The Christian Heritage of The United States of America
…all men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…
Even though the founders of America were from another time and another cultural background, the results of their work, recorded in the Declaration of Independence; The Constitution of The United States and The Bill of Rights, have had profound influence for the United States and the world…
The reasons for this are based in what they expressed in these documents. Truth is truth regardless of its origin. The truths set forth in these documents are the result of a background that cannot be changed because it is historical. The influences upon the minds and hearts of the founders must be properly understood in order to comprehend what they brought forth…
As we move further away from the birth of the nation, we would do well to reflect upon
President Lincoln’s introduction in the Gettysburg Address…
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…
Forces that are not just political are moving us towards a system promising to be something better and more utopian than the world has ever seen…these promises are disguised in words that will lead to a future that is nothing short of a repeat of historical manmade systems which are built upon tyrannical power structures…
America has never been a perfect country, failure to live up to the ideals set forth in the Declaration occur because the foundational reason for the truths in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, left out the statement “BY THEIR CREATOR”
Once Law is predicated on man-made decisions rather than God given “rights” then rights are subject to man-made conclusions…
MLK Dream Speech— When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
MLK Ebenezer Baptist Church July 4,1965— ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This is a dream. It’s a great dream. “The first saying we notice in this dream is an amazing universalism. It doesn’t say, ‘some men’; it says ‘all men.’ It doesn’t say ‘all white men’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes black men. It does not say ‘all Gentiles’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes Jews. It doesn’t say ‘all Protestants’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes Catholics. It doesn’t even say ‘all theists and believers’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes humanists and agnostics.”
“Never before in the history of the world has a sociopolitical document expressed in such profound, eloquent and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality. The American dream reminds us—and we should think about it anew on this Independence Day—that every man is an heir of the legacy of dignity and worth.”
The Declaration of Independence …We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government…
The Very Existence Of Any Nation Depends On Their Response To God
Jeremiah 12:16-17 …if other nations learn the ways of My people and swear by My Name, saying, `As surely as the LORD lives’–even as they once taught My people to swear by Baal (Satan)–then they will be established among My people. But if any nation does not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it!” declares the LORD.
Independence Begins With Individual Belief In Jesus Christ
John 8:31-32 …Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free!”
Freedom Is Release From The Consequence Of Sin
John 8:24 I tell you that you will die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He…you will indeed die in your sins!
The Founders Held That It Is God Who Gifts Us With Life And Liberty
Thomas Jefferson— “God, Who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God?”
Isaiah 42:5 This is what God the LORD says– He Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, Who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it…
True Independence Was Born When Christ Was Born
John Quincy Adams 1837, at the age of 69, His Fourth of July speech at Newburyport, Ma.— …the birthday of this nation is inseparably linked with the birth of the Savior. It forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel’s dispensation. The Declaration of Independence first organized a social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth, it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the precepts of Christianity.
The Redeemer’s Mission Is To Bring Deliverance To All People
Isaiah 61: 1 He (God the Father) has sent Me (the Savior) to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and to release from darkness the prisoners…
Isaiah 42:4 He will not falter or be discouraged until He establishes justice on earth. In His law distant lands will put their hope!”
God Planned That The Gospel Would Have A Total Global Impact
Matthew 28:19-20 …go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Acts 9:15 …this man is My chosen instrument to carry My Name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.
American Independence Is Derived From Christian Principle
John Adams, June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson— The general principles on which the founders achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed and still believe, that the general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.
The Concepts Of Freedom That America Has Experienced Had An Origin!
Samuel Adams — The rights of the colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in The New Testament.
The Founders Knew From The Bible, That The Divine Right Of Kings Is God’s Alone
John Adams and John Hancock: April 18, 1775— We Recognize, no Sovereign but God, no King but Jesus!
John 19:15 “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar!” the chief priests answered.
John Dickinson— “The rights that are essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source; from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth!”
The Ideals Which Permit American Liberty Are Rooted In Christian Conviction
Calvin Coolidge— …the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a Declaration not of material but spiritual concepts. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man …these are not elements which we can see and touch, they are ideals. They have their origin and their roots in religious convictions…unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions endures, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
On Signing The Declaration, There Was A Return To The Belief That God; Is The Only Real Leader
Samuel Adams— We have this day restored the Sovereign, to Whom Alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven! from the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come!
True Leadership Is Servanthood
Matthew 20:25-27 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must first be, a servant”
The Spiritual War Is All About God’s Leadership
1 Samuel 8:4-7 …the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; appoint a king to lead us, like all the other nations have.” …this displeased Samuel; So he prayed to the LORD. The LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their King.
Constitutional Freedoms Are Guaranteed By God Not The State
James Madison— The future and success of America is not in this Constitution…but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.
John F. Kennedy— The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
Earlier American Leaders Prophesied About The Demise Of America
Patrick Henry— Whether this new government will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable.
Please Stand As We Read Together
President Abraham Lincoln 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 yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon 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 know by His divine law that nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamities which now desolate the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? 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 too 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 (God) to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness… all this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.