“What Made America Great?”

Introduction:
1. What made America great?
2. I believe there are three primary ingredients that made America great: Faith, Family and Freedom.

What made America great?
I. FAITH (Deut. 6:3-12)
A. Israel was going into a new land: “Remember God!” It’s the parent’s responsibility.
B. The overwhelming majority of the Founding Fathers of this nation believed in and were
raised in the Christian faith. Geo. Washington’s Prayer (June 8, 1783)
“Almighty God; we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in
Thy Holy protection; and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit
of subordination and obedience to government; and entertain a brotherly affection and
love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large.
And finally, that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to
love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of
mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and
without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a
happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.”
C. America, A Religious Nation:
1. Of the 55 men who wrote and signed the U.S. Constitution all but 3 were
orthodox members of one of the established Christian communions: approximately 29
Anglicans, 16 to 18 Calvinists, 2 Methodists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Roman
Catholics, 1 lapsed Quaker and sometime Anglican, and 1 Deist...Dr. Franklin who
attended every kind of Christian worship, called for public prayer, and contributed to all
denominations.
2. In 1952 one of the most atheistic, antireligious Supreme Court justices William O.
Douglas penned an astonishing acknowledgment of the 1st amendment:
The First Amendment…does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a
separation of Church and State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific
ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other.
That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise, the state and religion would be
aliens to each other…hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. Municipalities would
not be permitted to render police or fire protection to religious groups…policemen
who helped parishioners into their places of worship would violate the Constitution…
prayers in our legislative halls…the appeals to the Almighty in the messages of the
Chief Executive…the proclamation making Thanksgiving Day a holiday… “so help me
God” in our courtroom oaths…these and all other references to the Almighty that
run though our laws, our public rituals, our ceremonies, would be flouting the First
Amendment. A fastidious atheist or agnostic could even object to the supplication
with which the Court opens each session: “God save the United States and this
Honorable Court.”
D. The early textbooks and schools:
1. Schools used New England Primer (1737)
A: In Adam’s fall we sinned all.
Z: Zacchaeus he did climb a tree his Lord to see.
2. The McGuffey Reader was introduced in 1836 with an emphasis on: prompt, good,
kind, honest, truthful.
3. Noah Webster…He was known as ‘the schoolmaster of the Nation’:
Along with good habits of work, Webster wished students to acquire ‘good principles’, a
predisposition for a virtuous life. “For this reason, society requires that the education
of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. Education, in a great
measure, forms the moral character of men, and morals are the basis of government.
Education should therefore be the first care of a legislature; not merely the institution of
schools, but the furnishing of them with the best men for teachers. A good system of
education should be the first article in the code of political regulations; for it is much
easier to introduce and establish an effectual system for preserving morals, than to
correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system.” On this point Webster was
emphatic; he asserted: “The goodness of a heart is of infinitely more consequence to
society than an elegance of manners; nor will any superficial accomplishments repair
the want of principle in the mind. It is always better to be vulgarly right than politely
wrong…The education of youth is an employment of more consequence than making
laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and
gospel rest for success.”
E. Understanding of Civil Law: Attorney John Whitehead described it well:
The first type of law is the fundamental law upon which the culture and society are
established. This fundamental law may be equated with the ‘higher law’, which
should be ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.’ The higher law is clearly
expressed in God’s revelation as ultimately found in the Bible. In this the higher
Law has its sustenance.
The second type of law, constitutional law, provides the form of civil government to
protect the God-given rights of the people. The people can base their institutions
upon constitutional law, in conjunction with the higher and fundamental law.
Although the Constitution is undergirded by an absolute value system, it is not a
source of ultimate values.
The bottom line is that man’s law must have its origin in God’s revelation. Any law
that contradicts biblical revelation is illegitimate. Illegitimate law, as the colonists
protested to King George, was ‘of none effect’. After all, it is the Creator who endows
man with rights, which the law is to protect. Succinctly put, there is a law, a system
of absolutes, derived from biblical principles that transcends man and his institutions.
It existed before man and will exist after him.
F. Over 90% to 94% of Americans believe in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but opinion of
America is being formed by the other 6 to 10 %. All roads from humanism lead to
chaos. Francis Shaeffer
All morality flows from religion: Thou shalt not…kill, steal, commit adultery, etc.
We have been sold a religion of secular humanism…atheism and evolution for over
50-60 years. We don’t like the results in our schools or in our streets!
The Founding Fathers believed that God is the ultimate source of law.

What made America great?
II. FAMILY (Gen. 1:26,27; 2:18ff)
A. Man was made in the image of God. He is not just the highest form of animal.
B. God instituted marriage. God’s design was one man, one woman for a lifetime.
C. A collision of world views…Humanism vs Judeo Christianity
D. “Life began with blind chance”
*’Evolution is a fairy tale for adults’ Head of French Academy of Science
*Nothing times nobody equals everything.
E. “Morality cannot be legislated” Secular humanist and progressive is imposing his
values on the American public through media, educational system, courts. Christian
thinking is eliminated.
F. “A fetus is not a human life” 60,942,033 abortions since 1973.
G. Divorce is a recent phenomena. In 1900 1 in 12 divorces…1932 1 in 6 divorces.
Moms and dads’ roles are not clear. Divorce is killing the American society.

What made America great?
III. FREEDOM
“Government of the people, by the people, and for the people” The Founding Fathers never
intended for the government to be BIG BROTHER ordering our lives. America was a
Republic not a Democracy where one more than the majority ruled. A Republic was
governed by the voice of the people.
A. To Work free enterprise was encouraged and rewarded.
B. To Worship not a freedom from worship.
C. To War Our battle is not from without, but from within. We are in the process of
turning everything over to Uncle Sam. Since when does Washington or the National
Education Association tell us what we can and can’t teach in our school systems. The person
has taken the place of ‘we the people’. Unless we return to Faith…Family…Freedom America
will become more chaotic until it self-destructs. It’s hard for us flag waving Americans to grasp,
but…There is a group out there who would applaud her self-destruction.