Princeton University, formerly College of New Jersey

Throughout the centuries the godly strategy of defeating evil has always been an internal to external, generational family plan. From there God’s power and blessing influences every area of culture. God’s worldwide covenant of blessing was initiated through Abraham. Speaking of Abraham in Genesis 18, God says, “For I have chosen him so that he may teach his children and the sons of his house after him to keep the way of the Lord and to do what is just and righteous.”

The most powerful force in America is not our government, our economy or our military. The force that has created the freest nations in history, is the peaceful and virtually unreported armies of godly families. If we mentor our families and friends to live out God’s Word in their own lives we can once again impact all areas of society. Here is a story to inspire and challenge your family. Notice how the power of only a few individuals from one family tree helped build two great nations.

John Knox, a former bodyguard and defrocked priest turned reformer, returned to his native Scotland, in

1560. He had spent 15 years in prison and exile. He preached the liberating Gospel with such power from the pulpit of St. Giles Cathedral that much of his nation was converted. So much so that “Mary Queen of Scots feared the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” As a result of Knox’s faithfulness, the lives, culture and government of Scotland was transformed in a decade.

Four generations later, a descendent of John Knox married a minister named John Witherspoon. By this time, in the 1740’s, Scotland had once again entered a time of economic turmoil, famine and persecution from its powerful overlord to the south, England. The Witherspoon/Knox family endured trials and even imprisonment, as they worked to revive the true faith in their homeland. They persevered. Elizabeth and John had ten children. Five survived childhood.

Prior to the founding of America, John left Scotland and accepted the invitation to become President of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University.) In the 1760’s the colonies were being pressed toward war with England. They were determined to create the world’s first constitutional republic rather than fall back into the European model of divine right kings and impoverished commoners. If the colonists were to succeed they would need political, military and spiritual leaders that would surpass any in history.

John Witherspoon, as the head of the College of New Jersey, became the teacher of those future leaders. He combined a deep faith in the Biblical Christianity of the Reformation with an understanding of how to apply that faith to every academic discipline, including nation-building. During his tenure there were 478 graduates of his college. With only three professors including himself, John was able to mentor all who came to his school using the tutorial method in six academic fields. He was then able to preach to them each Sunday in the campus chapel. Until 1902, every President of Princeton was a minister. America’s youth were largely men- tored by ministers like Witherspoon until the 20th century.

Of his graduates, at least 86 became active in civil government and included: one president (James Madison), one vice-president (Aaron Burr), 10 cabinet officers, 21 senators, 39 congressmen, 12 governors, a Supreme Court justice, and one attorney general.

Nearly one-fifth of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, one-sixth of the delegates of the Constitutional Convention, and one-fifth of the first Congress under the Constitution were graduates of the College of New Jersey. It can truly be said that John Witherspoon discipled his new nation by training the leaders, just as his ancestor John Knox had done in Scotland 200 years before.

Along with leading a college, and serving in the Presbyterian Church, Witherspoon threw his efforts into the political drive for freedom. He was elected to the Continental

Congress and sat on 100 different committees. As the debate over independence raged in Philadelphia on July 2, 1776, John stood to his feet and declared, “We are ripe for independence and in danger of becoming rotten for want of it, if we delay any longer!” He was the only formal minister to sign the Declaration of Independence (22 others had ministerial training.) The next year the British took out their revenge on him, ravaging his college and burning his personal and college libraries. He also lost two of his sons in the War for Independence.

John Witherspoon was an indispensable leader used by God to help found this freest and most blessed of all nations. His words on the National Day of Prayer in 1776 still ring with the spiritual power of his relative, the fiery reformer of Scotland. “While we give praise to God, the supreme disposer of all events, for His interposition on our behalf, let us guard against the dangerous error of trusting in, or boasting of an arm of flesh [human power]…If your cause is just, if your principles are pure, and if you conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.”

John Witherspoon’s words and life speak to us from the “great cloud of witnesses.” This is our day on the stage of history. God is orchestrating world events and our lives so that “all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

I believe that around our kitchen tables are seated the “Knoxes” and “Witherspoons” of our day who will be used to disciple the nations in our time. May God give us the eyes to recognize them and the commitment to train them, while they are still in our sphere of influence!

                                                 -Dr. Marshall Foster

As Sir Rhodes Boyson, one of her fellow architects of the “Thatcherite Revolution,” explained: “When she became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, Britain was on the brink of disaster, threatened by total collapse. The weak Labour government with a small majority presided over a bankrupt economy and threatened from within by a challenge to law and order itself. When she was forced from power in 1990, she left a sound economy and a confident and well-ordered society. The lessons are writ large.”

A woman of strong faith and conviction, she had an incredible understanding of the principles that made America a great country. Interviewed in the United States in 1996 she said, “The Ten Commandments are addressed to each and every person. This is the origin of our common humanity and of the sanctity of the individual. Each one has a duty to try to carry out those commandments. You don’t get that in any other political creed…. It is personal liberty with personal responsibility.”

Continuing with Margaret Thatcher’s words: We expect individuals to show “Responsibility to parents, to children, [and] to God. This really binds us together in a way that nothing else does. If you accept freedom, you’ve got to have principles along with responsibility. You can’t do this without a biblical foundation. Your Founding Fathers came over with that. They came over with the doctrines of the New Testament as well as the Old. They looked after one another, not only as a matter of necessity, but as a matter of duty to their God. There is no other country in the world which started that way.”

Margaret Thatcher was a staunch friend of the U.S. and specifically President Ronald Reagan. Through their boldness and determination they cooperated in successfully bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end and defeating the Soviet Union.

We will remember the Iron Lady for her remarkable achievements, but more importantly she modeled a strong and clear belief in Christ and His Word, giving her courage and decisiveness in times of crisis.   She left a legacy of leadership that transformed her nation and the world, inspiring many generations to come.

The torch of Christian liberty, held high for 50 years by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, has now been officially passed to us. May a loving God comfort the Thatcher’s family and ignite in the hearts of English and Americans alike a love for Him and a willingness to return to His ways.

As Americans it’s time to dust off our Bibles and rediscover the loving laws of God. As G.K. Chesterton says, “If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the 10,000 Commandments.” In America today as the Ten Commandments have been ignored, the 10,000 Commandments have grown to hundreds of thousands of laws – resulting in chaos and confusion.

America is at the tipping point between the two major conflicting law systems of men and nations: king’s or ruler’s law vs. God’s Law. America was founded upon a simple and yet profoundly effective infrastructure built upon voluntary obedience to God’s Law. The result was blessing, prosperity and personal liberty as the world had never before experienced. Taxes were low, laws were few and life and charity were focused at the family and community level.

But the past few generations have been seduced back toward the oppressive, top-down ruler’s law which has dominated most nations of the world. Throughout history this system has always enslaved a people through an elaborate network of bureaucracy and ruler’s laws, eventually leaving them dependent upon government for everything. The rulers often make god-like promises, always exempting them- selves from their own onerous laws and taxes.

The answer to this juggernaut of ruler’s law has been the same throughout history: The only source of liberty is God and His Word. Let us briefly track the impact of the earliest Christian believers as they faced the cruelty of Rome on the one hand and the anarchy and barbarity of the pagan tribes of Europe on the other. They ultimately outlasted and defeated the Roman Empire and laid the foundations for Western Civilization. They turned the world upside-down by following their Lord’s strategy of servant leadership. They started by first living out their faith through obedience to God’s laws in their homes, businesses and church fellowships. Then they extended charity in many ways, including feeding the poor and saving abandoned babies, left to die. They evangelized the unbelievers, and established God’s Law as the basis for all of their societal institutions.

In the first century, when these believers first came to evangelize the British Isles, England was still a Roman colony. Over time, Rome and its Ruler’s Law crumbled and the Roman legions left England. But the Celtic believers continued to follow the laws of the Scripture to create a simple, fair legal system and societal structure. These English believers followed this biblical infrastructure to progressively displace the pagan traditions of the Celtic clans and the heavy-handed tyranny of the Roman Empire.

In the fourth century, pagan barbarians from Ireland attacked and destroyed a village of Celtic Christians in England. They captured a sixteen year-old boy named Patrick. For six years Patrick was a slave who tended sheep for a cruel Druid chieftain in the frozen fields of Northern Ireland. Patrick had not taken seriously the deep Christian faith of his family. Now in his despair, he cried out to God. He prayed over one hundred times a day and nearly as much at night. He grew close to Christ in his suffering. Patrick became repulsed by the witchcraft and human sacrifice of the Druid priests. Eventually, God provided an escape back to England where he prepared for the ministry.

Later, Patrick returned to evangelize the lost people of Ireland who had enslaved him. His fearless courage and faith in Christ impressed the king so greatly that he was given free passage to minister throughout the island. Patrick led in the conversion and baptism of over 120,000 Irish people and planted over 300 churches. He converted the nation of Ireland to Christianity without bloodshed. Patrick was the first public figure in history to speak and write against slavery. He virtually abolished slavery in Ireland.

Wherever he set up a church, along with the books of the Gospel, Patrick gave them “The Book of the Law of Moses” (Liber Ex Lege Moisi) which compiled Scriptures to be applied to civil matters. This book became the basis of all social organization, including the family, welfare, economics, and government. This Celtic Book (Liber) was the first essential civil document of liberty that led Christian civilization to far surpass Rome.

What was the result of Celtic Christianity in the British Isles? The Irish, who had been barbarians controlled by Druids, now became Christians. The Scottish, English and Irish believers became the founders and evangelists for the conversion of all of Europe from barbarism. For the first time since ancient Israel, God’s Word became the law of the land. The results were civility, charity, monogamous marriage and successful family life, limited civil government, private property rights, the development of education, and the publication and preservation of the books of antiquity.

America was built on this same foundation which was the fundamental reason for our unprecedented blessings. May we be encouraged that if God can use a formerly unbelieving, teenage slave to bring liberty and civilization to the barbarous Irish, He can use us to restore liberty to the most well-established Christian nation in history.

Abraham Kuyper was the Christian prime minister of Holland in the 1890s and led the revival of that nation, which had been mired in skepticism and modernism. He left us this challenge:

“When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.”

The pillory at Charing Cross was the central place of government torture in London in the 1630s. Even today it is overseen by a giant statue of Charles I on horseback.

March 2013 Newsletter – to receive this in your inbox click here and use the form at the bottom of the page.  

Four hundred years ago the conflict between tyranny and liberty was red hot. Tyranny was well represented by James I and his son Charles I who ruled England from 1603-1645. These kings were facing off with a people armed with the most powerful weapon in history, the English Bible. For a thousand years the Bible had been hidden from the people, made illegal to own and was only written in Latin – until the Geneva Bible was printed in 1560. By the 17th century, thousands of families were reading their own Bibles and discovering its eternal principles of civil and religious liberty. As a result several generations of Englishmen rose up and stood against the tyrannical rule of the Stuart kings.

When King James died in 1625, his son Charles I ascended to the throne with the arrogance of a Roman emperor. He was the quintessential “divine right” monarch. He declared martial law and suspended the rights of the individual. He denied the right of Parliament to set taxes. He imprisoned people without cause or trial. These were all heinous violations of Magna Carta, the greatest English charter of liberty. Charles’ armed agents were sent throughout England demanding exorbiant taxes that gutted the estates of wealthy Englishman. If the taxpayer declined he was arrested and sent to the dungeons of London. There the king’s inquisitors at his “Star Chamber” in the tower of London used torture techniques to “discover the taxpayer’s assets.”

Perhaps Charles I greatest despotic act was his virulent persecution of all those who disagreed with his unbiblical religious views. He forced his views on every individual in England. In public displays, Charles would cut off the ears and slit the nostrils of liberty loving preachers and writers. He would then impose heavy fines and imprison these innocents in rodent-infested dungeons.

A turning point in public opinion took place on January 30, 1637. Three prisoners were locked down in the pillory in London before a huge crowd. These men included a Puritan minister, a Christian writer and Dr. John Bastwick, a physician. What was their crime? They had written pamphlets disagreeing with the king’s religious views. The sheriff began by branding the men with red hot irons on the forehead with an SL for seditious libel. Then he mutilated them by cutting their ears off and condemned them to a lifetime in the dungeon. Meanwhile Bastwick’s wife approached the pillory. Standing on a stool she kissed her disfigured, bleeding husband and placed his shredded ears in her handkerchief. The people were commanded to mock the prisoners. But instead they treated the men as martyrs, throwing flowers at their feet as they were marched back to the dungeon. The people were awakening.

The tyranny of the king and his men finally aroused the Christian sensibilities of the people. They would no longer tolerate burnings or mutilations for matters of conscience on religious views. The Parliament passed the Petition of Right in 1637 which declared the liberties of the people and prohibited the king from infringing on these rights. This document led the way to the English Bill of Rights. These became a major inspiration for America’s Bill of Rights in 1789 which even today restrains potential tyrants from usurping individual rights.

The persecutions drove tens of thousands of liberty loving believers to follow the Pilgrims to New England where they laid the foundation for the world’s most biblically based nation. They brought much of the wealth and intellectual leadership of England with them.

The first leader of this great migration was John Winthrop, a devout, Christian lawyer, judge, and business- man. Winthrop spent his personal fortune both to help finance the voyage and to provide for the nearly starving settlers after their arrival in Boston in 1630.

Winthrop penned A Model of Christian Charity on the deck of the flagship, Arbella. In this vision he calls his fellow believers to remember that they were under a great commission and in covenant with God. He says, “For we must consider that we shall be like a city on a hill; The eyes of all people are on us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and byword [disgrace] throughout the world.”

Winthrop was elected governor and the creation of a “Christian commonwealth” was an unprecedented success. Over the next decade thousands of believers and outstanding leaders came to join this “City on a Hill” to help create Christian colonies in New England. They all eliminated the “titles of nobility” that had

plagued England and Europe for centuries. One of these leaders was Rev. Thomas Hooker, the most powerful and popular preacher in England. Hooker, knowing he faced imminent imprisonment fled with his entire congregation and joined Winthrop in Boston in 1633.

Three years later, Rev. Hooker led one hundred fifty people into the wilderness of Connecticut to begin a new Christian colony to the glory of God. Using the Hebrew model of elected accountable leaders, Hooker and the people of Connecticut wrote the first biblically based constitution since Moses in 1400 BC. They developed the same principles in the Mayflower Compact of the Pilgrims into a full body of laws. Hooker’s Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1639 become a model for the United States Constitution in 1787.

The following century is one of the most important – yet forgotten – centuries of history. Beginning in 1607 almost all settlers were Protestant Christians who studied and reasoned from the Bible. They wrote their own covenants, agreements, and constitutions from the grassroots up, developing independent self-governing towns.

Alexis de Tocqueville was one who recognized that the key to American liberty was the development of the independent town as opposed to the top down rule in most of Europe. As he says, “the township was organized before the county, the county before the state, the state before the union.” All of this hands-on involvement by tens of thousands of individuals over many years was the dynamic base for the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitutional period.

America’s “city on a hill” can only be restored one family, one town at a time, from the bottom-up. Then as America once again shines with the light of Christian love, the darkness of our national malaise can be dispelled.

-Marshall Foster

America’s biblical government was forged in hundreds of town hall meetings
like the above Old South Meeting House in Boston, MA.

What gave the early immigrants to the American wilderness the courage, independent spirit, and audacious will to defy the hierarchical structures of the tyrannical nations of Europe and write their own documents of liberty?

How did these English yeomen accomplish what had never been done in 6,000 years of human history? Understanding the answers to these questions is crucial to the preservation of our liberty in the coming years. The reason that they were able to create self-governing, successful governments is that they were dedicated students of the “divine constitution” given to Moses. Their own written words and actions reveal that they were following a specific model. They knew that the God-ordained blueprint for true liberty had been given to the Ancient Hebrews on Mt. Sinai and codified in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible.)

Contrary to popular belief, the root of America’s governmental genius did not begin in the minds of the Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers built on a continuum of divine truth that was tried and tested in towns and colonies for 150 years before the constitutional period.

Samuel Langdon was prominent in securing the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Speaking before final ratification in 1788, he said, “The Israelites may be considered as a pattern to the world for all ages and from them we may learn what will exalt our character, and what will depress and bring us to ruin as a nation.”1

John Adams, America’s second president and foremost legal scholar knew that the biblical precepts of the Hebrews were the nest in all of human history. Responding to an author who had praised the Greeks, Adams says, “As much as I love, esteem, and admire the Greeks, I believe the Hebrews have done more to enlighten and civilize the world. Moses did more than all their [Greek] legislators and philosophers.”2

What was so uniquely different about the society and government laid down at Mt. Sinai? Legal Professor John Eidsmoe says, “In chapter 18 [of Exodus] Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, the Midianite, proposed that Moses decentralize the judicial system by selecting various tiers of judges, laying the groundwork for the Hebrew Republic.” 3

The people gave voluntary consent in choosing God as their King and choosing Moses as their commander and chief executive. God directed Moses to establish a senate or council of elders as well as a popular assembly similar to America’s House of Representatives. This assembly was called the congregation, all the assembly, and other titles.

The Israelites voluntarily chose to be subject to God’s precepts and loving ways. They elected their judges, and followed this same pattern of decentralized representative government, concentrating all civil government at the local level. In Israel all people were equal before the law. There was no caste system, no special privileged class, and no tyrant claiming to be God as was the practice of the ancient Pharaohs of Egypt. The national government, as long as the Hebrews followed God’s ways, was limited and reserved for specific national priorities such as national defense. All other powers and decisions were reserved for the local tribes as they held themselves and their leaders accountable to the just and merciful laws of God.

Rev. E. C. Wines, a renowned authority on the Hebrew Scriptures, explains how America had emulated Moses’ divine national plan. He says,“The Hebrew Constitution, in its substance and its form, in its letter and its spirit, was eminently Republican [a republic]. The power of the people was great and controlling….Whoever attentively considers the…Hebrew and American constitutions cannot but be impressed with the resemblance between them. Their fundamental principles are identical; and many of the details of organization are the same or similar.”4

This is the primary reason why America became the freest and most prosperous nation in history. Our forebears tapped into the eternal plan of God for men and nations. They understood that the laws of the universe are unchanging and that God knows best how His world works. Our loving God has not left us in the dark as to the only way of freedom. These colonial settlers also had a great advantage when it came to implementing God’s ways. They were, for the most part, devout believers in Jesus Christ, the God of heaven made flesh, for whom Moses was but a prophet.

This faith made our early settlers “more than conquerors through Christ” and able to govern themselves with moral power and clarity. They also had the “mind of Christ” and the Geneva Bible in their own language to give them the insights needed to create a worldwide example for all nations to experience God’s blessings and liberty.5

Can we not see the miraculous confluence of the revealed truths of civil order and the opening up of a new continent for discovery and settlement some four centuries ago? We are the heirs of this American miracle that has led to the political liberty of half of the world! We are more accountable than ever to reapply and obey God’s principles as individuals and as a nation. There is no other way of restoring our national liberty. This one of a kind matrix of liberty is sustained through the faithful, loving lives of Christian believers and guided by the eternal principles laid down 3,500 years ago by God at Mt. Sinai.

Langdon’s final words to the colonial legislators ring down to us as a divine warning. He declared, “If you neglect or renounce that religion taught and commanded in the Holy Scriptures, think no more of freedom, peace, and happiness; the judgments of heaven will pursue you.” Can we see what is at stake here? We are fighting not just for a flag or document but for the Glory of the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Judgment or blessing will pursue us depending on the path we choose.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     - Dr. Marshall Foster

Ugandans dedicate their nation to God in 50th year celebration.

Peter Berger says the world is now experiencing “two particularly powerful religious explosions” – resurgent Islam and dynamic evangelical Protestantism. The news media commonly reports the passionate rise of the worldwide Islamic movement. This rise, led mostly by murderous Jihadists, is almost entirely within already entrenched Muslim strongholds. The seldom reported truth is that Evangelical Protestantism now penetrates into parts of the world previously unknown to it. Mass conversions in Asia, South America, and especially in Africa mark this move of God. Christianity is the fastest growing religion today and the only one with a global reach. As they learn the whole counsel of Scripture, Christian believers not only receive eternal salvation, but also receive, at least in seed form, the biblical principles needed to align their culture to receive God’s blessings.

Uganda, like most African tribal nations, was founded upon and lingered for thousands of years in a state of intertribal warfare, the constant theft of private property and the tyranny of tribal chiefs. Yet God intervened. In the nineteenth century, missionary David Livingston opened up Central Africa to Christianity. After 1890, Uganda became an English Colony and Christianity began to spread. In 1962, Uganda won its independence from Britain. But by then the forces of radical Marxist guerrillas funded by Russia, and Islamic jihadists funded by Saudi Arabia, began to ravish the nation and its 85% Christian population. In 1971, Idi Amin Dada, a brutal military general and mass murderer, devastated the land, killing perhaps over 300,000 of his own citizens in cold blood.

Now, over the past three decades, Uganda has made major progress toward becoming a viable republic, with citizen rights and elections. All during this time, numbers of Christian missions, some with historic vision for godly nation building, have effectively worked to rebuild Uganda. A leading force in this restoration has been President Yoweri Museveni, a professed evangelical believer. During the recent celebration of 50 years of Ugandan independence,

President Museveni, following in the footsteps of leaders like the godly king Josiah (2 Kings 22-23), stood before the people of Uganda and publically repented of his sins and the sins of the whole nation. Here are his words:

“Father God in heaven, today we stand here as Ugandans, to thank you for Uganda. We are proud that we are Ugandans and Africans. We thank you for all your goodness to us. I stand here today to close the evil past and especially in the last 50 years… I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness.”

Museveni then said:

“We confess these sins, which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social, and economic transformation. We confess sins of idolatry and witchcraft, which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue, and betrayal. Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism, and sectarianism; sins of laziness, indifference, and irresponsibility; sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources; sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness, and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge….”

Then the President asked God for a new start: “Lord forgive us and give us a new beginning. Give us a heart to love you, to fear you, and to seek you. Take away from us all the above sins…”

As you read the conclusion of President Museveni’s prayer before all of Uganda, imagine similar prayers earnestly prayed by leaders of our nation at all levels of government, and from the pulpits of our churches.

“We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God, and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation, whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own. I renounce all the evil foundations and covenants that were laid in idolatry and witchcraft. I renounce all the satanic influence on this nation. And I hereby covenant Uganda to you, to walk in your ways and experience all your blessings forever. I pray for all these in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

How is it that Uganda remembers the pattern for godly life, when Americans have largely forgotten? For students of providential history, President Museveni’s speech should ring familiar. His speech traces the same path our forbears followed in founding America. For example, the Pilgrims first repented of their personal sins. Then they established their church covenants, committing themselves to live together in obedience to Christ. When they founded Plymouth in 1620, they made the world’s first governmental Compact (or Covenant) with God to found their colony. The Pilgrim influence quickly expanded to their neighbors.

Later colonists in Massachusetts and Connecticut built upon the Biblical foundations of Judeo-Christian covenantal local self-government. I call this era the lost century because so many have forgotten the power of its legacy toward building the future United States. The 17th century settlers founded all of their towns, colonies, and charters upon a covenant with the God of the Bible to walk in all His ways. Over eighty of these covenants provided content and structure for the great national covenant—the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4th, 1776. This pattern of Covenant-building, lived out in early America and now emerging in Africa, provides the strategy for our own national renewal. is renewal may begin in your town, your city council, your county commission, your local pastor’s prayer breakfast or your kitchen table. In that sense, the course of liberty and our children’s future are in our repentant hands and hearts.

We must not despair. Just as God hears the prayers of the Ugandan President, we believe God will also bless the prayers and actions of American believers who return to the covenants of their fathers. “Know, recognize, and understand therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, Who keeps covenant and steadfast love and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations (Deut. 7:9).”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              -Marshall Foster

“At Valley Forge, the Father of his country went alone, and sought strength and guidance from the God of armies and of light.” – Albert Barnes, D.D.

* * *

By Christmas Eve of 1776, the American Revolution was, in essence, over. The Americans had lost. George Washington was out of options. His army, now down to only a few thousand, had lost seven battles in a row and was freezing on the west bank of the Delaware River awaiting the end. The British, on the other hand had 33,000 soldiers, well over a hundred ships and were partying in New York City and preparing for the final surrender. Most of the American troops had resolve, but they had lost hope that England could ever be defeated. Half of Washington’s army, 1,500 men, were quitting that week and going home because their enlistments were up. Washington decided on one finnal offensive. He gathered the same fishermen who had helped him retreat in August from New York and had his beleaguered troops ferried across the half frozen Delaware at midnight on Christmas Day. Just before they boarded the boats, the General had the American Crisis, the challenge by Thomas Paine, read to the men.

“These are the times that try men’s souls: the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: “Tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to set proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has right [not only to tax but] ‘to bind us in all cases whatsoever’ and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon the earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

Washington landed near Trenton in a blinding snow and hailstorm that served as a cover for his crossing and approach. His men quickly surprised a detachment of 1,200 Hessians. Colonel Rhal and his men had been partying and drinking with a pompous, false sense of security late into the night. When Washington attacked in early morning almost all were captured and Rhal was mortally wounded. That day, Washington re-crossed the river with over 1,000 prisoners, and only five casualties of his own. As was his custom, he did not mistreat his prisoners. The Americans immediately crossed the river again avoiding the massive British counter attack and surprised the British from the rear at Princeton. General Washington won another victory, riding his horse between the lines of fire and miraculously remained unscathed as both armies volleyed. His troops rallied for a final charge and won.

These victories changed the course of history. Almost all of the American soldiers re-enlisted. France began to support the cause, and hope in the providence of God (the great equalizer) reinvigorated the colonists. Listen to the words of George Washington as he challenged his soldiers in the depths of the despair of the 1776 campaign: “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, freemen, or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses, and farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect. We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die.”

May I encourage you to share the Christmas Miracle of 1776 with your family this Christmas, challenging them to be committed warriors in Christ’s army this coming year? Presents, parties and hot cider pale in comparison to the sacrifice of our Savior and the sacrifice of our patriot fathers who died in the forest of New Jersey for our liberty. Years after the victory was secured and the Constitution was ratified Washington penned these words:

“No one can rejoice more than I do at every step taken by the People of this great Country to preserve the Union– establish good order & government–and to render the Nation happy at home & respected abroad. No country upon Earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange then, & much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means, and to stray from the road to which the finger of Providence has so manifestly pointed. I cannot believe it will ever come to pass! The great Author of all good has not conducted us so far on the Road to happiness and glory to withdraw from us, in the hour of need, his benecent support. By folly & misconduct (proceeding from a variety of causes) we may now & then get bewildered; but I hope, and trust, that their is good sense and virtue enough left to bring us back into the right way before we shall be entirely lost.”

Today, as then, the whole world is observing the internal battle for America being waged between the Christian and secular forces. We dare not underestimate the power of our life testimony as we wage this life or death struggle for freedom. We may yet see millions of apathetic Christians come alive if they see us laying our lives down for future generations by God’s power. America desperately needs a brave, virtuous, and loving army of believers who will permeate and heal our suffering nation.                 

- Dr. Marshall Foster

At this critical moment in American history we need what C.S. Lewis called “the clean sea breeze of the centuries” to clear our minds and to reboot our national integrity. As Americans are focused on political corruption on a massive scale, let us glance back a few centuries. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin spoke of the differences between America and the statist bureaucracies of Europe. Unlike Europe, there were few political offices in America. None of them was profitable enough to be attractive to men of greed. In fact, all politicians were expected to earn their own living in the private sector. Political office was to be chosen not for profit but for the purpose of sacrificial service.

Speaking of America, Franklin said, “Of civil offices, or employments [civil servants], there are few; no superfluous ones, as in Europe; and it is a rule established in some of the states, that no office should be so profitable as to make it desirable. The 36^th Article of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, runs expressly in these words; ‘As every freeman, to preserve his independence, … ought to have some profession, calling, trade, or farm, whereby he may honestly subsist, there can be not necessity for, nor use in, establishing offices of profit; the usual effect of which are dependence and servility…faction, contention, corruption, and disorder among the people. Wherefore, whenever an office, through increase of fees or otherwise, becomes so profitable, as to occasion many to apply for it, the profits ought to be lessened by the legislature.’”

Security & Stability

Until the mid 20^th century, Americans did not find their profits, pensions, or job security in government service. Where did they find their security? Americans were committed to private ownership, family centered entrepreneurship, and biblically derived principles and values as the way to true security and prosperity. They knew that the U.S. Constitution had delegated most of government to the local level. Responsible and charitable individuals, volunteer associations, and churches were the engine of our prosperity, the heart of our welfare system and the guardians of our liberties. Following this model, America became the freedom and prosperity capitol of the world, as well as the center for Christian charity and missions for 350 years. This was accomplished with an extremely small national government, no income tax, no national health care or welfare system and no government retirement. Americans were a truly free people with God as their source, not the State.

Benjamin Franklin explains, “Industry and constant employment are great preservatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be a comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion [Christianity], under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there, infidelity rare and secret; so that persons my live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been pleased to favor the whole country.”

In a Different World

Increasingly over the last century all three branches of America’s national government – Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court – have ignored the written constitutional limitations on their power. Most congressmen in recent generations have been trained at progressive law schools to ignore the Constitution. They have abandoned the rule of law, writing tens of thousands of arbitrary, unaccountable, unconstitutional laws. Congress has become what the Heritage Foundation has called the “ruling class”.

Most Americans do not know that their “public servants” actually live in a different world and under different laws than they do. Federal and state public employees have their own pension plans and health care that guarantees each person hundreds of thousands of dollars in their retirement. Recent studies reveal that public salaries are nearly double that of the private sector for comparable jobs. And because of public employee unions, these millions of bureaucrats are promised life-long job security and retirement by age 50-something. On the other hand, private citizens, by the age of 65 receive a pittance of their contribution to Social Security, virtually no pensions, and Medicare which is nearly bankrupt.

Abandoning the “Rule of Law”

The socialist academics and politicians have prodded the nation to leave the rule of law for dependence on massive government. This fact leaves us on the verge of class warfare which always leads to tyranny for all. Attorney and author Richard Perry states “The liberties of the American citizen depend upon the existence of established and known rules of limiting the authority and discretion of men wielding the power of the government.” He says that dozens of key documents beginning with the Magna Carta to the Mayflower Compact to the United States Constitution are all part of a single long political process. In his landmark book, Sources of Our Liberties, Perry includes 32 key documents which, along with others, “…contribute to the establishment of those rules of law in our Constitution and Bill of Rights which now state and guarantee our liberties.”

A righteous anger from “We the People” is about to begin routing the “ruling class” in Washington and at every level of government. Tens of millions of Americans are remembering that we are not like other nations. We are not “citizens of the state” or divided by classes. We are a republic, a nation of laws and not of men.

The Battle of our Time

Robert Winthrop said, “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Together we must engage in what Samuel Adams called the “animating contest of freedom.” The battle of our time is not between public employees and the private sector or between races or classes. Adams calls us to this contest with these challenging words. “Courage, then, my countrymen; our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” Our choice is clear.

                                                                                             Dr. Marshall Foster

This is how it happened.

For nearly a century our earliest ancestors set up their civil society molded around the principles of limited, accountable, representative government.

Their experiment was the culmination and expression of the blood-bought freedom documents including the Celtic interlinear Bible translations in the first centuries A.D., Patrick’s Liber Ex Lege Moisi (Book of the Law of Moses), English Common Law, Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact.

But we should have no illusions that our colonial ancestors created the exceptional American society with ease. Just as they were becoming successful, the colonists were devastated by the London financial and stock market collapse in 1720, caused by the Parliament’s “regulating” the markets, which destroyed fortunes all over the English Empire. Credit and the real estate bubble collapsed in the colonies.

England began to break centuries of English law, crushing colonial freedom. A series of unaccountable, corrupt, crown appointed governors were sent to overshadow the self-governing colonial legislatures. They lined their pockets with America’s burgeoning prosperity. They perpetuated a system based on tax, spend, and steal. Professor Marvin Olasky says that these governors with “aspirations to dictatorship” filled political power positions in the colonies with “pimps, valets de chambre, electioneering scoundrels, decayed courtiers, and abandoned, worn-out dependents.” For decades these corrupt politicians attempted to control the lives, jobs, money, and religious freedoms of the colonists. A new surge of immigration brought thousands of outcasts from Europe, some of questionable character. As the colonial cities grew, immorality and destructive addictions multiplied. Early Christian zeal lessoned and many youth strayed from the faith.

But suddenly, God rose up a tavern keeper’s son from the English countryside to come to America and ignite the Great Awakening. George Whitefield, the most famous minister in England, became a missionary to the colonies. He and his friends, like Jonathan Edwards from Connecticut, were scholars. For over 30 years they declared an intelligent Christianity that not only converted souls but focused minds on intellectual pursuits that impacted all of society. They united the colonists to limit the power of government to its biblical jurisdiction as had been reasoned in documents of liberty for centuries back to Magna Carta.

Olasky explains, “The Great Awakening had the potential to lead to separation from England precisely because it did not, in general, propose separation from the world: The Calvinist background of most revivalists helped them to avoid the common revival  spawned sense that the world is so evil that any political and social reaction within it also is evil. [The withdrawal of Christians from public life is a central reason for America’s decline today.] Revival leaders such as Gilbert Tennett were careful to insist that

Christians are ‘born for Society’ [born to engage in all of culture] and must work for ‘the Good of the Public’ [be involved in government], which we were born to promote. Soon, observers were noting that consistent Calvinists emphasized God’s sovereignty over all, including kings; they strove for holiness in government as well as in their own lives.”

The Great Awakening united the American colonies, not only spiritually, but politically. The believers were challenged to apply the Scriptures to all of life, including civil government and its limited jurisdiction. By the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the colonists were the most literate people in the world. They had received their intellectual training at the feet of hundreds of patriot pastors like Whitefield and were students of the great Calvinist writers who declared the sovereignty of God over everyone, including the king. Yale Professor Harry Stout documents that the “sermon stood alone” as the weekly “medium of public communication.” Stout says that “the average weekly churchgoer in New England …listened to something like 7,000 sermons in a lifetime, totaling somewhere around 15,000 hours of concentrated listening.” According to a ten-year long study done by the University of Houston of 15,000 writings and speeches by the Founders, 94% of the Founding Fathers’ quotes were quoted, either directly or indirectly, from the Bible. America was irrefutably founded as a Christian nation.
The colonists were going to need all of their wisdom and faith as they faced an English government threatening the end ofcolonial freedom. The British brought thousands of troops to New England. They stormed Boston, arbitrarily convicted colonists without trial by jury, taxed and stole the people’s goods and boarded their troops in private homes. 

Americans have been turning away from Him and history, His story, for decades. At the start of the 20th century our true history was rewritten (“revisionist history”), and has since been forgotten. As C.S. Lewis says, “It is the forgotten past that enslaves us.” If we had not forgotten history, we would have known that every time people turn away from God, immorality, corruption and eventually economic depression result. We would have also remembered that America has had a number of economic meltdowns. Each time, Americans repented, a great renewal resulted and America’s prosperity and stability were restored.

For example, by the late 1600s, the colonists compromised their “Pilgrim” faith and turned to greed and moral corruption, which led to the economic depression of the 1720’s. But the Great Awakening followed and swept almost half of the population back to faith in Christ and cultural renewal resulted. In the 1780s and 90s, moral and spiritual collapse led to economic depression. Then revival swept the Ivy League schools, leading to the founding of the world’s first great missionary movement. In the stock crash of 1857, one man began a prayer meeting in South Manhattan. The meeting grew from 5 men to 10,000 men who prayed daily for months, and revival spread to England, Australia and around the world. Then, after the Great Depression and World War II, a repentant America and England began the greatest evangelistic explosion in history, reaching the emerging world.

Now, this is our moment. It is not a time to panic. This is the time to learn the essential lessons of history and apply God’s unchanging, successful solutions to our lives and our nation. For example, see if you can find hope for us today in the following story. Like Americans now, the English people of the 13th century had nearly forgotten their great heritage of Christian liberty. Their nation was filled with corruption and lawlessness. A small group of landowners and business leaders at that time experienced the same anger and frustrations that we face today. They were being overwhelmed by an out-of-control government, in their case, a king.

King John killed the true heir to the throne and began tyrannizing the other leaders of his nation. He stole more and more of their wealth and their land and even their wives. In 1214 he demanded such high taxes from everyone that the poor serfs were starving in the streets. The nobles and landowners wrote a letter to the king demanding that he abide by the law. King John refused their request and multiplied his efforts to tyrannize nobles and peasants alike. So the nobles made a wise choice and went to the most committed spiritual leader of the time, Stephen Langdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They asked him to write a document that would force the king to limit his power based on the law of the land (the biblically based common law). Langdon was well motivated to write this document since he had seen his own family torn from his house and exiled by this wicked monarch.

Langdon’s writing became known as Magna Carta, the foremost document of liberty ever produced, next to the Bible. Magna Carta, and its 63 articles, became the masterpiece of freedom for the next 800 years. Its first article insured that the church shall forever be free from state interference. It stipulated that there could be no taxation without representation. It demanded a trial for every freeman by a jury of peers.

Magna Carta’s greatest legacy is the concept of a nation of laws rather than men. In its final article it called for armed resistance by the people if their rulers would not obey the law. This same obligation of the people to rise up and throw off tyrants is stated in our Declaration of Independence. All of the articles of Magna Carta were rooted in a long history of biblical principles and the Ten Commandments.

The nobles, because of King John’s arrogance, were forced to raise an army which they called the “Army of God.” They marched on the king’s troops, defeated them, and then forced the king to sign Magna Carta on the field at Runnymede on June 20, 1215. After

signing the charter, John escaped back into his castle at Windsor and threw himself on the ground, beat his fists and ate straw like a mad man. The next year John recanted his agreement to obey Magna Carta. The barons were forced into another war with the king. But the king was caught in a rising tide while he was trying to move all his treasure, and he lost his wealth in the ocean. He died of dysentery three days later. From that time forward all the kings of England were forced to deal with the brilliant biblical principles laid out in Magna Carta by Stephen Langdon. America’s foundations of liberty are built upon these principles, and others, reasoned from the Bible.

The story of Magna Carta is one of many that reveals the strategy of how to restore liberty to a nation in chaos. We have the greatest heritage of liberty of any nation on earth. But we cannot live on our past laurels. We must lead our nation back to God, teaching and applying the great lessons of history. And then we can go back into the center of the cultural battle for our nation and hold our representatives accountable to obey the limits of the Constitution. We, the believers, have been absent from duty, disengaged from the main issues of our time. This is our moment. Our children are watching.

 - Marshall Foster