We are all familiar with the saying, 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.' We also know that when our nation started, those who founded our country were God-fearing people.
The Pilgrims came over in 1620 to be able to have religious freedom. Many of them died the first year, but no one went back to England. Then the Puritans came over a little later. Along with the good, came the bad also. Others came into the country to find gold. Many of them did not stay though, or they didn't last very long.
How did we get to where we are today, in our nation? This country became great and God blessed us mightily. But today, we see a different standard than the one that our country started with. Today, many do not fear God, nor do they even seem to have any idea of who He is or what He is like. The Bible is treated with skepticism. Christianity is made fun of, and the Gospel is watered down in many pulpits (or completely ignored).
I don't know everything about the History of this country, but I am aware of a couple of things that happened, that probably affected our nation and made it the way it is today.
In the 1850's, for example, the church turned away from doing any kind of Biblical counseling. Up to that point, people looked to the church for help, but, the church didn't want to help people anymore. Thus, the reason for the whole branch of medicine called 'Psychiatry'. Sigmund Freud and others rose to the occasion and provided the answers, supposedly, to man's dilemma in relation to people's mental well being and relational/emotional health.
But something else happened too, around that time. The church also looked down on those who were sick. Those in the church believed that people got sick because of their sin. The church was comprised of mostly middle class people who could afford medical help. To those who had no access to any kind of medical help (the poor and needy?), too bad. They were considered 'sinners' by the church and were shunned. (For more information on this topic, read David Powlison's book, 'The Biblical Counseling Movement' The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context
*In 'Hell's Best Kept Secret', Ray Comfort talks about how the Gospel was watered down at the turn of the 19th Century https://www.livingwaters.com/pdf/HellsBestKeptSecret.pdf. In The Truth Project, we learned about how some of the older colleges were started by Godly men, yet, somewhere down the road, they began to allow evolutionists to lead the schools. Today, these schools are far from representing Biblical Christianity.
In the 1960s, Madalyn Murray O'Hair made up a case and took it to the Supreme Court. She was successful in getting prayer out of schools, and also the idea of 'separation of church and state' became known. Separation of church and state was coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Danbury Baptist Church when they were concerned that the government could come in and interfere with the church. Remember when the Pilgrims came over? They came to America to escape the rulership of a king of their country also ruling the church. Kings should not be ruling the church. Pastors shepherd churches. Kings don't. Or at least they are not supposed to. That is the correct understanding of separation of church and state. But Madalyn Murray O'Hair took her made up case of separation of church and state to the Supreme Court and won. How could she have won? It was because those in the church did not stand up for the truth. They were ignorant of the origins of this country and probably really didn't care. Whatever will be, will be, they must have been thinking.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing (Edmund Burke). That is exactly what happened when Madalyn Murray O'Hair did her thing in the 1960s. The church didn't care. No one looked at the bigger picture. On top of that, by that time, much of the church had been watered down. No wonder the course of our nation is going in the direction it is going in.
http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/secular-philosophies/who-was-madalyn-murray-ohair.aspx
Are we surprised by all this? We shouldn't be. We should be concerned about whether people really do know the Lord or not. What kind of a Gospel message have many professing Christians been told? Were they told to ask Jesus into their hearts? Were they told to raise their hand or go down to the front of the auditorium? Maybe someone encouraged them to 'make a decision for Christ'?
There is a cost to our relationship with God. Salvation is free and is provided through the Cross of Jesus Christ. But have we let go of our sinful ways, or do we just think that God is all-loving and all-forgiving while we go on living for ourselves?
Yes, there is a correlation between the evil path our nation is going on today, and the fact that the church did nothing to respond to evil in the past (except participate in it). But there is hope. God is calling us to unite together, to pray, to grow together as believers in Christ, to love one another, to preach the Gospel and disciple men and women, and to stand up for the truth. Although it will be a lot of work, and will take much faith, I believe we can still turn this nation around and we can be instruments of righteousness in God's hands.
There is hope and our hope is in God. Our relationship with God starts with us, then the church, then society. When the church is healthy, society will reflect that. Society will be affected by the church. When the church is affected by society, something is wrong. When the church is healthy, society will become healthier. Then, God-fearing leaders will be raised up and leading our nation. The destiny of our nation starts here. What will we do in response to this?
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