Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When the foundations are being destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?”

• Psalm 11:3

“Perhaps [Jedidiah Morse’s] best-known sermon was preached from Psalm 11:3 on April 25, 1799. Psalm 11 is a response written by King David to a crisis that had rattled his advisor. Some emergency had struck the king, and David’s aid had told him to ‘flee as a bird to your mountain’ (v. 1). In other words, David’s counselors were advising him to run for his life. They were telling him that the wicked ‘bend their bow’ and ‘make ready their arrow on the string’ (v. 2). The foundations were being destroyed, and what could David do? What could any righteous person do?
“David’s response was to remind them that the Lord was in His holy temple. He was still on His heavenly throne (v. 4). In other words, don’t panic. Our God is still in charge.
“In his sermon marking Washington’s inauguration, Jedidiah Morse declared:

In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation … in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom. …  I hold this to be a truth confirmed by experience. If so, it follows, that all efforts made to destroy the foundation of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the Subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.”

• 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 250^th 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.

When Jedidiah Morse attended Yale, he became a committed follower of Jesus Christ.  He was ordained as a minister the same day that George Washington was sworn into office as president of the United States of America.  After thirty years as a minister, along with another side interest, he retired from active ministry to pursue benevolent ministries, foreign ministries, and evangelism.

What was his side interest?  While at Yale, he wanted to know the width and breadth of this free land that we were creating, eventually called the USA.  If we were to be free, then all who were within the geographical extension of the country should enjoy that freedom.  He began to draw maps and carefully defined the country.  He even created a lecture series, Geography Made Easy.  He taught these lessons and was dubbed “The Father of American Geography.”

Speaking of being a “father,” Jedidiah Morse had eleven children, but only three lived past infancy.  Of the three children that survived, one was of a little historical note himself, Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph.  But more about him later.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.