JUST THINKING: America, Your Foundations are Crumbling
Since our nation will celebrate it 248th birthday next week, I was just thinking about how things have certainly taken a turn for the worse. Just in my 78 years on the planet, things have changed — drastically! The patriots’ dream has become a nightmare! Instead of a nation of united states, we have become a house divided… in so many ways.
The Bible states, “So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: ‘How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mark 3:23-24 NIV). Many accuse me of being a nationalist. They say I tend to worship America. I fully admit that I am a patriot, but I worship the One whose hand has been on our country — but sadly, we have turned away from Him. Through His grace, our God has been good to us — but how long will our nation stand if we don’t turn our hearts back to Him?
The foundations upon which America was built are crumbling. We need God’s help, His guidance and His grace.
• Crumbling Foundation #1: Sufficiency in God — Less than 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, President Lincoln called for a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. He said, “It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness,” Indeed, it is so evident that God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are, in the minds of the multitudes, not needed. Our nation’s sufficiency is thought to be in ourselves.
• Crumbling Foundation #2: Strength in the Constitution — We are known as a nation of laws, but today the laws are ignored by even the judicial system of our country. We, too, have broken the laws of the Almighty — to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Instead, we have chosen to love money, to hold on to it with greed and to ignore the needs of others.
• Crumbling Foundation #3: Sustaining the Family — The first institution set forth on earth by the Creator was marriage and the family — one man for one woman, bearing children to fill the earth. Today, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, child abandonment, gender change and homosexuality have become the norm. All these are the practices that displease our Maker and are dividing — not just families, but our nation.
The Words of Thomas Jefferson
The third president of the United States said, “Can liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated by His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
The Words of the Bible
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (II Chron. 7:14).
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33 NIV). It is not about worshiping our nation; it is about worshiping, obeying and following the God who holds our nation in the palm of His hand.
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Dr. Tom Mitchell
Dr. Tom Mitchell pens a column titled, Just Thinking, in which he addresses many topics relative to the Baptist Missionary Association. His Trailblazers series provides biographies of many BMA trailblazers from the past.
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