By John Mitchell
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties 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 forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own…” (Presidential Proclamation – April 1863). And those words are truer today than they ever were in Abraham Lincoln’s day.
Drained by war, torn by crime, sick with drug abuse, ridden with immorality, driven with lust, stricken with senseless procrastination, lack of purpose, flagging loyalty, and spiritual poverty, a great nation looks over the edge into chaos. We don’t know why we are. America has no great cause. There is no great goal toward which we unitedly press. There is no great single unifying bond, no common spiritual dedication; no deep transcendental purpose for which we strive. Never before has there been a time when Americans found they could argue by merely mentioning the name of their country.
Today Americans disagree about America. Some aren’t even sure what America is. Great voices of protest are heard from every conceivable source. Sneers from young, would-be revolutionaries are answered by hoarse shouts from hard hats and super-patriots. The “Make America Great Again” bumper sticker is answered by the “Make America smart again, Impeach Trump” slogan. Some say America is falling apart. Others say America has never been better. Politicians, sensing the public weariness over the past eight years of gloomy reports, plead for a “what’s good about America” dialogue. The rhetoric of conservative leaders is answered by the acidic tongue of the ultra liberal, or the young rabid “New Leftist”, such as the newly elected congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Incisive analysis of society’s ills has always brought rebuttal and disagreement. But the vicious attacks and language used is something we are not used to in America. There was a time when both sides could argue their ideals and positions, each born out of a sense of what was best for this country. Some have said at the end of debates, “We are all patriots.” Really? No, all are not patriots for America or American ideals.
Where went our patriotism? Did something kill it? Did it just gradually die? Patriotism is, after all, a deep, prideful love of one’s country, a thankful appreciation for the freedoms and liberties bought at such a dear cost by the tens of thousands who paid the most horrible of prices. Patriotism is love of country and love FOR country. But like the love within a tight knit family, a completely patriotic American can become very, very angry at trends within his or her country. Just as parents who dearly love their children can become angry when they witness the child making a decision they know will harm them. Patriotism can never be blind flag waving, a star-spangled refusal to admit family difficulties, a blind determination to remain studiously ignorant of deep family sickness.
Today, youthful Americans chide the super-patriots with insistent flag waving by literally dressing in the flag. Red, white and blue sells more than any other color combination at the moment. Shorts, jeans, shirts, ponchos, hats and posters with anti establishment rhetoric attached are the “dress uniform” of the day for the teeming throngs of paid “useful idiots” who, when asked what they are protesting, have absolutely no clue. Most have no idea of who America is and most importantly, why America is.
The reason is that we have become so affluent that the knowledge and reason for why America is America has lead us to a generation of people who have forgotten how to sacrifice; who were never taught why we are so blessed or how to have a love of and for America. To quote former President Ronald Reagan as he assessed this condition: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Most Americans have forgotten how to sacrifice. We’re sick, and our greatest sickness is our stubborn refusal to acknowledge our own moral and spiritual poverty. To diagnose our many illnesses is to invite snorts and sneers from a rising number of “super patriots” whose stock in trade is the big-business Chamber of Commerce attitude of “Let’s talk about what’s right about America.” Fine, let us do so… We are the greatest single power the world has ever known. We have risen to dizzying heights of technological development and scientific achievements. American footprints dot the moon. Our language, our culture, our products have girdled the globe. We have been blessed with the most fabulously rich piece of real estate on this good earth. Our standard of living has risen to material heights never imagined in the science fiction of yesteryear. We’re rich! Filthy rich! But, where did we get our wealth? How did we get rich in the first place? The fabulous lands of our peoples, our mineral resources, our natural stands of timber, our sprawling grazing and farm lands, our almost endless coastlines, our strategic sea gates, our favorable climates, our very inventive genius and ingenuity; all were given to us by the God this generation has forgotten.
The Biblical Patriarch Jacob foretold the fantastic wealth of America. He said in:
GENESIS 49: 22-26, “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall; his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob even by the God of thy Father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty who shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above [meaning our climate and general weather conditions], blessings of the deep that lieth under [our minerals, coal, oil, gas and natural resources], blessings of the breasts, and of the womb [our longer life expectancy and generally better health]: the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was chief among his brethren.”
Yes, we’re very rich. And we’re also very sick. Sick with our own affluence––with crime, pornography, disease, unemployment, inflation, divorce, massive urban crises and racial inequality. Our most precious national resource, our youth, are sick. Today, our nation’s youth spurn and reject almost every facet of all that can be called the “status quo” achieved by the older generation. They are sick to death of lying, cheating, double standards. They are sick of the “Do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy of a generation of self-seekers whose goals of materialism have resulted in the conditions presently around us. They are sick of useless wars––undeclared, unnecessary, and unfinished. But one sickness doesn’t heal another. Two wrongs never make a right.
America desperately needs a great cause. She needs a vital, living, noble, just purpose. Perhaps it’s not too late for the younger generation to succeed where their elders have failed. Maybe they can yet catch the vision of a great cause, a dynamic goal which calls for, and is worthy of, great sacrifice.
In his inaugural address, President Nixon said, “We find ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit.” He said that ours is a “crisis of the spirit,” and added that, to solve “…a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.” But what has happened to the spirit of America? Where went our pride?
There are reasons for a decline in patriotism. There are reasons for our spiritual poverty, our moral sickness. We Won the War, and Lost the Peace! After September 1945, Americans could get back to the business of their own private lives. That global conflict, which had called upon Americans for the highest kind of sacrifice, was over. The world had been made safe for democracy, or so we thought.
Americans had fought against the very embodiment of evil and they had, together with their Allies, won. With the last enemy vanquished and the documents of total surrender signed, the only remaining task was to clean up the loose ends of war. For the majority, it was time for a transition into an era of peace and prosperity. But with the explosion of a nuclear bomb by our former ally, Russia, Americans soon began receiving an insistent and obvious message: The world had not been made safe for democracy after all. World War II had not been the war to end all wars. Suddenly, the specter of all-out nuclear war loomed large.
Then came the Korean War. Korea changed America and very few have realized how drastic the change was. To understand what’s been happening to us, we need only to look back as far as 1950. We lost in Korea and therein lies the answer to “Where went our Why.” Since Korea, America has not had a victory. Her sons have fought in far corners of the world in undeclared wars for “limited political objectives,” led by civilians. The one bright moment in what became a tiresome series of humiliating defeats, stalemates and docile subservience to piracy was the Cuban Missile Crisis. But even that was short-lived. We wound up with a stalemate in Korea. We hoped for the same type of stalemate in Vietnam. Today stalemate is still the name of the game; not all out war for total victory.
History is written that successive generations may learn from it. In Korea, America wrote history in the blood of her sons, husbands and fathers. But we failed to read and learn from that lesson. After the tens of thousands of rotting corpses were either buried or left to decay on the rugged, icy slopes of Korea, after a major war had sapped American military and economic strength, the world had learned a lesson: They learned that the United States’ will could be challenged. That the pride in her power was flagging. That fourth-rate countries with vastly inferior industrial, economic and military strength could test America’s might time and time again and find it weakened, unsure, and cautious. And so for the first time Americans tried to fight a conventional war for limited political purposes, for limited military objectives, with “conditioned response” and the piecemeal contribution of military hardware and personnel. Make no mistake. Korea was an absolute turning point of recent history. It was the first big crack in the PRIDE of America’s power.
The cruelest thing one human being can inflict upon another human being is to take away his confidence, his pride. To strip the manhood, the moral courage, the volition from another is to subject him, utterly, to the cruelest sort of torment. It kills his spirit. The unsatisfactory conclusion to the Korean War was a cruel blow to the manhood of America. A little time had been bought, but at enormous cost. Perhaps it is good few Americans realized in 1952 how terribly soon another useless conflict, for the same limited objectives, with the same inevitable outcome, would be joined. To have known in the early ‘50s that the same agonizing task was to be attempted all over again might have been even more disastrous to American will and resolve than the actual occurrence.
“Limited objective” became the byword. With it came confused aims. Most Americans would never understand painful, prolonged struggle over worthless real estate for limited political objectives. They could understand fighting for home, and for country. They could understand fighting against the forces of evil and to make the world safe for Democracy. But they would never understand fighting for limited goals, simply to “demonstrate” to an enemy, or to “inspire” others. Once the “Peace” talks began, it was lost on none of the troops that the war just might be over at any moment. Every common soldier knew in his heart that his commanders, all the way up to the highest diplomatic levels, did not want victory. They did not want North Korea, they wanted truce. Each fighting man knew in his heart he would never see the Yalu River bordering Communist China; that he would never drive the enemy from North Korea.
Americans proved they were willing to die to make men free. They were willing to fight, and if need be, die for their own homeland, or for the preservation of their own way of life, their freedoms and liberties, their loved ones, and their sons and daughters. They could fight like no other soldiers when it was for victory, when it was to conquer, to enforce a total surrender upon a hated foe. But could they fight with the same spirit for “limited political objectives” in a strange country to carry out their part as functionary of worldwide geopolitical considerations? They proved, in World War II, and again in Korea, and in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that they are superb warriors. They proved they can win. But they also proved in Korea, in Vietnam, today in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they need to fight for a cause more than an order, for a victory more than stalemate, for territory rather than for attrition. When viewing the Korean War and the Vietnam War with all their futility, in retrospect it makes our current situation in our wars in the Middle East, and the protracted struggle of these past eighteen years, all the more incomprehensible.
To break the pride of a people, you must first break their spirit. Then make their purposes only selfish, personal ones. Make life and peace and the materialistic goals of an affluent society more urgently important to them than sacrifice for a transcendental cause. To break the pride of a people, you must have them greedy, sick with lust, insatiable with desire for orgiastic abandon. You must continually wear down their national pride, their God-given purpose, their deep loyalty to the whole family living within one concept of government, one blessed land they call home.
The pride in our power is gone. Our spirit has been broken. Something has been steadily killing us. We have no single, grand goal toward which we unitedly press. We envision no great purpose which calls from us individual and collective sacrifice. We are ennobled by no special, unique pursuits which are righteous in a world filled with unrighteousness. We have compromised our morals, made futile our religions, destroyed our families, corrupted our youth.
What caused it all? We forgot the God who gave us our freedoms and liberties! We forsook the Creator who blessed and enriched us above all peoples who have ever walked the earth. Our laymen plunged into materialism with greedy delight, and our churchmen gave their blessing, calling the breaking of God’s Ten Commandments a “new morality.” As a nation, we have forgotten God. We do not keep His laws. And that same God says to us:
Leviticus 26:18-20, “And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.”
It’s been broken. We don’t keep the Ten Commandments. Can anyone, in good sense, deny the connection? “And I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass, and your strength shall be spent in vain.” We have spent our strength, oh, how we’ve spent it. We have wasted our energies, our vast wealth, our young men and women; we have spent enormously, vastly, prodigiously. And we have done it all in vain. We have spent our homes and families, our farms and produce, our factories and their products. We have spent our time and our concern. We have spent dearly, all in vain.
Something terrible has happened to America. What has been broken is the inner core of a healthy, viable people. Some leaders have recognized what had made America great. The late economist, Roger Babson said, “The test of a nation is the growth of its people––physically, intellectually, and spiritually.” Money and so-called prosperity are of very little account. Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, and Britain all had their turn in being the richest in the world. Instead of saving them, their so-called prosperity ruined them. Our nation is now rated the richest, but it could easily become a second class nation and head downward. Money will not save us. Crops will not save us. Trade wars will not save us. Stock Exchanges and banks will not save us. Only a sane spiritual revival which changes the desires of our people will save us. We must be filled with a desire to render service, to seek peace through strength rather than security through weakness, to put character ahead of profits. Even the Republic for which our fathers fought and bled could result in our downfall.
Those who disagree, including the super-patriots who want to hear nothing except “what’s right about America,” insist that only a small number of individuals are really sick; that too much publicity is given to the evils in society, and that society is really no worse than it has ever been. They see America as only a little confused, perhaps temporarily procrastinating, but not really sick. But America is really sick; the diagnosis is spiritual cancer, and the disease could be fatal!
It’s not too late for America to see the vastness of her sins, just as she has recognized the vastness of her wealth. It is not too late for a spiritual answer to our deepest problems of the spirit. But it’s much, much later than you think.
The measure of a nation’s greatness is not its industrial capacity, not its natural resources, not its GDP. It is the quality of the character of its people. America has been losing its character upon which it was founded. The question is, have we lost the will and ability as a nation to repent before God, whose guiding hand inspired our founding? Can you envision government leaders dropping to their knees in real heartfelt repentance before God, crying out to Him to deliver us from our awesome national problems? “Ridiculous!” some would say. And because such a picture of national repentance is so “ridiculous” to even imagine, our peoples are headed for perhaps the greatest national punishment that ever came on any nation. Notice this prophecy from the book of Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 9:9, “The iniquity of the House of Israel [our modern English-speaking peoples] and Judah is exceeding great and the land is full of blood [America leads the world in crime] and the city full of perverseness [our cities have become asphalt jungles of crime, immorality, drug addiction and sensuous pleasure seeking], for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and, the Lord seeth not.”
And isn’t that exactly what millions say today? “God doesn’t exist,” “He’s gone way off somewhere,” “He’s gone into retirement.” But God is not in retirement. He really does exist. And He does say in His Word that He punishes people who are constantly breaking His laws and bringing the awesome problems we see everywhere around us today upon themselves. It does matter to Him how we live!
Ezekiel 7:3-4, “Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.”
Does this sound a little vague, perhaps a little archaic? A little too much like “Old Testament Fire and Brimstone?” Don’t delude yourself! God is going to punish our peoples severely for our national and individual crimes and sins unless we really repent and turn to Him.
So far, God is not yet directly punishing our peoples. He is merely letting us kill ourselves. He is letting us suffer the automatic consequences of our own ways. We abuse the earth He gave us, polluting our rivers and streams with pesticides and chemicals. We kill the nutrients in the soil, striving by our own humanly devised mechanical means to produce crops. God says, “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee” (Jeremiah 2:19), and “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thine help” (Hosea 13:9).
With all that, in His great mercy Our Creator says, “It’s not too late for America yet.” We could still repent; and He would help us. Notice the conditions: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever,” (Jeremiah 7:3-7). Otherwise a national captivity and scattering of our peoples to the four winds is foretold in the book of Ezekiel (5:11-12.)
Right now our current leadership is striving with all they have to restore America’s pride, its power. Our economy is the strongest in the world, our rebuilt military the best fighting machine on this planet. There are more jobs now than there are people to fill them. What a great position to be in. We are the world’s leader in energy of all types and we are starting to export it to other nations to reduce the influence of bad actor nations that dominated Europe with their energy exports through political blackmail. A feeling of pride in America is swelling once again in the hearts and minds of true patriotic citizens. Yes, we appear to be on the way to restoring America to her God given example to the world. But will it last?
God says He’s willing, if we are. He wants us to repent individually and collectively as a nation. If we do then He will forgive and restore what was taken away and what defined us, the “why” of America, which is the proper pride of our power among the nations. If we don’t, then all our efforts, both the individual citizens and the leaders of America, will find once more (and perhaps for the last time) our pride will be broken and we will have spent our strength in vain. God, please help us to choose to repent and be your people. The future of America hangs in the balance.
