Wake Up, Church! We have a Republic to Save

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” – George Washington

Last weekend, Tracy and I had the privilege of standing on the ground in our capital and praying for our nation. Following the advice referenced above by our first president, we joined hundreds of other Christians on the steps of the Supreme Court, in front of the White House, on the steps of the Lincoln Monument, and the lawn of the National Mall. It was inspiring to be among so many believers partnering with God through prayer and worship, contending for the future of our country.

One of the most encouraging words of the weekend came from Landon Schott, Senior Pastor at Mercy Culture in Fort Worth, Texas. He had anticipated heavy spiritual opposition and oppression surrounding Washington, DC. Instead, during his 5 mile prayer run around the National Mall he experienced a spiritual openness, the sense of a river flowing, the well-spring of prayers planted in our soil by our founders and generations that followed.

God has not forgotten His covenant with America.

We Must Know our History

“Take away the heritage of a people and they are easily persuaded.” – Karl Marx

The beauty of America’s heritage is that our Founders provided a nation with true liberty and justice for all, including both the believer and the unbeliever. America was founded as a Christian nation. But a Christian nation is not one in which all people in society are Christians, but rather the principles and institutional foundations are Biblically based, and the people in general share a Biblical worldview. God blessed our forebears because they covenanted, agreed, and contracted with God to obey His Son. God has not changed His purpose for America . . . to be a shining “city on a hill” for spreading of the Gospel and liberty to the world.

But America has forgotten our covenant with God.

The foundations of morality have been undermined. Permissiveness and situation ethics have blurred the issues, weakened the power to discern evil under its camouflage of misrepresentation, and then sapped the will to resist. For several generations in America, we have been ignoring our covenants with God, both personal and national. We have forgotten that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams.

Or as expressed by Dr. Jedediah Morse in 1799, “To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, . . in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.”

America will not stand separate from her Christian foundation. It is the foundation upon which our government has been established and our freedoms and blessings have been protected and poured out.

Focus on the Promises, Not the Problems

The devil is a panic artist. He stimulates in us a panic to act according to the immediate predicament we are in without taking time to lay hold of God’s promises.

If we are willing to have the faith of our forefathers we will be able to restore the nation they built. God has very clearly given us the promise that “If that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.” Jeremiah 18:8

Stand against the enemy using the promises of Scripture as weapons. They work. Satan can get along very well with Christians as long as they are on the defensive, pursuing friendly co-existence with evil, or desertion, but he knows he is defeated against a praying, believing, “on the offense” church.

Occupy the Land

Since God is sovereign and omnipotent, isn’t our place to let him deal with the expansion of evil in his own time and way? Not according to Matthew 18:18. “I will give you the keys to the kingdom; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus puts the initiative for action into the hands of his people.

“And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, ‘Occupy till I come.’” Luke 19:13

“For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

America will not be saved separate from a move of God. And that move of God will only happen at the hands of people. God has established a self-imposed restriction that He will not move upon the earth except in response to the prayers of His people. Remember that it does not require the support of the majority to change the course of a nation. The first century church was a hated minority, yet the great power and presence of God accompanied its ministry! (Acts chapters 3-5.) 

America has had 245 years of unprecedented freedom. Do we want to be the generation to lose that freedom, not passing it on to our children and grandchildren? Not on my watch. “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9

The King is Coming

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire. . . . Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves” (Malachi 4:1–2).

What happens when Jesus returns? Evil is defeated, the earth is restored, and God wins. Your response to Jesus’ return depends on your relationship with Him. It will either be, as John MacArthur calls it, “the greatest calamity in all of human history” or the fulfillment of the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13). Faith in Christ makes the difference.

Protecting America is protecting our platform from which to continue completion of the Great Commission to bring the gospel to all the nations. May the “owner of the vineyard” (Matthew 21) not return and find that we have abandoned our responsibilities and squandered our inheritance.

Action Steps

Remember that our strength is found in the joy of the Lord. (Nehemiah 8:10)

Contend for truth. The truth is never afraid of a lie.

Seek His presence. Daily!

Know our assets – the Bible and the Holy Spirit

Vote! An estimated 40 million Christians don’t take protecting religious liberty seriously enough to vote. (15 million are not even registered voters.) Christians are sitting back, not participating in the political process, allowing the spirit of lawlessness to write laws.

Do not fear – John 16:33 says, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Pray! The POWER of prayer is in the One to whom we pray!!

So . . . let’s get to work!! We have a kingdom to advance and a Republic to save!