If God Is for Us: A Veterans Day Message
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31. It is obvious that God has been for us. Our country has been blessed with much wealth and prosperity. It has been a bastion of liberty, especially religious liberty that so many immigrants came here to enjoy as they fled religious persecution in their homelands. During wartime, the United States defeated the foes who threatened our God-given inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that this nation has become the greatest nation in the world couldn’t have happened without the hand of God.
I’m convinced that our founding fathers understood that God would be for our country if our country would be for God. Granted, God is not mentioned in the Constitution, but He is mentioned in every major document leading up to the final wording of the Constitution. Tex Browning wrote an introspective article entitled Was the United States Founded as a Christian Nation? in which he concluded, “To say that this nation was not founded as a Christian nation or that the Constitution was not founded on Christian principles is totally at odds with the facts of history.”
Supporting Mr. Browning’s conclusion are a myriad of quotes from our founding fathers relating Divine principles to the governance of our country. For example, Ben Franklin, at the Constitutional Convention, said: “… God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
John Adams proclaimed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Mr. Adams’ proclamation was based upon his assertion that “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.”
Adams’ words were prophetic for Germany, a country that fell into the abyss of evil early last century because their human passions were unbridled by morality and religion. The horrid atrocities that occurred during the height of Nazism and Hitler’s reign are the manifestations of his prophesy. In a book entitled Defeating the Totalitarian Lie: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America, written by former Nazi Hilmar von Campe, the author admitted, “We paid a high price for the moral perversions of a German government, which excluded God and His Commandments from their policies. America must not continue following the same path to destruction, but instead heed the lessons of history and the warning I am giving.”
Like the founding fathers of our nation, the U.S. World War I veterans who founded The American Legion in 1919 must have understood that God would be for our country if our country would be for God. That’s probably why the preamble to the constitution of The American Legion begins, “For God and Country”. This is the overarching purpose of The American Legion. One of the specific purposes of The American Legion is “To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.” These are some of the main reasons why military veterans join The American Legion, the largest military veterans organization in the country. They feel an obligation to continue serving our country on civilian active duty with the same faith and patriotism that they defended our country on military active duty.
As we celebrate Veterans Day this year, let us thank God that He has been for us. And let us thank all military veterans past and present, who have been and continue to be for God by defending His principles upon which this greatest nation was founded.
Also, pray that our government leaders are for God, in the same Spirit that our founding fathers were, because when we are for God, then God is for us and no one can be against us. Otherwise, it would be regarded as one of the worst tragedies in modern history if our active duty military men and women were ordered to defend an ungodly nation.
*****************
Article by Jerome Iltis, Commander, 3rd Division The American Legion
The 3rd Division is a 58 county region of South Texas. Approximately 20,000 Legionnaires are members of the 147 American Legion Posts in the Division.
For a printable version of this article click here.