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I am truly blessed by the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! That is to say, “I am a sinner, forgiven for my sins through the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ – and – I am an American.”
‘This divine power of the gospel revealed itself to the heathen in the lives of Christians, which showed forth the virtues of Him who had called them out of darkness into his marvelous light, and enabled them to walk as the children of God, in the midst of a perverse generation, among whom they shown as lights in the World! … The whole life of the Christian, from the beginning to the end, is a conflict with the world and the powers of darkness, a conflict within and without …” [August Neander “Memorials of a Christian life” 1852] (America was young in 1852, the period of the California gold rush.)
Today’s problems seem overwhelming. Neander was right! We are in a conflict with the world around us (treason, graft, corruption, etc). Even worse, we (each of us) are in a conflict within between personal temptation and what we know to be right (selfishness vs. conscience).
There is within each of us, a desire for liberty. God gave it to us. – BUT – Human nature wants to rule, rather than submit. It is the oldest human conflict. What seems “overwhelming” today manifests that age-long conflict. Will God or man be sovereign?
America is truly exceptional. “We the people” created a government for the specific purpose of preserving and protecting our unalienable (God-given) right to walk in His light. Throughout human history tyranny, oligarchy, and anarchy have fought against individual liberty.
“LIBERTY IS AS EVANGELICAL AS IT IS POLITICAL!”
[Rosalie Slater, “Teaching & Learning America’s Christian History” 1965]
Every generation has cried, “We have the greatest suffering and problems.” It is all part of the age-old war (within and without). However: “We the people” sacrificed their lives, their fortunes, and preserved their sacred honor, to pass down to us, our family-, church-, and civil-liberty. It is unlike that of any other nation in human history! Will we forsake it for a “mess of pottage?”
God has gifted me as a master teacher with a passion for Providential “His-story” and Biblical government. Like John-the-baptist, I am in the wilderness, preaching to the rocks and sand when my soul is screaming from the housetops, “We are about to lose what we do not know, that we do not know and appreciate!”
Yesterday, we began our online course (using Skype for a virtual classroom) “Principles of American Government” (PAG). Only four students rose to the challenge – two grandmothers and two homeschool teens. My call is to teach those God brings to me. He is in charge of the numbers.
I have a dream – Churches, schools, and colleges, catch the vision for such courses. They recognize that without understanding Biblical principles and human history we are about to lose our God-given endowments to tyranny. Like sheep without a shepherd, we are tacitly surrendering that precious liberty, for which our forefathers bled and died.
Were that dream to become reality, I believe America would once more burst into a flame of liberty – Giving faith and hope to a dieing world.
Please set aside two hours (you can and you should!) —http://vimeo.com/52009124
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