Good Morning Family!
I wrote the following to you in 2015 in a pastoral letter:
Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” I stand with Lincoln on this one. We are seeing this come to fruition in our lifetimes and unless God Almighty intervenes, we will see this nation become something altogether unrecognizable in the next 30 years.
That was three presidents ago. Well, today, sadly I think we can shave quite a few years off that “30 years” prognostication. Things were not looking good then and now we are in completely new territory. In 2015, we were not having daily gender pronoun wars. We would have said that forcing women to have a male in their locker room and compete against them in sports would be unthinkable. And quite frankly, if you think about it, there are so many things that we never dreamed we would be having to talk about in 2024, that had not even entered our minds in 2015.
I actually shudder to think of what America may look like in even ten years apart from some drastic turn of events or unmistakable move of God. Lincoln was right. As the 21st century world is on fire all around us geopolitically, our government seems intent on gender policy, incredibly anti-God social policies, politicians taking each other to court, and battles between media personalities. As long as we focus on internal nonsense, we cannot take our place on the world stage as the America that people used to turn to for leadership and direction as in the middle of the 2oth century.
Granted, there are some bright spots here and there. Oklahoma public schools bringing back into the classroom the teaching of the history of America being greatly influenced by the scriptures is one bright spot that is infuriating those on the progressive left. I am so interested to see where this leads in other states across the country. The reality is that American History cannot be taught without referring to the influence the Word of God had on these early settlers and founding fathers. We must keep praying that God will give our nation one more reprieve, so that we can once again begin that “city on a hill”.
Your homework this week… Google and read John Winthrop’s “City on a Hill” sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity” which he preached in 1630 on board a colonial ship “The Arabella” while on its way to the Massachusetts Bay colony.
As always, my prayer is that we would all “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.” II Timothy 2:15.
Your Shepherd of the Hills,
Bro. Steven
Dr. Steven Gann
