there and remind me every day that my wife, my children, my children's mates, and my grandchildren are praying for me. 

“I've seen it countless times when others around me are killed or wounded, and I've been able to be relatively unscathed. I've seen conversions on the battlefield. I've seen young men, who perhaps had never thought of it before, become motivated not just by death and destruction but by visual evidence of prayers being answered in ways that we can understand them, but, not all of them answered in the way we expected. I've seen youngsters baptized. In fact, in my 45, 47 years around the military, I've never seen so many Bible studies, so many youngsters willing to simply kneel and pray, and so many willing to go to chapel service. We don't have enough chaplains, but when the chaplains do get out there, they're overwhelmed by the response. 

3) Newt Gingrich

Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is an author and a brilliant observer of America. He's going to speak to us on how we began to slide from the foundations of our beginnings, how we got where we are and what we should do from this point on. 

“I believe that we have been in a fight in which there's a secular leftwing elite in the academic world, in the news media, in Hollywood, in the bureaucracies, in the judgeships, and they have been trying to design an America that I believe is fundamentally false. 91% of the country believes we should have the right to say "One Nation Under God," as part of the pledge of allegiance. 

Remember, we've had a 44?year cycle starting with the prayer school decision of 1963 consciously aimed at driving God out of American life. This is why I wrote “Rediscovering God in America” is to draw a line in the sand and say this is fundamentally wrong. It is a denial of the core values of the American system to do this. 

“If I could say to every American don't trust my judgment, come to Washington with me. Let's start with the National Archives where a political document, not a religious document, says ‘we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. I want to make two points with this. 

“1) How do you explain America if you're not willing to explain creator? Where do your rights come from? … it's because we are the only society in history that says power comes from God directly to you as a person, and then you loan power to the government. 

“2) We really need to educate people about, the ‘pursuit of happiness’. Jefferson was using a Scottish enlightenment term that meant virtue and wisdom. It did not mean hedonism. It did not mean the pursuit of pleasure. It meant that a person who truly in a mature way wanted to be happy will lead a disciplined and a committed life and would seek virtue and wisdom, and that was the base of freedom, that if people could not govern themselves individually, then they could not govern themselves as a nation.” 

3) Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity is a news commentator with Fox News, and even though we may be surrounded by negative circumstances and legislation that may be against our faith, there is great hope. 

 “I think America has an inherent goodness in them, and we have ?? I don't care where you look in the world, where there's liberty, where there is freedom today there probably was an American soldier. We have paid the price for freedom and liberty, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the financial burden over the years. I think America has paid that price. 

“What would this world look like but for the United States of America? I think there is a world that is unappreciative of the goodness of the American people.  Americans as a people have been the most generous, kindest people that have sacrificed much for the rest of the world. America has been and continues to be and will forever be the greatest force for good that God ever gave man. 

“This is the greatest country God ever gave man. And we all have an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend it. And, yeah, we're imperfect. We need to spend more time on our knees, little more humility, little more time in prayer, more reflection, more introspection. But I also believe that we always will go back to that homeostasis, that spiritual center, because it is in our DNA. It is who we are as Americans. And, you know, there will be defining moments where we need to turn back quickly and hard and strong, and we'll do it.” 

It was in 1840 that King Kamehameha III penned our very first Hawaii State Constitution. It began like this:

“God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth in unity and blessedness. God has bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs and all people of all lands. All men of every religion shall be protected in worshipping Jehovah and serving Him, according to their own understanding. But no man shall ever be punished for neglect of God unless he injures his neighbor or brings evil on the kingdom."

Our state motto is “Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono”: The Life of the Land is Perpetuated or sustained in Righteousness. In other words, it was a blessing as much as a warning that if we strayed from the righteousness of God, our land would suffer, but if we stayed with the righteousness of God, we would be blessed. 

These were the same sentiments of the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville who in 1831 wondered why this young country had so quickly become such an influential and prosperous nation. It wasn't until he visited the churches of America with its pulpits aflame with righteousness that he found his answer, and he writes, “America is great because America is good, and if America ever stops being good, America will stop being great.”

Clayton Christensen, a Professor at Harvard Business School related that a Marxist economist from China said, “I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy. The reason why democracy works is not because the government was designed to oversee what everybody does, but rather democracy works because most people most of the time voluntarily choose to obey the law. And in your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week, and they were taught there by people who they respected … Americans follow these rules because they had come to believe that they weren't just accountable to society. They were accountable to God.”

Unfortunately, we can no longer expect the majority to subscribe to righteousness or faith, to acknowledge God or even give Him thanks. What will tend to confuse us the most will be the divergent voices from within the people of faith. 

There is an increasing number of churches following the route of pleasing men, who are emptying themselves of truth, listen, stay strong. Because if we diminish any feelings of conviction, churches will be removing certain behaviors from the sin list to not offend people. And we will quickly see that the gospel may not be changing people as much as people are changing the gospel.    

Even the world expects us to stand true to our God. Don't throw the game. It's time for each of us to not depend on man but on God. If we call on God in our distress, He will answer us, and He will come to our rescue. He will be with us in the times of trouble, and He will deliver us. The Lord will command His angels concerning us to guard us in all our ways, and He will not let any harm befall us and no disaster to come near our household. 

The Psalmist says, "Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel who alone does marvelous deeds." Set the Lord always before you. You will not be shaken. Don't expect man or laws to do that for you. Someone once said to me, “Fear God, and you'll fear nothing else. Fear man, and you'll begin to fear everything else." So remember this:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs3: 5-6)

1) What are the things you need to learn to rely on God for?

2) How can we revive our foundations in God as a Christian, as a church, as a nation?

3) What patterns in history would you like to avoid in the future?

4) How can we avoid history from repeating itself?