There are people who will give their lives for the benefit of other people. But unless they themselves are worshipers of the one true God, their efforts will not bring the lasting peace and joy for which mankind longs. This is because Satan always enters where God is not worshiped and changes what would have been a beneficial endeavor into the worship of himself—and corruption inevitably follows.

America was settled in part by Puritans, people who sought to purify the Church of England and who fled to America to escape persecution, by other people fleeing the tyranny of European kings and religious prelates, and a third group who came to America for economic or other reasons.

Ironically, the Puritan concept of congregational democratic government is considered to be a source of modern democracy.

The moral laws emphasized by the Puritans and other Christian groups have strongly affected the values of the American people for hundreds of years. Today such moral values are mocked by the ignorant as being a destructive force—a philosophy that prevents human happiness as they view happiness.

Personal liberty and happiness are the stated goals of the American government. The rights of the individual are held to be sacred—more to be esteemed than the rights of society or even the rights of God.

Therefore our nation is disintegrating morally. The economic, educational, and military establishments will crumble in time. We are finished because we are encouraging the worship of self.

Believe it or not, God does not intend for man to pursue happiness. If God wanted everyone to be happy, as in the Garden of Eden, God could easily and swiftly bring into being a state of perfect, complete happiness for everyone.

God's intention is for man to pursue God, the Kingdom of God, the righteousness of God. In so doing man learns to escape the horror of worshiping himself. He learns the unsullied joy of living for the benefit of God and other people, as Jesus does. Until a human being learns to live for God and other people he is the most miserable of creatures. He will remain bound by the sins of the flesh, striving endlessly for love, joy, and peace and never, never finding them.

If America ever was a Christian nation it certainly is not one now. It is a democratic nation, that is, a nation dedicated to the liberty, rights, and happiness of the individual.

The Christian Gospel is dedicated to the crucifixion of the individual that he may become a new creation as he walks in the resurrection Life of Jesus Christ.

How can dedication to the liberty, rights, and happiness of the individual be the same thing as dedication to the crucifixion and resurrection of the individual? Are they not totally antagonistic one to the other?

The Christian churches by and large do not understand this conflict in ideology, considering themselves to be democratic institutions. We have a way to go in America before even a remnant understand God is calling us out of the world that we may attend to the holy things of God. We simply are unaware of the rebellion and disobedience that still dwell in us and influence us even though we have served the Lord for many years.

To be continued.