"Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in." ~ Isaiah 58:12
The time had finally come. After twenty years of growing government interference into the affairs of the American Colonies, the patience of Americans was exhausted. The Representatives of America had appealed to their British King and the Parliament over and over during those twenty years, and had only been insulted for their efforts. Over and over the King had treated their appeals with disdain. Finally, Thomas Jefferson would sum up the attitude of the majority of Americans when he wrote in The Declaration of Independence,
“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
The final break with England began on March 16, 1776. The Continental Congress, representing each of the thirteen colonies, called upon the American people to observe a day “of fasting, humiliation, and prayer”. The Congress stated:
The Bible says, “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)
Ladies and Gentlemen: The following document is the reason you and I, in America, are free:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…”
The Bible says, “Remember those who led you…” (Hebrews 13:7) Yet, in America we’ve forgotten what those who founded this nation were like. We no longer know how they thought or what they did. Someone has truthfully described us as having “national amnesia”.
The great danger in a nation forgetting its past is that they will lose the foundational ideas that made that nation great. We’re missing out on the inspiration provided by the stories of our ancestors who did amazing things to birth, grow, and protect America. Worse still, we’re missing the interventions by God Himself so that we no longer credit Him with America’s existence. Thus we lose the very Strength Who has brought the good to us which we now enjoy.
A renowned minister, A.W. Foljambe, spoke great wisdom when he said in 1876:
“The more thoroughly a nation deals with its history, the more decidedly will it recognize and own an over-ruling Providence [in it], and the more religious a nation [it will] become; while the more superficially it deals with its history, seeing only secondary causes and human agencies, the more irreligious will it be.”
One of the greatest ways to rediscover our past is simply to read the statements of our Founding Fathers. They wrote a great deal in journals and documents just so the following generations could know the foundational ideas on which they birthed and built this nation into the greatest in world history. They didn’t claim that they came up with these ideas. They constantly acknowledged the Bible to be the source of this wisdom.
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