“Does God’s Covenant with Israel Extend to the United States?”
Every major election since the 1970’s, when the winner or loser of the election might have made a difference in America’s basic design and future, I asked this question, just to settle in my mind that God still has an interest in our outcome.
Imagine how things might have turned out had Abraham Lincoln not won in 1860? Although on paper it appears the Founders’ design had won almost all of the major modern elections, 1968, 1980, 2000, and 2016…still, if you pause and reflect, at least as many years as I’ve been able to, it appears Old Scratch made a lot of headway despite those victories. (I said Satan, not Democrats, nor any version of what we once called Liberalism.) Simply by comparing what America once was in 1960, then 1980, then 2000, and now 2020, just 20-year cycles, and simply listing the cultural and moral changes and making the simple calculation as to whether we’re better off or worse off, yep, it seems not only God, but the basic original contract between the People and each other, and between the People and the Government has barely held its own
And the People have lost as much ground as God had in those 60 years. This can’t just be a coincidence, since the cause-and-effect are almost identical. So, if it was a major cause for concern in 2016, as it seems to have been, it should be doubly more this year, in 2020, only not because our God-fearing people have fallen back into lethargy, as they had in the past, but because the Enemy has more openly declared themselves. It’s no longer a secret; they have every intention on destroying the Foundations of this country down brick-by-brick once they gain the political power to do so.
Now, I have the advantage over most of you, since I can compare these decade cycles all the way back to 1960 (actually 1940, since there was a big war in that period in which almost every American partook in one way or the other, from storming beaches to scrap iron drives on weekends in Cincinnati, and those memories were universally shared with my generation around the dinner table, in school and on the public streets, a well as in church). But by 1980 half of America would only begin their memory-calendar in that year, with no memories of the 60s and 70s, and nearly a third of adults today would not begin their memories until 2000…having absolutely no idea what I could mean if I said “America stood at the brink in 1980 when we elected Ronald Reagan.”
Most Christians believed that, too. Only there were a lot more of them in 1980. And they always righteously believed God had a hand in it our rescue, even voicing the belief that God would never let America fail as far back as I can remember. They were even a little conceited about it, if I recall. And there was the rub. Complacency.
On the sinless side of our Christian community, our puritans retreated back into their little warrens assuming that since God had fixed things for them (again), He would row America’s boat all by Hisself another decade or so, allowing Christian folk to get on about whatever business they had been getting about for the other six days of the week…even though the cause of their retreat was largely the growth of sinfulness in America in the first place.
So by 1990, sure enough, the warren-dwelling Christians would be reminded that Old Scratch, (one of my several nicknames of familiarity indicating a prior chumminess with Satan that our self-righteous Puritans would never confess…) had even more cards to play in America than they had surmised, and that he had not just given up (which they now know he never does) but that he had been teaching their children to play Liar’s Poker since they were 10. Scratch had ever wormed a few courses into their school systems.
Soak, wash, rinse, dry, then repeat cycle. So when the next “big election” occurred in 2000, and a little wiser, we expelled the demons again, only to notice that community’s regular-Sunday congregation had dwindled even more. But because of an attack in 2001 by Muslim terrorists, and wars that still haven’t ended, those moral scales were generally unattended.
So, whatever had been broke in 1960 had stayed broke until 2016, until the puritans put on their mail for the first time in a long, long time, and emerged from their nests to vote en masse, joining sinners they hadn’t rubbed shoulders with in a long time, thus carrying the day.
My concern in 2020 is will they finally know there is so much more to be done than simply vote? Their previous strategy had been to vote then retreat to their warrens, only surely they must know now that would only ensure them the honor of being the one the alligator eats last.
So to really win the day, and the next 20-year cycle, they will have to pledge to tithe a little more of their time than that trek down to the precinct on election day. And no, a generous contribution to the state or national party wouldn’t really work that well, at least until those parties reorganized and rededicated themselves. They must give real time, a tithe, which should be measured in hours not dollars, mostly spent in seeing to their children’s education, the meat-and-potatoes part, mind you, and at home if necessary and overseeing how they spend their free time, and with whom, and in reading or watching what.
I always wanted to write a tongue-in-cheek story of Ol’ Clootie’s eons-long war against God’s plans, and how God, who never actually confronts Satan head-on (since Satan is just another of many archangels from his former tour of duty among the heavenly hosts), always sets traps that Scratch never sees coming. The Resurrection was one. Totally fooled Satan. And so was the “creation” of a United States of America, which had never existed in all the histories known to Man, (no one ever saw that coming either) and clearly had been in the making for over 3000 years…beginning with that Covenant to Abraham, (If you don’t already know, a “covenant” is a contract.)…issued orally by God. (My story connects those three dots.)
The Covenant
But no such covenant exists between God and the United States, unless God whispered one to a Founder who never repeated it. But the Constitution, to my mind stands, right up there next to the Ten Commandments or “The Decalogues” (in four parts by David Poff at Unwashed Philosophy), so has God’s fingerprints all over it.
What we know from God’s covenant with Abraham and his heirs, the Children of Israel, despite their constant backsliding, is that He never abandoned them, even as they routinely abandoned Him, sometimes for very long spells.
(If you learn no other “law of nature” please learn the “Law of Generations” which lays out what every parent must do to insure that his and her children will be taught where the true path is, so that, (in my mother’s words to me) even though I may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, if I survive it, I will know how to find my way back to the correct path.)
Samuel came to God and said, “The people want a king” and God sent Samuel back to tell the people all the things they’d lose if they had one. Then, when they repeated “Give us a king” and God did, all the things He said they’d lose they in fact lost. The Books of Chronicles and Kings mention far more kings who died having done things displeasing to God’s eyes than those who pleased Him, and twice Israel was carried off into captivity. And upon returning to Palestine that last time, and in the 400 or so years between the ending of the Old Testament and the New Testament, they were conquered two more times, by the Alexandrian Greeks followed by the Romans. Then, through the Christian era, as the Roman Empire fell, and for almost 1500 years, they lived under the thumb of the Muslims, until 1948.
But today they are a national people. So God kept His end of the bargain. Only for what purpose?, I can’t know.
You’ll find an interesting chronology here, describing Man’s thirst for kings, which seems to be a key element of the election of 2020, for while the Left proclaims all sorts of Marxist blather, the body language and life styles of all of them, even the 30-year olds like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is decidedly royalist, all the way down to the way they do their hair.
God made a covenant with the line of Abraham, through David, then Jesus, and the children of Israel.
It would be a vanity for Americans to believe that we, as a Christian nation, also are sheltered by that same Covenant He made with Abraham, especially since our numbers are falling.
Still I believe that America is God’s creation and He has a plan. From the Resurrection to Pentecost to the European world, and through England instead of France or Italy or Germany or Spain, He planted a certain type of seed here that had not existed in the world, did not exist in 1607, and for the most part, still doesn’t exist or isn’t allowed to exist.
And I doubt seriously if God intended America to remain the world’s lone sore thumb, but rather to become a Beacon to the world. In small plots all over the world that seed has already been planted. Who know where God’s Tree of Liberty might next take root? In my view God has a Covenant with America-the-Ideal, not America-the-geography, and should we grow weary of Him, or His laws, as mild and un-intrusive as they are compared to the New York state legislature, He’ll cut us off a quickly as an English lord would his transgendered nephew.
So if we turn out our lighthouse, whether out of stupidity, cupidity, or just not taking time out of our busy day of making money, or spending it, to refresh our tree of liberty with its natural manure, then, yes, we may find ourselves left holding the scooper.
With Christianity’s population lamp dimming America, 2020 may be the last chance for Christians to actually carry an election in America, unless they get busy growing their congregations. And it will be absolute last chance for my generation to make a difference as a whole.
