PATRIOTIC TALK – JULY 4, 2000
[Talk given by John E. Enslen at church-sponsored pancake breakfast and patriotic celebration at the
Pavilion in Wetumpka, Alabama, on July 4, 2000.]
In 1778, at the second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, George Washington sent the following written orders to his officers throughout the Continental Army:
It having pleased the Almighty Ruler of the Universe...to defend the cause of the untied American states,...to establish our liberty and independence [upon] lasting foundations, it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the divine goodness and celebrating the important event which we owe to [God’s] benign interposition.
In a letter to Thomas Nelson, written when victory was finally in sight after seven (7) long years of fighting, George Washington wrote:
The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations [to God].
After being elected President, George Washington, America’s most indispensable man, spoke these words at his first inaugural address given in 1789:
No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.
At the end of his presidency, in his final address to the Senate and the House of Representatives, George Washington again acknowledged God as the sole source of this nation’s strength:
The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced; and I cannot omit the occasion to...repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that his Providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved....
Washington knew that our nation’s happiness was inseparably connected with our nation’s virtue. He knew that happiness could not be produced from wickedness; that our strength and peace as a nation would be directly proportional to our obedience to the God who established it.
In a later and crucial period of our nation’s history, Abraham Lincoln expressed the idea that America’s greatest potential enemy would always be its own citizens, that if this nation deteriorated, it would first deteriorate from within. He described our greatest threat to national security in these words:
By what means shall we fortify against [danger]? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio [River], or make a track on the Blue Ridge [Mountains], in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all times, or die by suicide.
Is it possible that our nation is flirting with self-inflicted suicide as Abraham Lincoln warned? Is it conceivable that the death of the traditional God-fearing family could eventually mean the death of the nation? Is it conceivable that the breakdown of the family, the government’s ever-increasing assumption of unattended family responsibilities, and the ever-increasing tax burden on the backs of the people to support that increased governmental burden, could ultimately destroy the freedoms for which our forefathers fought and died? Hear the wise words of some past presidents.
President Andrew Johnson, May of 1827:
Without a [good] home there can be no good citizen. With a good home life there can be no bad one.
64 years later, President William McKinley, September 1, 1891:
The American home constitutes the strength, security, and integrity of our Government....It is the foundation of a pure national life. The good home makes the good citizen....[G]ood government necessarily follows.
15 years later, President Theodore Roosevelt, December 3, 1906:
When home ties are loosened; when men and women cease to regard a worthy family life, with all its duties fully performed, and all its responsibilities lived up to, as the life best worth living; then evil days for the commonwealth are at hand.
22 years later, President Herbert Hoover, August 11, 1928:
To me the foundation of American life rests upon the home and the family. [G]overnment [has] but one supreme end...that we strengthen the security, the happiness, and the independence of every home.
A great American patriot, former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson declared:
The home is the rock foundation, the cornerstone of civilization. This nation and others will never rise above their homes. The church, the schools, and even nations stand helpless before weakened and degraded homes.
It is sometimes tragically comical to see how our nation tries to solve massive challenges and overwhelming social problems without meaningful concern for reliance upon God or meaningful concern for the family and the family-taught virtues of chastity, honesty, and individual responsibility. In this generation, government’s chief aim, it seems, has been to seek for ways to avoid the unavoidable consequences of bad choices. As Henry David Thoreau once remarked, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, to one who is striking at the root.”
An old Chinese proverb states:
If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.
Which would be better: That the Ten Commandments be posted on the wall of every courtroom, or posted on the door of every refrigerator in every American home? Ideally, in a perfect world, perhaps they could be posted on both. However, in a perfect world, there would be no need for courtrooms.
But there is a matter which is much more important than the Ten Commandments being publicly posted at all. Posting them for viewing and living by them are two entirely different things. Knowing what is right and doing what is right are not the same. It only adds to our national hypocrisy and condemnation if the Ten Commandments are posted and not obeyed. In the second verse of America the Beautiful which will be sung momentarily, the citizens of this noble land are cautioned: “Confirm thy soul in self-control.” It is self-control taught early at the family level that gives practical application to the words “Thou Shalt Not.” John Adams once said: “The constitution is designed to govern only a moral and righteous people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I submit that there can be worn no greater uniform of patriotism than the uniform of a faithful husband and father, a loving wife and mother, a dutiful daughter or son, a caring brother or sister. Strong families make for a strong nation.
If this nation is to be preserved, it will be preserved by the citizens of this nation, especially those like yourselves, who love and cherish freedom, who prayerfully fulfill their duties and responsibilities to their family, enlightened men and women who recognize and acknowledge our dependence upon God for all individual, family, and national blessings.
Clouds of trouble will continue to hover over us, and we will solve them not, but by a turning to that same God that gave birth to this nation. It will be in living our national motto—“In God We Trust”—that we free ourselves from the ills that plague our society. True patriots uphold principles of freedom by the way they live their lives, by true devotion to God and family. The real battle for freedom will be fought literally on the “home front.” A portion of the third verse of our national anthem reads: “[F]ree men shall stand between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.”
As a nation we have weathered serious storms before. By effort and commitment, and with the help of Divine Providence, we will do so again.
In the name of Him whose nation this is, even Jesus Christ, Amen.
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