God put a specific call on this country and the people He brought here to inhabit it. The founding of America was God’s most significant attempt since ancient Israel to create a “New Israel” of people who would live in obedience to biblical principles through faith in Jesus Christ. The Pilgrims and Puritans referred to themselves as God’s New Israel. They did not believe they were replacing Israel but rather were a type of Israel. They felt that some verses in the Bible that referred to Israel could also be used to interpret God’s dealings in their own lives. The Pilgrim pastor in Holland, John Robinson, said “…so are the people of God now to go out of Babylon spiritual to Jerusalem (America)…and to build themselves as lively stones into a spiritual house, or temple, for the Lord to dwell in.” In 1673, Urian Oakes, President of Harvard, said, “If we…lay all things together, this our Commonwealth seems to exhibit to us…a little model, of the Kingdom of God upon Earth.” As a model of the Kingdom of Christ upon the earth, Americans were intended to be living proof to the rest of the world that it was possible to live a life that reflected the commandments of Christ to love God with all our hearts and to love others as ourselves.

 

America’s call was to be worked out in terms of the settlers’ covenant with God and with each other. Both elements of this covenant, the vertical relationship with God and the horizontal relationship with each other, were vitally important to them. Concerning the vertical part of the covenant, they saw themselves called into a direct continuation of the covenant relationship between God and Abraham. They also felt that as they loved God, they would also love their neighbors more. Their goal was to grow in unity and become a strong body of believers. Each church community grew and became a town.

 

Historians have long regarded early New England town meetings as some of the purest and most successful forms of democracy that have ever taken place. However, few, if any, have ever acknowledged the core of their success which was their covenant with God and each other. American government owes its inception to the covenants of the first churches on her shores.

 

 

God did keep His end of the bargain on both an individual and corporate basis. It is sobering to look closely at our history and see how highly God regarded right attitudes. Our history is full of testimonies of long droughts, epidemics of smallpox or other diseases, plagues of grasshoppers or Indian uprisings that were broken, healed or averted when the leaders, both civil and religious, would call the people to repentance. When the people repented, God would pour out His blessing with health, peace and bounteous harvests. This blessing would continue for a generation or more until the people became proud and disobedient again.

 

The key to God’s plan for America is that His people would always see themselves, individually and corporately, in continual need of God’s forgiveness, mercy and support. This is the secret of the horizontal part of the covenant for only when we know we are no better than anyone else can we then truly love other people. Inherent in God’s call upon our ancestors to create a Bible-based society was the absolute necessity to live in a state of constant dependence upon His grace and forgiveness. This state is a strong antidote against pride and self-righteousness which our great leaders warned us about.

 

Daniel Webster said, “If we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”

 

 

In times of great crisis, God raised up great leaders to protect America from destruction so that His plan for us might have a chance of success. God was able to use leaders like William Bradford, Samuel Adams and George Washington because they did not aspire to fame and fortune. Rather, they were all servant leaders living out the example of Jesus who said, “I am among you as one who serves,”. God was able to use them mightily to change the course of American history. When the U.S. Marine Corps was founded in 1775, their recruiting slogan stated they were seeking “a few good men.” And it is what God seemed to be saying three and a half centuries ago when He began to gather those who were willing to give up everything for His sake and come dwell in His “New Israel.” One has to ask, “How much of that grace continues to cover this country today and how many of the incredible blessings that have been poured out upon this land are a direct result of their obedience and willingness to die to self?” Only God knows for sure.