God Bless America

The Psalmist said, “Blessed [is] the nation whose God [is] the LORD...”
Do these words of the Psalmist still hold true for nations such as the United States in our day?  July 4, Independence Day, is very special to all those who have been blessed and privileged to have the U. S. as the land of their birth and heritage. No matter how far they may roam, those who love the land of the free and the home of the brave usually pause to thank God and celebrate this special day..
As people at home and abroad do so, it would be good to stop for a moment and take stock of the blessings of freedom God has given to the land and to remember the sacrifices of those who purchased these with their blood.  

God has richly blessed America with a beautiful country; rich in abundant natural resources. God has provided a great constitution and a good system of government based upon a Judeo-Christian heritage. It can truly be said America’s citizens enjoy freedoms and privileges that most of the citizens of the world can only dream about. This is confirmed each year by the thousands who seek to immigrate legally to her shores and even by the tens of thousand who illegally seek the same privileges.  There are no concentration camps in America. People are not executed for seeking to flee the land.  There are no dreaded knocks on doors in the middle of the night. There are no mass graves filled with the bodies or those who have been killed by despotic dictators and godless regimes. At least theoretically, every person in the nation has a free voice and a free vote.

In governmental matters, the voice of the people can reflect the way and will of God. Freedom of speech still prevails. Freedom of religion has not yet been lost. Pastors can still proclaim the truth from their pulpits and Christians can still worship according to the dictates of their hearts. There is yet no laws that can muzzle those who would comment about sin in the land or criticize the powers that be.  The truth can be told, no matter how critical, about those occupying the highest positions in government.  Mark Twain once said, “…a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. … If the Christians .... could be persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country — a country whose Christians have betrayed it and are destroying it ... Christianity ... is on trial now. And nothing important is on trial except Christianity.” He said this a century and one-half ago. How much greater are the weight of his words today!

Henry Blackaby wrote in Fresh Encounter: “Christians should not be surprised by the spiritual
darkness around us. That is all it can be. Darkness is dark. The greater problem is not with the
darkness. The problem is with the light. When light shines, it dispels darkness. We face a growing
spiritual darkness in our land because the light is not shining brightly.”
On this Independence Day, let us praise God for His past blessings upon this great nation and
pray He will continue to bless it. But at the same time let us remember that if we are to expect His
continuing blessings upon a nation, its citizens must recognize the need for Him in their national life.
They must be willing to meet His conditions for such continuing national blessings. Conditions that
are made crystal clear in His word: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14) Yes, America still needs God’s blessings today. It sometimes seems the secularists have tried everything else in recent years. Political parties have come and gone. New political movements blossom and flourish and then fade into history. New financial fads appear and then pass away. New social schemes come and go. Secular humanism, relativism and permissiveness have led to the pursuit of pleasure as a national preoccupation. It seems the nation has gone off the gold standard and abandoned God’s standards. Hundreds of books on New Age Religions of ancient origin are increasingly replacing Christian books on the shelves of our retail bookstores.  The nation needs those who recognize God in government. Christians need to not only pray for righteous leaders in the land, but be willing to speak up and act out their convictions. They need to be ready to stand against and oppose those who are philosophically and religiously opposed to God and His righteousness.  Godliness is needed in the homes and the institutions of any great nation. Great nations do not need leaders who advocate perverted lifestyles or accept and promote the destruction of traditional family institutions that are so clearly taught in the Word of God and have been the basis of civilized societies for millennia.

What can we who love this great land do to insure His future blessings upon it? We can live for Christ and be salt and light in this world of corruption and darkness. We can pray and work to place Godly leaders at the helm of the ship of state. We can pray for a true revival of righteousness in the land. We can always remember the Lord our God is the true source the spiritual courage and power that is needed to preserve the great land of our birth and heritage! Again, we can take seriously the promise of God to a people who will turn away from evil and back to a loving and merciful God! “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14) .- Pastor John G. White