One Nation Under God

 

In 1954 President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God," to the pledge of allegiance. America was then in its golden age, still being forged by what is referred to as the ‘greatest generation’. The faith and morals of that generation being a natural endorsement of the sentiment expressed. Even into the sixties it was still evident in national identity. 

One spectacular achievement of those times during the cold war and space race was the Apollo 8 mission; the first time man had left his home planet and ventured into space beyond earth’s orbit and saw our world from above. And on Christmas Eve as they made their final orbits of the moon; there was to be a short window of opportunity for the astronauts to deliver a TV broadcast, via NASA to the people on earth. Everyone gathered around their TV’s or Radio and as we looked for the first time at the earth rise the message was given: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."… 

It was a witness, not only to the atheistic Soviet union whom they had beaten to the goal, but a declaration to the world of who they were as a nation; a simple, faithful people who acknowledged His sovereignty. 

In the decades which followed we have seen an astonishing reversal and downward spiral in faith and morals to the degree that as Billy Graham’s late wife put it “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Decriminalization of abortion and sodomy during the seventies and more recently gay marriage and the insanity of gender ideology illustrate the extent of man’s rejection of God, now prevalent in society. 

The most terrifying prospect for the USA though is not that God would punish them or try to chastise the population and bring about repentance, no, that would be a blessing. What is worse is that He would accept their decision and withdraw His hand and leave the nation alone, to harden their hearts further (like the ancient Egyptians) until the society reaches the full extent of ruin. 

God sees the hearts of men and nations and He offers either justice or mercy as we wish. 

Unlikely Evangelists

Evangelism by the laity is a recurring topic that always left me feeling a bit clueless as to what a practical application of it might look like. In one sense I was quite impressed by the way protestant churches approached this. They trained their congregations, had programs, strategies, were quite creative and yet what emerged was often cloned evangelists with stock rhetoric, there was something missing.

I discovered what it was when I worked for a chemical company years ago in the tea room on one of the plants I visited. One of the managers, who also had his tea break there, was very antagonistic towards God and the church and like many atheists and God-haters would deliver his anti-God sermons almost every day. It was clear that a conversation would be pointless so I prayed for him instead, sometimes out of pity, and other times out of annoyance. Month after month!

I was not the only player in the piece of theatre that was about to unfold though. The next was ‘the tobacco man’ who used to tour the plant selling pouches of tobacco smuggled in from Europe on the Lorries. His role was that he had a full forearm tattoo of the crucifixion scene. Each time he came in, the atheist winced as his eyes were inexplicably drawn to the cross.

One afternoon God fielded a ringer, the head chef of the canteen. A man with a volcanic temperament, made worse by a punitive financial settlement following a recent divorce which occupied his every waking moment. As the atheist began his daily rant against God I could sense that the chef was in no mood for it and without even delaying to put his teeth back in he declared “You ungrateful bastard; He died for your sins’

Whether or not there was silence in heaven, I don’t know; but there was in the tearoom. The atheist was glued to the spot, head bent over and visibly shaken. The chef put his teeth in and thought about his ex-wife. The tobacco man took a long drag on his roll-up and lowered his tattooed arm into position on his knee and the atheist looked into the image of his savior’s eyes without wincing this time.The gospel had been preached to him in its fullness, his own soul’s condition revealed to him like a violent lightning bolt, the sword of the Spirit had found its mark and his life would never be the same again.

God is always looking, always preparing, assembling teams of evangelists, creating a space to do His work and completing the task, often with people who are not religious at all, untrained, and even totally  unaware. He is the prime mover in evangelism.