America Is Still the Beautiful
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”
Psalm 33:12
Jesus lovingly talked with a group of religious leaders in His day about repentance and righteousness and their response was: “We are of Abraham’s seed.” That was good, but it was not good enough. What they were saying was their heritage provided them with righteousness which immured them from the need of repentance.
Today many Americans act as though our heritage is enough to protect and preserve us. We behave as though we are the modern chosen people living a charmed life that allows us to violate any of God’s laws we desire. Our legacy is a good one, but it does not immune us from a need for present day vigilance and devotion.
No civilization has ever enjoyed the freedom we now have. We are one of the few civilizations in which people do not have to carry a personal I.D. card at all times.
Now with our open border we have no record of who has crossed our borders and with what intent.
With a member of Congress displaying a Palestinian flag in our national capitol, with 31 student groups at Harvard supporting Hamas, and with Hamas support rallies in our streets and on college campuses it is not foolish to be apprehensive about Hamas terrorist cells in America. Incidentally, Palestine is not a country, it is simply a territory.
These groups in supporting Hamas are endorsing terrorists who breached the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Israel and reigned terror on innocent unarmed civilians slaughtering 20 infants along with an estimated 1000 other people. Their animalistic behavior betrays any code of military conduct.
At a Fourth of July speech a young man shouted: “Why don’t you tell them that freedom is the most dangerous fight anyone can have? Why don’t you tell them that it’s a two-edged sword that will destroy us unless we learn how to use it — and soon?”
Our failure to use this two-edged sword has caused the British historian, Lord Macaulay, to write of our current drift: “Your republic will be pillaged and ravaged just as the Roman Empire was by the Barbarians in the fifth century, with the difference, that the devastators of Rome came from abroad, while your Barbarians will be the people of your own country and the products of your own institutions.”
The renowned historian, Arnold Toynbee, in an interview on ABC was asked: “Are you saying that religion is going to save us or that it can save us in our present state?”
He replied to the question: “I’m saying we can’t be saved unless we have a religious conversion, or if you like, a new religious revival.”
He has made a historical deep dive into the demise of approximately 100 societies in making this statement.
Such a renewal is the one thing it appears we don’t want. Churches are at fault in this by rarely calling for a renewed commitment to biblical virtue.
Not only are the words “God Bless America” good musical lyrics, they are worth praying. Following is a promise made by our promise keeping God.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” II Chronicles 7: 14.