“Thus says the Lord God: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness. Cease your evictions of my people, declares the Lord God.
- Ezekiel 45:9
“[Samuel] Webster was among the Revolutionary War preachers whose pulpit ministry did much to strengthen the hearts of Americans before and during the drive for independence. Joel Headley, in his 1864 book about the chaplains and clergy of the revolution, lamented (even in his day) the failure of historians to recognize the role of Scripture and the success of the conflict, writing, ‘Notwithstanding the numberless books that have been written on the American Revolution, there is one feature of it which has been sadly overlooked. I mean the religious element. … He who forgets or underestimates the moral forces that uphold or bear on a greater struggle, lacks the chief qualities of a historian.’
“British leaders knew the role sermons had played in the American Revolution, and they often seized church buildings and turned them into barns for their horses or depots for their ammunition. Webster decried this desecration, and then he offered a prayer dash the kind of plain spoken prayer that turned the tide of the revolution.
“Speaking to God about invading British forces who, while occupying Boston, destroyed church buildings or turned them into armories and horse stables. Webster prayed:
“They have vented a particular spite against the houses of God, defaced and defiled Thy holy and beautiful sanctuaries where our father’s worshipped Thee, turning them into houses of merchandise and receptacles of beasts, and some of them they have torn in pieces and burned with fire.
“Therefore we humbly pray that thou wilt hedge up their way and not suffer them to proceed and prosper. But put them to flight speedily, if it be Thine holy will, and make them run fast as a wheel downward, or as fast as stubble and chaff is driven before the furious whirlwind. As a fire consumes wood, and sometimes lays waste whole forests on the mountains, so let them be laid waste and consumed if they obstinately persist in their bloody designs against us.”
- Robert J. Morgan, 100 Bible Verses That Made America
In my recent trip to visit the grandchildren, the oldest of them went with me to Nashville, to sell used books and games. One of the books that I purchased in return was 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Robert J. Morgan. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the birth of the USA, I thought I would do a condensed mini-series on some of these verses, four posts per week for a few weeks – maybe not all 100 verses.
This prayer was made nine months after the fog allowed Washington to escape New York. Note that Washington’s two “victories” were weather aided. Each time the Continental Army was outmanned, outgunned, and poorly trained.
The nine months could be characterized as survival.
Washington was a man of prayer himself, but any person of faith knows that the more people that are praying, the odds of success improve.
The British, who were supposedly a Christian nation, were loyal to the king and the Church of England. This rebellion had stemmed from other denominations that the British government did not recognize. The persecution that these churches endured in Britain was the reason most of them fled to the colonies, to worship as they pleased.
And this is what was meant in the Bill of Rights for religious freedom, not the exclusion of Christianity in the public domain that is prevalent today in the USA – regulated in federal and state government locations including schools, but socially not accepted in many other places.
Pastor Webster’s prayer ended with a plea that in saving the Americans in this way, God will be glorified as the only true supreme Governor, and that God’s glorious name will be magnified in all the earth.
The tide turned, but it took Washington four more bloody years before the war was finished.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
Leave a comment