Honor to Our Veterans
Today is Veterans Day and we want to honor our veterans for their service and sacrifices made for our country for the freedoms we enjoy. Yet, freedom is never free. It is purchased at great cost. Our soldiers put on their uniforms to fight for our freedoms and one of these freedoms is freedom of religion. Someone has said, “Separation of Church and State does not mean divorcement of God from Government.”
In 1851 when Daniel Webster was reviewing the history of “the American family” he reaffirmed the need and role of God in government. After Webster, Charles Malik, one time ambassador to the United Nations, put it this way, “The good (in the United States) would never have come into being without the blessing and the power of Jesus Christ…” In the book, The Rebirth of America, written and compiled by Robert Flood, (published in 1986) he states, “Continuing through the decades of history, we find in the inaugural addresses of all the presidents and in the Constitutions of all fifty of our states, without exception, references to Almighty God of the universe, the Author and Sustainer of our liberty.”
Some elements of our society today seem “deathly scared” of anything religious, especially if the name Jesus Christ is attached to it. But, they ignore the fact that Christians have given America the very moral fabric upon which this nation has prospered. It is said that the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield changed the spiritual landscape of America before the Revolution. One of Jonathan Edward’s sermons that became popular was, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Several years ago a preacher turned the title around and preached, “God in the Hands of Angry Sinners.” That seems to be where we are today, a rebellion against God. It does not have to be that way. The prophet Jeremiah’s message from God to Israel was, “Like clay in the hand of the potter so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”
We can unite our hearts and lives together for America. A moral America, where once again righteousness will exalt this nation. “Righteousness exalts a nation . . .” (Prov. 14:34) Someone has said, “Only as we do this can we exempt ourselves from one day having to look our children in the eyes and answer this searching question: “Mom and Dad, where were you the day freedom died in America?”
May the service and sacrifices of our soldiers made for freedom in America never be in vain.