June 24th, 2004

God Desires that We Remember Our Nation's Heritage

Our Creator God is a God of Nations. He has plans and purposes for individuals, and similarly He has plans and purposes for nations. As individuals we can choose to be Christ-followers because God gives us a free will to choose His ways or to reject them. Likewise, nations also choose to follow God's ways or reject them.

In the Bible, God instructs us that we are to acknowledge His supremacy over institutions of man, including our civil governments. The Lord also tells us He will bless nations that choose His way, who seek His plan and purpose for their country. He also instructs nations to remember their heritage, to remember the Lord's hand in establishing their "land," and to teach these lessons to their children and grandchildren.

Daniel 2:20-21, "Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them.

Psalm 33:12, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."

Psalm 22:28, "For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations."

Psalm 67:4-6, "May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us."

Scripture is clear, when a nation acknowledges God as its supreme authority God will bless that nation and it will accomplish God's divine purpose for that nation. He will bless their "land."

God has ordained certain "ground" for nations to occupy. Just as God commanded Adam and Eve to "subdue and rule" the earth, God has ordained that nations take dominion over the unique "ground" He has established for it. This includes both its physical ground that is seen with our eyes, and its "ground" that is not seen with the physical eye. This intangible "ground" is the God-appointed purpose for that nation, which in turn forms a nation's core philosophy or belief-system. A nation's "ground" becomes the foundation for its laws and values. A nation's "ground" serves as is its moral "compass." A nation that takes dominion in its "ground" is a nation that is pursuing God's unique purpose for that nation.

Let's look at a Biblical example. Genesis 12:1-4, "The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you ...and all the people on earth will be blessed through you.'"

The story of Abram and the establishing of the nation of Israel in a new land is an example of God's divine intervention into the affairs of men to establish a nation with a purposeÑthat all the people on earth will be blessed. This was the "ground" that Israel was to occupy.

The Apostle Paul explains in Romans 15:4, "...everything that was written in the past was written to teach us." The example of the Israelites in the Old Testament is a model that we are to learn from and live by today.

Our Founding Fathers understood these principles: that God is sovereign over nations, that God called a people to establish the United States of America to serve His unique purpose, and that God divinely intervened in the affairs of men to establish our nation. This is clearly evident when we read their letters and the official documents of our nation from the time of Columbus to the Revolutionary War and into the 1800's.

But are we aware of what our Founding Fathers wrote? Do we understand what is at our nation's core? Do we know the value-system of our nation that our Founding Fathers lived and died for? As citizens, are we prepared to protect the "ground" our Founding Fathers gained for us, the "ground" that God ordained for our nation? Who is teaching our children and our grandchildren about our heritage? Do we endeavor to learn for ourselves?

God commands that a nation's citizens know their "ground" and teach it to their children and grandchildren.

Deuteronomy 4:9, "Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them."

Psalm 78:4, "We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done."

God not only wants us to know and understand what "ground" our nation is to occupy, but he wants us to remember how we citizens came to occupy the ground in the first place, and to remember from whose Hand we derive all our benefits. In Moses' final days as Israel's shepherd, just prior to Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, Moses admonished his countrymen accordingly, "When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God ...Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 8:10-14).

The Israelites had a history of forgetting God as the Psalmist records for us, "But they soon forgot what He had done and did not wait for His counsel...They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt...Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise" (Psalm 106:13, 21, 24).

Remember, in Romans 15 Paul instructs us to learn from Israel's example.

President Woodrow Wilson once said, "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about."

Why is it important to know our nation's true heritage, to endeavor to learn the facts and to teach our children and grandchildren?

First, because God commands us to.

Second, because if we don't, we will violate the concept of Biblical stewardship. When we forget our heritage, then we forget where we are going as a nation and we lose sight of the "ground" God established for us to occupy and prosper. God calls us to be good stewards of all He has blessed us with, including the good "ground" that our nation was established to occupy.

Third, only a fool would choose to live in the wilderness or the land of slavery when God has ordained for our nation its very own "Promised Land."

If we fail to hold the ground God has established for us then our culture will "despise the pleasant land." This is already happening, our culture has turned its back on our "ground." Our culture today will not allow our public schools to teach the fact that our nation was created to be a Christian nation and a light unto the world, a nation that God has blessed in order to be a blessing to the world. That's our "ground," but there is no priority to teach this to our children, nor has there been for several generations. In fact our culture in general loathes our Christian heritage and is furiously rewriting history to hide the truth.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 speaks about the time in which we now live, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." Romans 1:25 tells us that, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie."

The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:27, "Do not give the devil a foothold." The word "foothold" is translated from the original Greek word topos, from which we derive our English word topography which refers to the mapping of ground. Paul is telling to not give the devil our ground, to not give away ground that God has established for us!

We have an enemy that wants to steal the good "ground" that God has ordained for our nation. In fact, we have already lost a great amount of "ground" to the enemy, especially in the past 50 years. Our nation has grown very successful and comfortable, but in our comfort we have forgotten our God and the "ground" He established for us to occupy.

Our Founders acknowledged God as the supreme authority over our nation, and God desires that we seek to remember our nation's heritage and His active involvement in establishing our land, and for us to teach this truth to future generations.

Next week we will delve into our nation's history and learn exactly what our nation's "ground" is all about from those who spent their lives to build our nation.