The Multi-Cultural, Non-Denominational Quarterly Magazine that
EVANGELIZES, EDUCATES & EDIFIES!
©2010 All rights reserved. View Copyright Notice.
July - Sept. 2010
By Carmencita H. Acosta
This Nation Under God
I was a student way back then when I first stood awestruck in front of the Lincoln Memorial In Washington, D.C.
Awestruck not because of the imposing structure and its equally magnificent interior but because of the person in whose memory it was built.
Abraham Lincoln was and is my favorite personality in world history. I had studied American history with keen delight, and my favorite chapters were those on the Civil War and the president who labored to keep the United States of America one nation undivided.
As students we had to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address, as well as the last paragraph of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. My curiosity had been greatly aroused and in my off hours from school, I read Lincoln's biography and speeches.
Here was a man great in stature because he was elected to govern an entire nation, but whose landmark virtues were humility, utter dependence on God and most importantly, boldness to proclaim his reliance on God.
A century before Lincoln, the founding fathers of America and its succeeding generations of leaders had ever expressed their awareness of God's sovereign role in history. The Declaration of Independence expressed this awareness over and again in the now immortal document whose first two paragraphs make mention of God. The document ends beautifully thus:
"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
Lincoln touchingly ended his Gettysburg Address, as follows:
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
A nation under God: America has risen to become the world's most powerful nation because its foundation is solid. I am reminded of Luke 7: 47- 49 which quotes Jesus Christ:
"Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom He is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. And when the flood arose, the streams beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation. against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great." (New King James version)
In the more recent 20th century, president Dwight David Eisenhower authorized the following phrase to be added to the Official Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, namely, "one nation under God."
This "Pledge" is one of the most solemn in the world's archives :
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all."
Today, as the sinister forces of alien ideologies and godless concepts invade America and once more threaten to divide the nation, it is the bounden duty of every American Christian to exert more than ordinary efforts to uphold and protect its rock foundation. The enemies have their wrecking ball and bulldozer from hell trying to destroy that foundation.
Silence is not the way to confront evil. The way is to proclaim the Gospel, to make a united stand for God - so that the forces of hell acting in human foes may tremble and realize that the United States is and ever will be a nation under God.
Awestruck not because of the imposing structure and its equally magnificent interior but because of the person in whose memory it was built.
Abraham Lincoln was and is my favorite personality in world history. I had studied American history with keen delight, and my favorite chapters were those on the Civil War and the president who labored to keep the United States of America one nation undivided.
As students we had to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address, as well as the last paragraph of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. My curiosity had been greatly aroused and in my off hours from school, I read Lincoln's biography and speeches.
Here was a man great in stature because he was elected to govern an entire nation, but whose landmark virtues were humility, utter dependence on God and most importantly, boldness to proclaim his reliance on God.
A century before Lincoln, the founding fathers of America and its succeeding generations of leaders had ever expressed their awareness of God's sovereign role in history. The Declaration of Independence expressed this awareness over and again in the now immortal document whose first two paragraphs make mention of God. The document ends beautifully thus:
"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
Lincoln touchingly ended his Gettysburg Address, as follows:
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
A nation under God: America has risen to become the world's most powerful nation because its foundation is solid. I am reminded of Luke 7: 47- 49 which quotes Jesus Christ:
"Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom He is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. And when the flood arose, the streams beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation. against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great." (New King James version)
In the more recent 20th century, president Dwight David Eisenhower authorized the following phrase to be added to the Official Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, namely, "one nation under God."
This "Pledge" is one of the most solemn in the world's archives :
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all."
Today, as the sinister forces of alien ideologies and godless concepts invade America and once more threaten to divide the nation, it is the bounden duty of every American Christian to exert more than ordinary efforts to uphold and protect its rock foundation. The enemies have their wrecking ball and bulldozer from hell trying to destroy that foundation.
Silence is not the way to confront evil. The way is to proclaim the Gospel, to make a united stand for God - so that the forces of hell acting in human foes may tremble and realize that the United States is and ever will be a nation under God.
Carmencita H. Acosta is a born-again Christian and award-winning journalist. She is presently associate editor of an English newspaper and its magazine published in Manila. She is presently a volunteer internet evangelist for Global Media Outreach, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International. She was also a volunteer telephone counselor for the Asia Prayer Center, a ministry of of Total Television Network (TCT). She has written a Christian-oriented English grammar textbook now being used in Christian schools. She is fluent in both English and Spanish.
