Personal Note:
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Julie and I would like to use this avenue to have a heart to heart talk with those of you who would be interested. We like many of you have experienced life in America and found it to be wonderful and rewarding. Of course even in America life can give some tough mountains to be climbed. We have experienced some of those also. But over every mountain there was a wonderful experience of blessing that in most cases we didn’t even know existed.
What a wonderful life and a wonderful hope God has given us in this great country. We hope to share here a part of our heart, in a manner that will encourage and inspire you in continuing to press into the better things of life. In making a difference in a positive way for our communities and country as a whole. To remember the days gone by and the sacrifices that were made by those before us as they did their part and now have handed the responsibility down from generation to generation.
It is here that we would like to share experiences of life in America. Below under Our Christian Heritage you will find archived additional information that you can take the time to read if you like concerning some of the words of our founders.
But for right now a word of encouragement, if you are in a tough time, I promise you, there is a blessing awaiting. If you are experiencing life at it’s best, I promise you, a mountain is on the way. This is life, so don’t be discouraged. The mountains build our strength and forms our character, the blessings encourage us on to what God has called us to. The only way for you to lose is to quit and give in to your circumstances.
I know this to be true, first of all the scriptures bear witness, second of all, history proves it over and over again. America is here because a people faced great difficulties and pursued a better life for themselves and their families. Their faith was in God and their hope was for their posterity to follow in a better way. As a result, here we are, American’s, but sometimes I am concerned that we may be forgetting the principles that got us here. They are eternal and sure, but we must not forget.
I have faced times that made me want to give up on life, times of despair that even made me cold and indifferent to those around me, but had I done so, O’ the wonder of life I would have missed. Life is wonderful, America is our blessing from God, let’s not give up on either, but pursue till the victory comes.
David
**********************************
From Julie’s keyboard…. Hello Neighbors!
When David decided to start this blog project, he asked me to share something on each post. At first it didn't seem appropriate to me as this is a work about the truth of our Nation's heritage. However, more than this, it is a work about the God of our Nation. With this in mind, getting to share a nugget of truth or a lesson I'm tackling in the Scriptures has become a special opportunity.
The freedoms we enjoy have come at such great costs in so many respects. To give proper honor to all having even the most minimal part in making this so wouldn't be possible. But, to honor the God of the Nation, the Creator of the Universe, will help us keep the focus in the right arena. How thankful we should be that throughout the ages men have followed this Great God and proven instrumental in the liberties and pursuits we now enjoy.
Many may feel, as I, that they come from the simple side of this life. There's really no spectaculars or monumental events that come from my personal sojourn that need to be shared. But, the desire of my heart is to glorify the Father in Heaven and attest to the Truth of His Son, Jesus Christ.
In half a century of growing, study and learning, I've come to the ripe conclusion that there's just so much yet to learn. Isn't this one of the great quests of this life? The God of Heaven has promised to give us His Wisdom for the asking if we ask in faith and not waver. My prayer is that His Spirit will always be the Source of these messages and that He will guide every word to His glory and honor.
If you are reading this, my prayer is that you know the Lord Jesus Christ. May you be blessed in the things that are shared in this material. If we can be of help with a labor of love which the Lord has granted us, please let us know.
For His Glory,
Julie
Our Christian Heritage:
AMERICA IN COVENANT
I have been studying a book by a man who from 1994 has fasted and prayed for forty days each year for revival in America. That makes me ask myself the question, “What am I willing to pay to see America fulfill the purpose of which God has ordained”? How much do I love America? What is the purpose of God worth to me?
1. God Loves America because God loves people.
BENJAMIN RUSH, signer of the Declaration of Independence: ” I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of the States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.”
a. America does not deserve our criticism.
b. Sin in 18th century is the same in the 21st century.
c. 1776 will always ring special in my ears.
2. Our sight of History is to short, we have been here before. In the early 1700′s American’s were steeped in Christianity, the Bible, and Church politics. The outward trappings of Christianity were evident everywhere. At the same time, however, religion was becoming mechanical and not from the heart. The colonists seemed to have lost their grandparents’ zeal for the faith.
A 1727 earthquake was interpreted by some as God’s displeasure at the colonists’ lukewarm faith. In the 1730′s a diphtheria out break heightened these suspicions. What is more, doubts were being raised about whether the majority of the clergy were themselves sincere Christians.
Amidst this turmoil America experienced a religious revival. This event is usually called the Great Awakening. It united the colonies in a common bond. This bond would eventually become the union declared in Philadelphia in 1776.
They were raised on the preachers of the Great Awakening the way we are raised on television today. Christian ideals shaped and permeated the Founders’ political worldview. By the time Lincoln came on the seen, the nation had again become divided and their spiritual condition was similar to what we see today.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 16th President of the United States:
In proclaiming a National Fast Day, March 30, 1863. “It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But 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 to self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
But as before out of tragedy God brought revival to a Country that He loves. In the turn of the Century we had another spiritual revival know as Azuza Street, and again Americans were revived to there purpose.
a. We have again forgotten who we are and what we are about as Americans.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, signer of the Declaration of Independence:
“Whoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
b. Faith will cause a man to step outside of his circumstances and accomplish things greater than himself.
c. By history we know where America is suppose to be going.
JAMES MADISON, known as the “Chief Architect of the Constitution”:
“A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven.”
“To the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.”
SAMUEL ADAMS, signer of the Declaration of independence:
“May every citizen in the army and in the country have a proper sense of the Deity upon his mind and an impression of the declaration recorded in the Bible, “Him that honoreth me I will honor, but he that despiseth me shall be lightly esteemed.”
“The Supreme Ruler of the Universe, having been pleased in the course of His providence to establish the independence of the United States of America. . . we ought to be led by religious feelings of gratitude and to walk before Him in all humility according to His most holy law. . .That with true repentance and contrition of heart we may unitedly implore the forgiveness of our sins through the merits of Jesus Christ and humbly supplicate our heavenly Father.”
JOHN JAY, 1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court:
“I recommend a general and public return of praise and thanksgiving to Him form whose goodness these blessings descend. The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties, is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the source from which they flow.”
“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.”
JOHN WITHERSPOON, signer of the Declaration of Independence:
“He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not (do not hesitate) to call him an enemy of his country.”
ANDREW JACKSON, 7th President of the United States, referring to the Bible:
“That book , Sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.”
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, 1854:
“The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
U.S. SUPREME COURT, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892):
“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”
3. A Blessed Nation
a. In 1967 Richard Wurmbrand, a great Romanian pastor who suffered fourteen years in prison for his faith, wrote:
“Every freedom-loving man has two fatherlands: his own and America. . . America is the hope of every enslaved man, because it is the last bastion of freedom in the world.”
b. Luke 12:48 expects each of us to dedicate ourselves unreservedly to the task at hand, rebuild our moral and spiritual foundation which was built upon the eternal truth of God. That foundation made America great.
c. Deuteronomy 8:10-14,19,20. Abraham Lincoln warned in 1837,
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
The hope lies not in the restoration of America’s former grandeur, but in the restoration of America’s original purpose as “one nation under God.”
d. Remove ourselves from Judgment to Mercy, expect what we pray to come to pass and govern our words that we speak about our Country accordingly.
4. America’s Destiny in God:
A Spanish monk named Ramon Lull, while preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to Muslims on the African continent more than 600 years ago, was severely beaten and lay near death. Two Italian men sympathetic to Lull’s message rescued him and put him on a ship to Spain.
Lull did not make it back to Catalonia, his home province. As he lay dying in the bow of the ship crossing the Mediterranean, Lull uttered his last prophetic words. With all of his strength, he pointed westward over the horizon and exclaimed, “Beyond this sea which washes this continent we know lies another continent we’ve never seen whose natives are ignorant of Christ. Send men there! Send men there!”
Those haunting final words lived on in the minds of the two young Italians who cared for Lull in his dying hours. One of them, Stefano Colombo, or Stephen Columbus, was a direct ancestor of the Great seafarer, Christopher Columbus. The words of the Catalonian martyr passed from generation to generation, eventually stirring the heart of the young Christopher.
As he pondered the words of Isaiah, he became convinced that God had chosen him, of all the men in Europe, to travel beyond the seas to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS:
“It was the Lord who put into my mind the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures. . . No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Savior, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service.”
One night the Continental Army was evacuated under the noses of the British near Brooklyn. On August 27, 1776, 20,000 British soldiers nearly surrounded the 8,000 poorly trained American troops.
General George Washington was waiting for the final assault that would finish off the Continental Army and cause the colonists to lose the war. But for some unknown reason, General Howe did not press the attack. All throughout the next day, the Americans still waited, but there was not action from the British.
Rain came and a northeast wind arose, preventing the British fleet from sailing up the East River. Knowing that time was running out, Washington outlined a daring and possibly foolhardy plan to his officers. Using small boats, he would evacuate his entire army to safety across the mile-wide river. How could he expect such a plan to succeed? How many trips would it take across the open water in sight of the British?
Providentially, a company of expert oarsmen were among the American troops. After nightfall they began laboring across the choppy water, trip after trip, carrying a few soldiers at a time. Hour after hour passed. Washington set a screen of men in front positions to fool the British. The enemy did not notice a thing!
At midnight the wind died down so the boats could be loaded with even more men. As the sky lightened, the oarsmen knew the boats would become easy targets. The men remaining on shore waited nervously in the trenches. Would their turn to escape come or was it too late? Just as the sun peered over the horizon, a dense fog arose from the ground. Visibility dropped to a mere six yards. The fog remained until the last boat, carrying General Washington, set off across the river. Then the fog lifted, and the British were stunned to see the shore empty of the 8,000 American troops.
Guns were fired at the last departing boat, but it was out of range! Many American soldiers kept diaries of the miraculous event, and almost all attributed the happening to the intervention of God.
The famous portrait of Washington pausing in battle to pray for the safety of his men depicts an actual scene witnessed by a British reporter. He later confessed that the sight of Washington on his knees convinced him that God was on the side of the Americans. (I would insert that we were on the side of God, following the divine destiny and purpose He Himself had formed before the foundation of the world. I was not that were were a special or superior people, we just simply found our way into our destiny in Him)
5. The study of our history gives us hope, tells us who we are as a people, what our purpose is in the plan of God for this country. Are we to be found faithful as our Founding Fathers were? Are we to leave our posterity with the hope, the will for freedom that our Fathers left us? Will we answer the call of our time, the call of God, to do what ever is demanded of us as a people, as a nation with a Covenant with God, to proclaim His Gospel and walk worthy of His divine Word.
As history tells us, now is the time, it is now or never. Our youth must be awakened to who we are, we must not forget. What ever the price is, to us it is worth it, we must leave our children a nation , one nation under God.
If we fail to answer our call, then truly the end has arrived. The hope of the world lies in an America that has fulfilled her purpose in destiny in God.
2nd Chronicles 7:14
It is our time to pray, God will answer, He call’s America today. He has brought us this far, let us not leave Him now. You might ask, “what can I do” ? Pray! walk with Him, talk with Him, live your life as an American with a faith in God.
It will change the lives of your family, your friends, the world around you, from one to another again America will be changed. We must draw the line and say this is what we are. Then put our lives on the line to preserve it.
God has blessed America time and time again, and now he does not chastise us, but call to us once again, to arise to his purpose, his plan. If we do not answer, our lives, our children, our future is lost, but most of all our purpose.
I hope these words move us all to an understanding of where we are in our time, to see the real important things in life. To stand up and be men and women of faith, with courage bold, and let the world see America as it has never see her before.
The Religion of Thomas Jefferson
By David Barton, Founder and President of Wallbuilders and Ecclesia College Regent
Of the 200+ Founding Fathers, the faith of most can be clearly identified. For example, one can say with great certainty that Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Roger Sherman, and William Livingston were definitely Christians; and one can say with equal certainty that Charles Lee, Henry Dearborn, Thomas Paine, and Ethan Allen definitely were not; but Thomas Jefferson’s faith is much more difficult to label with certainty.
Some assert that Jefferson was a Christian; others that he was not; and the source of this contradiction is Jefferson himself, for his own writings contain content that can be used to prove either position. Yet while the condition of Jefferson’s private faith is subject to speculation, his public actions regarding Christianity are not.
For example, Jefferson began his federal career in 1789 as Secretary of State to President George Washington, and one of his early assignments was to oversee the layout and construction of Washington, D. C. In late 1800, the new Capitol building was ready, and on December 4, Congress (with Vice President Thomas Jefferson presiding over the U. S. Senate) approved a plan whereby Christian church services would be held each Sunday in the Capitol.
Throughout Jefferson’s presidency, he faithfully attended the Capitol church (arriving each week on horseback) and did not even allow bad weather to impede his attendance. He had the Marine Band play at the worship services, and under his tenure Sunday services were also started at the War Department and Treasury Department. Of his faithful participation at the Capitol church, he explained:
No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion – nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.
Other presidential actions of Jefferson included:
• Urging local governments to make land available specifically for Christian purposes;
• Federally funding Christian missionaries to the Indians and providing funds to erect a church building in which they might worship;
• Assuring a Christian school in the newly purchased Louisiana Territory that it would receive “the patronage of the government”; and
•Closing presidential documents with “In the year of our Lord Christ” (see inset).
Before his presidency and while Governor of Virginia, Jefferson called for a time of prayer and thanksgiving, asking the people to give thanks . . .
that He hath diffused the glorious light of the Gospel, whereby through the merits of our gracious Redeemer we may become the heirs of His eternal glory.
His call further asked Virginians to pray that . . .
He would grant to His church the plentiful effusions of Divine grace and pour out His Holy Spirit on all ministers of the Gospel; that He would bless and prosper the means of education and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth.
As a state legislator, Jefferson introduced the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to disestablish the Anglican Church and place all Christian denominations on an equal footing. He also introduced a number of other religious bills, including “A Bill for Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship and Sabbath Breakers,” “A Bill for Appointing Days of Public Fasting and Thanksgiving,” and “A Bill Annulling Marriages Prohibited by the Levitical Law and Appointing the Mode of Solemnizing Lawful Marriage.”
There are many additional examples, and Jefferson’s public actions certainly show no hostility toward Christianity; in fact, they display a strong support for public Christian expressions and practices. Nevertheless, two major accusations of irreligion wrongly persist against him, one related to the “Jefferson Bible” and another concerning the University of Virginia.
The So-Called “Jefferson Bible”
According to this allegation, Jefferson made his own Bible (i.e., “The Jefferson Bible”) by removing from the Gospels the miracles and parts with which he disagreed; but there are many problems with this charge.
First, Jefferson was one of the founders of the Virginia Bible Society and contributed liberally to the distribution of the complete, unedited, traditional Bible.
Second, no such work as a “Jefferson Bible” actually exists; it is a widely-used pejorative concocted by modern writers loosely referring to one of two works that Jefferson prepared about the teachings of Jesus (the first in 1804 and the second in 1820). Significantly, Jefferson assigned a specific title to each work accurately describing its scope and purpose; neither was a “Bible.”
For years prior to the 1804 work, Jefferson had taken an active role in promoting Christianity among the Indians. He not only signed numerous federal laws to that end but also carried on a correspondence about the subject with several ministers and government officials, who recommended “a plan by which the blessing of Christianity might be propagated among the heathen.” One friend showed Jefferson a sermon endorsing a plan whereby just the simple teachings of Jesus (i.e., Jesus’ own words) were presented to Indians, avoiding the many controversial doctrines over which groups of Christians so often fought. Jefferson took two Bibles that he had in the White House, cut the words of Jesus from those Bibles, and pasted them into a separate folio, arranging them so that Indians could read the teachings of Jesus in a non-stop, end-to-end fashion.
Jefferson titled that work “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, being Extracted from the Account of His Life and Doctrines given by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; Being an Abridgement of the New Testament for the Use of the Indians, Unembarrassed [Uncomplicated] with Matters of Fact or Faith beyond the Level of their Comprehensions.” This work is the so-called “Jefferson Bible,” and significantly, it did include miracles, such as Jesus’ command to His disciples to heal the sick and raise the dead, the account of the resurrection of Jarius’ daughter, the healing of the bleeding woman, the healing of two blind men, the casting out of a demon, and other acts of a miraculous and supernatural nature.
Jefferson’s second religious work was undertaken more than a decade later. Titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” Jefferson took the moral teachings of Jesus and arranged them end-to-end in four side-by-side columns – one column in English, Latin, French, and Greek.
Jefferson described that work to his friend, the Rev. Charles Clay:
Probably you have heard me say I had taken the four Evangelists, had cut out from them every text they had recorded of the moral precepts of Jesus, and arranged them in a certain order; and although they appeared but as fragments, yet fragments of the most sublime edifice of morality which had ever been exhibited to man. (emphasis added)
Because the purpose of the 1820 work was to compile the morals of Jesus from his teachings, that work did not contain miracles. As confirmed by Jefferson scholar, Dr. Mark Beliles:
Because of Jefferson’s intention to compile primarily what Jesus taught rather than what he did, many of the miracles and other events included in the Gospels concerning Jesus were naturally deleted.
Today, some claim that the 1820 work (rather than the 1804 work) is the “Jefferson Bible,” but that 1820 work was not for public use and Jefferson would never have allowed it to have been described as a “Bible”; it was merely a personal devotional aid for his own use. Jefferson’s eldest grandson noted that his grandfather “was in the habit of reading nightly from it before going to bed.”
How did either of Jefferson’s simple works on the words of Jesus come to be characterized by modern writers as a supposedly anti-Christian “Jefferson Bible”? A contemporary researcher has accurately reported:
Unfortunately, all those who have published the “Jefferson Bible” since 1903 have been almost universally either Unitarian or rationalist and secular in their approach, and their introductions to the book have. . . . misrepresented Jefferson’s motivations and beliefs to conform to their own theological assumptions or agendas.
Jefferson’s So-Called “Secular” University of Virginia
Modern critics also assert that that Jefferson founded the University of Virginia as America’s first explicitly secular school – that he barred religious activities and instruction from the curriculum and that the University had no chaplain; however, Jefferson’s writings readily disprove those charges. For example, he personally:
• Directed the Professor of Ethics to teach students “the proofs of the being of a God – the Creator, Preserver, and Supreme Ruler of the Universe – the Author of all the relations of morality and of the laws and obligations these infer”;
• Directed the Professor of Ancient Languages to teach Biblical Greek, Hebrew, and Latin so that students would be equipped to read and study the “earliest and most respected authorities of the Christian Faith” and he also placed “the writings of the most respected authorities of every sect [denomination]” in the university library;
• Arranged the curriculum so that religious study would be an inseparable part of the study of law and political science;
• Invited several denominations to establish seminaries at the University and participate in student instruction; and
• Ordered that a room in the University Rotunda “shall be used for . . . religious worship,” stating that “the students of the University will be free and expected to attend.”
Additionally, contrary to modern claims, the University of Virginia did have chaplains who oversaw “the regular services of the Sabbath [and] a Sabbath School” as well as “the monthly concert for prayer.” Furthermore, University students who studied for the Gospel ministry were exempted from normal tuition fees.
Jefferson’s actions definitely do not indicate that he was irreligious or hostile to Christian public policy. In fact, two centuries ago he accurately noted: “My views are very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions.”
So do Jefferson’s public actions therefore mean that he was personally a Christian? Not necessarily. He called himself a Christian on multiple occasions but those declarations do not settle the matter, for there were also times when he stated that he rejected the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and the inspiration of the Scriptures. (Significantly, however, historical analysts have pointed out that of the nearly 20,000 letters Jefferson wrote, only half-a-dozen – a very miniscule percentage – raise any questions as to orthodox Christian teachings.)
Jefferson’s public pro-Christian actions are numerous and his private letters raising concerns are few, but they definitely do exist. It is therefore difficult to take any absolutely firm position on the personal faith of Thomas Jefferson.
Dumas Malone, the Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer of Thomas Jefferson, recognized this difficulty, acknowledging that on the one hand, “This apostle of spiritual freedom regarded himself as a Christian, and unquestionably he was one in his ethical standards,” but that on the other hand, “Jefferson did not refer to the Messiah, the Savior, or the Christ, but he had unbounded admiration for Jesus.”
Probably no human today can know for sure whether or not Jefferson finished his life as a Christian according to an orthodox definition; only God knows. But while the condition of his private personal faith might be questioned, what cannot be questioned is the fact that Jefferson was not a Deist, a secularist, or irreligious but rather a strong promoter of public religion, being pro-Christian in his demeanor and endeavors.
God Bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David & Julie
JESUS IS LORD!!!!
What a wonderful life and a wonderful hope God has given us in this great country. We hope to share here a part of our heart, in a manner that will encourage and inspire you in continuing to press into the better things of life. In making a difference in a positive way for our communities and country as a whole. To remember the days gone by and the sacrifices that were made by those before us as they did their part and now have handed the responsibility down from generation to generation.
It is here that we would like to share experiences of life in America. Below under Our Christian Heritage you will find archived additional information that you can take the time to read if you like concerning some of the words of our founders.
But for right now a word of encouragement, if you are in a tough time, I promise you, there is a blessing awaiting. If you are experiencing life at it’s best, I promise you, a mountain is on the way. This is life, so don’t be discouraged. The mountains build our strength and forms our character, the blessings encourage us on to what God has called us to. The only way for you to lose is to quit and give in to your circumstances.
I know this to be true, first of all the scriptures bear witness, second of all, history proves it over and over again. America is here because a people faced great difficulties and pursued a better life for themselves and their families. Their faith was in God and their hope was for their posterity to follow in a better way. As a result, here we are, American’s, but sometimes I am concerned that we may be forgetting the principles that got us here. They are eternal and sure, but we must not forget.
I have faced times that made me want to give up on life, times of despair that even made me cold and indifferent to those around me, but had I done so, O’ the wonder of life I would have missed. Life is wonderful, America is our blessing from God, let’s not give up on either, but pursue till the victory comes.
David
**********************************
From Julie’s keyboard…. Hello Neighbors!
When David decided to start this blog project, he asked me to share something on each post. At first it didn't seem appropriate to me as this is a work about the truth of our Nation's heritage. However, more than this, it is a work about the God of our Nation. With this in mind, getting to share a nugget of truth or a lesson I'm tackling in the Scriptures has become a special opportunity.
The freedoms we enjoy have come at such great costs in so many respects. To give proper honor to all having even the most minimal part in making this so wouldn't be possible. But, to honor the God of the Nation, the Creator of the Universe, will help us keep the focus in the right arena. How thankful we should be that throughout the ages men have followed this Great God and proven instrumental in the liberties and pursuits we now enjoy.
Many may feel, as I, that they come from the simple side of this life. There's really no spectaculars or monumental events that come from my personal sojourn that need to be shared. But, the desire of my heart is to glorify the Father in Heaven and attest to the Truth of His Son, Jesus Christ.
In half a century of growing, study and learning, I've come to the ripe conclusion that there's just so much yet to learn. Isn't this one of the great quests of this life? The God of Heaven has promised to give us His Wisdom for the asking if we ask in faith and not waver. My prayer is that His Spirit will always be the Source of these messages and that He will guide every word to His glory and honor.
If you are reading this, my prayer is that you know the Lord Jesus Christ. May you be blessed in the things that are shared in this material. If we can be of help with a labor of love which the Lord has granted us, please let us know.
For His Glory,
Julie
Our Christian Heritage:
AMERICA IN COVENANT
I have been studying a book by a man who from 1994 has fasted and prayed for forty days each year for revival in America. That makes me ask myself the question, “What am I willing to pay to see America fulfill the purpose of which God has ordained”? How much do I love America? What is the purpose of God worth to me?
1. God Loves America because God loves people.
BENJAMIN RUSH, signer of the Declaration of Independence: ” I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of the States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.”
a. America does not deserve our criticism.
b. Sin in 18th century is the same in the 21st century.
c. 1776 will always ring special in my ears.
2. Our sight of History is to short, we have been here before. In the early 1700′s American’s were steeped in Christianity, the Bible, and Church politics. The outward trappings of Christianity were evident everywhere. At the same time, however, religion was becoming mechanical and not from the heart. The colonists seemed to have lost their grandparents’ zeal for the faith.
A 1727 earthquake was interpreted by some as God’s displeasure at the colonists’ lukewarm faith. In the 1730′s a diphtheria out break heightened these suspicions. What is more, doubts were being raised about whether the majority of the clergy were themselves sincere Christians.
Amidst this turmoil America experienced a religious revival. This event is usually called the Great Awakening. It united the colonies in a common bond. This bond would eventually become the union declared in Philadelphia in 1776.
They were raised on the preachers of the Great Awakening the way we are raised on television today. Christian ideals shaped and permeated the Founders’ political worldview. By the time Lincoln came on the seen, the nation had again become divided and their spiritual condition was similar to what we see today.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 16th President of the United States:
In proclaiming a National Fast Day, March 30, 1863. “It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But 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 to self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
But as before out of tragedy God brought revival to a Country that He loves. In the turn of the Century we had another spiritual revival know as Azuza Street, and again Americans were revived to there purpose.
a. We have again forgotten who we are and what we are about as Americans.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, signer of the Declaration of Independence:
“Whoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”
b. Faith will cause a man to step outside of his circumstances and accomplish things greater than himself.
c. By history we know where America is suppose to be going.
JAMES MADISON, known as the “Chief Architect of the Constitution”:
“A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven.”
“To the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.”
SAMUEL ADAMS, signer of the Declaration of independence:
“May every citizen in the army and in the country have a proper sense of the Deity upon his mind and an impression of the declaration recorded in the Bible, “Him that honoreth me I will honor, but he that despiseth me shall be lightly esteemed.”
“The Supreme Ruler of the Universe, having been pleased in the course of His providence to establish the independence of the United States of America. . . we ought to be led by religious feelings of gratitude and to walk before Him in all humility according to His most holy law. . .That with true repentance and contrition of heart we may unitedly implore the forgiveness of our sins through the merits of Jesus Christ and humbly supplicate our heavenly Father.”
JOHN JAY, 1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court:
“I recommend a general and public return of praise and thanksgiving to Him form whose goodness these blessings descend. The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties, is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the source from which they flow.”
“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.”
JOHN WITHERSPOON, signer of the Declaration of Independence:
“He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not (do not hesitate) to call him an enemy of his country.”
ANDREW JACKSON, 7th President of the United States, referring to the Bible:
“That book , Sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.”
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, 1854:
“The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
U.S. SUPREME COURT, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892):
“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”
3. A Blessed Nation
a. In 1967 Richard Wurmbrand, a great Romanian pastor who suffered fourteen years in prison for his faith, wrote:
“Every freedom-loving man has two fatherlands: his own and America. . . America is the hope of every enslaved man, because it is the last bastion of freedom in the world.”
b. Luke 12:48 expects each of us to dedicate ourselves unreservedly to the task at hand, rebuild our moral and spiritual foundation which was built upon the eternal truth of God. That foundation made America great.
c. Deuteronomy 8:10-14,19,20. Abraham Lincoln warned in 1837,
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
The hope lies not in the restoration of America’s former grandeur, but in the restoration of America’s original purpose as “one nation under God.”
d. Remove ourselves from Judgment to Mercy, expect what we pray to come to pass and govern our words that we speak about our Country accordingly.
4. America’s Destiny in God:
A Spanish monk named Ramon Lull, while preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to Muslims on the African continent more than 600 years ago, was severely beaten and lay near death. Two Italian men sympathetic to Lull’s message rescued him and put him on a ship to Spain.
Lull did not make it back to Catalonia, his home province. As he lay dying in the bow of the ship crossing the Mediterranean, Lull uttered his last prophetic words. With all of his strength, he pointed westward over the horizon and exclaimed, “Beyond this sea which washes this continent we know lies another continent we’ve never seen whose natives are ignorant of Christ. Send men there! Send men there!”
Those haunting final words lived on in the minds of the two young Italians who cared for Lull in his dying hours. One of them, Stefano Colombo, or Stephen Columbus, was a direct ancestor of the Great seafarer, Christopher Columbus. The words of the Catalonian martyr passed from generation to generation, eventually stirring the heart of the young Christopher.
As he pondered the words of Isaiah, he became convinced that God had chosen him, of all the men in Europe, to travel beyond the seas to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS:
“It was the Lord who put into my mind the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures. . . No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Savior, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service.”
One night the Continental Army was evacuated under the noses of the British near Brooklyn. On August 27, 1776, 20,000 British soldiers nearly surrounded the 8,000 poorly trained American troops.
General George Washington was waiting for the final assault that would finish off the Continental Army and cause the colonists to lose the war. But for some unknown reason, General Howe did not press the attack. All throughout the next day, the Americans still waited, but there was not action from the British.
Rain came and a northeast wind arose, preventing the British fleet from sailing up the East River. Knowing that time was running out, Washington outlined a daring and possibly foolhardy plan to his officers. Using small boats, he would evacuate his entire army to safety across the mile-wide river. How could he expect such a plan to succeed? How many trips would it take across the open water in sight of the British?
Providentially, a company of expert oarsmen were among the American troops. After nightfall they began laboring across the choppy water, trip after trip, carrying a few soldiers at a time. Hour after hour passed. Washington set a screen of men in front positions to fool the British. The enemy did not notice a thing!
At midnight the wind died down so the boats could be loaded with even more men. As the sky lightened, the oarsmen knew the boats would become easy targets. The men remaining on shore waited nervously in the trenches. Would their turn to escape come or was it too late? Just as the sun peered over the horizon, a dense fog arose from the ground. Visibility dropped to a mere six yards. The fog remained until the last boat, carrying General Washington, set off across the river. Then the fog lifted, and the British were stunned to see the shore empty of the 8,000 American troops.
Guns were fired at the last departing boat, but it was out of range! Many American soldiers kept diaries of the miraculous event, and almost all attributed the happening to the intervention of God.
The famous portrait of Washington pausing in battle to pray for the safety of his men depicts an actual scene witnessed by a British reporter. He later confessed that the sight of Washington on his knees convinced him that God was on the side of the Americans. (I would insert that we were on the side of God, following the divine destiny and purpose He Himself had formed before the foundation of the world. I was not that were were a special or superior people, we just simply found our way into our destiny in Him)
5. The study of our history gives us hope, tells us who we are as a people, what our purpose is in the plan of God for this country. Are we to be found faithful as our Founding Fathers were? Are we to leave our posterity with the hope, the will for freedom that our Fathers left us? Will we answer the call of our time, the call of God, to do what ever is demanded of us as a people, as a nation with a Covenant with God, to proclaim His Gospel and walk worthy of His divine Word.
As history tells us, now is the time, it is now or never. Our youth must be awakened to who we are, we must not forget. What ever the price is, to us it is worth it, we must leave our children a nation , one nation under God.
If we fail to answer our call, then truly the end has arrived. The hope of the world lies in an America that has fulfilled her purpose in destiny in God.
2nd Chronicles 7:14
It is our time to pray, God will answer, He call’s America today. He has brought us this far, let us not leave Him now. You might ask, “what can I do” ? Pray! walk with Him, talk with Him, live your life as an American with a faith in God.
It will change the lives of your family, your friends, the world around you, from one to another again America will be changed. We must draw the line and say this is what we are. Then put our lives on the line to preserve it.
God has blessed America time and time again, and now he does not chastise us, but call to us once again, to arise to his purpose, his plan. If we do not answer, our lives, our children, our future is lost, but most of all our purpose.
I hope these words move us all to an understanding of where we are in our time, to see the real important things in life. To stand up and be men and women of faith, with courage bold, and let the world see America as it has never see her before.
The Religion of Thomas Jefferson
By David Barton, Founder and President of Wallbuilders and Ecclesia College Regent
Of the 200+ Founding Fathers, the faith of most can be clearly identified. For example, one can say with great certainty that Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Roger Sherman, and William Livingston were definitely Christians; and one can say with equal certainty that Charles Lee, Henry Dearborn, Thomas Paine, and Ethan Allen definitely were not; but Thomas Jefferson’s faith is much more difficult to label with certainty.
Some assert that Jefferson was a Christian; others that he was not; and the source of this contradiction is Jefferson himself, for his own writings contain content that can be used to prove either position. Yet while the condition of Jefferson’s private faith is subject to speculation, his public actions regarding Christianity are not.
For example, Jefferson began his federal career in 1789 as Secretary of State to President George Washington, and one of his early assignments was to oversee the layout and construction of Washington, D. C. In late 1800, the new Capitol building was ready, and on December 4, Congress (with Vice President Thomas Jefferson presiding over the U. S. Senate) approved a plan whereby Christian church services would be held each Sunday in the Capitol.
Throughout Jefferson’s presidency, he faithfully attended the Capitol church (arriving each week on horseback) and did not even allow bad weather to impede his attendance. He had the Marine Band play at the worship services, and under his tenure Sunday services were also started at the War Department and Treasury Department. Of his faithful participation at the Capitol church, he explained:
No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion – nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.
Other presidential actions of Jefferson included:
• Urging local governments to make land available specifically for Christian purposes;
• Federally funding Christian missionaries to the Indians and providing funds to erect a church building in which they might worship;
• Assuring a Christian school in the newly purchased Louisiana Territory that it would receive “the patronage of the government”; and
•Closing presidential documents with “In the year of our Lord Christ” (see inset).
Before his presidency and while Governor of Virginia, Jefferson called for a time of prayer and thanksgiving, asking the people to give thanks . . .
that He hath diffused the glorious light of the Gospel, whereby through the merits of our gracious Redeemer we may become the heirs of His eternal glory.
His call further asked Virginians to pray that . . .
He would grant to His church the plentiful effusions of Divine grace and pour out His Holy Spirit on all ministers of the Gospel; that He would bless and prosper the means of education and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth.
As a state legislator, Jefferson introduced the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to disestablish the Anglican Church and place all Christian denominations on an equal footing. He also introduced a number of other religious bills, including “A Bill for Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship and Sabbath Breakers,” “A Bill for Appointing Days of Public Fasting and Thanksgiving,” and “A Bill Annulling Marriages Prohibited by the Levitical Law and Appointing the Mode of Solemnizing Lawful Marriage.”
There are many additional examples, and Jefferson’s public actions certainly show no hostility toward Christianity; in fact, they display a strong support for public Christian expressions and practices. Nevertheless, two major accusations of irreligion wrongly persist against him, one related to the “Jefferson Bible” and another concerning the University of Virginia.
The So-Called “Jefferson Bible”
According to this allegation, Jefferson made his own Bible (i.e., “The Jefferson Bible”) by removing from the Gospels the miracles and parts with which he disagreed; but there are many problems with this charge.
First, Jefferson was one of the founders of the Virginia Bible Society and contributed liberally to the distribution of the complete, unedited, traditional Bible.
Second, no such work as a “Jefferson Bible” actually exists; it is a widely-used pejorative concocted by modern writers loosely referring to one of two works that Jefferson prepared about the teachings of Jesus (the first in 1804 and the second in 1820). Significantly, Jefferson assigned a specific title to each work accurately describing its scope and purpose; neither was a “Bible.”
For years prior to the 1804 work, Jefferson had taken an active role in promoting Christianity among the Indians. He not only signed numerous federal laws to that end but also carried on a correspondence about the subject with several ministers and government officials, who recommended “a plan by which the blessing of Christianity might be propagated among the heathen.” One friend showed Jefferson a sermon endorsing a plan whereby just the simple teachings of Jesus (i.e., Jesus’ own words) were presented to Indians, avoiding the many controversial doctrines over which groups of Christians so often fought. Jefferson took two Bibles that he had in the White House, cut the words of Jesus from those Bibles, and pasted them into a separate folio, arranging them so that Indians could read the teachings of Jesus in a non-stop, end-to-end fashion.
Jefferson titled that work “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, being Extracted from the Account of His Life and Doctrines given by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; Being an Abridgement of the New Testament for the Use of the Indians, Unembarrassed [Uncomplicated] with Matters of Fact or Faith beyond the Level of their Comprehensions.” This work is the so-called “Jefferson Bible,” and significantly, it did include miracles, such as Jesus’ command to His disciples to heal the sick and raise the dead, the account of the resurrection of Jarius’ daughter, the healing of the bleeding woman, the healing of two blind men, the casting out of a demon, and other acts of a miraculous and supernatural nature.
Jefferson’s second religious work was undertaken more than a decade later. Titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” Jefferson took the moral teachings of Jesus and arranged them end-to-end in four side-by-side columns – one column in English, Latin, French, and Greek.
Jefferson described that work to his friend, the Rev. Charles Clay:
Probably you have heard me say I had taken the four Evangelists, had cut out from them every text they had recorded of the moral precepts of Jesus, and arranged them in a certain order; and although they appeared but as fragments, yet fragments of the most sublime edifice of morality which had ever been exhibited to man. (emphasis added)
Because the purpose of the 1820 work was to compile the morals of Jesus from his teachings, that work did not contain miracles. As confirmed by Jefferson scholar, Dr. Mark Beliles:
Because of Jefferson’s intention to compile primarily what Jesus taught rather than what he did, many of the miracles and other events included in the Gospels concerning Jesus were naturally deleted.
Today, some claim that the 1820 work (rather than the 1804 work) is the “Jefferson Bible,” but that 1820 work was not for public use and Jefferson would never have allowed it to have been described as a “Bible”; it was merely a personal devotional aid for his own use. Jefferson’s eldest grandson noted that his grandfather “was in the habit of reading nightly from it before going to bed.”
How did either of Jefferson’s simple works on the words of Jesus come to be characterized by modern writers as a supposedly anti-Christian “Jefferson Bible”? A contemporary researcher has accurately reported:
Unfortunately, all those who have published the “Jefferson Bible” since 1903 have been almost universally either Unitarian or rationalist and secular in their approach, and their introductions to the book have. . . . misrepresented Jefferson’s motivations and beliefs to conform to their own theological assumptions or agendas.
Jefferson’s So-Called “Secular” University of Virginia
Modern critics also assert that that Jefferson founded the University of Virginia as America’s first explicitly secular school – that he barred religious activities and instruction from the curriculum and that the University had no chaplain; however, Jefferson’s writings readily disprove those charges. For example, he personally:
• Directed the Professor of Ethics to teach students “the proofs of the being of a God – the Creator, Preserver, and Supreme Ruler of the Universe – the Author of all the relations of morality and of the laws and obligations these infer”;
• Directed the Professor of Ancient Languages to teach Biblical Greek, Hebrew, and Latin so that students would be equipped to read and study the “earliest and most respected authorities of the Christian Faith” and he also placed “the writings of the most respected authorities of every sect [denomination]” in the university library;
• Arranged the curriculum so that religious study would be an inseparable part of the study of law and political science;
• Invited several denominations to establish seminaries at the University and participate in student instruction; and
• Ordered that a room in the University Rotunda “shall be used for . . . religious worship,” stating that “the students of the University will be free and expected to attend.”
Additionally, contrary to modern claims, the University of Virginia did have chaplains who oversaw “the regular services of the Sabbath [and] a Sabbath School” as well as “the monthly concert for prayer.” Furthermore, University students who studied for the Gospel ministry were exempted from normal tuition fees.
Jefferson’s actions definitely do not indicate that he was irreligious or hostile to Christian public policy. In fact, two centuries ago he accurately noted: “My views are very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions.”
So do Jefferson’s public actions therefore mean that he was personally a Christian? Not necessarily. He called himself a Christian on multiple occasions but those declarations do not settle the matter, for there were also times when he stated that he rejected the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and the inspiration of the Scriptures. (Significantly, however, historical analysts have pointed out that of the nearly 20,000 letters Jefferson wrote, only half-a-dozen – a very miniscule percentage – raise any questions as to orthodox Christian teachings.)
Jefferson’s public pro-Christian actions are numerous and his private letters raising concerns are few, but they definitely do exist. It is therefore difficult to take any absolutely firm position on the personal faith of Thomas Jefferson.
Dumas Malone, the Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer of Thomas Jefferson, recognized this difficulty, acknowledging that on the one hand, “This apostle of spiritual freedom regarded himself as a Christian, and unquestionably he was one in his ethical standards,” but that on the other hand, “Jefferson did not refer to the Messiah, the Savior, or the Christ, but he had unbounded admiration for Jesus.”
Probably no human today can know for sure whether or not Jefferson finished his life as a Christian according to an orthodox definition; only God knows. But while the condition of his private personal faith might be questioned, what cannot be questioned is the fact that Jefferson was not a Deist, a secularist, or irreligious but rather a strong promoter of public religion, being pro-Christian in his demeanor and endeavors.
God Bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David & Julie
JESUS IS LORD!!!!