America's Heritage: Have You Ever Heard It This Way Before?
by Pastor Art Kohl

Introduction   

Having grown up in a humanistic educational system, my eyes were shocked to read the true heritage of our country. At first, I felt bitterness towards teachers, because the whole truth was not taught. Then I felt robbed because of great extremes that were taken by textbooks to cover it up. Now I feel frustration towards a generation of young people, brainwashed by atheism (the foundation of humanism,) completely unaware of the FACT that our heritage is Christian! The current onslaught of government against the Christian school movement is a peculiar one. No one seems to understand that our educational systems today started in the early churches of America. The Roman Catholic school system started as a result of Catholics having nowhere to send their children but to Protestant schools. The public school system is a "Johnny-Come-Lately" compared to these.

In social studies classes I became familiar with names like Christopher Columbus, William Bradford, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, etc. However, left out of these studies were their motivations, which all took great pains to write down so we wouldn't forget!

Our Heritage  

Christopher Columbus only wrote one book in his lifetime, called "The Book of Prophecy." He was a saved, Bible-believing, child of God. He said, "I am a most unworthy sinner, but I cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy and he hath covered me completely .... so I embrace my Savior and enjoy His marvelous presence." That's salvation! The Bible says, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." It is not a lifetime of works, religion, sacraments, ordinances, confirmation, penance, baptism, prayers, catechism, rituals, etc. Those can never save anyone! Rather it is simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood on the cross which cleanses us from all sin. When a person is saved like this, the person of the Holy Spirit lives in them, illuminates the Bible, God's word and makes it understandable to them. Columbus continued, "It was the Lord who put it into my mind. I could tell His hand was upon me, the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration to sail was from the Holy Spirit because He comforted me with rays of illumination from the Holy Scriptures. I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps. It is simply a fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied. The fact that the gospel must be preached to so many, in such a short time, this is what convinces me."

Columbus read Isaiah 40:22, which states that the earth is round. The most advanced scientific theory of his day said that it was flat. "If you sail," they said, "you will fall off the end of the earth." Columbus believed God more than man. THAT'S HOW AMERICA WAS DISCOVERED!!! Were you taught this?

William Bradford, concerning Plymouth Colony, (1606-1646), wrote, "An inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation or at least to make some way there unto for the propagation of the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in the remote part of the world." Freedom of religion was our heritage, not freedom from it. Looking at the completed Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, James Madison said, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it! We have staked the power of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of man for self government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control and to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." Today the Ten Commandments are not even allowed to be posted in schools. What would the ACLU have done to the framers of our constitution? They tried to sue President Reagan for declaring 1983 the "Year-of-the-Bible." The Bible was our heritage! James Madison said it.

The New England Confederation, May 19, 1643, states plainly, "We came here namely to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel with purity and peace."

The first charter of Virginia, April 10, 1606, has stated for the past 378 years these words, "We greatly commending and greatly accepting of their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work, which made by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty in the propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."

George Washington's character is shown in these orders to the troops on July 4, 1775, one year before Independence Day. He ordered, "The general most earnestly requires and expects a due observance of those articles of war established for the government of the army which forbids profane cursing, profanity and drunkenness and in like manner requires all officers and soldiers not engaged in actual duty a punctual attendance of divine services to implore the blessings of Heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense." Can you imagine if President Reagan would have said that to his troops. The liberal press would have exploded!

The Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 men who promised their lives, fortunes and sacred honor and most of them gave all of that, many dying horrible deaths. This document says, "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." These men weren't atheists, agnostics or humanists! They went on later to talk about the Supreme Judge of the universe. Read the document.

American has forgotten our heritage, because we have forgotten our God! Can we honestly call it "One nation under God?" Do we really trust in God as our currency declares? Or has hypocrisy infiltrated our society as much as our churches?

Ben Franklin said, "In the beginning, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sirs, were answered. All of us who engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. HAVE WE FORGOTTEN that powerful friend or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived a long time, sirs, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see, that God rules in the affairs of men!" The congress then went to prayer and has continued to do so every morning till this present day, that which school children are not allowed to do in school.

Our problem: "We have been the recipients of the choicest blessings of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown, BUT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD ...we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our own hearts, that all blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves to the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for ..... forgiveness," Abraham Lincoln. Amen, sir!

Conclusion  

This is our heritage. Have you learned this way? Psalms 9:17 says, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Let us turn back to the God of our forefathers; The Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can save our nation as well as your soul.

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