About 15 years ago, I jotted the points below from a lecture or from a book but neglected to write the source. If a reader knows the source, I would very much appreciate hearing from him or her so that I might give due credit.
The author or lecturer demonstrated that all great peoples or nations usually run a familiar course, which roughly followed the experience of the ancient Jewish people:
- God rescues a people from slavery giving them faith
- Faith gives great courage to a people
- From great courage, the people obtain great liberties
- From great liberties the people obtain great abundance
- From great abundance the people become selfish
- From selfishness the people fall into complacency
- From complacency the people fall into apathy
- From apathy the people fall into moral decay
- From moral decay the people fall into dependence
- From dependence the people fall into slavery
What we see around us is nothing new. Every great nation or empire or people has seen the same regression — including ancient Israel, as even a cursory reading of the Bible will attest: a time of great faith and great courage; a time of great liberties and prosperity; and then a time of complacency, degeneracy, dependence, and slavery: immorality and pleasure-seeking never produce growth or wealth — quite the opposite.
In the case of America, we have something additional that, although not unique, is nevertheless noteworthy: we have been busy indoctrinating several generations to hate themselves and their native or adopted land. This too has historical precedence, as, for example, the Romans refused to defend themselves from the hordes of invaders. In our case, we have been trained to hate our history and fathers. But that doesn’t mean we end up loving nothing. As someone somewhere has put it, “history abhors a vacuum”.
We now love “the other”: that which a mere generation ago was thought immoral, indecent, degenerate, tyrannical, and worse, is now what our upcoming generations are taught to “love”. We hate ourselves, but we love something completely opposite to our history and heritage. It follows that we will not defend, let alone fight for, something we hate.
And “the other” doesn’t just sit there basking in our “love” for it. No, it becomes the viper we have nursed to our bosom; it becomes our master. And nothing good can come of that.
The recent congressional brouhaha over the discovery that Communist China has been influencing the curricula in American elementary schools was much ado about nothing because we knowingly have been teaching the very same atheistic claptrap for generations, without China’s help. Her involvement now ought not to be occasion to clutch our pearls.
So, what is to be done?
There is an example in history of not too long ago which ought to give us hope.
Eighteenth Century England was a moral disaster. There are journals of proper Englishmen registering their having gone to church and successfully “feeling up” a lady or two. Drawings exist of pubs with “clean hay” or simply “hay” to sleep off drunken stupors. The “clean hay” meant that it had no vomit, as opposed to the other, which did, but was cheaper and many resorted thereto. The dog returning to his vomit proverb was very real to 17th Century England. Pornography was rampant.
The North American colonies were well aware of England’s degeneracy: the third bill of right reads:
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
During the War for Independence, British soldiers and foreign mercenaries took over private homes, in many cases assaulting or otherwise ravishing the wives and daughters. Drunken rampages were not uncommon, even among ranking officers.
England was the place where apostates like Voltaire caught the atheistic urge to spew hatred towards Christianity and took that pornographic bacteria back to France where it produced oceans of blood and violence.
Why did England not go the way of France in the 18th Century?
Well, in her fields and street corners, men such as John and Charles Wesley were preaching the Gospel and thousands were convicted and their hearts opened. George Whitefield preached in both England and also the colonies, although he died before the fruits of his ministries became visible in England.
The Lord used the preaching and teaching of His Word and Law to turn England around. A turnaround the likes of which are rarely seen — Ninevah after Jonah’s preaching comes to mind. And in the following century, she led the greatest evangelical missionary outreach in history, other than the Apostolic age. King George lost his colonies, but gained the world.
From debauchery to world conquest in one century.
Of course, this is not something wrought by human ingenuity or power. It is the work of God. But we know that many mothers and fathers in England were praying for their sons and daughters, that they would return to the old paths.
And that is the course we must ask God to help us take if we hope to see a return to the old paths here in our country, a country whose history irrefutably was founded upon eternal spiritual values which in turn made us a great nation.
John Adams said, “Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.” However, he overlooked Nineveh … and also England.
Let us listen to Jeremiah as he rebuked Judah:
“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”
May we say, “We shall walk therein.”
All the while, knowing that without the intervention of God, nations will decline and cease to be.
John Wesley, left (1703-1791) and Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
George Whitefield (1714-1770)
Voltaire (1694-1778)
The Barbarian invasions and sackings took place in the face of little to no opposition.