"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

George Washington

One of George Washington's greatest strengths was his belief in God and in Jesus. Throughout his public life, he never shied away from his faith, nor from his reliance on God. At Valley Forge, his men came upon him on his knees in prayer. His prayer book that he wrote as a twenty-year old revealed a mature and humble reliance on his Lord Jesus Christ. He spoke freely of the Superintending Power that blessed the efforts of the Americans during the Revolutionary War.

While he did not flaunt his faith, he didn't hide it either, and he was firmly convinced that this fledgling nation could not be moral without religion. If you want to know why George Washington was loved, admired, and held in the highest respect and esteem - both during his life and for the 200 plus years following his death - you need go no further than his belief in God.

Contrast that to today, when our leaders get very, very nervous whenever the topic of religion is raised. So afraid are they of offending those with different religious beliefs, they hide their religious beliefs at all possible costs. And for most it is not a hard thing to do, for the smaller something is, the easier it is to hide.

Alexis de Toqueiville was a Frenchman who came to America  in the 1830's, trying to find the secret of America's success. He said, "I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors... in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great, because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."

As we view with sadness the current state of our nation, with the seemingly endless immoralities in everything from forbidden pleasures of the flesh, to the aborting of our next generation, perhaps we should pause for a moment and try to find why we have sunken so low. It is not because we have lost our harbors or fertile fields or boundless forests. It is not because our rich mines and vast world commerce have played out, nor is it because we no longer have a democratic Congress or a Constitution.

It is because we thought we could abandon religious principle and still be moral. It is because we thought we could still be good without righteousness, and that we could still be great without goodness.

The founders left us an amazing country because they established our country on the religious principles of Jesus Christ contained within the holy Word of God. So, if we want to return to the great nation that our founders left us, we are going to have to return to the religious principles that they founded this nation upon... or do we suppose, contrary to the founders' beliefs, that we can maintain a national morality exclusive of religious principle?

If we want to be a great nation again, then we are going to have to return to God and become a good nation, again.

"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people."

Proverbs 14:34, NIV