As we approach the two-hundred and thirty-first anniversary of the founding of this, the greatest nation God gave man, I’m glad that the framers of our country could not foresee her future. Otherwise they might never have bothered to risk their talents, their freedoms or their lives to see that she left the nest.

I wonder if George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and all of the other great men who drafted and signed the constitution knew that their document would be torn to ribbons on a regular basis by the land’s highest courts or that men and women living under the benevolent rule of its boundless freedom and opportunity would spit upon and burn the flag which symbolizes it.

Imagine the founders’ collective shock if they were told that their successors would someday invent ‘rights’ to slaughter babies, mock marriage, and remove God from schools, while ignoring the explicit rights to bear arms and freely exercise religion. Imagine Thomas Jefferson’s shock if he were told that his ‘inalienable’ rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” would someday apply only to those outside the womb.

Imagine what those forty great men might say to Michael Moore, John Kerry, Dick Durbin and all of the other American citizens who passionately despise and spurn their country and its defenders. Were the minutemen or the Sons of Liberty branded as “fools” or “Nazis?” How many Americans in 1775 called for surrender when our disjoint colonies faced the wrath of the most powerful empire on earth? How many newspapers complained about the “disapproval” of the rest of the world when we stood our ground at Concord?

And yet we have devalued as a nation. Liberty is cheap, opportunity taken for granted. We hate the flag for which all the rest of the world still longs. For two hundred years the peoples of the earth have tried in vain to mimic the success of this country—of this city upon a hill where men live free to make their own lives without the shackles of monarchs or the scourges of tyrants. They fail to see the truth which Benjamin Franklin knew so well:

“God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel”

We know the truth. And yet we despise its fruits. We despise the nation. We despise the freedoms. We stand up and shout lies to the rest of the world: “Your hopes are in vain! There is no liberty here.”

But we know better. We know the liberty. We live and breathe it each day. It is this liberty which allows us to say the hateful things that we say.

Our politicians want to pay penance to the rest of the world, and our diplomats want to swear our allegiance to global rule. Who is it that has clipped the eagle’s wings? Who is it that has filed her talons? Since when does America submit to any authority but God? Since when do we bow to the rule of sinful man?

Lord God, let us remember the words of Noah Webster:

“All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”

Remind us that the daily freedoms we so easily overlook spring not from our cleverness, but from your blessing. Change the hearts of those who deny your hand, deny your influence, deny your city on a hill. Restore to America that fire which once burned so bright; the fire of purpose, of passion, of vision for you.

But in the end, I pray only for what George Washington prayed:

“Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.”

Lord, raise the Star-Spangled Standard once again, release the eagle one last time, and let America shine for all the world to see. And when all else has passed away, let her not be remembered as an earthly kingdom, but as a herald of your Kingdom.

America, there’s still someone who loves you.