Jeremiah 17:7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.”

We have only been a free republic for 243 years. Many civilizations have come and gone that lasted much longer than our United States. As many classrooms no longer teach our Christian heritage, and instead promote socialism, we must educate our youth on who we are and have always been – a Christian nation founded on the Bible. This week, here’s a look back at our first 75 years as the United States of America.

March 1776: After Colonel Henry Knox forced the British retreat in Boston, General George Washington ordered the next day to be “a day of fasting, prayer and humiliation, to implore the Lord and Giver of all victory to pardon our manifold sins and wickedness, and that it would please Him to bless the Continental army with His divine favor and protection, all are strictly enjoined to pay reverence to the Lord of hosts.”

November 1779: In Philadelphia, Congress went as a body to church to “return thanks to Almighty God” and appointed a day of National Thanksgiving and prayer, noting that “it hath pleased Almighty God, the supreme Disposer of all Events, father of mercies, remarkably to assist and support the United States of America in their important struggle for liberty.”

June 1786: Dr. Benjamin Rush, the father of American Medicine and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in his ‘Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic’, “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid on the foundation of the religion of the New Testament. Its doctrines promote the happiness of society and safety and well-being of civil government.”

June 1787: Benjamin Franklin called for daily prayers at the Constitutional Convention with these words: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

Sept. 1797: Samuel Adams, the “Father of the American Revolution”, proclaimed a day of prayer of prayer and fasting for “humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken into pieces, and the oppressed made free; that wars may cease in all the earth, and the speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace.”

Sept. 1811: John Quincy Adams, our 6th President, wrote that he “read through the Bible once every year,” and “so great is my veneration for the Bible, and so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated on, it is of all books in the world, that which contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy, that the earlier my children begin to read it…the more lively and confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country, respectable members of society, and a real blessing to their parents.”

June 1828: Noah Webster wrote in his ‘History of the United States’: “The religion which introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.”

August 1835: In his classic book ‘Democracy in America’, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”

March 1839: Before he was Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State and the man responsible for America’s purchase of the Alaska territory, New York Governor William H. Seward stated “I know not how long a republican government can flourish among a great people who have not the Bible; this I do know: that the existing government of this country never could have had existence but for the Bible.”

May 1849: U.S. Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop said that “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

The Evidence of Faith’s Substance – Article #355