"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses."

--Thomas Jefferson [1]

 

When Thomas Jefferson declared that he had the confidence that U.S. patriots would always have virtue and common sense to correct any abuses; the United States of America had just been born.

 

Jefferson had witnessed the marvelous divine intervention in the affairs of the early colonies, affording them the triumph over the English Crown and the British church. Jefferson, like other signers of the Declaration of Independence, did not profess to be Christian in the traditional sense, however, they still had a biblical worldview. They were all familiar with biblical content and the powerfully positive influence it has over life; even those who did not profess a born again experience recognized that rights are given by God and not the State.

 

The Founding Fathers of this nation knew and had had the experience that whatever right the State gives, it can also take away. By declaring that our rights come from God, they also affirmed the responsibility of the State to recognize this fact and not impose human laws upon society.

 

More than 200 years have transpired and the present generation, for the most part, ignores, denies or rebels against God’s Sovereignty which gave this new nation its foundation and its victory.

 

Nowadays, the majority of the patriots mentioned by Thomas Jefferson are not interested in virtue, let alone common sense to correct the abuses carried out by the State against its citizens, neither is it interested in restraining the moral decay which is destroying this nation.

 

I am convinced that what would be most shocking to Jefferson would be the huge percentage of those who profess belief in the Christian faith yet live without a noticeable difference from non-believers. Most Christians still elect candidates, view programs, participate in entertainment and academic education, in the same manner as those whose beliefs kill babies in the mother’s womb, accept same-sex marriage as being normal, totally contrary to everything that gave life’s meaning to the Pilgrims and Puritans that arrived to these shores.

In actuality, this nation is living exactly what the prophet Isaiah rebuked the nation of Israel for more than 2700 years ago:

 

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21).

 

Society in the United States of America has paid an extremely elevated price for the absence of common sense. In endeavoring to show themselves more wise and intelligent than the rest, they have only proven the contrary.

 

God has always had a people in every generation that He can count on. These are people who are willing to pay the price to correct abuses. It is time that the people of God stop being intimidated and put aside the idea of not offending the humanists when they speak up or take action against these abuses. We must learn from the secular humanists that are relentless to reach their goals of imposing their worldview on the rest of us. I am not speaking of revenge; I am speaking of pointing out and differentiating on what the Law of God calls good and evil, light and darkness, sweet and bitter, and the need for true wisdom.

 

Are you the kind of patriot Thomas Jefferson was referring to? Will you proclaim virtue and common sense to correct abuses in this nation at any cost?

 


[1] The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition), Lipscomb and Bergh, eds., 7:81. (letter to Edward Rutledge, 1788)

 

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