The Truth About America (Part 2) Our God Fearing Founders

The Truth About America (Part 2)
Our God-fearing Founders
By Kevin Probst
Balshazzar, the king of ancient Babylon, invited 10,000 guests to a banquet. He hosted a feast in honor of their false gods. While they were drinking and reveling Balshazzer saw a finger writing on the wall. He was stunned by the words written, "The days of your kingdom are numbered. You have been weighed in the balances and you don't measure up. Your kingdom will be divided and given to your enemies." (Daniel 5)
The Babylonians had built an impregnable double wall about their city. These two walls together were 47 feet thick. The space between the walls was filled with dirt and gravel so that four chariots could race upon the wall side by side. The wall was manned by thousands of guards. But on one particular night, Cyrus, the captain of the Medes and Persians, with the help of two Babylonian traitors entered the city through an underground passage. The prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground." (Isaiah 21:9)
When a nation eliminates the true and only God and substitutes Him with a false god it has sealed its doom unless the people repent and a great revival occurs. Jesus is weeping, “America, America, how I have longed to gather your children unto me but you have rejected me in favor of other gods!” There are prophets throughout the land crying out, “O Lord, will you not hear. There is contention and strife, the wicked surround the righteous and justice is perverted.” We are drunk with the wine of materialism and pleasure. We are overtaken by our sinful desires and we are celebrating our idols. We think we have built walls that can protect us and we pretend we are invincible. Our enemy is conspiring against us and we tell ourselves he is our friend.
Can I share a truth the wicked don’t want you to know?
The Founding Fathers were God-fearing men who established this nation as a Christian Nation. They were not perfect but they were men who understood the need to harness the true nature of man by entreating a holy God to assist them in their massive endeavor.
I. They had a strong belief in God.
1. Christopher Columbus – No one can know for sure but he very well may have been a born again Christian. “Christopher” means Christ Bearer. In 1492 Columbus set out to find a passage to the far east but having been convinced that Christ would return soon he felt it his calling to spread the knowledge of Christ wherever he might. Seventy three days after setting sail to cross the Atlantic his crew became mutinous. Columbus made a deal with them. If they failed to discover land in three days they would reverse course and return to Europe. He spent those three days in prayer and fasting. On the third day they spotted land.
They docked their three ships and named the new island, San Salvadore, which means “Holy Savior.” On every island they visited they erected a cross and left these words, “As a token of our Lord Jesus Christ and in honor of the Christian faith.” They named another island “La Navidad” in honor of the birth of Christ to the Virgin Mary. They named another island, “Santa Cruz” in honor of the Holy Cross of Christ. Another island they named “Trinidad” in honor of the Holy Trinity. It’s absurd to portray Columbus as anyone other than a man very conscious of a divine intervention in his life.
2. Patrick Henry, the first post-colonial governor of Virginia once said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
3. Benjamin Franklin – Our earliest representatives had gathered in 1787 in Philadelphia for the purpose of writing a constitution. It was one of the hottest summers on record. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Tension began to build and tempers flared. The oldest statesman there, well into his 80’s, stood slowly on his old, feeble bones and leaned on his cane. All conversation ceased and his old, gruff voice pierced the silence. “I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel.” Ben Franklin went on to suggest they open every session henceforth with prayer and they did and they wrote the greatest government document ever known to man.
We must return to the God of our founders. We feel confident of our safety behind the walls we have built. We deceive ourselves with a sense of false security. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17) All the nations and all the empires of the past who have forgotten the true God were eventually felled and destroyed. If God makes an exception for an American culture waving its fist in the face of God then he violates his own just nature and ceased to be God. He promised us this couldn’t happen. “I the Lord, change not!” (Malachi 3:6)