In 1892, Catherine Les Bates
wrote America the Beautiful, and in 1920 it almost became
our national anthem. The second and last stanzas are
repeated, America, America, God shed his grace on thee, and crown
thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. My friends,
the light that shines brightest at home, shines furthest abroad. A nation that knows God and has
Him in her heart is a good nation, a nation that does good, a nation
that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers
the sick of poor nations. Mrs. Bates asks that God's gracious
blessings do not go to waste. but that His goodness to America
be crowned with a sharing brotherhood with all humanity. This only
happens when a nation's God is the Lord. America in her past
history has been a nation of brotherhood, a nation with a
heart for the God who blessed her and in return has shared
her blessings with the human race. The world has been a gentler,
brighter, kinder world. because of a godly America. Catherine
Lee Bates' wish that God's good to America should be crowned
with brotherhood has seen its fulfillment many times over,
and only God in America can perpetuate Catherine's hymn and keep this
nation called America a generous and gracious nation. It is the
grace of God is unmerited favor to America that makes her a great
nation and keeps her back from ruin. The great security of this
nation is the presence of God who is the cause of the virtue
of its citizens. Neither the wisest constitution
nor the wisest laws will secure its liberties and the happiness
of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. Is it possible
that he whom no moral obligations bind can have any real good will
toward man. The government of God is the
only government which will hold America's society together, and
this only by having His laws written upon our hearts. The
most powerful weapons of America in peace and war are our spiritual
weapons, if God be for us who can be against us. America's
past or present brilliance, without the presence of God, will not
sustain us. I fear that though we are nuclear
giants, we have become spiritual dwarfs. The great human need
is a great vacuum that entitlement programs and big government handouts
cannot satisfy. Social ills will never be solved
by government. Only God can fill that empty
vacuum of the soul of man. The fate of this nation is bound
up with its creator, one nation under God. That's who our forefathers
said we were. Do you know of a nation that
has gone as far from God as America, that has ever come back to its
former greatness and goodness? The cry of the weeping prophet
Jeremiah can be repeated today in America. Oh God, you are like
a mighty man that cannot save, like a man turned to stone. You
are a stranger in the land and our iniquities testify against
us. The silence of God in America
is deafening. There is no greater judgment
that God could bring upon America than simply not to speak to us. Greater than a universal deluge,
greater than fire and brimstone falling from the heavens, God
just not speaking to America. God in the Old Testament would
say to Israel, you have rejected me, I can no longer show compassion. Why would God speak to us? We've
told him to keep his hands off of us and ordered him out of
our society. There are no sadder words than
these uttered by Christ before going to the cross. He said,
weep not for me, but weep for yourselves. Your nation is left
unto you desolate. Look what has happened since
we as a nation asked God to leave. I'm sure you will agree that
since we have banned him from America, things just are not
the same. Since he's been gone and without
his forming hand, we have degenerated into chaos. We know that he knows
that since he's been gone, life has lost its sacredness. Lord,
since you've been gone, the institution of marriage, the family, the
building block of a solid society, the social glue that holds society
together has degenerated. Since you've been gone, men and
women have lost their sense of parenthood, and we have 800,000
children in America without a mother or father. Since you've been
gone, the state has been attempting to be a parent, and it's not
working. Lord, since you've been gone,
we've taught our children that there is no creator, that they're
nothing but the accidental formation of gas and dust, that they have
no real purpose in life. While you've been gone, we've
tried to substitute the multiplicity of material things for you. And
it seems our children no longer have a point of reference and
cannot cope with the pains of life and are killing themselves
and one another. Lord, since you've been gone,
our prisons have filled and our churches have emptied. Dear God,
many here today would like to invite you back. We know that
a sparrow does not fall to the ground without your notice, and
we know that a nation cannot rise without your aid. Thomas
Jefferson, the third president of the United States, author
of the Declaration of Independence, said this, God who gave us life
gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation
be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties
are the gift of God? Indeed, Jefferson said, I tremble
for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice
cannot sleep forever. My friends, President Jefferson's
words are forceful and an explicit warning that to remove God from
this country will destroy it. John Newton wrote, the man who
wrote Amazing Grace in 1781, when God is exceedingly displeased
with the people, it is not necessary for their punishment to be that
he should bury them alive by an earthquake. nor destroy them
by lightning, if He only leads them to themselves, and withdraws
His blessings from their counsels, and His restraints from their
passion. Their ruin follows on course according to the necessary
order and connection of causes and effects. If God gives up
a people to the way of their own hearts, they will, they must,
perish. The scripture says, if the foundations
be destroyed, what shall the righteous do? The presence of
God was the very foundation of this nation. Let us all strive
together to bring back the ancient landmarks. Is it not a wicked
hypocrisy that since 1962, our children have not been able to
have prayer in the classroom? But every session of the House
and Senate begins with prayer. and does not each house have
its own chaplain? Is not there now a small room
in the Capitol just off the rotunda, a private prayer room for members
of Congress? Is not this prayer room's focal
point its stained glass window showing George Washington kneeling
in prayer and behind him etched the words from Psalm 16, 1, Preserve
me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust. Surely Chief Justice
Berger was correct in the Supreme Court's ruling regarding chaplains
opening the legislative sessions with prayer. Mr. Berger wrote, the men who wrote
the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative
chaplains and opening prayer as a violation of that amendment.
The practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without
interruption ever since that early session of Congress. It
can hardly be thought that in the same week the members of
the First Congress voted to appoint and pay a chaplain for each house
and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment
that they intended to forbid what they had just declared acceptable. Chaplains and prayer are deeply
embedded in the history and tradition of this country. The trust factor
in America must be restored. Was it not written on the sails
of the Pilgrim ships? Does it not appear opposite to
the President of the Senate, the Vice President of the United
States? Are not the same words inscribed
in marble behind the Speaker of the House of Representatives?
These words are on every coin and every piece of paper currency.
then let us stop the tyranny to overthrow the one in whom
we say we trust and let us trust him. Let the words of the crier
of the Supreme Court of the United States who opens each session
and closes with these words be our prayer today. God save the
United States of America. The sacred scripture says, acknowledge
God in all thy ways and lean not on your own understanding
and he will direct your path. Have we not already acknowledged
that we are one nation under God when we repeated the pledge
of allegiance? There was a time when we were
not as ignorant in America as we are now. A time when we acknowledged
our supreme commander, the captain of the ship, the great potentate. My friends, we will either be
one nation under God or a nation without God. Or as President
Ronald Reagan said, we will be one nation under God or one nation
gone under. This nation cannot wear the good
crown of brotherhood that Catherine Lee Bates spoke of in her anthem
without the good God of grace, the God who loves humanity. I
close today with this challenge. There is a sleeping giant that
must be awakened if this country is to be turned back. It is the
assembly of believers, the ecclesia, God's community, God's family,
the Church. The only hope for America is
an engaged, activated Christianity that puts the fire out before
it engulfs the house. What happens to a nation where
Christian people and Christian churches are disengaged? What
happens in a nation where Christians silently drift, withdraw to padded
church pews? What happens when Christians
withdraw from the public square? The problems that America faces
today does not rest in the White House, but in the church house.
The problem is not to be found in Washington, D.C., nor is it
to be found in the Oval Office. No, no. Go yonder to the white
steeple building with the cross lifted up. There you will find
a people drifting, sleeping, playing church, sedated, inactive,
disengaged. The problems that our nation
faces today can be laid at the feet of a disengaged Christianity,
disengaged from the culture in which we live. While this nation
is lost in a sea of unrighteousness, we Christians hide in steeple
church houses. How is it that we have lost the
moral will to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong? That we now live in a country
that is morally blind, where the most atrocious ideas are
advanced in the most matter-of-fact manner. If there ever were a
need for activation, If ever there were a time for Christians
to enter the debate, it is today. Because my friends, never before
have so many people been so confused about so many things. I'm not
talking about Christians being involved in civil disobedience
or some kind of protest movement. I'm talking about Christians
exercising the blessings of liberty that we have in this country.
Not merely protesting bad policies, but running for office and making
good godly policies. Bad politicians have told us
to keep morality to ourselves and I'm afraid we have obeyed
them. The purposes of government are not best achieved by imposing
a wall of separation between Christianity and public life.
George Washington, our first president, said true religion
offers to government its surest support. Perhaps that's why today,
having banished the Bible and nearly all Christian expression
from public life, we find it increasingly impossible to govern
this nation. We have believed the lie of separation
of church and state and have been immobilized by the lie,
religion and politics must not be kept separate. How we need
an activated, engaged voice in America. We seemingly have no
voice in this wilderness. We need God in America again,
and when He returns, we again will be a blessed people. America,
America, God shed His grace on thee and crown thy good with
brotherhood from sea to shining sea. Here's the challenge on
this day of prayer. Let each one of us promise our
God that if He will accept our invitation to revisit America,
we will never disengage ourselves from the culture in which we
live. God bless America.