DeeGeesLifeBlog ~ Life as Art ~ Or is it Heart?

Over the past 60 years or so, the responsibilities of the keepers of the pulpit throughout the United States has changed dramatically from the exalted positions they once held during the founding and development of this great Constitutional Republic. Church founders and their leaders, and those servants directly under their control, have been instructed in no uncertain manner by the government of the United States, to stay within the four walls of their churches, and to keep God and Jesus Christ out of the culture.

Ten Commandments on full display at Texas Capitol…

As a consequence of legal rulings from the Supreme Court beginning in the 1950s (the passing of the 1954 Johnson Amendment which restricted free speech from the pulpit, [a right by the way, which is guaranteed under the First Amendment]; the 1962 Engel vs Vitale case which was combined with Schempp-O’Hair resulting in prayer being removed from schools in 1963; and Roe vs Wade, 1973 which instituted the legal killing of babies) societal culture in America has been rotting to the core ever since. Pastors have been fed the lie about the separation of church and state for so long that they now operate under ACLU-approved guidelines rather than those of the Holy Spirit and the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

Our founding-father pastors, were they miraculously to suddenly reappear within our midst, would no doubt look on in horror at the depths into which We The People have allowed the nation to sink. And I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that most of them would jump right back into their pulpits and begin to preach and restore the United States back into the spiritual presence of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, just as seamlessly as most of them would go forth again to enjoin themselves in battle with the tyrannical forces attempting to pull down this great Republic!

John Adams…

Remember that they didn’t operate under any delusion – God was God, and the devil was the devil. Heaven was Paradise, and Hell was still Hell. John Adams, our second President, proclaimed that pastors were the primary force that led to America’s independence. In fact (as mentioned previously) the British Parliament derogatorily called the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist pastors in America the Black Regiment because they ascended to their pulpits each week in their black, clerical robes and stirred the people’s hearts to liberty.

Consider once again, the roles that pastors have played in our nation’s founding. In 1729, a preacher from Northampton, Massachusetts by the name of Jonathan Edwards, began preaching a very unpopular message you must be born again. America was full of churches with ”lost church members” belonging to state-sanctioned denominations. Edwards’ message was that church membership and baptism are irrelevant without first having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Lord. His persistence in New England and his seminal message Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God were infectious and inspiring acts from God, and laid the groundwork for the arrival of a young British evangelist with a left-eye-squint, named George Whitefield, who took America by storm. Over the next 30 years ending with his death in 1770, more than 300,000 gave their hearts to Christ in New England alone, due to the fiery preaching of this great evangelist.

Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson commiserating…

It was this Great Awakening that led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that the purpose of government was to protect those God-given rights. Our Founding Fathers proclaimed that the authority to separate from English rule was granted to them by the laws of Nature and Nature’s God. Most today believe that expression to be simple flowery prose written by an Eighteenth Century author; on the contrary, the term laws of nature is actually a defined legal term.

The Blackstone Commentary on Law was the standard for English Law in England and America, and from this legal textbook, Volume One – Section Two, the laws of nature are defined as the will of God for his creation as revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. In other words, our founding fathers claimed that the authority and foundation of the United States of America rested on the Bible. Pastoral involvement in America did not end there. The Great Awakening was only the beginning.

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Noah Webster wrote in the preface of his 1828 Dictionary:

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed…. No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

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America was not to be ruled by the iron fist of a monarchy. The American Republic was of the people, by the people and for the people. Our Founding Fathers knew that in order for this experiment in government to work, a man had to be governed from within. Consequently the Bible was not only the cornerstone of the church, but also of the classroom and of the government.

The French statesman Alexis de Tocqueville, on a tour of America in the early 1830s to find out what made the workings of America great while France failed, made the following observations:

Religion in America .. must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion – for who can search the human heart? – But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

In the United States the sovereign authority is religious … There is no country in the whole world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”

”We The People” have been lied to for so long, that even Christians have accepted it as the truth. Having been raised in a war-torn post-WWII England surrounded by a loving, Godly family, I was always taught that it was God who established the three great institutions on the earth, to whit:

1) God established the home with Adam and Eve, and that a home must be built on the Holy Bible with Christ as the center. To that, every preacher that I have ever met says ”Amen.”

2) Christ established the church. Of course every local church must be built on the Word of God and centered on Jesus Christ. To that, every preacher that I have ever met says ”Amen.”

3) God Himself established human government, after Noah came out of the ark. It stands to reason that human government must be built on the Word of God and centered on Jesus Christ. Yet to that, every preacher chooses to remain silent.

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Webster added, in the first public school history book titled ”Republican Government”:

“It is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian Religion.”

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Our Founding Fathers believed it. The Patriot Pastors believed it. And I believe it. We had better understand as American Christians, that we are living in a time in history where true Christianity is being totally persecuted. Beginning at the first church in Jerusalem, true Christians have faced torture and martyrdom from the Sanhedrin, the Pagan Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Empire, Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, and even today in every Communistic, Atheistic, or Islamic nation on earth; and now, believe it or not, Christians are being persecuted by fiat, right here, in our own nation. Only by the grace of God as He worked through the lives of our Patriot Pastors and Faithful Founding Fathers, do we have the blessing of liberty and freedom, which we today, take so much for granted. Foxe’s Book Of Martyrs, will give you more than enough information on those brave souls who gave their lives for Christ.

John Jay, First Supreme Court Justice…

Most assuredly, Jesus Christ is coming again. He could come today. Even this very minute as you are reading this. As I survey events surrounding Jerusalem today, I see evidence of His imminent return. But what if He tarries for ten years? What if He tarries for fifty years? Will our children and grandchildren face martyrdom for their faith here in Atheist America, or Socialist America, or an Islamic America under the authority of Shari’ah Law? As Paul would exclaim, God forbid – God forbid!

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The separation of church and state was intended to keep the state out of the church’s business, but the church however, was still to have great influence over the business of state. Consider for instance, the content of President George Washington’s farewell address:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness… And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

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The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob warned Israel in Deuteronomy 6 and 8, don’t forget who you are as a people and who I am as your God. If you do, I’ll take you out of the land. We in America are guilty of the same ignorance; we have forgotten who God is and who we are.

Our eternal hope is for another Great Awakening, but there will not be a revival in the church until there be a revival in the pulpit. Pray that the Holy Spirit will stir the hearts of Pastor-brethren and their congregations, and that God would raise up another generation of the Black Regiment. Upon this prayerful request the nation of the United States rests … Maranatha!

Cross of Blessing and Glory taken in Arizona soon after 9/11…

Soli Deo Gloria…

Content excerpted from America on the Cusp of God’s Grace (c) DennisGHurst 2010 Chapter 28 “Reclaiming America for Christ” ..

See also .. Related article from John L. Hancock in yesterday’s American Thinker titled “American Churches: On The Wrong Side of History”…