Revisiting America’s Godly Heritage
October 16, 2025
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Bodie Hodge
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/16/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer:
Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand in the Gap Today, where here we examine headline news and selected cultural trends, but through the lens of a biblical worldview and as we say, when touching on matters of American public policy, and I say that because there are other countries around the world that listen to this program, but where that is the case, American public policy issues we look at, then we bring into that a constitutional consideration today. I’ve asked Bodie Hodge formerly with answers and genesis, and now leading his own ministry, biblical Authority Ministries, to join me for a look back into America’s heritage as it relates to God’s word and to the authority of God’s word and connected with that God’s blessing on nations and the true source of greatness. And certainly as we look around and we see our nation in the throes of God’s judgment and it is, and if we’re not seeing that, we’re not looking at things properly, it is.
Sam Rohrer:
But how do we know that? Well, it’s identifiable in a number of ways. One is the impending national bankruptcy due to our unrestrained, and I’m going to say evil because it is, it’s stealing money from the people to spend on things that are not required. But we’ve got a $38 trillion debt and it’s driving a lot of things right now, but also the rise of enemies both within and without, which is something that God says would happen to nations that fall under his judgment. A government that frankly right now is in shutdown due to what? Well bickering, partisanship and a, I’m going to say a disjointed view of the duty of government in its relationship to the people and to God. And in addition, connected to all that an economy that is floundering. It is. And our government leaders threatening as we speak war in at least three places around the world. If there was ever a time to talk about God, what our relationship as a nation once was to God and compared to today, I’m going to say it would be today. In addition, looking back and around further motivated by our approach to our 250th national anniversary coming up next July 4th makes our discussion today I think really relevant. The tide I’ve chosen to frame our conversation is simply this revisiting America’s godly heritage. And with that, Bodie, thanks for being with me today.
Bodie Hodge:
Hey, it’s great to be back on the program
Sam Rohrer:
Bodie before we look back at certain key documents and you’ve been doing some research on all that, so we’re going to pull from that today. But I want to ask you why as a function of Biblical Authority Ministries, which you lead, why have you chosen at least for a little while here anyways, to have written several articles regarding our American heritage since your life focus has always been on creation in Book of Genesis, why you departing just a little bit?
Bodie Hodge:
Well, there’s actually a relationship between all of it. When you go back, God, his word is the absolute authority in every area, whether it’s history, whether it’s your local nation, whether it’s your local church, the Bible is still the authority in every area. And one of the things that I noticed here in recent times is we look back at our heritage and I’ve heard people in today’s culture start to say, oh, well those people who are founding the country, they weren’t really Christians. There might’ve been a few, but most of them weren’t. And I started saying, hold on a second here, that’s actually not accurate to history. And so from a biblical authority perspective, it’s like hold it. We need to be honorable to our history. We need to understand what was going on, whether it was good or bad, we need to understand the truth of what was going on in those times. And I thought, you know what? As an American, I have a love for my country. I have a love for our heritage. And so I wanted to go back and at least take a look at some of this and dive into in a little bit more detail. So I actually got really excited about it as I was writing some things up.
Sam Rohrer:
Well, I think that’s great Bodie, because all the way through scripture, the Lord said to the people of Israel, which was a model to look back and remember all that God had done and their failure to do that is partially what led them astray. So I want to agree with you. I didn’t what you were going to say, but I think that’s just so right on track. But let’s go to scripture here now Bodie and lay the foundation, I’m going to say for national greatness and national blessing, there’s so much what’s going on politically now of talking about greatness and make things great again and prosperity, which is they would connect that to blessing, although that word blessing is not used too much. The nation of Israel we know was established by God in covenant. That’s part of a demonstration of how a nation, if they submitted to God and implemented his definition of right and wrong and justice and human interaction with each other and relationship to God above could be a light to the world.
Sam Rohrer:
That was part of the plan for Israel that God had where our founders knew this blessing relationship of God to Israel and they knew what Deuteronomy like 28, 1 and two says, I’m going to summarize it here to help lay a foundation, then ask them comment. But it said here in Deuteronomy 21 and two, God said to Israel, and it shall come to pass if thou shalt harken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, Moses telling on behalf of God to the people and observe and do all of his commandments, which I command you this day, that the Lord thy God will set the high above all nations of the earth. That’s the greatness part. And all these blessings, the blessing, prosperity part shall come on thee and overtake thee if you harken to the voice of the Lord summarized in other places like King Solomon did. And please ask these 1213, he summed it all up and he said, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the entire duty of man and he put a lot of men together and you have a nation. So there you have it. Now from your perspective, did our early founders reflect a working knowledge of the command and promise for national blessing in these versing fear God and keep his commandments?
Bodie Hodge:
I would say absolutely. The more that I looked at it, I mean I think they had such an incredible understanding of who God was, what sin is, how a government should run to be able to oppose a sinful lifestyle and the terrible things that are out there and to help promote a godly culture. They did this over and over again, not just in one document here or a statement there. I mean they have it all over the place. It was a way of life for them, and I think that’s an incredible model. When you go back and look at that, there’s major documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. There’s also state constitutions, there’s the Mayflower Compact. There’s so many documents that just dive right into who God is and what he’s done and how our early nation and even the precursors to that nation wanted to give honor and glory to God.
Sam Rohrer:
And Bodie, I would say the same thing that you said, there’s a great emphasis to diminish, let’s put it that way. What we would say would be true godly influence, a true understanding of scripture and just saying, oh, well they were all deist as you said, or whatever. So I totally agree with you, and it makes a big difference on how we view ladies and gentlemen where we are today by how we and what filter we look back on upon what was. And that helps us to also determine how we look ahead and a problem of generations throughout history is that they either fail to look back or don’t look accurately or misinterpret what is happening to them at the present and then that surely skews everything going forward. But God’s word puts it all in perspective when we look at it through that lens.
Sam Rohrer:
And we’re going to do that today when we come back, the next segment we’re going to deal with here, we’re going to talk about some of the early documents that gives evidence of our founder’s view of God. Well, we’re beginning our second segment now and thanks for being on board here with us today. My guest today has been with me before, but it’s been several months now. Bodie Hodge, he is the President and the CEO of Biblical Authority Ministries. You may recognize his name. He was formerly with answers in Genesis as a lead speaker for them in a number of ways, but he’s now with Biblical Authority Ministries and he has a website@biblicalauthorityministries.org. A lot of material on that that you might find hopeful. So I’ll just put that before you. Our theme today is this revisiting America’s godly heritage. There’s a reason that we should do that.
Sam Rohrer:
God told Israel if he taught in the last segment, he reminded Israel all along. Go back and remember what I did for you because if you don’t remember what I did for you, you’re going to begin to think very quickly that the blessings that I gave to you, you got at your own hands and at that point blessing will turn to cursing. That is God’s message to all nations. Now that being the case, we got a 250th anniversary coming up. There’ll be discussion regarding that it increasingly in the weeks and the months ahead, but it’s always a good time to look back and that’s what we’re doing today. So let’s just start here. We’ll just kind of walk down through and visit some documents that are indicative of our founder’s relationship and understanding to God when revisiting America’s heritage. I have found that different people will start with different dates.
Sam Rohrer:
Some would go back to the discovery of Columbus as a Messianic Jew, which he was and his concern for the spread of the gospel and his planting of the cross on the beach of this new world. And that was true and that was significant. That was 1492, right? Others would start with the colony of Jamestown in Virginia. But you’d have to note with that is that its purpose was as a business endeavor only. There was no identifiable relationship to God in that colony or that settlement or the gospel. And of course that settlement failed. Most others looking for the hand of God would start with the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock and who wrote the Mayflower Compact, which states within it a very clear view of God, their view of God and their mission from God, that of communicating the gospel. And it was this document and many refer, and I hold to this as being the earliest form of our organic document of law.
Sam Rohrer:
Some would not look at it quite that way, but I put it there because it’s significant. Here it is. The first part of the Mayflower compact. It said this that, well, let me see if I’ve got it here, let read this a bit later. But it was this document that they have and the Pilgrim’s mission that bolstered later came by the Puritans came it’s few years later in the New England colonies. And then for about a hundred years later, bolstered again by a well-developed treatise composed by William Penn here in Pennsylvania where I sit, including the understanding of scripture and God’s requirement to fear God and keep his commandments developed in an amazing way. Penn identified the vital biblical concepts of the authority of God as creator God’s word, as authoritative the reality of sin, the reality of the depravity of man’s of evil. And from it then came the concepts that being the case, the concepts of the separation of power that needed to be.
Sam Rohrer:
He actually talked about Christian education and the need for that in linking these concepts to the need for the people as citizens and those in government to voluntarily submit themselves to God’s moral law. The 10 Commandments as they’ve said, if freedom was ever to get off the ground, that was all prior to our declaration in the 1682 frame of government written by Penn, I’m referring to became the foundation from which sprang the concepts of the Declaration of Independence sometime later and then the Constitution and giving further undeniably I think to our American heritage now in the Mayflower Compact, this is where I want to read this, the word start with this in the name of God and then it goes on and says, having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith and in honor of our king and the country, that was a Mayflower compact, pretty clear, isn’t it? Then 156 years later, 56 men sign their names to the Declaration of Independence. So Bodie here, let’s start this. In your research, what did these signers of the Declaration of Independence, what did they reflect as to their understanding of God, the fear of God in keeping God’s commandments?
Bodie Hodge:
Yeah, they were absolutely clear that they were following right along with these previous documents. They are following the Christian God, the God of the Bible, and they’re stating that, hey, this is the God who is above nature. He’s the supreme judge of the world, for example. He’s the creator. They’re acknowledging him in that position. And what I loved about that, and let’s just look at the Declaration of Independence for a moment, it’s building on these documents and they’re appealing to God as the absolute authority even above the King of England, that’s where they’re getting their declaration of Independence. From there they’re asking God for independence above the King of England. And so we sometimes miss that. That’s the overall theme of the actual declaration. So yeah, I think right along with it they’re saying, Hey, we believe in the God of the Bible. We’re going to trust in him and the divine providence to lead them into a new nation. It’s pretty powerful.
Sam Rohrer:
Yeah, it is very powerful. And some of the documents you put together and I, so you would have ’em there, call it out if you don’t mind. There’s a few references within the Declaration of Independence, which very clearly unmistakably identifies our founder’s view and dependence upon God. Would you just cite a few of those?
Bodie Hodge:
Yeah, I’ll read a couple of these here. Here’s one of the quotes from the Declaration of Independence says, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s just pause for a moment. That one right there, most people have probably heard that one way or another. They’ve probably heard it in education or they may have just heard it here or there, people talking about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness or rights. The concept of rights is a Christian concept. It comes from our creator. We are made in the image of a God who establishes rights. That’s where those rights come from. And so we talk about rights all the time in our culture, but you go back and you go, oh, hold on, this is predicated on the God of the Bible, so that’s pretty powerful.
Bodie Hodge:
Here’s another one. We therefore the representatives of the United States of America appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions. Here they are recognizing that God is not only the creator, but he is also the supreme judge of the world. He is going to judge right and wrong. He’s going to judge the living and the dead. He is going to be the one that we have to answer to. So they’re recognizing that they’re recognizing who God is. Of course, there’s others in here. It talks about the laws of nature and nature’s God. God is above all of nature. He is not part of nature. He is beyond it. He created all things. So there are those types of things within the Declaration of Independence, clearly recognizing who God is
Sam Rohrer:
And it’s interesting as the appealing to God as judge. I know in my reading as I’ve reflected back on many of them, they knew that accountability judge, I mean they would appeal to God as judge when they put their names on this document. They actually were putting a target on their back before the king. They were committing treason. This was no small matter. And the king at that point, he was judge, he was king, he was the lawmaker and he was judge. And so they were indicating their understanding of authority as well by appealing to a higher authority than the king. You may want to speak about that just a bit,
Bodie Hodge:
Right? A lot of people don’t understand because we’re so used to living in the United States that when we go back to the founding of our country, we actually came out of a nation that had a kingship. The king was the sovereign. He was in charge, he was in power. What he wants to do, he could do. Now, it was limited a little bit from the Magna Carta and so forth, which is actually a very Christian document as well over in England. But that king had a significant amount of power. Now, he was also, and this surprises a lot of people, the king is in charge of the Church of England. That is the Anglican church. Even to this day, king Charles is the head of the Anglican church. Queen Elizabeth II was the head, the church just before him. So it was a Protestant nation.
Bodie Hodge:
It is a Protestant kingship with that particular denomination. So when the United States says, Hey, we’re going to appeal to God over you, we’re going to appeal to God being the judge to separate us from your sovereignty and we’re going to have our own sovereignty under God himself, what they were doing, you’re exactly right. They put a target on themselves, but what they were doing, they’re being born out of a Christian nation into a new form of a Christian nation. And I know that surprises a lot of people, but when you look back at these documents, they were clearly Christian. What they were different from England in is that they were not a denominational type of a nation. They opened that door up, unlike being like England where it was the Anglican religion is that’s what’s there anybody else, you’re going to get persecuted a bit whether you’re Puritans, whether you’re Quakers or whatnot. It wasn’t like that here in the United States. They said, Hey, let’s work together, but we’re still going to stand on the God of the Bible.
Sam Rohrer:
And ladies and gentlemen, isn’t that something? Because all of you listening me probably are well aware of these things, but again, it’s good to go back and to revisit, but that’s what we’re doing right now, revisiting the foundation that has made all that we have enjoyed for these many generations. It didn’t just happen and it didn’t happen because somebody sitting in Washington somewhere else come up with some good ideas. No, it was because earlier people understood what God said and they said, if we do it your way, we can expect to be blessed. And they did. And in fact we have. We’ll continue in this discussion, stay with the we’ll back in just minute. Well Bodie continuing on in our discussion here today following the Declaration of Independence with its clear reference to God as creator, God as giver of human rights and more which you referenced in the last segment.
Sam Rohrer:
Ultimately in due time, let’s put it this way, because our nation was birthed, a seed was planted, it had to be watered over a lengthy period of time and like a plant that was growing and then comes to fruit, it didn’t happen overnight. It was over a period of time that Mayflower compact and whether it was somebody wants to go back to Jamestown or go all the way back to Columbus, all of these were in continuum, part of God’s plan. But anyways, declaration came along. Ultimately there came along the constitution, which though reflective substantially of the 13 colonies, their constitutions, all of which gave clear and powerful reference to God as creator. We’re not going into them in detail today, but they did. And some like here in Pennsylvania specifically to Christianity in this early time period following the Declaration, but prior to the complete adoption of the national US Constitution, there was another document that you’ve looked at very worthy of that and it helped to lay the foundation for law in the balance of our nation at that point, that area beyond the original 13 colonies and it was called the Northwest Ordinance.
Sam Rohrer:
Here’s my question to you. Can you relate some of the references within the Northwest Ordinance that speaks to put this way, the fear of God, God as creator, God’s commandments? Was there anything relating to fear of God and keeping the commandments as a part of that document to speak to us about that?
Bodie Hodge:
Yeah, let me explain to the audience. There might be people out there who don’t know what the Northwest Ordinance is when we think chronologically you have the Declaration of Independence. After that we had the Articles of Confederation. That was our first really federal type of document trying to unite the states and the country together. And of course it could have been better. The next document that we have is the Northwest Ordinance and that governed territories of the United States, not the states, but the territories. And then you have the Constitution, which now takes over as the law of the land and the articles confederation have gone away. So you’ve got the Constitution, which is the overall law of the land. It governs the states and so forth, but that northwest ordinance that would actually deal with territories, think of Guam today or Puerto Rico. They’re owned by the United States, but they’re not states.
Bodie Hodge:
They’re not part of statehood. So they actually still have ties, believe it or not, to the Northwest Ordinance. Now the Northwest ordinance was done in 1787 and it was actually done before the Constitution. And there are some things in there that influenced the constitution as well. There’s a couple of articles in there that talk about religion and morality and how important that is to good government and to education for example. So those are both very important talking about, and of course it’s talking about in the context of Christian religion and that’s the same sort of thing with civil and religious liberty. Now, I was blown away by this because it’s talking about the religious liberty within these territories and that’s the kind of influence that then ended up in the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, which were tallied into the Constitution. But what got me was I love, and a lot of people overlook this part and we see it in the Constitution, we see it in the Northwest Ordinance, but here at the very end it says done by the United States in Congress, assembled the 13th day of July in the year of our Lord, 1787.
Bodie Hodge:
Now that little phrase in there, the year of our Lord, that is powerful. I’ve had people say, oh, well that’s just a convention. They’re just throwing a date out there, 1787 and now the year of our Lord is Latin, is OD meany, which means in the year of our Lord. And a lot of people just put ad, but here it’s actually spelled out in the year of our Lord, what Lord are they talking about? They’re not talking about a Buddha, they’re not talking about some Greek God. This is in reference directly to Jesus Christ. And so yes, these guys were using it, but they were using it a lot more formally than the way we use it today. Today we just throw out the, oh, it’s 2025. Oh, it’s 2026 or whatever. But when they’re using it, they’re talking about, Hey, this is the year of our Lord, this is our Lord. This is who we’re standing on this entire time. They have been talking about a Christian understanding of God in law, in education, in civil affairs. So yeah, they use this and it is directly in reference to Jesus Christ.
Sam Rohrer:
You are correct. Not many people understand that. And I’m glad you went there because that is so very clear. It makes me think, Bodie, that you’ve done so much research and all of that, but when you look back at the writings of those things we now refer back to as these founding documents and other writings by these individuals who signed the declaration as an example or look back and as I’ve studied well into for instance William Penn here in Pennsylvania and looking at his writings and so forth, they expressed themselves in ways When I look at them, I say, wow, they were brilliant and they weren’t guessing. They used their words very, very carefully and they used a vocabulary that frankly surpasses most of what Americans today understand. But they didn’t use words carelessly. They were very precise in their words, which goes to what you’re saying here when they said in the year of our Lord, it wasn’t just some word they meant in the year of our Lord as comes off the pages of scripture. That’s a significant difference. Comment on that as you look compared to back then as compared to now. I mean they weren’t writing silly words back then, were they?
Bodie Hodge:
No, they’re very particular. In fact, I actually like that you brought up the great law there for Pennsylvania. There’s a short version, there’s a long version. You can’t get through the first three chapters without knowing 100%. They’re talking about Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and God the Father. And there’s even a section in chapter two of that document, the great law of Pennsylvania where it says such as profess and declare they believe in Jesus Christ to be the son of God and the savior of the world that was to be elected. I mean you’re right, they’re very particular and they were very precise and they’re talking about, Hey, we need to go against stuff that is un-Christian. They actually use that terminology and they’re very precise with it. And we see this in Pennsylvania, we see it in the Mayflower Compact. We see it in the Declaration of Independence and we see it in a host of other documents.
Bodie Hodge:
Something I just wrote up today that was published today on the website was about the great awakening. The great awakening was happening 1730, 1740s, 1750s, right around that particular time. And you see these great preachers like Jonathan Edwards and Whitfield and these guys were going out there getting tens of thousands of people to come listen to and preach and you see this great awakening getting back to the Bible, understanding what sin is and their need for Jesus Christ. And that influenced an entire nation of colonies right before the Declaration of Independence. So when you actually go back and look at the culture, how precise they were, the documents that they were writing, how precise they were, the literature and the writings, what they’re using in the classroom, the Bible’s used in the classrooms, it really is just mind boggling compared to the way we think today.
Sam Rohrer:
That’s excellent. Let’s say in the balance here of this segment, another area where you’ve written about and highlighted I think very appropriately has to do with what is now our motto in God we trust because that speaks to our understanding. God, can you share some of the history of this concept, which then later became our motto, which we have on our coinage,
Bodie Hodge:
Right? And God we trust everybody sees it. In fact, there’s been court cases over in recent times and it has been defended by the way. So it’s our motto, but this motto actually goes way back and it traces to the war of 1812. In fact, it traces back specifically to the national anthem. Everybody, there’s probably pretty familiar with the words of the first verse of the national anthem, but there’s other verses to it and one of those says in God is our trust. And of course a variation of that motto is in God we trust. And that’s what ultimately became that motto. Now that motto didn’t become the official motto of the United States until 1956, however it was used over and over again. It was the old motto of Florida back in the 18 hundreds and it’s been used by the Navy and many others as well. So it’s a powerful statement of hey, in God we trust and what God are they talking about? They’re talking about the God of the Bible right there talking what we’ve seen with the culture, with all these different documents, they’re talking about the same God consistently all the time. It is the Christian God.
Sam Rohrer:
It’s interesting as well Bodie because that came along. It was ultimately adopted in 56 and it was done really by Congress at that point to draw a line in a distinction between communism on the European continent and the fact that we were different from them. But when you go back and you look at the documents you’re talking about the signers who signed and all the others who did what they did, their faith in God was very obvious, otherwise they wouldn’t have done what they did. For instance, putting their signatures on the declaration, right?
Bodie Hodge:
That’s exactly right. They had a strong faith, amazing faith. Actually. I look at churches nowadays and there’s some wonderful Christians and churches, there’s some wonderful Christian leaders, and then you see somebody, you’re just like, what in the world are you thinking? And I see that of people in the pew as well. And I don’t say that in a critical sense because I look back in my own life when I was a younger Christian and I didn’t know as much. I looked back at myself said, what was I thinking?
Sam Rohrer:
Alright, just hold that Bodie, we’re out of time. We’ll finish that. I’ll have you complete that thought when we come back, but ladies and gentlemen, stay with us because fearing God, we’re going to focus on that. It’s got to be more than just words fearing God, is it just words? It’s got to be deeds. We’ll talk about that. Alright, Bodie, before we go into this final segment here, anything you want to finish on what you started the other segment?
Bodie Hodge:
Well, I was just talking about how our culture today, we have so little of an understanding sometimes of God and the depth of the theology when we see these old documents, I want that to be an encouragement to people to say, Hey, let’s go deeper. Let’s get into the Bible. Let’s get into his word. Let’s repent as a nation and get back to God and his word. And you just think of passages that say, seek first the kingdom of God or blessed as a nation who’s God is the Lord. We need to return to that in this country. And I think that’s a powerful point that I wanted to make sure we got in here.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, absolutely. And you’ll have another opportunity to do that as well. As we conclude here, ladies and gentlemen, again, thanks for being with us today. Let me just give you one more time. Bodie Hodge, who is my guest here today, he is president and CEO of Biblical Authority Ministries. Their website is biblical authority ministries.org. If you want to go there and visit and encourage you to do so, and also to thank all of you for being a part of the program here, I encourage you regularly and I do it again, share this program with a friend. If you’re being blessed by the program, do this. You can listen free and that’s a great thing about radio. But one of the things I have found that has changed is that because we are in a circumstance where we just go to the internet and we go to social media and everything is free, we think that there is no obligation now years ago when there was only radio and TV and there was more of a tendency to say, you know what?
Sam Rohrer:
I’m being blessed. I’m being helped. I am being encouraged by whatever this program or whatever it may be, or this organization I may be a part of. And there was a sense of reciprocal duty, let’s put it that way, where I exhibited my gratefulness and my thanks to someone who did something for me such as a radio or a program, something of that type. And in exchange I would bless them and evidence my thanks to them by financial participation and certainly by praying, particularly if it’s in a biblical sense, that kind of a message. Well, we’ve gotten really away from that and I think that’s not such a good thing. I think that if we’re being blessed, whether it’s our neighbor next door that’s helping us, that we take them cookies from time to time or we at least stop over and ask how they’re doing or wherever that may be, apply the principle everywhere.
Sam Rohrer:
But here on this radio program, we need your help. We need your help in prayer and we need your help financially. So I would ask you just to think and perhaps something like that will trigger and just seek the Lord’s will on what you could do and that would be a wonderful thing. Alright, as we conclude here now in many places throughout scripture, and I referenced it earlier in the program, Israel is the model obviously that fits through in scripture. Our founders understood it, they searched it out, they knew that. But God’s chosen nation of Israel, they as a nation, we know they moved from positions where they were in faith and obedience times when they feared God and God poured out his national blessing upon them. And that happened during the days of David and Solomon and that kind of thing, but not too much other because lots of times they departed from that.
Sam Rohrer:
And we know in scripture it says then, and another generation arose who knew not the God of their fathers because those that were in charge didn’t tell them to go back and revisit God’s blessing. And God turned blessing into cursing, which is what he talks about in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verses 15 to the end because there God says, you walk away from me, you don’t fear me and I’m going to turn blessings into judgment. And judgment will overtake you like a rider on a horse that comes up on somebody who’s just walking. You can’t outrun them. God says he’s going to happen. And those are the things that if we look around our nation today, we will find those things happening. So let’s revisit what our founders did, but let’s revisit what God said, Bodie to have a motto on our coins that say, in God we trust it’s a good thing. And to say it in God we trust is a good thing. But question is what does God say? Do we trust in God today, in America in action and indeed go from there. What is the lesson and the challenge to America today based on all that we’ve discussed as we consider these things now, as we approach well where we are right now and as we approach perhaps the coming of our 250th anniversary, if the Lord tarries,
Bodie Hodge:
Yeah, I tell you what, when it comes to in God, we trust that’s been on our coinage going all the way back to the Civil War. So I mean there is a heritage to that. It’s the motto of the United States. And you know what? There’s a lot of wonderful godly Christians in this country and I want to encourage them, by the way, but you know what? We are in a culture that has become very pluralistic. We’ve seen different world religions come in from whether they’re coming in from Hindu lands or Muslim lands and they come in here and they establish, and then all of a sudden we have this mixture of all sorts of stuff. And sometimes Christians want to mix their religion with that sort of thing, that syncretism, but then at the same time, we’re battling Christianity versus all other religions right now.
Bodie Hodge:
It’s not like it was back in the days of Europe. At the time of the Reformation, it was Protestants versus Rome. Today it’s the biblical Christian worldview against all other worldviews and they’re all around us. I want to encourage people, you can stand on God and his word. God is the absolute authority from the very first of the last verse. There is no greater authority than God in his word. Now, I know we’re talking a lot about American heritage here, and I know there’s people around the world that are listening. Hey, I want to encourage you, look at your own nations for people in England. Go back to things like the Magna Carta. Go back and read it and see how Godly it was. Australia actually has a little bit of a godly heritage inherited from England. Other nations have this as well. And I want to encourage you, go back, find those documents. Some of them might even be thousands of years old, but I’ll tell you what, it’s powerful. When you go back and say, wow, what we need to do is get back to God and his word. Let him be the absolute authority in every area to govern our lives, to govern our nation, to govern the civil affairs, get back to God and His word. God is the king of kings and he rules above all. And we can trust in him and we can trust in his word. In today’s culture,
Sam Rohrer:
We have about a minute left. You started with answers in Genesis and going back to Genesis chapter one, verse one, as we’ve talked today, our founders recognize God as creator. You know what? It takes us all the way back to Genesis one, doesn’t it, Bodie?
Bodie Hodge:
It really does. All these nations come out in the tower Bible prior to that. We go all the way back to Adam. And so there is a relationship there and I want to encourage people, get back in the Bible, get back in the early pages of Genesis to understand the nation around us.
Sam Rohrer:
And ladies and gentlemen, as we close to the end here, I’m just going to close this program in prayer because that’s what we need. I’m just going to close this right now. Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for the program today. Thank you for Bodie and him being with us and for the ability that we have freedom wise yet to be able to communicate broadly, literally around the world at this point. And Lord, it is a joy to be able to look back to what you have done in this nation. You alone are the giver of good things. You alone make a nation great and Lord your word and all that we need to know is in your word and it is authoritative. It never changes. And we thank you Lord for who you are and the word that you have given us to guide us with that we commit this day to you, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Bodie Hodge, thank you so much for being with us today. Wonderful. A blessing that you are ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. And I pray that just even a couple of things in this program today would have edifying nature and encouraging and would help us all reflect back, give God the glory for what he has done and what he alone can do.
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