We live in a remarkable world in remarkable times. Advances in every field are coming at warp speed, except for one area: our sense of well-being. Depression and anxiety are increasing while happiness is decreasing. Why? 

         The increasing psychological instability is not the fault of technological advances as much as it is the powerful and systematic attack on our moral and cultural foundations. The fastest way to kill a plant is to cut it off from its roots, and the fastest way to destroy a nation is to cut it off from its history and its stabilizing traditions. For nearly a century, America has been the focus of an intentional and relentless strategy to do this using revisionist historians. 

         The goal of the revisionists is to rewrite our history, making the good look evil and the evil look good. Each new generation of these pseudo historians have gotten more extreme than the previous one. By this we are being cut off from our roots, as well as from the powerful vision and purpose for the future that fueled our growth and strength as a nation. When the historical and cultural foundations are shaken, people feel the instability, which results in anxiety. Anxiety leads to depression.

         Medication has been the primary way to fight this rising anxiety and depression. While this can give some temporary relief, it does not solve the problem. Medication can dull the senses, making us feel secure in a condition in which we are increasingly vulnerable. That keeps us from addressing the source of the anxiety and depression, which can be a very real threat.

         The Prophet Isaiah explained in the first chapters of his prophecy how turning good into evil and evil into good is an ultimate depravity to which a nation can fall. This leads to honoring the dishonorable and dishonoring the honorable. This twists and perverts the character of the nation, and thus its stability. 

         As Isaiah went on to declare, such perversion of a nation will bring the judgment of God upon it in increasingly severe measure. This judgment begins with making “capricious children its leaders.” Can anyone look at what is happening in our nation’s capital today and not see that we are well into this phase of judgment? 

         After this comes increasingly severe judgments, such as natural disasters and wars, until the ultimate destruction of the nation. What has been the experience of our country over the last few decades? 

         The implication is that these are self-inflicted consequences of removing the hedge of protection God places around the nations that obey Him. As Isaiah warned, such nations will be afflicted with increasingly severe natural disasters. Consider that just a couple of decades ago, it shocked the nation when we suffered $10 billion in damage from natural disasters in a year. We are now surpassing $300 billion in losses each year. How bad will it have to get to wake us up? 

         There is one thing we can do to turn the nation from the wicked ways that are leading to our destruction—obey the commandment to “Honor your fathers and mothers.” This is the only commandment God gave with a promise attached: that it would go well with us and we would dwell long in the land. It guarantees this because it reconnects us to the roots from which our life comes.  

          We honor our fathers and mothers by remembering them, studying them, and seeking to hear the wisdom they passed on to us. If we go back to the history written before the corruption of the revisionists, we will find our forefathers and mothers to have been some of the best, most courageous, good, and remarkable characters in all of history. They are deserving of honor, not the lies that are being written about them now.

         None of our ancestors were perfect, and neither was the civilization they built. Some great advances were the result of evil motives, and there were many tragic mistakes along the way. We must study these as well, not to dishonor those who made them but to learn so that we don’t repeat them. Even so, we must always keep in mind that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”(see James 4:6, I Peter 5:5 NKJV). Therefore, we must not fall to generational pride and think we are so much better and smarter now. Even if we are in some ways, it is because we have been given the grace to learn from them. 

         Proverbs 4:18 states, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.” Civilization has benefitted from ever increasing light. This came from the understanding of new generations being added to what was passed on to them. For this reason, it is not right or just to judge those in history by our times. Rather, they must be viewed in the light of their own times. 

         We also must keep in mind that we “see in part” and “know in part.” There is always more to the story. For example, revisionist historians have tried to paint American Founding Fathers like Washington and Jefferson as being evil because they were slaveowners. We concur that slavery is evil, but so did Washington and Jefferson. They both wrote and spoke out against it. They called it not just evil, but a plague and a curse. So why did they own slaves? They inherited their slaves. British, and then Virginia, law forbid the freeing of slaves. Both Washington and Jefferson freed their slaves at the time of their deaths, which at the time was the only way to do it. 

         There is almost always another side to the story that paints it in an entirely different color. Even so, we acknowledge that it was a grave mistake for any of the states to be allowed to pass such laws in basic conflict with the Constitution. It was done for political expedience, a motive that has continued to allow both unconstitutional and evil actions by our government. These have now led to untenable divisions in the nation, just as slavery did. Such compromises of our core values have cost the nation dearly, including the Civil War. 

         Every generation has had flaws, sinned, and made mistakes, but did they advance the light? Like the biblical history of Israel, some generations did well and some did not. Even so, we can find some things and people to honor in every generation, and we can learn important lessons from each one. For some, we should stand in awe at what they accomplished. As we look back, we will find in our national fathers and mothers some of the most interesting, courageous, and great souls to have walked the earth. Let this inspire us to pick up where they left off and keep advancing what is right, and true, and just.

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I wish to see all unjust and unnecessary discriminations everywhere abolished, and that the time may come when all our inhabitants of every color and discrimination shall be free and equal partakers of our political liberties. – Founding Father John Jay

The welfare of America is intimately bound up with the happiness of humanity. She is going to become a cherished and safe refuge of virtue, of good character, of tolerance, of equality, and of a peaceful liberty.

 – French General Marquis de Lafayette

© 2020 by Rick Joyner. All rights reserved.

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