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The Bible tells the story of Nehemiah, the civil leader who rebuilt Jerusalem after the Jews had been captive many years in Persia.  In a time when the enemies of God had been trying to discourage the Jews from finishing the work God had called them to, Nehemiah exhorted them:

“…Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and [awesome], and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.” (Nehemiah 4:14)

illustration by Sweet Publishing

The spiritual and natural enemies of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ have been trying for a hundred years to discourage Americans from knowing their history.  They knew if they could disconnect us from our past, they could steal from us the reason God birthed this nation; which was to be a vessel of liberty by which to take that Gospel to the world.  It only takes one generation who doesn’t pass on the story of America’s founding, and the hand of God in it, to disconnect all future Americans from their purpose.  Then we would become a pleasure seeking, possession seeking, and prestige seeking people, and useless to the purpose of God in getting the Gospel to our children and their children.  On the other hand, if we will revisit our past in this nation, we will find ample stories and writings which exhort us to follow the God of our Fathers; and why we should do that.  Such as:

William Penn, the Founder of Pennsylvania in 1681.  Penn desired to have a colony which would welcome all denominations within its borders.  He wanted to create a civil government founded, as completely as his knowledge would allow, on the Bible.  He wrote that His aim was to:

“Make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in all opposition to all unchristian…practices, (whereby God may have His due, Caesar his due, and the people their due).”

(Thomas Clarkson, Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn (London: Longman, Hunt, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1813), Vol. I, p. 287.)

Penn summed up his view of man being God’s government agent in this earth (Genesis 1:26) when he wrote:

“When the great and wise God had made the world, of all His creatures, it pleased Him to choose man [to be] His Deputy to rule it…”

(Frame of Government of Pennsylvania, in Sources of Our Liberties, Richard Perry, p. 209)

After quoting the passages in Romans 13 and other Epistles about civil government being God’s institution (just like the home and the church are God’s institutions), he wrote:

“This settles the divine right of government beyond exception…So that government seems to me [to be] a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end.  For…it crushes the effects of evil, and is as such…an emanation of the same Divine Power, that is both author and object of pure religion.”

(Frame of Government of Pennsylvania, in Sources of Our Liberties, Richard Perry, p. 210)

William Penn summed up his philosophy of civil government when he told Peter the Great, the Czar of Russia,

“…if thou wouldest rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by Him.”

(S. Janney, The Life of William Penn, Philadelphia, Lippincott; 1852; p. 407)

You see how plainly our American history points us to the God Who created us?  It was Fathers, Pastors, and Teachers who used to teach us this.  If the Gospel of Christ is to go to our land freely, it must be those groups of individuals who, once again, begin to teach “His-Story”.  Are you one of those?

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.