LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
We are awed and inspired by the words of Lincoln, for they convey his resolve to restore the nation he loved to its spiritual foundation, to its freedom under God, and today we are facing a far greater war than even the horrendous one that was faced by Lincoln in his day.
We are facing a spiritual conflagration that is to the death--to the death of people of faith and to the death of the one nation that has ever been placed at the feet of the Savior at its inception.
The United States of America was raised up by Christian men who allowed the God of Heaven to have His way here. History books attest to His intervention in this nation's battles and to His presence in this nation's schools and churches and communities through the decades that unfolded before this young land that prospered under His hand of protection.
The presence of the Living God in this place was so profound that foreign observers like Alec de Tocqueville were compelled to proclaim that "America is a nation with the soul of a church."
The conflagration raging before us at this present time is a spiritual one. The enemy of God has endeavored to wrest this nation from the hand of God and he is prevailing in many areas.
Our schools --including Harvard and Yale and other institutions of higher learning that were established by Christians for the purpose of strengthening the faith of our people-- have become cesspools of wanton behavior and disdain for acquiring knowledge.
Our communities have been infiltrated by godless behaviors of every sort.
Many of our churches are little more than social clubs.
And our hearts are turned away from the Holy One.
We are in the last death throes of a once vital and godly life as a nation. Perhaps if we will individually repent and return to JESUS we can stay the progression of the enemy's insidious attack.
One thing is certain--our only hope in this monumental conflagration of our day is fervent prayer and sincere repentance and complete returning to the GOD of our fathers.
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