Join us as we examine the generational drift from those Christian principles that shaped the laws and freedoms of American society. Through the teachings and quotes of figures from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr., this episode challenges listeners to weigh the consequences of forgetting these roots. Delivered with depth and urgency, this episode offers a powerful reminder of the past to illuminate the path forward for believers today.
00:00:05 Introduction and Overview of America’s Christian Foundation
Greetings, friends. Welcome to The Sound of Faith. to the Declaration of Independence, our nation’s birth certificate, to the Constitution, the framework of our freedoms, to the capital city itself, where the proof of our Christian foundation is written in its very cornerstones and walls, this incontrovertible truth, America is one nation under God. Because you see, as I ministered before in other messages, the law of iniquity is this bent towards evil. It’s not just the specific sins, it’s the tendency toward being sinful. And the big problem with the law of iniquity is that it is not stagnant, but with every generation it gets worse. Every generation, they become more iniquitous. Amen? He says they go from iniquity unto iniquity. Evil workers shall wax worse and worse. Deceiving and being deceived. Amen? So that’s what he’s saying. Because here’s what it boils down to, folks. And this is what we’ve got to look at in our nation today. Sinful parents bear sinful children. And they will go deeper into sin than their parents did. They’ll go greater into depravity than the generation before. And if you think this generation is depraved, what do you think the next generation is going to be? That will grow up from day one with marriage being between… By that time, who knows who it’ll be between? Not only two men or two women, but we’ve got the polygamists now standing up and saying, well, hey… I should have my right. And you want to hear this one? Maybe you have. Pedophiles, specifically men who have a very strong urge for little boys. They said that just like the homosexual, they cannot help themselves. They were made that way. So who knows what the next generation is going to be like when children that are born now are going to grow up with that. They’re going to have no reference point. of what a godly marriage is. It will become so obsolete, so antiquated. They won’t know what that is. Marriage is… Heather has two mommies. Amen? That little book that came out in New York City… About, I don’t know, 20 years ago, it got the ball rolling in public school systems. Amen? So the light, Israel was created to be a light to the Gentiles. Amen? But their light went out. And they were darkened and instead they ended up going into exile. And they went into slavery to the kings of Babylon. Amen? Turn in your Bibles with me to Matthew, the fifth chapter. Matthew 5, looking at verse 13. Jesus said, If the light in you be dark, how great is your darkness! Looking at Matthew 5, 13. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost his savor or his taste, wherewith shall it be salted? It’s thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men. Amen? You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now, Jesus is the speaker here. And look what he said. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Now… Let’s understand that Jerusalem, of course, is set on a high hill. Whenever you speak about going to Jerusalem, they always say going up, going up to Jerusalem. Amen. Going up to God’s house. Let us go up. So in a literal sense. jerusalem is on a hill but think about this for a moment in a very literal sense washington dc our nation’s capital is a city set on a hill I’m not talking about a mountain. I’m not talking about topography, the lay of the land. But in a real sense, it’s a city set on a hill. Now think about this for a moment. When you’re watching the news, the network news, and you’ll see the reporter standing with a capital in the background. And what does the reporter say? Gives the report and says, this is Sharon Knotts reporting from the hill. Don’t they say that? reporting from the hill. Sometimes they’ll say Capitol Hill, reporting from Capitol Hill, but you know a lot of times they just say up on the hill. If they’re discussing and they want to make a point, maybe that the Senate met to vote on something, they’ll say, up on the hill today the Senate met to vote on such and such. Amen? When somebody says up on the hill, do you know what they’re talking about? don’t you immediately know that they’re talking about Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the seat of our federal government, where the House of Congress and the Senate meet to legislate the laws of our land. You know exactly what they’re talking about when they say up on the hill. So Washington, D.C., the highest seat of government on the planet… It’s the emblem of liberty and freedom for the whole world. It’s the ideal of human government for the world. Amen. Decisions that are made up on the hill in Washington, D.C. have far-reaching powers and influence. Amen. And it is a city that is set on a hill. And Jesus said, a city set on a hill cannot be hid. Amen. Amen. And you know, if we literally examine the physical structures and buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C., we can quickly see that it is true that the United States was built upon a Christian foundation. And the voices of those who built this nation are still speaking because they are literally etched and engraved in the marble walls and such of the buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C. Let me give you a few examples. The Capitol. When the Capitol was being built, the cornerstone, the first cornerstone was laid by George Washington, our first president. But then they inserted a box that contained significant documents about the nation’s founding, and it was put in the cornerstone by Daniel Webster, who was the Secretary of State. This is what he said, to all that are assembled here, whether belonging to public or to private life, with happy hearts, devoutly thankful to almighty God for the presence of the liberty and happiness of our country. Unite in sincere and fervent prayer that the deposit in the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures now to be erected over it may endure forever. God save the United States of America. That’s in the cornerstone. Because a city set on a hill cannot be hid. Amen? If you go inside to the rotunda, you’ll see these beautiful oil paintings that hang on the walls in the rotunda. Amen? And they are of our founding fathers signing documents. And in almost every single painting, there is some overture to God. Amen? whether they’ve got their hand on a Bible, whether a Bible is sitting on a desk. You can see it. It’s painted in the picture. Amen. Many of them kneeling to pray, lifting hands in prayer. you will know exactly what it is that you’re looking at. You will be looking at godly men, religious men, and Christian men. Amen? And not only that, throughout the capital there are many scriptural references. And the one that is the most powerful, because… Unless the video camera guy zooms in real close, you’re going to see in the marble engraved over the head of the Speaker of the House who sits in the House of Congress and the House of Senate, the one that’s up there in the little box, if you look over his head, it says, in God we trust. And folks, that’s engraved in the marble. They want to get rid of that. They’re going to have to sandblast it. Amen? And I don’t know who’s bold enough to do it. I don’t know who, even if they voted it in Congress and said it’s got to go, I don’t know what sandblaster would be bold enough to do that. Amen? If you go to the White House, it’s another icon of freedom to the whole world. And in one of the bedrooms above the fireplace was put there by John Adams because he was the first president to reside in the White House. And these are the words he had put there. I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings upon this White House and upon all that shall hereafter inhabit it. He was praying to the God of the Bible from the White House, from a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. Amen. And there are so many others that we could look at. I don’t want to take up too much time here, but let me give you a few others here. Amen. Let’s talk about the Supreme Court. They open every session of the Supreme Court with these words. Oh, yay. Oh, yay. Oh, yay. All persons here assembled and having business before the honorable Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and the honorable Supreme Court. That’s what they say before every session. And considering that they’re voting God out of the laws of America. If you go to the Washington Monument, it rises hundreds of feet into the air. Amen? But it was built to commemorate our first president, George Washington. And when you go inside… If you were allowed to climb to the very top, if you were allowed to go all the way up to the very top, all the way up those stairs, all the way up on the walls, going all the way up, it’s nothing but scriptures. All the way up. Who’s going to sandblast all them off? Amen? Let me tell you some of them. Search the scriptures, for in them you shall find eternal life, and they are they that testify of me. That’s Jesus in John 5, 39. Amen? Here’s another one. Holiness unto the Lord. What Jesus said, suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven. From Proverbs 22, 6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he’s old, he will not depart from it. In God we trust. Here’s another one. May heaven through this union continue its benevolence. And when you got all the way to the very top, there’s a golden dome that tops the Washington Monument, and it says, praise be to God. Amen? If you go to the Library of Congress, you’ll find out that all over its walls are scriptures, such as Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth showeth forth his handiwork. Here’s one of my favorite, Micah 6, 8. Thou knowest, O man, what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Amen? These are the things that you would see written on the walls of the Library of Congress. And if while you were there, you decided that you wanted to look up all the inaugural speeches of all the presidents from George Washington to our time, you would find in every one of those inaugural speeches a reference to Almighty God. And every single one of them that takes… The office of president on the inaugural day puts their hand on the Bible and swears and ends it by saying, so help me God. And with a hand on the Bible, we know which God they’re talking about. The capital L-O-R-D God. Amen? Every one of them. Here’s something else you can find in the Library of Congress. Every constitution for all the 50 states, you could go read them. And if you read them, you would find out that in all of those constitutions, there is a reference to Almighty God. Amen? And then even, let me just pick one. Let’s just, I’ll just pick one. New York. I’ll give you a little bit from New York. We the people of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom in order to procure his blessings to establish this Constitution. And that goes to show you, because New York City is also a city of set on a hill that cannot be hid. Amen? That the world looks to. So we see in all of these things that our nation was, was. founded on Christianity. And I’m not going to go into much more, but let me point out to you, as I mentioned a little earlier, that the darkest time in our nation was the Civil War, when this nation was cut in two, amen, because our president at that time Abraham Lincoln had issued the proclamation of emancipation, and he demanded that all slaves in the United States of America were to be set free. And of course, you know, the South didn’t like it, and they seceded from the country. In other words, they said, we’re starting our own country. They seceded. They said, we will no longer be a part of the United States of America. And they named themselves the Confederate States of America. And so I don’t know if Abraham Lincoln thought that was going to happen or not. I don’t know if he even thought that was a possibility that they would do that. But when they did it, it was a huge problem. He knew that it was not God’s will for the country to be divided and for the South to become its own nation where they could continue slavery. Amen? They left him no choice. They left him no choice but to go to war. And what took place was a terrible war because you had relatives from the south who had relatives in the north fighting each other, killing each other. Amen? And we know that it decimated the south. I mean, they decimated the south. They pretty much burned it down. Amen? That’s what it took. And the people that died in the Civil War are more than all the wars we’ve had since then put together. It was a dark, dark time. But it had to be. God had prospered America for over 100 years. America was just blossoming as one of the greatest nations on the earth. But God could not let her go any further until she dealt with her sin. She could go no further until she dealt with her sin. And you see what happened after finally the Civil War was over and all that was behind. What happened? America took off like crazy. They invented the telephone. They invented the Morse code. They invented the car. They invented the airplane. It just went from there. America just bloomed because God had to deal with the sin of slavery. But I want to read to you what Abraham Lincoln, something that he wrote during that time. He said, we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We’ve been preserved these many years in peace and in prosperity. We have grown in numbers and wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us. And we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated… That’s a pretty strong word. Intoxicated and… With unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Amen? And God forgave America for the awful, terrible, incomparable, ugly, I can’t even think of enough adjectives, sin of slavery. but it took a terrible cost. Amen? And even afterwards, how many know it was a long time before this country was really united, and we still deal with a lot of the aftermath to this day. Amen? But let it be known that when a nation humbles itself and prays and confesses its sin, when its leaders go to Washington and confesses the sin, then God will forgive. Amen? Amen? And God blessed this nation. God forgave and he blessed this nation. Amen? Because they were obedient. They were obedient to God. And God has blessed America. But we are coming to another dark time now in our nation that’s just as dark. Amen? Just as evil. And saints, we as the church… We have got to stand up. The world’s going to do what the world does. Jesus said, let the wicked be wicked. Let the filthy be filthy. Amen? But we as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have got to stand up. And we’ve got to say that we’re going to pray and repent on behalf of our nation. I want to give you one last quote. And this quote is from Martin Luther King, the champion of the civil rights in our lifetime, who was responsible for much of the laws that were still in place in the South, amen, and across this nation that separated white from black in public places like restaurants and bus stations, etc. We’re all aware of that, that he was the champion of that, amen? So I want to close with his words. They’re just short, but they’re powerful. We all know about, you know, I had a dream. But I want you to listen to these words because he’s speaking about our nation and about God. I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may. And that’s why he stood the way that he did and he paid the price. He paid the price and he knew he had a very strong possibility of being assassinated. He knew it, but it didn’t stop him. Because God had raised him up in his day and his hour and gave him a platform and gave him a voice that everybody listened to. Amen? And he knew that it could cost him his life and it did. Amen. And so he says, I still believe the stand up for the truth of God’s word is what we’re here for. This is the whole purpose of our lives is to stand up for the truth. Amen. And I want to know how many in this church, in this house of God, in this body of Christ will stand up for the truth. Amen. Amen. And whether you fly an American flag on your house. Amen. Or whether you stand up for the truth on your workplace or wherever it is. And certainly in our pulpits. Amen. And we need to expect that the attack against us is going to be fierce. So let me say this. You can pray for me all you want. Pray extra. Pray extra more. Amen. Amen? Because preachers are the next ones on the hit list. Let me qualify that. Preachers who are preaching out against the evil, the iniquity, standing up for the truth, speaking against same-sex marriage, they’re the next ones on the hit list. Amen? So you need to pray for those that you see that are standing strong because they’re a large target. Amen. But I’m asking you to pray that the Lord will bless the message. Amen. And that we’ll get the ear of people that we will be, as John said, a voice crying in the wilderness, a wilderness of sin and ungodliness. Amen. So join hands with your neighbors around about you. And let’s come into a prayer of agreement that we are going to be steadfast, that we’re going to stand, that we realize it’s our time to take the baton, that we have the liberties and the freedoms that we have because great men of old were willing to put their lives on the line. And you know, there’s a very interesting thing you might even look up and go Google at the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. The sufferings that many of them had, they lost, many of them lost everything. What they went through, the price that they paid. We don’t know about that. We don’t think about that. But they paid a price. Are you willing to pay the price even if it means that your family turns their back on you so your family may rise up against you? They will because Jesus said your worst enemies will be that of your household. On your job, you share Christ without losing your job. Don’t break the rules. God opens doors. And when he opens them, you can go through them. Don’t try to bust your way in or you could lose your job. And it might not be God’s will for that. Amen. But God is able to give you wisdom and open doors. Amen. I trust you’re enjoying this enlightening message about America’s Christian Foundation, One Nation Under God. This evidence of America’s Christian Foundation is rich, abounding and incontrovertible. The founding fathers and framers of the Constitution were Bible believers. Yet today, these facts are being disputed and even redacted from our history books. The dechristianization of America is causing her godly foundation to crumble under the weight of atheism and evolution, abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and racial hatred. The founding fathers warned God’s judgment would come upon this nation if we were ever to abandon our faith in God and the Bible. Friends, that day has come. Scripture says every nation that forgets God shall be turned into hell. And it would be foolish to think that America is the exception. Jesus said a city set on a hill cannot be hid. Washington, D.C. is a city set on a hill. Our capital building is called the hill, the highest seat of government on the planet, the emblem of liberty and freedom, the ideal of human government. Decisions made on the hill have far-reaching powers and influence, and when we examine the physical buildings and monuments in Washington, we quickly see they are inscribed with scriptures and petitions to God. The voices of her founders still speak today in the city that cannot be hid. One Nation Under God will take you through the Christian facts of America’s founding. It can be ordered on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK181. Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or go online to soundoffaith.org where you can order on MP3. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203 and request SK181. Till next time, this is Sharon Knott saying, Maranatha.
