Were the Europeans right? Has the grand American experiment failed? In 1787 a group of Americans came together to form what came to be known as the Constitutional Convention. These men knew that they were going where no group of people had ever gone before. They were going to establish a nation based on the will of the common man who would elect those like themselves to formulate laws which the nation’s populace would obey. It was “common knowledge” (“everyone knew”) that such a nation was destined to fail because the common man did not have the brain power to elect public officials.

But the men attending the meeting were sure that such a nation would not only survive and thrive, but would affect the entire world, which had been the Lord’s intention for the nation of Israel, America’s biological and spiritual ancestor. The men were successful and America quickly ascended to heights no other nation had ever reached. Over time and two world wars, which she was instrumental in winning, America became the most powerful and dominant nation the world has ever known.

In keeping with His historical methods, the Almighty began His national light to the world’s nations with a tiny group of people–the descendants of Manasseh, Jacob’s son Joseph’s elder son. God had promised Israel’s original ancestor, Abraham, that He would make one of his descendants the greatest nation the world would ever see.

In God’s way of doing things, the biggest always comes from the smallest. For example, we are told in the Bible that the Kingdom of God (God’s true church) would begin tiny in size like a mustard seed–“the least of all seeds.” But when it is fully grown, it would become “the greatest (largest) of all herbs ….” (Mat. 13:32). As He tells us in the parable of the sower, the seed must be planted in fertile ground in order to grow to its potential. The founding fathers were trying to ensure that the ground upon which their mustard seed-sized nation was to be cast was morally fertile.

As had the ancient Israelites when fleeing from the oppression of their Egyptian masters so as to settle in a new land (Canaan), many of the colonialists were fleeing from the religious oppression when they arrived on the shores of the New World. They claimed that the land was theirs by divine right. This Biblical concept is what “Manifest Destiny” is all about. Manifest Destiny is the belief that it is God’s will for the American land mass to stretch from her eastern coast to her western coast. Many of the nation’s founding fathers firmly believed that without God’s blessings and continual leadership the country would fulfill her destiny and therefore could not survive.

So prevalent was this belief that her first president, George Washington noted that religion and high moral standards were essential to America’s future. In his First Inaugural Address he spoke his thoughts into the nation’s historical documents, thereby making religion and morality a matter of national policy. Upon finishing his speech, the president kissed the Holy Bible. If the founding fathers were right, America would need high moral character in order to survive and prosper. Of course a nation is just land without people who would establish its moral character. The character America would need had to be manifested in her people, or at least a high percentage of them, in order to become what God had intended her to be.

It must be noted that, in the early days of her existence, America, like all other nations, had her share of brothels, gambling houses and other types of organized sin generators. However, for the most part, early America was deeply religious. The majority of her people were Bible readers who took instruction from that Holy tome much more seriously than do their descendants do today. According to James Madison, church services were like school classrooms where the people were taught the Ten Commandment Law upon which the nation had staked the whole future of the American civilization. For example, for years the churches observed God’s 7th day. Christmas was outlawed initially, as was Easter because both were heathen holidays. These Satanic customs were accepted into the new nation’s religious scene as she gradually slid into Satan’s religious trap today known as “Christianity.”

Just as the Creator of all things had established marriage and the family as the world’s first institution, the early settlers learned from the Old Testament to revere that God-blessed union. Divorce was rare and difficult to attain within the colonies. The sanctity of marriage and the family was raised to the highest level of importance. As George Washington noted, the new nation needed to establish a “national character.” Marriage and the family was an essential part of that character. In order for the nation to survive, there had to be a national character that was manifested throughout her institutions and in the hearts her people. Like everything else of moral value, the American ethos has, over time, nullified most of her original moral standards.

Today, a large percentage of Americans have departed from most of the ideals of her founding fathers, and more importantly, from the commands of her Creator. Recent studies reveal that America has broken loose from her ancestral beliefs and customs which were based on the Holy Scriptures. The idea that now guides the typical American mind is that Bible-based morality is okay, if you are into that sort of thing. However, religious personal and corporate niceties are detrimental to the over-all well-being of the nation. We have been led to believe that private character and public policy are totally separate issues. In other words, we should keep religion out of anything that deals with public policy. According to the people who formulate public policy, there should be a clear and enforced “separation of church and state.” This in spite of the fact that the nation after which America was patterned was designed to be the exact opposite–their religion (Law) WAS the policy of the state. They were one and the same. The Ten Commandment Law was the nation’s public policy. The people were judged by that Law. Until, that is, they rebelled against the Author of the Law and never looked back. Sound familiar? L.J.