For our context, a paradigm is a world view that serves as the foundation supporting our answers to questions like: Where did we come from?  Why are we here?  Where are we going?  When our country was formed, most agreed on the foundational principles upon which our morals and laws should be based.  These principles have been referred to as Judaeo Christian Values.  Even while our fledgling country had its growing pains, it enjoyed freedoms and bounty that had been little known over the face of the globe.  America has obviously been blessed by the God whose values we embraced.

  Today, we are witnessing the demise of our constitutional republic, as sin and the neglect of our eternal souls have loosed us from our time honored moorings, and set us adrift as a nation.  Because we are falling away from these Judaeo Christian Values, and our sense of dependence upon God is greatly diminished, a new paradigm has been formulated in the minds of evil men, a foundation based on the tenets of godless humanism.  But God would have us beware: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)”  Time will prove that the God of the Bible was and is our only hope of survival.

  History is replete with examples of nations and cultures that have abandoned God to worship the creature rather than the Creator.  “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:28-32)”

  We must repent, and return to the God of our fathers, before it is too late!

  David, “a man after God’s own heart,” was the second king of Israel.  His  reign was 1,000 years before Christ came to earth.  God used him, by inspiration, to pen many of the Psalms that are recorded in the Bible.  The first king of Israel, King Saul, was still on the throne when David was anointed to take his place.  The jealous Saul made several attempts on David’s life, and on one occasion David sought refuge in a cave.  Psalm 57 is a record of his thoughts and prayers in the midst of this quiet solitude.

  David prayed, “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. (Psalms 57:1)”  David was one of the bravest, wisest, most formidable soldiers who ever fought in the victorious armies of Israel, and yet he refused to trust in his own prowess for protection, but threw himself on the mercies of God.  He said, “I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up.  God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. (Psalms 57:2-3)”

  Many in our day are trusting in themselves, or in the strong arms of boisterous men who they believe will deliver them in times of calamity, but no man will deliver them unless God wills it so.  “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. (Jeremiah 17:5)”  God wants us to know that we were created in need of that which only He can provide.

The song writer captures the spirit of this truth when he wrote, “Lead on, O King eternal, the day of march has come; henceforth in fields of conquest your tents will be our home.  Through days of preparation your grace has made us strong; and now, O King eternal, we lift our battle song.

Lead on, O King eternal; we follow, not with fears, for gladness breaks like morning where’er your face appears.  Your cross is lifted o’er us, we journey in its light; the crown awaits the conquest; lead on, O God of might.”

  There is much talk these days about making America great again, but few people stop to consider what made America “great” in the first place.  When America was great, the vast majority of her citizens acknowledged the existence of God and our dependence, as a nation, upon Him.  When America was great, most folks agreed on the fixed moral absolutes of the Bible, as established by our Creator God:  A man and his wife had children and raised them in the home as a family unit.  We did not kill babies in the womb at any age.  We didn’t mutilate the genitalia of children and call it “gender identity” or “adjustment,” or “affirming care.”  Men and women accepted their birth sex and would not enter into shameful, “same sex” relationships.  It was wrong to lie, even for politicians.  Profanity was disdained and not tolerated by the masses, and a code of ethics governed communication, especially in a public setting.  There was a spiritual perception, a moral compass induced by the Holy Spirit of God among most Americans that has diminished until it is almost unknown—and there is no longer evidence of a healthy fear of God.

  If we are serious about making America great again, we will have to repent of our sins, turn from our wicked ways, embrace the God of our Fathers, and exercise a renewed faith in Him.  America was great only because her people acknowledged her great God.  She has fallen from greatness gradually through the years in a way that directly correlates to the tightness of her embrace of the God of the Bible.  “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. (Psalms 33:12)”

  Before the Savior entered the world almost 2000 years ago, God said to His people, Israel, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2Chronicles 7:14)”

  The deliverance offered to Israel can be ours today, if we will heed the Words of our unchanging God!  It may as well start with you and me.

  Years ago, I was pier fishing on the coast and reeled in a fish that I did not recognize.  I was out of bait and had to walk down to the pier house to get more.  While I was there, someone asked, “How’s the fishing?”  I told him that I had just caught a really strange looking fish and I had never seen one like it.  He asked me to describe it, and as I did one of the men who was listening to our conversation looked at the others and said, “That sounds like an Angel Fish and there is an award for the first Angel Fish caught on the pier.”  Excitedly I ran down the pier and returned with my fish to claim the award.  When everyone started to laugh, I must have looked confused, so one of them explained that my “prize fish” was actually only a Pig Fish.  I guess I had not done a very good job of describing it.

  Today I am called upon to describe the Creator of fish, and birds, and man, and everything else, and for this description I am more studied.  Our Creator God is: Holy and cannot tolerate sin (1Peter 1:15-16).  He is just and cannot overlook sin (Psalms 89:14).  He is loving, even of the unlovely (1John 4:8).  He is gracious, giving us that which we don’t deserve (1Peter 2:3).  He is merciful, not giving us what we do deserve (Hebrews 2:17).  He is eternal (Deuteronomy 33:27).  He is unchanging (James 1:17).  He is compassionate and patient (Psalms 86:15).  He is omnipotent or all powerful (Jeremiah 32:17).  He is omniscient or all knowing (1John 3:20).  He is omnipresent or everywhere at once (Psalms 139:7-12).  He is the only true and living God; there is none like Him (Jeremiah 10:10).

  As you can see, one can know about God through His Word.  The Bible is filled with God’s inspired revelation of Himself.  There are also the visible works of God in creation that serve as irrefutable evidences for a Great Designer and Sustainer.  And then there is the innumerable host of men and women down through the ages who have known God and whose lives were redeemed from the curse of sin (i.e. spiritual death—eternal separation from God).  For them, to know Him is to love Him, and He alone is worth living for, or if need be, worth dying for.

  Everywhere you go on earth, you will find the innate desire among the people there to worship a god.  There may be those who for selfish reasons deny the existence of deity, but their facade is always exposed when tragedy strikes and their god consciousness starts to show.  The Bible alludes to the logical, universal acceptance of a Sovereign Divine when it says, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. (Psalms 14:1)”

  As you know, there are many perceptions of who or what god is, but in most cases, the beliefs are self-defeating, as their gods are inanimate, dead, or just figments of the imaginations of mere men in desperation.  The Psalmist explains that, by comparison, the God of the Bible is different: “Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. (Psalm 115:2-8)”  To be sure, there is only one true and living God—the God of the Bible (God’s revelation of Himself to man).  The Apostle Paul said that the worshippers of other gods are those, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 1:25)”

  Consider the great things God has done for them that trust Him:  Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.  The LORD hath been mindful of us: he will bless us; . . . He will bless them that fear the LORD, both small and great. The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children. Ye are blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth. The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men. (Psalms 115: 11-16)”