Are We Still an Honorable People?
I challenge any skeptic to find a ten-square-mile spot on this planet
James Russell Lowell
where they can live their lives in peace and safety and decency,
where womanhood is honored, where infancy and old age are revered,
where they can educate their children, where the Gospel of Jesus Christ
has not gone first to prepare the way. If they find such a place, then
I encourage them to emigrate thither and there proclaim their unbelief.[i]
Life is a journey, and we are each heading day by day into an eternity to be spent in reward and everlasting joy or eternal separation from God. On this journey it is vital to set one’s course for that shimmering, golden horizon beyond which is found the gates to heaven. This is to be a journey marked by the free gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ followed by sanctification. Sanctification is simply that process, through the power of the Holy Spirit, where one attempts to become more like Jesus by desiring to identify the sin that still remains in one’s life and eliminate it.
Sanctification is the lifelong quest to become ever more “perfect” (Matthew 5:48) by attempting to walk in the steps of our supreme role model, Jesus Christ.[ii] One might say that sanctification is part of that process through which the Christian becomes “born again” (John 3:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17) and noticeably different from those who are still walking in the ways of the world. After being washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, the true Christian tries to avoid returning to one’s old sins (2 Peter 2:22). Jesus knows that this process of growing in holiness will not be completed in this life and that all believers will sometimes stumble, but He greatly desires that the believer care enough to make the effort. This effort of millions of Christians trying to become better people helps make the world a better place. Indeed, many would say that it is the impact of this Christian effort that in large part makes life bearable on this planet for everyone.
Everyone’s life is a journey into the unknown territory of the future. Journeys into the unknown always require a map and compass to avoid becoming lost. The best and most reliable map and compass that a believer can have by which to steer his or her course toward heaven is God’s Word as found in both the Old and New Testaments. To put it another way, one might say that when God, as our Creator, gave us the keys to our lives, He also provided us with the Bible. The Bible is nothing less than an owner’s manual of factory instructions for life within God’s will. Over time most find that their lives run much more smoothly and will probably last longer if the insights in the owner’s manual are followed.
It is the willingness to accept the authority and complete teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostles found in the Bible along with God’s definition of sin and truth that primarily separates the traditional, Judeo-Christian church from the woke, liberal, progressive church. The claims by liberal churches of new revelations that are more consistent with contemporary notions of sin and morality have the effect of undermining the traditional authority and importance of the Bible. Traditional, Protestant Christians believe that the canon of Scripture closed with the 66 books of the Bible we have today. Most traditional Christians subscribe to the belief that “no Christian whatsoever is free from obedience of the commandments which are called Moral.”[iii] Without the guidance of the Bible, it is easy to lose one’s way and find oneself on a road that leads not to heaven but to the dark horizon of the lost.
For good or ill, our life journeys have consequences far beyond the horizons immediately within our view. The story of our Judeo-Christian faith, our nation, and Western civilization is written in the lives of individuals impacted by the God of the Bible. Our history begins not with a village, government, or philosophy but with the individual who honors and fears God. Regardless of one’s wealth, education, or power we each have the ability to make a positive difference within the sphere of our lives from which we can still project a benevolent light. In an age when godless secularism dominates our culture and ancient enemies and beliefs long believed vanquished stir once more, it is important to realize that we each have a personal responsibility for the fate of our faith, our nation, and our civilization. It is for this reason that the manner in which we conduct our lives assumes critical importance—why it is important that we as God’s people remain honorable.
Most Early Americans Shared the Values of the Founders, Abraham Lincoln, and America’s Judeo-Christian Heritage
There was once an excellent western television show named Wagon Train (1957-1965, NBC/ABC) which can still be watched today via streaming. The first wagon master (leader), Major Seth Adams, was played by the venerable character actor Ward Bond until his untimely death, and the first wagon train scout, Flint McCullough, was played by Robert Horton. Their job was to shepherd a large wagon train of pioneers from Missouri to California through the hardships and dangers of the old wild West. While not an overtly religious show, Wagon Train’s weekly journey was somewhat analogous to the trials and tribulations we each face on our own individual life odysseys.
These early pioneers faced about every hardship, danger, and personal/family problem that one can imagine. Major Adams was gruff, courageous, strong, good, and had a wisdom born of service in the Civil War and years on the frontier. The same could be said of Flint McCullough who was well schooled in the arts of wilderness survival and was a decent thoughtful man. Together, they managed to keep the wagon train on the correct path and its people from self-destructing under the stress of the daily rigors they faced. Both of these men represented strong, positive, traditional role models for the families in their care. They portrayed figures that were firm but fair, honorable, and moral. Reading between the lines, there was little doubt that the basic values most people on the wagon train shared were those of the Founders, Abraham Lincoln, and America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.
As they headed West, early pioneers of the type portrayed on Wagon Train were often forced to lighten the load of their prairie schooner wagons of many treasured possessions to safeguard the health of the oxen or horses that pulled their wagons. Stoves, tools, beds, and chest of drawers could be seen along the trail, but I have read no account of a Bible being discarded. In a similar manner, our society has in recent decades felt it necessary, due to a series of ill-conceived Supreme Court cases (detailed in The Beginning of Wisdom), to lighten itself of many cultural treasures as our national wagon train has traveled the ill-fated journey away from the principles of the Bible into the new government-mandated religion of secularism. This time, it could be argued, that a specific objective was to jettison the Bible— the cornerstone of America’s cultural and spiritual identity.
Among the treasures left littering our nation’s roadside we find much of society’s biblical literacy, much of our nation’s historical knowledge of its founding, the moral self-discipline and voluntary accountability of our Judeo-Christian heritage, and the common-sense wisdom of the Founding Fathers. We have also tossed aside much of our appreciation for the economic miracle of free enterprise capitalism which has made Western civilization the greatest source of individual freedom and prosperity in the history of the world. Thus, it was that after a very good start, ungodly people came to demand ungodly things of the Supreme Court, not guaranteed in the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights. During this sad period certain ungodly justices, “who did not fear God and did not respect man” (Luke 17:2), were willing to oblige these requests. It would have been far better if the justices who deviated from the founding principles of the republic and previous precedent had remembered the wise words of the good King Jehoshaphat who appointed judges in ancient Judah:
Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for man,
2 Chronicles 19: 6-7
But for the Lord who is with you when you render judgment.
Now then let the fear of the Lord be upon you; be very careful
What you do, for the Lord our God will have no part
In unrighteousness or partiality or the taking of a bribe.
As a result of such flawed judicial decisions, our national wagon train has traveled through increasingly wild and lawless territory. This cannot but adversely impact our individual life journeys as well. Jesus noted that when “the blind attempt to lead the blind both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14; Luke 6:6:39).
The Beginning of Wisdom was written as a guide by which our wagons might be turned around and our valuable treasures retrieved. Sometimes the quickest way to get to where one wants to be is to turn around and return to where the goals of peace, freedom, happiness, security, and prosperity were universally prized and respected. The core values that produced our past success hold the keys to our future hope.
George Washington Was a Devout Christian
In many respects, George Washington was America’s first and greatest wagon master. Although maligned and misrepresented in recent years by purveyors of false teaching and incorrect history, one only has to read George Washington’s Sacred Fire by Peter Lillback and Jerry Newcombe to discover that “George Washington was a devout eighteenth-century Anglican Christian with the same understanding of traditional Christianity that we know today.”[iv] He was also a hero of the French and Indian War, the steady determination behind victory over the British in the Revolutionary War, and the wise caretaker of our new liberty as the first President of the United States. Most who had the privilege of knowing George Washington esteemed him as a truly great, decent, and honorable man. Even Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, who could be a stern critic of both events and individuals, said of Washington, “He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good.”[v]
It is generally a crime against history to judge people long dead, by the standards of our own post-modern, often dishonest, often lazy, self-indulgent, woke culture. This is particularly true of those who were honored by their contemporaries after their deaths for the undeniable good they had managed to accomplish during their lives.[vi] Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Yet some persevere and manage through God’s grace to rise above their sins to accomplish worthy things.
The macabre refusal by woke mobs to allow dead heroes to rest in peace when our own society is ripe with betrayal, abortion, corruption, apostasy, and all manner of sexual sin rings hollow indeed. This modern virtue signaling only serves to distort history and deny future generations the ability to learn the invaluable lessons honest history can teach. To rob a people of their history is to inflict society with a fatal collective dementia. As noted in The Beginning of Wisdom, “It is an immutable law of history that when a civilization begins to doubt the truth of the values upon which it rests, decline is almost inevitable.”[vii]
All of the Founders Believed in God and Most Were Traditional Christians
Virtually all of the fifty-six Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence were members of traditional, orthodox Christian Churches.[viii] Lillback and Newcombe state that, “To the best of our knowledge, there was not a single founding father that denied the immortality of the soul. Not one.”[ix] Even Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin believed in God, an afterlife of reward and punishment, and the moral teachings of Jesus.
The Founding Fathers looked to the voluntary self-discipline and accountability distilled from the New Testament and Ten Commandments as they labored to create an ordered society capable of preserving the new republic’s values of freedom and liberty without undue intrusion by the new federal government. In fact, it is apparent from commentaries of the time that “the society of self-reliance, liberty, and unique freedoms envisioned by the Founding Fathers, both assumed and was predicated upon a broad and continued acceptance of Judeo-Christian ideals, morality, ethics, and voluntary self-discipline, regardless of individual theological beliefs.”[x] The Founders clearly understood the powerful precedent of a government grounded in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical principles, and “they were for the most part careful to display a positive example in their own words and deeds.”
How rare it is to find positive role models such as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and other American heroes portrayed accurately in the media today. The price of openly displaying the moral courage demanded by Christianity is often shaming, ridiculing, or being cancelled by the media.[xi] For this reason, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find clergy, teachers, policemen, firemen, physicians, academics, corporate executives, or government leaders who are willing to publicly display traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and ethical scruples. Far too many are afraid to plant their flags on the high hill of traditional Judeo-Christian values where they can be seen and counted. Our entire culture is slowly crumbling as a result.
Today far too many in authority, both in the media and in the corridors of everyday life, model weakness, ungodly compromise, false teaching, corruption, confusion, and discord. On Wagon Train, Major Adams and McCullough knew that too much of such behavior among the ranks could lead to the death of individuals and the destruction of the entire wagon train. They knew that most greenhorns would make a few mistakes along the way, but a pattern and trend of improprieties, irregularities, lawlessness, or recklessness that could endanger the entire wagon train could not be tolerated. For this reason, their leadership was strong, decisive, truthful, unconfusing, and did not deviate from the traditional values most shared.
A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit. A Bad Tree Produces Bad Fruit and A Good Tree Produces Good
There was a time when most Americans agreed that:
For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad
Luke 6:43-45
tree that produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For
men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar
bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is
good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for
his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.
By these standards most of the Founders and other early American heroes, while far from being perfect, were good people by the mores of the times in which they lived. They produced good fruit. The miracle is that these men rose above the times and circumstances in which they lived to produce documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution that transcended their own individual experiences. The type of government that they managed to create was a marvel, and it had never been done before. This government would preside over and survive the Civil War which ended slavery in the United States forever.
The Founders also gave us a country wherein religious freedom became a constitutional right. In most countries of the world even today, Judeo-Christian missionaries place their lives at risk if they preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, in the United States, everyone is free to believe or disbelieve anything they choose as long as they remain loyal citizens, honor the values and freedoms our country has fought to secure for all of its citizens, make a good faith effort to assimilate into our capitalistic culture, and refrain from harming or intimidating others. In the United States one can find mosques, and temples to virtually every other world religion. People came and still come to the United States for its religious freedom and historic tolerance, peace, security, freedom, and opportunity.
Immigrants to our shores and even United States citizens often forget that the cultural stability which makes the United States a beacon of hope has ALWAYS been rooted in the moral imperatives of its traditional, orthodox Judeo-Christian heritage. An ordered society must find a way to keep mankind’s sinful appetites from rampaging out of control and destroying the peace of everyone. These appetites can either be constrained by endless governmental laws and regulations, which also limit individual freedom, or by internal voluntary moral constraints placed within by religious conviction.[xii] The Founders chose, as much as possible, to rely upon the personal Protestant Judeo-Christian moral code that governed their own lives— to limit the need for a large intrusive federal government of bureaucracy, endless rules, regulations, and laws.
As Judeo-Christian values, ethics, morality, and faith are slowly being discarded in our society we begin to see the peace, security, freedom, tolerance, and opportunity of everyone on the wagon train being dangerously compromised. The concept of a limited, non-intrusive government was tossed to the roadside long ago. It is, however, these Judeo-Christian values that have gotten the United States through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, two World Wars, and the Great Depression. As our culture has been distanced from the faith, accountability, voluntary self-discipline, and morality of the orthodox Judeo-Christian traditions upon which it was originally grounded, elements of chaos and lawlessness have begun to destabilize our entire society in ways never before seen.
God Has Always Found Ways to Use Flawed People of Faith to Accomplish His Will
When we demonize the Founders and other early American heroes for the sins of the times in which they lived, we should remember that Abraham, Moses, David, the Apostle Peter, and the Apostle Paul were all imperfect, flawed people who were guilty of significant sins. Yet through the miracle of His grace, God still forgave them and used them to change the world. These imperfect individuals had faith, desired to turn from their sins (as defined by God),[xiii] and pursued God’s will. They did not give up. They persevered.
When one acknowledges one’s sins, repents, and desires to turn from those sins and do better, that is the essence of being born again through faith in the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ (John 3:3). “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). God can always find ways to use such people as the rest of their new lives unfold.
It is thus possible for people to change in miraculous ways and change the world for good in the process. In a modern world where “evil is often called good and good evil” (Isaiah 4:20), many people want to keep their head down and not be noticed. A true Christian should stand out because he or she lives under the lordship of Jesus Christ and seeks to honor God’s moral laws not out of fear, but out of gratitude for his or her salvation. The Christian is saved solely by faith not by works,[xiv] but that faith is afterwards proven by good works done out of thankfulness for God’s merciful love.[xv] A profession of faith that is not followed by attempts at positive lifestyle changes and good works calls into question whether that person’s professed faith in Jesus was ever genuine (Hebrews 10:26-31).The Christian’s good works are lights in a dark world. Thus, there should be a positive discernable difference between those who are Christians and those who are not. Sadly, this is often no longer the case.
Our Nation and Institutions Were Designed for an Honorable People
Our nation and its institutions were designed by the Founders for an honorable people. John Adams famously said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[xvi] George Washington warned, “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education… Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”[xvii] And yet, in 1947 the Supreme Court deviated from previous cases and the Constitution due to the “misleading metaphor” of separation of church and state and began a disastrous chain of decisions designed to eliminate any appearance of government endorsement or support for religion. As a result, religion has basically been disenfranchised in the public life of America in favor of heavy-handed secularism notwithstanding the clear language of the 1st amendment to the United States Constitution.
According to What I Have Seen, Those Who Plow Iniquity and Those Who Sow Trouble Harvest It (Job 4:8)
Many have grown accustomed to tolerating the intolerable. After the deeply flawed Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade in 1973, over sixty-three million pregnancies would be extinguished before a constitutionally conservative Supreme Court majority in 2022 finally admitted that the United States Constitution had never conferred a right to abortion, returning the matter to the individual states. The cry to protect abortions is now being vociferously raised in the states even though murder is expressly forbidden, and the sacrifice of infants is uniformly condemned in Scripture. Our Bible states that marriage is to be honored, and Jesus spoke against divorce and yet divorce is now almost as common as marriage. The Bible clearly states that marriage is between a man and a woman and now homosexual marriage is celebrated. God is very clear in His moral law, which is plainly set out in Scripture, that He places great importance on sexual morality and yet our current society glorifies fornication, adultery, and now homosexuality. The Bible clearly supports law and order in society and yet many demonize the police and openly favor the criminal over the victim (Romans 13:1-4).
The Ten Commandments forbid stealing, coveting the property of another, and murder (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:4-21). Yet, many Americans are beginning to favor socialism and even communism despite the fact that these vile and wicked philosophical and economic ideologies have never worked anywhere they have been tried and usually lead to murderous tyranny. Famed minister David Jeremiah has noted that twice the number of people have been murdered trying to make communism work than were killed in both World War I and World War II.[xviii] Some would also now have us believe that the Constitution requires that all elections be certified without audit or investigation even when grave improprieties and irregularities have been observed, attested to in sworn affidavits, and even televised. Was this really the intent of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay?
Many continue to sit in the pews of liberal churches that openly proclaim that God made many mistakes in the Bible that a wise, all-knowing liberal clergy needs to correct. It is often accepted in such churches that times change, and that if God and Jesus had known what we know now the Bible would have been different. The difficult passages of the Bible which often include the Old Testament and the teachings of the Apostle Paul are no longer preached in such churches because their timeless wisdom does not fit the liberal narrative of a theology that embraces the worldly values of the current culture. Indeed, except for passing references in short sermonettes, the teachings of the entire Bible are rarely preached leaving modern congregations largely ignorant of what the Bible really says. Many continue to silently listen as their ministers preach that the Bible is only a non-essential, non-binding guide, because the modern clergy is now led by new revelations. These new revelations often contradict Scripture and endorse practices that violate God’s moral law. These new revelations change what the Judeo-Christian church has faithfully taught for over two thousand years. When describing the full armor of God, the Apostle Paul designated the Word of God as the “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17). Ministers and theologians who compromise, discredit, or amend the Scriptures are thus disarming their congregations before the enemies of God.
The Apostle Paul prophesied times such as these in which we arguably now find ourselves (2 Timothy 3: 1-5):
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful,
arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control,
brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers
of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of
godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such
men as these.
The time has arrived to ask ourselves if we are still an honorable people. The wisdom of the Apostle Paul’s warning, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7) has apparently been forgotten. The wind has been permitted to be sown, however, and now we “reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7).
Prove Yourselves Doers of the Word, and not Merely Hearers Who Delude Themselves (James 1:22)
As our society is being radically transformed in the ways noted above, the silence from the traditional American clergy and traditional Christians in the pews has been deafening. Liberal Christians and clergy are often happy to pontificate endlessly about their opinions as to God’s mistakes, His flawed nature, and how the Bible needs to be edited and rewritten to accommodate 21st century tastes and shifting notions of morality. Pastors and Christians of the traditional Judeo-Christian church, who stand atop the truth of Scripture and over three thousand years of erudite teaching, often remain silent[xix] conceding the bully pulpit to liberal ideologues. Christians are supposed to be society’s moral compass as followers of Jesus Christ, but far too many traditional Christians of faith remain silent with their light hidden under a basket (Matthew 5:14-16). Far too many have become salt that has become tasteless (Matthew 5:13). Again, we must ask, are we still an honorable people?
Eric Metaxas has written a thoughtful book entitled Letter to the American Church asking basically this question.[xx] He notes that one reason that those at war with God and His moral law have gained so much ground in America is that they have been successful in “persuading so many in the American Church that to fight them is to abandon the “Gospel” for pure culture warring or for politics.”[xxi] This old argument was designed from its inception to muzzle and neutralize God’s faithful pastors and their congregations. This argument that muzzles the traditional, conservative pulpit against the forces that ultimately seek to destroy Christianity and the civilization that rests upon its foundation is according to Metaxas, “not just nonsense, but is a supremely deceptive and satanic lie, designed only to silence those who would genuinely speak for truth.”[xxii]
Metaxas notes that in pre-World War II Germany there were approximately eighteen thousand clergy during the years in which Hitler rose to power. The German Lutheran pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was gifted with the prophetic insight to see what Hitler’s rise to absolute power would mean for the world. Bonhoeffer boldly spoke out against Hitler at great personal risk beginning as early as 1932. Of the eighteen thousand clergymen in Germany, with the might of the Lutheran tradition and Martin Luther’s example behind them, only three thousand stood with Bonhoeffer to resist Hitler, three thousand decided to support Hitler, and twelve thousand remained silent in the face of lawlessness contrary to everything for which Christianity stood.[xxiii] Metaxas believes that if the entire eighteen thousand German clergymen had remained true to Judeo-Christian principles and doctrine and if they had all resolutely resisted Hitler, he might not have gained the absolute power he used to ignite World War II. Millions of lives might have been saved by simply standing firm on Christian principles.
Having studied Bonhoeffer and the failure of the German Church to rally behind him against evil, Metaxas points to the lesson to be learned: ”If you do not speak, you are not being neutral, but are contributing to the success of the thing you refuse to name and condemn.”[xxiv] He notes that those who dare to speak up make it easier for others to speak up, thus decreasing the price of speaking truth to power for everyone.[xxv] For Metaxas, there is no way to remain neutral in such situations. We either “help evil or fight evil.”[xxvi] The great theologian, William Barclay, said it thus, “We are faced with the tremendous alternative of making ourselves weapons in the hand of God or weapons in the hand of sin.”[xxvii] Metaxas states that, “If we allow our ideological enemies to tell us what we can and cannot say and what views we can and cannot have, we have taken our eyes off God.”[xxviii]
With respect to great moral issues such as abortion and the sacred marital union of one man and one woman, Metaxas cries out that “we are obliged for the love of God and our fellow man to say what the Bible says and what the Church has for all of its history taught.”[xxix] This has proven a very difficult thing for many American clergy, theologians, and Christians to do even though most of the theological points at issue are simply God’s plainly written moral laws for life within His will. We must arouse ourselves and remember the God of the Bible:
Remember the former things long past,
Isaiah 46:9-10
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which
Have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’
Will we remember our triune God and stand with His Son Jesus Christ against the growing darkness? The time is upon the Christian Church and all those who value the liberty and freedoms that evolved from our Judeo-Christian faith, values, and traditions to prove whether we are still an honorable people. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). We have the truth of God’s Word behind us and the power of the Holy Spirit within us. It is long past time to boldly step out from the ranks of the silent majority and proclaim loudly that the Lord still reigns in our nation, and we still serve Him.[xxx]
[i] Newcombe, Jerry, Foreword. In: D. James Kennedy Topical Study Bible (Lake Mary, Florida: Passio, Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group, 2015), xvi: See also, Lowell, James Russell. The Nation and The Gospel.
[ii] 1 Peter 1: 14-16; Colossians 3:1-17; Romans 6:1-23; 2 Timothy 2:19-22.
{iii] Book of Common Prayer, Articles of Religion VII; Westminster Confession of Faith [1647], Chapter 19, Section 5; London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, Chapter 19, Paragraph 5.
[iv] Peter A. Lillback and Jerry Newcombe, George Washington’s Sacred Fire (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania: Providence Forum Press, 2006), 27, 30,626, 713, 714.
[v] Ron Chernow, Washington A Life (New York: Penguin Books, Penguin Group (USA) Inc, 2010), 578.
[vi] See also, Peter Lillback and Jerry Newcombe, George Washington’s Sacred Fire,714.
[vii] Dennis R. Ayers, The Beginning of Wisdom (Little Elm, TX: eLectio Publishing, LLC, 2022 [2017]), 259.
[viii] David Barton, America’s Godly Heritage, 3rd ed. (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 2007), 8-9.
[ix] Peter Lillback and Jerry Newcombe, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, 665; See also, Russell Kirk, The American Cause (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1966), 38-39.
[x] Dennis R. Ayers, The Beginning of Wisdom, 175.
[xi] Matthew 10:33; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26, 12:9. See also, John 15:20.
[xii] See, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Appendix: Letter to a Member of the National Assembly ed. L. G. Mitchell (Oxford University Press, New York, 2009 [1791]),289.
[xiii] Dennis R. Ayers, The Beginning of Wisdom, 22: Today, many have become accustomed to thinking of God as a God of love and convenience who will obligingly go along with almost anything modern man desires, including the amendment and revision of the Bible. It is often forgotten that the God actually described in the Scriptures is also a God of justice, accountability, and discipline as well as love. It is God who defines truth, sin, justice, and the rules for life within His will—not mankind.
[xiv] Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 11:6; Galatians 2:16.
[xv] Ephesians 2:10; James 2:14-26; Matthew 5:14-16.
[xvi] Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798, John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1810) [1854], ed. Charles Francis Adams. Online Library of Liberty. www.libertyfund.org .
[xvii] George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796 (Library of Congress Digital Collections).
[xviii] David Jeremiah, Where Do We Go from Here? A Cultural Prophecy—Socialism— Matthew 24:37.
[xix] Fortunately, there are still ministers who preach a Christ-centered Gospel faithful to both the Old and New Testaments. There are still ministers and theologians that dare to speak out against the spirit of the antichrist that is actively trying to destroy both the Judeo-Christian faith and our Christian culture. Examples of famous ministers who still speak boldly in defense of Scripture and seek to be missionaries from Christ’s church to the world rather than missionaries from the world to Christ’s church are: David Jeremiah, Gary Hamrick, Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Michael Youssef, Curt Dodd, Charles F. Stanley, Rob Pacieza, and( although deceased) Billy Graham, D. James Kennedy, Adrian Rogers, and Harold E. Salem. Most of these pastors can still be heard on television or via streaming. There are no doubt pastors like these laboring courageously in your community although it may take a search to locate them.
There are still well respected, biblically faithful seminaries such as Westminster Theological Seminary, Knox Theological Seminary, and Dallas Theological Seminary. Seek seminaries that strive to graduate ministers who will honor the Bible and serve God, not rule Him. There are still godly seminaries that have not yet bowed the knee to the false gods of progressive revision and liberal imagination. Never hire a minister for your church without asking what He believes.
[xx] Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church (Washington, D.C.: Salem Books, an imprint of Regnery Publishing, 2022).
[xxi] Eric Metaxas, Introduction. In: Letter to the American Church, xii-xiii.
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church, 45.
[xxiv] Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church, 52.
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, rev. 3rd ed. (Louisville, Kentucky: The Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 102.
[xxviii] Ibid., 85.
[xxix] Ibid., 99.
[xxx] Joshua 24:15.