Well, it’s plain to those who know history and the eternal truths which God established to guide and direct man on this earth. The short answer is, humans have largely ignored many of those eternal truths, and when they do, “whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” There are rules that lead to individual and national greatness, and there are rules that end in personal and collective destruction. No person or country follows either set of rules 100 percent, but whichever set a person/nation is primarily devoted to will determine his/its ultimate fate. That fate is not inevitable if the person/nation changes course, but that doesn’t currently appear to be imminent in America. And that is very sad to see.
Some quotes from the past to help us on this article’s journey and conclusion.
1. From the brilliant Alexis de Tocqueville:
“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
“Pulpits flame with righteousness.” Do America’s pulpits “flame with righteousness” today, demanding, with fire and courage, that which will truly cause men to fear the wrath of a just, sin-hating God and submit to His laws? Reader, if you are a church-goer, when was the last time you heard a sermon on the “Wrath of God”? “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” No, America—even in most of her churches—no longer wants to hear about hell and the justice, righteousness, and wrath of God. We only want wimpy, Mickey Mouse pablum about the sweetness of God, so that we can feel good in our self-centered, pleasure-oriented, luxurious lifestyles, enjoying the grandeur of our multi-million dollar cathedrals with their banquet rooms and gymnasiums, monuments to our wealth, putting a few bucks in the collection plate each week to pay for the musical extravaganza we get on the stage and the comfort we enjoy in our one-hour-per-week (max) commitment to Him. Fiery righteousness is out; “entertain me” is in.
Has Christianity influenced the secular Left, or has the secular Left influenced Christianity? Which is it?
Read the great Old Testament prophets. “God’s people” didn’t want to listen to them, either. And Jesus didn’t get killed because He preached “love” and “forgiveness.”
Metal is purified by fire, not by soda pop, cookies, and ice cream.
America has a Christian religion today that isn’t a 10th cousin to Jesus and New Testament Christianity—or the “flaming pulpits” de Tocqueville saw 100 years ago. If God’s people haven’t the guts to call people back to righteousness and truth, then how in the world can we expect godless, selfish, power-hungry, jellyfish politicians to do it?
And what kind of people has this produced?
2. James Madison warned us about that a century ago:
“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea.”
When the people become vacuous, when they lose that “righteousness” de Tocqueville spoke of that made America good and great, if a nation is “without any virtue in the people,” then it will not only not be great, but it will not “secure liberty or happiness.” And note very carefully what Madison said in this quote: government can’t do it! But how many Americans are expecting government to do it today, without any righteousness or virtue in the people?
Do you see what’s going on in America today?
3. Madison further tells us of troubles that plague us:
“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society, and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”
If we must have this necessary evil called government, then it is essential that we put the right kind of people in office in the first place (“men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society”), and make sure they stay that way while they “continue to hold their public trust.”
Can you say “Graham Platner”?
There exists absolutely no virtue or wisdom in the Democratic Party today, and probably not a thimble-full in the Republican. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the governing of any other” (John Adams). Are those the kind of people who dominate America today? Don’t make me laugh. In Jeremiah 5:1, God told the prophet to search through all Jerusalem and see if he could find one man “who executes judgment,” who “seeks the truth.” Jeremiah, apparently, couldn’t find any. He wouldn’t find one in the Democratic Party today, either. And maybe not the Republican.
4. Madison: “The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.”
What does the Democratic Party—half the country, at least—and a whole bunch of the Republican Party—think about the “laws of God” upon which our Constitution was founded, and upon which our Founding Fathers based “the future and success of America”? The Democratic Party, of course, hates our Founding Fathers (for obvious reasons) and the entire government—both parties—pay absolutely no attention to that Constitution that was founded “upon the laws of God.”
5. One more quote. A quickie. Noah Webster: “Education is useless without the Bible.”
Yes, folks, it is absolutely, perfectly plain to me what is wrong with America today. Mr. Trump, America will not be great again until America is good again. And good luck getting that to happen.
Check out my Substacks: “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com), and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Read my great tales of the Old American West, available on Amazon and Kindle: "Whitewater," "River Bend," "Return to River Bend," "Allie’s Dilemma," and "Kendrick and other stories." Follow me on X: @thailandmkl.
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