God uses nations and cultures as fields for planting the seeds He wants to grow in the world. For this reason, Psalm 90:16-17 says, “Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your majesty to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands.” By seeing His work, we receive His favor, and this confirms the work of our hands as being in harmony with His.
As we understand God’s work in the nations, we can see His attention in every nation to prepare the soil for the seeds He will plant in them. We then see how the seeds are planted and how they grow if that nation has become the good soil required for the seeds to grow, as we understand from Jesus’ Parable of the Sower.
The soil for the seeds of the American Republic began to be prepared by the first colonists. Each generation added to the preparation of the soil that the American Republic could sprout from. Then the seeds were sown by The Great Awakening. The seeds grew and bore fruit. It is important to understand the nature of this good soil as it will require the same kind of ground to continue to bear fruit and sustain the Republic. The following are some of the main factors that made the American colonies such fertile soil.
At the time of the American Revolution, the colonies had become not only the most literate nation on the earth at the time, but possibly of all time. It was considered a curiosity to find anyone who could not read. Yet, the colonists could not only read, they did read. And they read the best literature available, the classics.
How this kind of culture came to be in the colonies is as exceptional as the Republic itself. The first colonists that came to America were religious refugees from the persecution in Europe. They had risked their lives to stand on the truth as they understood it. There were some who came seeking gold and other treasure, but to the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Jews, and the other religious refugees, truth, and the freedom to pursue and obey it as they understood it, was more valuable than gold.
Soon the level of education and the brilliance of the average colonist, even of the pioneers on the frontier, was extraordinary. Most were schooled at home, and they were schooled well. It was common for the American children to know multiple languages. It was also not uncommon for one to enter college before their teens. How is it that we have high school graduates today that cannot even read? How have we fallen so far? We will cover this in future briefs.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics (also called the “Law of Entropy”), declares that convergences that result in order and synthesis do not happen by random chance; they must be the result of action by an intelligent Source. As we see how remarkable the people that produced the generation that became our Founders were, any honest observer will have to see that there was a Divine hand shaping the nation; it was for a Divine purpose. By their writings, we see that the Founders understood very well that they were a nation with a Divine purpose, and they knew the purpose. They saw the works of God, and they joined theirs to His.
We can trace the roots of this culture and our Republic to the spiritual, philosophical, and political works of the first colonists that came to America. It was enriched by each generation until it was a prepared, fertile soil for one of the most important events since Christ walked the earth—the Great Awakening.
Secular historians rarely mention the Great Awakening, but to the spiritual it was a movement that changed the world possibly more than anything since Christ walked the earth. It was the spiritual revolution that made the American Revolution inevitable. Freedom was not only proclaimed throughout the land, it was experienced. The spiritual liberty released political and cultural liberty on a level that had not been seen before. When the British threatened this liberty, they faced a people who would rather die than lose it.
The Great Awakening was wide, perhaps touching every household in the colonies. It was also deep and enduring, lasting from about 1730 to 1770. Fruit of this movement was an insatiable love for God, as well as a love of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. This resulted in more schools and universities being born out of the Great Awakening than had been seen before anywhere.
The Great Awakening was sparked mostly by the preaching of two great British spiritual pioneers: George Whitefield and John Wesley, a German Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, and an American, Jonathan Edwards. They preached truth that set men free. Lovers of truth become lovers of knowledge. Knowledge in all fields was highly sought during the Awakening, but theology was such a devotion that it had more majors in the American colleges and universities at the time than all of the other fields combined.
Theology was not only the most popular field of study at the time, but the great preachers and orators became the most famous celebrities in the colonies. Because of this, the bar was set high for every preacher. Visitors to America wrote of the astonishing brilliance and learning that was prevalent, even in the remote settlements. Sermons were profound and so inspiring that boring preachers did not last long in such a fire.
Sunday services were not only the most exciting time of the week for the colonists, but it was where most got their news about national and world events. The sermons and the news shared were the subject of conversation all week long. The content of the sermons was such that it was considered that attending church services for six years was equivalent to getting a Bachelor’s Degree. That was the spiritual and intellectual DNA of the American nation at its birth.
This brought about a prevailing sense of a connection of the Americans to a Divine destiny. To be connected to the great ideas of men can be motivating, but this cannot be compared to the motivation of feeling connected to a Divine mandate. The Great Awakening had set in the hearts of the people their calling as a royal priesthood, and that as a nation they were called to be a forerunner of the coming kingdom of God.
Pastors were the most influential people in the colonies. During the Revolutionary War, the British called them “The Black Robed Regiment” and considered them more of a threat than the Continental Army. For this reason, the British focused much of their strategy on silencing these preachers by capturing or killing them, and burning their churches. Yet, the word of God thrives under opposition, and so it did then, adding fuel to the fires in great and resolute hearts.
In spite of what revisionist historians have tried to make our Founders out to be, they were all, with the possible exception of two or three, not just lovers of God, but they were as devout as we may find in even the greatest pulpits today. Their intent was as noble as can be found in history, and their personal lives as honorable, as we will see.
*************
I’ve lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. –Benjamin Franklin
My views…are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus Himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished any one to be; sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others. – Thomas Jefferson
© 2020 by Rick Joyner. All rights reserved.
To order additional copies of this Heritage Brief, or to request a copy of our latest catalog, call 803-802-5544 ext. 266. To order other MorningStar books and resources online, visit store.morningstarministries.org
