Author: John Page 155 of 166

Luke 19:41 “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it”

Psalm 126:5 “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Washington DC for the first time since beginning PLUS.  While I enjoyed several opportunities to pray for my country in our nation’s capital during that week, the one most poignant was during the first night.  The Lord had specifically tendered my heart for this occasion, and I had blocked off late-night time to go to the Lincoln Memorial for a period of reflection and prayer.  I began my time by reading the inspirational words of the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural carved on the memorial walls.  Both flowed with the powerful emotion of a nation engulfed in a trying military conflict that would determine its continued existence.

I then sat down on a cold marble slab, enjoying the warm and cloudless night and the inspirational view down the National Mall towards the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building, flanked by the White House and the Jefferson Memorial.  It was a striking location from which to pray for our nation.  And so I prayed … and wept.  I had never wept for my country before, but emotions swept over me as I considered a nation currently engulfed in a trying spiritual conflict that will determine its continued existence.  I wept because I love my country, and I love my God, and I love a nation under God.  I wept because I have failed to serve my country and my God as faithfully as I should.  I wept because I sensed the failure of other Christians to do the same.  I wept because our collective failure has enabled a conflict of secession, as forces continue to separate our nation from the Lord.  I wept because I was deeply burdened by such truths.

I wept because I had never previously wept for my country.  I had complained.  I had been angered.  I had felt anxiety.  I had sensed a national departure from the Lord.  Yet, I had never been so burdened that I had wept.

PLEASE PRAY THAT YOU WOULD BE DEEPLY BURDENED BY OUR NATION’S DEPARTURE FROM THE LORD.  It is only through a burdened Christian citizenry that we should expect a national reconciliation with the Lord.  Our nation is worth being wept over.

II Timothy 4:7 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

I Corinthians 12:12 “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body:  so also is Christ.”

The Constitutional federation is analogous to Christianity because that is what the Founding Fathers understood.  There are many individual courses, but one unifying Biblical faith.  There are many members, but one body.  Such a structure is characterized by the richness of diversity of character combined with a unity of doctrinal-based common purpose.  The Founding Fathers saw a proper governmental structure in the same way.

The Federalist Papers explain that government must avoid the “perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.”  In order to do so, its structure must reconcile the “advantages of monarchy with those of republicanism.”

Diversity of character is preserved in a properly constructed government by creating it as an “assemblage of societies.”  “The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power.”  The variation of such an assemblage provides a richness of diversity, but requires a unity of purpose to make it resilient and meaningful.

In the forefront of the Founder’s minds was common protection.  Thus, the government must be sufficiently unified “to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the united body” against internal and external threats.  This, and other common interests, could only be secured through unity.  “The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.”

As an “assemblage of societies,” American Christians need to unify in purpose to wrestle back our nation to its Bible-based roots.  Our aggregate interests demand that we return to a foundation that embraces Christ instead of rejecting Him.  PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD UNIFY IN PURPOSE IN ORDER TO RETURN AMERICA TO ITS CHRISTIAN ROOTS.  Without sacrificing our individual character and the autonomy of the local church, we must promote our safety and security, prosperity and well-being.  Otherwise, our nation will continue towards the extremes of tyranny and anarchy against our aggregate interests.

Romans 3:10 “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one”

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”

As the Constitutional Convention ended in 1787, a major concern remained about the possibility of State ratification.  In order to promote this one-of-a-kind document, three Founding Fathers began publishing a series of essays to explain its wisdom.  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay writing under the pseudonym ‘Publius’ authored 85 essays that better reveal the intent of the Constitution than any other source.  Their writings, now consolidated in The Federalist Papers, make clear that the Constitutional architects understood human nature from a Biblical basis.

Sin and dispute were recognized as man’s natural state.  In Federalist Number 10, Madison wrote: “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that where no substantial occasion presents itself the most frivolous and fanciful distractions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.” Indeed, the Founders saw that “the latent causes of faction are thus sown into the nature of man.”  This faction is so fundamental, that it could at best only be controlled: “The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.”

The form of government as created by the Constitution took these important truths into account such that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”  In Federalist Number 51, Madison further describes the need for such a structure.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.  In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this:  you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

It was these fundamental truths upon which the American government was formed.  They were Biblical truths known to Founding Fathers and to the majority of the colonial citizens.  It was an argument that the Federalist authors knew would resonate with the population to support the need for a “well-constructed Union” that could “break and control the violence of faction.

The entirety of the Constitution was founded on this basic Biblical truth about the nature of man.  As we drift away from a Constitutional basis, we drift away from a Biblical basis.  As we drift away from a Constitutional basis, we ignore the truths about human nature from which we cannot escape.  As we drift away from a Constitutional basis, we ignore reality and cling to fantasy.  As we drift away from a Constitutional basis, we diverge from this foundational truth that has allowed our government such success over the decades.  PLEASE PRAY THAT WE WOULD RETURN TO THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF OUR WELL-CONSTRUCTED UNION.

Psalm 127:1 “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it:  except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

The Founding Fathers saw the Lord’s hand at work in building the structure of their government through the US Constitution.  As they stepped away from their time as a part of the Constitutional Convention 226 years ago yesterday, they sensed that the Lord had guided them throughout those sweltering four months in Philadelphia.

James Madison: “It is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.”

George Washington: The Constitution “will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it.”

Alexander Hamilton “For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.”

The exceptional American experiment was not in vain because it was the Lord who had built the house.  Yet, this experiment is failing because we are drifting away from the building plans and the builder Himself.  PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICANS WOULD CLING TO THE FOUNDATIONAL ASPECTS OF OUR NATION.  Our national labour will be in vain if we do not.

Matthew 7:24-25 “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not:  for it was founded upon a rock.”

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made news by conducting foreign policy via an op-ed in The New York Times.  In the midst of an opinion piece oozing with hypocrisy and errantly equating individual equality in God’s eyes with equality among institutions, Putin made a bold assertion not supported by history – America is unexceptional.  Alexis de Tocqueville would disagree:

“I have expressed enough to characterize Anglo-American civilization in its true colors.  This civilization is the result (and this is something we must always bear in mind) of two quite distinct ingredients which anywhere else have often ended in war, but which Americans have succeeded somehow to meld together in wondrous harmony; namely the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty.”

While de Tocqueville saw these concepts at cross-purposes in his European homeland, he saw them “intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land” in America.  To him, this harmony and the land that enjoyed it was truly exceptional.

Importantly, the source of our exceptionalism is more fundamental than even these concepts.  It comes from two foundations, one built upon another.  The first is the foundation of the universe, the Lord Himself.  We can be exceptional as a nation only as much as we are a reflection of Him as individual citizens and as a society.  The second is the foundation of the nation, the US Constitution.  When the Constitutional Convention ended 226 years ago this week, on September 17, 1787, the Founding Fathers had created a foundational document that enshrined Biblical principles and translated them into a governmental structure.  These two foundations are exceptional in their own right, allowing America to be exceptional as well.

Sadly though, Putin may be partially right for a reason that would be foreign to him.  It’s not that exceptionalism is errant and dangerous, but that it is waning in America.  Indeed, it is waning because we have drifted from our exceptional foundations.  PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICA WOULD RETURN TO THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE LORD AND THE CONSTITUTION.  As the wise man builds his house upon a steady foundation, so too would a wise and exceptional nation hold tight to its steady foundation.  Anything else would be unexceptional.  It will fail when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow.