July 4, 2013

Daniel 5:27-28 — This is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

The thought behind today’s devotion came, complete, during my quiet time yesterday. Words have been much more difficult to find. In the end there may be too many because there is so much to say. Forgive me, then, if that’s how you feel.

That great and sweet man of God Charles Colson wrote a book: “How Now Shall We Live?” Today’s question, this Fourth of July is similar: “How Now Shall We Pray?” How shall we pray for these United States of America?

I believe America was created under God’s guidance as a special nation – as a country with a covenant relationship with God, and as a country different in kind than others because of the religious character of its earliest founders and its birth in the fires of revolution. With that in mind, should I expect that America will follow the arc of so many great nation states from emergence, to preeminence, to triumphalism to decline and to – if not “fall” – the backwaters of insignificance? Should I rather expect that there will be a continued path of leadership into the foreseeable future? Which of these futures should a Christian prefer and pray for? Pray for a return to the Christian values of the first Americans, and to moral leadership!

It does seem that over the past twenty five years there seems to have been an unwarranted shift to a kind of triumphalism. Webster’s Dictionary defines triumphalism:

An attitude or feeling of victory or superiority: as the attitude that one religious creed is superior to all others or smug or boastful pride in the success or dominance of one’s nation or ideology over others

The crumbling of the Soviet Empire, marked especially by the destruction of the Berlin Wall seemed to some to suggest that with only one superpower left, it was America’s job to make the “big decisions” about world politics and economics. This political view was paired with the thought that Democratic capitalism had proven to be the only workable model for managing the business of nations.
This feeling of superiority was supported by a sense of well-being, of entitlement, fostered by a period of economic growth. I remember going to a conference in 1999 that suggested we had entered a golden economic age in which every financial indicator would trend forever upwards!

By now, I hope you’re feeling uneasy. After 2000 came 2001, and then the horrors of 9/11. The economic golden age thinking is long gone, swept away by the mortgage crisis of 2009 and all that followed. Triumphalism, perhaps, was just a “blip” and this unique nation will surely recognize the writing of the wall, and repent before it is too late? Will America follow the former paths back to preeminence or go on to decline and fall into irrelevance? Has the Glory of God been driven into exile forever? How should we pray? Pray for a rejection of any claims to worthless political and economic superiority!

In a speech on “Patriotism” in 1923 Calvin Coolidge said:

“If there be a destiny, it is of no avail for us unless we work with it. The ways of Providence will be of no advantage to us unless we proceed in the same direction. If we perceive a destiny in America, if we believe that Providence has been the guide, our own success, our own salvation require that we should act and serve in harmony and obedience”

I fear for America. Not for myself, not for God’s church, nor for the Kingdom. There is a heavenly government and economy that protects all believers. But I do fear for America. Hedonism – the philosophy defined by Englishman Jeremy Bentham as “avoiding pain and gaining pleasure” seems to have become the guide for many. This is a worldly, humanistic and materialistic view of life and it appears to be taking root in many American lives. Christianity takes the opposite position, the guide is “trust and obey” with “each giving preference to the other”. A Christian nation CANNOT be a hedonist nation! For America, “the pursuit of happiness” cannot mean each individual avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. If it does, there can be no return to a covenant relationship with God. Pray for Americans who do not see their lives as “consisting in the abundance of the things which they possess” but who are prepared to “act and serve in harmony and obedience”.

If we cannot turn the ship, so we will surely be weighed and found wanting, and our Kingdom – not perhaps the geographic kingdom, but the “kingdom” of moral, political and economic authority will surely be torn from us and given to “another”. On the Jefferson memorial, his prophetic words are found:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Pray with me that it is not too late. Pray that there is yet a great awakening to come as part of God’s plan for the coming of His Kingdom. Pray that, perhaps, this Fourth of July can see the dawn of a new day.