Transcript

Without God and the Bible, there would be no United States of America

>> Stephen McDowell: Hello. I'm glad you are joining us for this edition of America's Providential History. We've been looking in the last number of podcasts at God's hand in the beginning of the United States of America. And we have seen that without God and the Bible, there would be no United States of America as we know it. Because Christianity was the source of the birth, growth, development of the United States. It's the source of our laws. We see Christians and ministers involved in every aspect of the founding of this nation. And we looked at how God miraculously worked on, behalf of America to bring about his purposes to giving birth to a unique nation in history. And then in the last few podcasts we've looked under this new era of liberty that it come to mankind under this American Christian constitutional federal republic built upon Christian self government, that there was freedom for men to act and benefit from the fruit of their labor. There was Christian liberty that enabled them to carry on the mission that God had given to man from the very beginning. And as they planted these seeds of liberty, we began to look that much good fruit began to be produced in many, many areas and areas of invention and advancement and agriculture and education and so many different areas. And so while this was occurring and wherever you go actually and plant God's seeds of liberty, you will see advancement that's actually occurring in many nations in the world today. But there's always a challenge to liberty. And while liberty began to flourish, there's always the challenge of sinful man, the challenge of demonic forces, just pushing against the tendency of man to become stagnant and the fire in his heart to grow cold. So there's always a need for continual, energetic faith. See, with increasing liberty comes the need for increasing character and principled citizens to support that liberty. Such citizens that gave birth to liberty in the first place. But each generation has to maintain that freedom and liberty for themselves. That's why as we looked in the last podcast, the importance of biblical education to pass on liberty to next generations. Because biblical education produces character, the character and worldview necessary to live free. Every generation must embrace, this. So without this internal support, a free society will quickly become depraved. This first occurs in man's heart, but will quickly express itself in society. So this leads to a need for greater external constraints which leads to loss of liberty. So if man loses his Christian self government, this then causes external governments, civil governments in particular, to grow larger and larger, which restricts our rights and liberties because as we've mentioned in the past, historically, we see, and the Bible teaches this, that with the rise of centralized governmental power, it always indicates or leads to a loss of individual personal liberty. And so revival is needed for liberty to grow. We touched on the fact that the First Great Awakening in America was the seed that gave birth to the American Christian Revolution. but God knows that man has a tendency to become stagnant, if you will, and he has continually sent revival. See, revival is just an awakening of the heart and mind of man, but it's more than just an awakening. It's more than just transformation of individuals. But true revival is permanently encoded within a society by changed laws and changed institutions. This certainly happened during the First Great Awakening, happened during the Protestant Reformation. So America, as we've discussed in recent podcasts, began to grow. It began to prosper. But with this prosperity and accumulation of ease and wealth, people began to forget God. Their internal fire began to go out. And so God in His mercy spurred, this renewal, this revival, by sending forth the truth of the Bible, by sending forth preachers to proclaim this truth. And, as it has in earlier America, the Bible spurred numerous revivals. The Bible spurred revival the last 2000 years, but in American history in particular. And so there was a need for revival. This is the point. And God sent an awakening, what we call the Second Great Awakening. And this began to, impact in the late 1700s and then into the early 1800s, the first phase of this second great awakening. And it would continue on and off really for decades. As the First Great Awakening took place over a number of decades, so did the Second Great Awakening. Now, one aspect of this Second Great Awakening, as it impacted the western frontier, now of course the west in the early 1800s was Kentucky. That was the western part of the nation. And one unique aspect of this is what has come to be known or came to be known as camp meetings. And camp meetings were a gathering of thousands of people, tens of thousands in some of these camp meetings, where people came from all over the, western wilderness or all over Kentucky at this time to hear preachers preaching the good news of the gospel and see the demonstration of God's power. And people would come, come in their wagons and would camp out, you know, because these meetings were going for days and days or week, and, so people would camp out. That's why they were called camp meetings. Now there was a famous camp meeting called the Cane Ridge Revival took place in May of 1801. It was organized by Barton Stone at the invitation of Daniel Boone Daniel Boone was an early explorer in Kentucky and, he recognized, hey, we, we need the influence of the Christian faith. And so he invited ministers to come. So this Cane Ridge revival was a six day camp meeting. Over 20,000 people attended, which is phenomenal number because perhaps the, population of Kentucky at this time might have been 75,000 people and you had up to 20,000. In a later camp meeting of 1805, 25,000 people attended one of these meetings. A third of the population of Kentucky came to hear numerous preachers. You'd have six, seven preachers, stationed around these huge crowds, preaching all at the same time. And this because of meetings like this. The frontier was set ablaze and many impacted by that. In fact, it was in a camp meeting in 1805 that Abraham Lincoln's mother and father, who were not yet married, were greatly impacted at one of these revival meetings. They later got married and in 1809 gave birth to Lincoln. And future podcasts will talk about Abraham, Lincoln and his faith. We see that this was one aspect of the Second Great Awakening, these camp meetings. But aspects of the Second Great Awakening flowed throughout all the states. Up in New England, this brought revival in many established churches, churches that began to lose their faith or were dying. God swept through there and many were converted. In fact, Noah Webster, we've discussed him, the founding father of American education and scholarship. He was converted in, some of these meetings that took place there in Connecticut where he lived. His wife and daughter went to, one of these revival meetings and were impacted. And they went home and said, no, you need to come and listen to this. He came, was convicted and gave his life to the Lord. In 1808, just when he was beginning work on his American dictionary, the English language. So many individuals who brought advancements in various spheres of life. We've touched on these. Noah Webster in the area of education. Cyrus McCormick in the area of invention, venting the reaper and a new business, a making and selling Reaper. Samuel F.B. morse. these were individuals who were impacted during this Second Great Awakening and enabled them to accomplish their mission.

Over half a million people were converted through Charles Finney's ministry

Another individual impacted during the Second Great Awakening was a gentleman by the name of Charles Finney. He lived from 1792 to 1875. And he was, it was said of Charles Finney, after he was impacted by the gospel and began to fulfill his call to go and proclaim the truth. It was said of him, when he opened his mouth, he was aiming a gun. When he spoke, bombardment began. The effects of his speaking were almost unparalleled. In modern history. Over half a million people were converted through his ministry. In an age when there was no amplifiers or bass communications, he spearheaded a revival which literally altered the course of history. Interestingly, not surprisingly, Charles Finney was converted due to the influence of Blackstone's Law Commentaries. See, Charles Finney was studying to be a lawyer. And at this time, all lawyers would have studied Blackstone Commentaries of the Laws of England. And he gives a biblical view of law, biblical understanding of law. in essence, any law contrary to God's higher law is no law at all, as Blackstone would say. And most every individual involved in law would understand at this time. And so he read in there what Blackstone had to say about law and the Creator from which law flowed. And that was what, caused him to repent of his sins and give his life to the Lord and immediately began to go and proclaim the gospel. And through his life over the decades that followed, as I said, over half a million people were converted and many greatly impacted. And so Christianity continued to be the predominant force in the first half of the 1800s. And it can be seen through many things. These Christians started the American Tract Society in order to have publications that they would send around America and around the world. The American Sunday School union formed in 1824. Young Men's Christian association, the YMCA, started in Boston in 1851 in the US and Young Women's YWCA in Boston in 1866. So the, there's the founding of many Bible societies and abolition societies, philanthropic societies you can see taking place here in the early mid part of the 1800s. This is one aspect of the revival in the heart of men. True revival manifests itself externally in transforming men. Millions converted to the Christian faith, but then also providing a culture and atmosphere of truth, of light and salt. Salt and light. They recognized as Jesus told us, we're to be salt and light, to be preservers, to bring transformation wherever we go. Because that's what salt and light does. When light comes into a situation, it illuminates and transforms what it comes in contact with. And salt does as well. The founding fathers of America, those men who gave us the Declaration and Constitution, gave birth to our nation, Most all of these were Christian individuals. And one indication of that is seen by how many of them were involved in helping start Bible societies. They started these Bible societies because they recognized every American needs to have access to the Bible. We need to do everything we can to see that the Bible is made available to each individual. The truth of the Bible gets out. So you have men like John Marshall, that Chief justice, influential chief justice. In the early 1800s, he also served as the vice president of the American Bible Society. You have James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution, was the president of the Baltimore Bible Society. You have John Langdon, signer of the Constitution, vice president of the American Bible Society. John Quincy Adams, who is not only the president and served in many capacities in civil government, was vice president of the American Bible Society. so on and on and on, we could see that the founding fathers of America, the signers of the Declaration, From James Burrell, DeWitt Clinton, Caleb Strong, John Hamilton, John Jay, First Chief Justice, Charles Coatsworth, Pinckney, Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Rush, and on and on. These people were leaders in civil government, but they also were leaders in starting local Bible societies and later the National Bible Society or the American Bible Society. In 1816, 35 Bible societies, now these were started in different states and localities, cities, many by founding fathers, came together, let's start a Bible Society to disperse, the Bible among our fellow citizens. But in 1816, 35 of these came together to form the American Bible Society. Elias Boudinot, who had served as a president of the continental Congress in 1782, this would have been under the Articles of Confederation. He became the first president of the American Bible Society. So one of the presidents of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, this would have been before the U.S. constitution, also served as the first president of the American bible society. 85 other Bible societies joined within its first year. And this formed the foundation of the American Bible Society, which, over since that time, has distributed hundreds of millions of copies of the Bible or books of the Bible throughout America and throughout the world. And so Founding fathers, John Jay, Benjamin Rush, John Quincy Adams, John Marshall, John Langdon, James McHenry, for example, also founded Bible societies. And so, missions movements, were flourishing during this time as well. Missionaries were sent out. Missionaries. Of course, we had been sending missionaries to the Native Americans from the very beginning, as we've discussed. This is why colonies were established in the first place. One primary reason is to propagate the Gospel to the people that lived here. Never heard of that. But this continued throughout the beginning of the United States of America. He had men like Johnny Appleseed, who we've heard of. He's the guy would travel around and m, plant seeds, apple seeds for trees to grow. And the reason he did this, he said, look, when new settlers come to the West, I want them to have some food. They might be able to partake of. But Johnny Appleseed, not only did he plant apple seeds to produce physical food, but he also planted the word of God because he carried the Bible with him, began to preach the Bible, he planted spiritual seeds that produce spiritual fruit. So he was a missionary. And others like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, who founded the state of Washington, and Jason Lee, a minister, founded the state of Oregon. De Tocqueville said that those people who settled the west penetrated into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe and a file of newspapers. As the west began to be settled, as America began to expand, the Christian faith expanded with that. People carried a Bible with them. They carried a, file of newspapers to be knowledgeable of, of public affairs, civil affairs, what was going on. And they had the Bible and a biblical worldview so they could influence civil affairs in a proper way. Carried an axe indicating we're going to labor and work to carve out homes in the wilderness. There's a statue in the United States Capitol in Statuary hall of Marcus Whitman. Marcus Whitman was a medical missionary. And the statue depicts him holding a medical bag. In one hand he has a buckskin suit on clothing. on one hand he has his medical bag. The other hand he has a Bible. Because this is what motivated him, the Bible motivated him to accomplish his calling of preaching the gospel, but of bringing, medical care to, those in the Northwest. And it was Marcus and Narcissa Whitman that paved the way for the Oregon Trail. Narcissa Whitman was the first, white woman, American white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1836. And they were motivated and inspired by the desire to carry the gospel to the Native Americans who lived in that territory. Now their story is fabulous. I'm going to, in future podcasts, tell you the story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. I've written a little booklet on, on them. They were kingdom missionaries that you can get at our website, providencefoundation, dot com. But I want to tell you, their story in, in more detail.

Alexis de Tocqueville says Christian faith made America exceptional

But, here, this, they were. This, this, these are just examples of a couple of these missionaries who were carrying the gospel because as the west settled, the truth of God's word went with it. Just like Johnny Appleseed carrying the Bible with him. And the early explorers who went out West. One of the first explorers of the West, Jedediah Smith, always packed his Bible. Now Alexis de Tocqueville observes in his Democracy in America how the Christian faith was a central force in why America became An exceptional nation. This is, one conclusion that we draw when you read his Democracy in America. And as he looked, came to find out what made America different, than the other nations. In fact, see Alexis de Tocqueville. He was a Frenchman. He had gone through the French Revolution. He had seen the fruit of the French Revolution, which was thousands were guillotined. And greater tyranny came in under Napoleon than they had before. But America had had a revolution just prior to the French Revolution. With completely different results. And he wanted to find out the difference. That's why he traveled to America in the 1830s and spent a long time here, traveling up and down all the colonies and out in the west and in the cities. And, making observation of why was America different, the United States different than France. And he wrote all his findings in Democracy in America. And he, concluded that it was their faith, their living Christian faith, that really made the difference. And then one aspect of that that he observed was, that the American people were faithful to honor God on the Sabbath day. The Christian Sabbath has been observed and recognized by law from the very beginning of America. This is a civil declaration of a people who put their faith in the God of the Bible. And where they set aside one day where no work would be done, where everybody could and should go to honor the God who gave us life and gave birth to this nation. So de Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America. In the United States, on the seventh day of every week, the trading and working life of the nation seem suspended. All noises cease. A deep tranquillity say, rather, the solemn calm of meditation succeeds the turmoil of the week. Upon this day, the marts of traffic are deserted. Every member of the community, accompanied by his children, goes to church. On his return home, he does not turn to the ledgers of his calling, but he opens the book of Holy Scripture. There he meets with sublime or affecting descriptions. Of the greatness and goodness of the Creator, of the infinite magnificence, of the handiwork of God, of the lofty destinies of man, of his duties and of his immortal privileges. So de Tocqueville observes, here it is the American people faithfully observed the Sabbath day, where they use that day to remember God, to seek him and to study and to learn the truths that are necessary to live their life in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord. And to search out all of the, understanding of God and how that they are to fulfill their duties, their calling, in every sphere of life. This is just one testimony from an outside observer, and there are many others outside and inside the US that made an observation that the Christian faith was central in the life of early America and the key to what made it an exceptional nation. And the observance of the Sabbath is just one of many things that they practically did to demonstrate this. And so this seeking of God in the homes of America, the, grace of God shown by sending preachers and enlightening the understanding, awakening individuals like Noah Webster and Cyrus McCormick, Samuel F.B. morse, Charles Finney of putting it in the hearts of the founding fathers to start Bible societies to distribute these Bibles. All of these, things were an indication of God's grace that he knew was necessary for the continual flourishing of this unique American nation. And so much fruit came forth from the Second Great Awakening. Millions of people were converted to Christ. Morality increased the church, as an institution and as the universal body of believers began to grow. Slavery ended in large part due to the impetus of these renewed biblical values as well. Because it teaches that all men have equal standing before the law of God. All are created in the image of God. God desires all men, to live free. And so this idea was a great impetus that led to the ending of, slavery. Many good things were occurring through the Second Great Awakening, but with these good seeds. There were some seeds that began to be planted that have, especially as we get into the 20th century, produced, a, fruit that would diminish the effectiveness of Christianity. That is, the seeds of pietism began to be planted as well. Pietism is that belief that God is only mainly concerned with spiritual matters, with the inward man of our relationship to God and getting us to heaven. Pietism always looks to how do I relate to God? How can I get my life with God? How can we get individuals into the kingdom of God? it reinforces this idea of the division between the sacred and the secular and that only God's concern with the sacred and secular things, government and economics and these kind of things God's not concerned with. The only thing that's really important are these sacred things. And that seed began to be planted by some of these great men that God used to convert. Many, many people like Charles Finney and later D.L. moody in the later 1800s preached many messages, all centering in on, or most centering in on rescuing a few souls from, from drowning. this would lead to this pietistic movement in the 20th century that we've been trying to put behind us even today, which we will explore in future, podcasts as D.L. moody, who taught this idea of the world's a sinking ship, and, all mankind is going down in the ship, and it's our job to rescue as many people as can off this ship before we die and face the afterlife. That idea of a sinking ship mentality was popularized in the Scofield Bible. This was a kind of a Bible that had notes in it, a study Bible. And many of those notes reference pietistic ideas. This began to impact the church in the later 1800s, early 1900s, in a way that would cause them to retreat from society. It was Christians who gave birth to the United States. They wrote our laws, they founded our colleges and schools, they developed our economic system, and they were the foundation of our institutions. And these Christians understood Christ is king over all things, and, that we need to find out how to exert the crown rights of King Jesus in every sphere of life. but these contrary ideas, these pietistic ideas began to, filter in to the thinking of much of the church that said, well, those things aren't important. What's really important is just to get men saved, individuals converted, get them to heaven. And this other business is just temporary. It's dirty. And why should we even get involved in government and economics and all these things? That's not our calling at all. And that has caused, problems for us that we face even today. But when you have true revival, new ideas come forth, or ideas that have been lost come forth, that need to be reclaimed and acted upon, and that they make a huge difference. And certainly there were many positive ideas that came forth, from the Second Great Awakening. Some of those ideas are the sovereignty of God, responsibility of man, holiness unto the Lord, because revival produces a God consciousness, and purity follows being revived. another truth, the work of the kingdom, compassion demonstrated in societal change. So there were truths brought forth and acted upon, and that, they helped preserve the American nation, brought change in the American people. And so revival was the Second Great Awakening was important in keeping the American people, with the right thinking, right worldviews in order for them to be able to carry on the work of extending God's kingdom in this American people. Well, we're going to want to explore this more in future podcasts. I want to look a little bit more, at the positive impact of this Second Great Awakening, in particular, how it led to the ending of, of slavery, in the nation and in future podcasts. So I invite you, if you want to learn more, just about America's providential history, Visit our website providencefoundation.com, pick up our book, America's Providential History, if you want to learn more about biblical revival and the transformation of nations. I have a booklet that I've written on that subject you can find on our website, providencefoundation.com as well as many articles. So, God in His mercy, continued to move on the behalf of the American, people and sent revival. But as we'll see, that revival is something each generation needs to keep alive in their heart. Each generation needs to fulfill their purpose and mission. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. And as each generation acts in accordance with God's Word, good fruit comes forth. But if we fail to apply the truth of God's Word in every sphere of life, we will begin to see flourishing decline. And we'll explore that story in future podcasts. So I hope you can join us in the weeks to come. So God bless you.