You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed and enable you, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great charge He has committed to your keeping.

President Andrew Jackson – Farewell Speech

Memorial Day reminds us of the value of our liberty as we honor those who paid the highest price to honor and secure the freedoms we enjoy. We salute and give thanks to every man, every woman, every family that has contributed their treasure to this great cause of American liberty. American patriotism is different from every other patriot cause. What we are as Americans is the result of the labor of our founding fathers and the breath of the Holy Spirit. Through them God began the dream in His heart for this great nation, a blessing among nations to people of every nation. America’s constitutional culture guaranteeing life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is an endowment of our Creator. The unique charge of this stewardship is the inheritance we receive from those who labored before us.

The Bible is the revelation of God’s covenant with the human race through His Son Jesus. An agreement designed in the heart of heaven, ratified through the blood of its Heir and delivered to all who become its sons. The American constitution is unique in the history of human government. There has never been one like it. There is none more imitated by persons seeking to establish new and just human government. There is no national history of equality under law or humanity under God as peaceable or prosperous as ours. The American covenant reflects the fingerprints of our Father in its design and provisions.

Our constitution is a covenant cut between the people of this nation and the God who first inspired Christopher Columbus to seek a new world: “For the execution of the journey to the Indies I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps. It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied. No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Savior, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service. The working out of all things has been assigned to each person by our Lord, but it all happens according to His sovereign will even though He gives advice. He lacks nothing that it is in his power of men to give him. Oh what a gracious Lord, who desires that people should perform for Him those for which He holds Himself responsible! Day and night moment by moment, everyone should express to Him their most devoted gratitude.”

Our constitution is a covenant inspired by the compact made with prayers and fasting upon the deck of the Mayflower: “Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

Our constitution ensures the American way of life as envisioned by the founders who pledged and paid with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor from the first days of the American Revolution to the celebration of which John Adams wrote: “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

Our constitution is the lifeline to which Abraham Lincoln held as an anchor in the dark days of civil war between a divided America. Standing in the fields of Gettysburg he declared: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Our constitution is the legal agreement announced and established when representatives of the people of thirteen colonies joined together in one voice to form and establish a more perfect union under God. It is our sacred charge. It is a testament describing and securing a national inheritance for every citizen of this great nation and everyone who flees for refuge under its shelter. It is that to which every enlisted service person affirms: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

In this generation no less than when it was formed the voice of all who gave themselves to the creation and building of this America we have received calls the heirs of liberty to defend and secure the rights, responsibilities and privileges afforded us. With no less willing contribution than made by all who have offered their own lives, fortunes and sacred honor to its pledge, this covenant calls to every American today. Christians who understand covenant and the life and blessing covenant affords should be the first and truest responders.

America’s tri-fold foundation was laid as being Endowed by the Creator.

America believes in Life. The core of American tradition is sanctity of human life. We give life to preserve it for our fellow man. We give life to ensure it for a next generation. We defend the right of life for others with our own, especially those who cannot defend it for themselves. This is the first principle of our inheritance and the foundation on which we stand.

America believes in Liberty. The second principle of our foundation is determined to support the first. The right to act, believe and express oneself is the water of life for every human soul. Freedom with restraint is the essence of the liberty we defend. And defending American liberty provides defense for the world around us.

America believes in Pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of happiness was once called “The American Dream.” It is un-American to make personal pursuit of gain or pleasure the enemy of the nation’s blessing. It is un-American to adopt any ethic that despoils life and liberty for a fellow man. Entitlement leads to tyranny. And selflessness is true gain. That is the American spirit toward which the breath of our forbearers speak reviving.

These three strands weave together a three-fold cord of human splendor. It has brought us safe thus far. This is our patriotism. With this cord firmly securing us as the anchor to our foundation America will revive to lead and guide a nation among nations, a blessing for all. In honor and gratitude toward each person who paid the ultimate price for our inheritance we give thanks and remembrance this Memorial Day. We remember our patriots and bless the banner of liberty they raised high. Our prayer today is that heaven will water those seeds sown in the soil of nations around the world and from that blood, from their sweat, from those tears will spring forth a harvest of righteousness in the fruit of a goodly inheritance that their heirs, our children and grandchildren, may enjoy.

From strength America can give strength. Our strength is not arrogance. Our own sons’ memorials are grown over with the climbing vines of too many foreign valleys to ever call us that. All who love liberty, all who seek justice, have a vested interest in the strength of America. This is not national conceit. America’s tradition is the voice of those who’ve died that others might live. Never too proud to reform national standards when they were found lacking in human dignity, America has earned the confidence to lift her lamp beside the path and light the way for others. It is our duty to see that those who sit in the darkness of tyranny are not left to grope along the wall alone.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen for His own inheritance.” Psalm 33:10-12. For a nation, as for any individual, destiny is determined by relationship to God and His purposes. Each generation requires a fresh personal revelation of God’s purpose. Lest our detractors and the enemies of freedom take courage to disdain the universal values for which America stands let us as individuals and as a nation press on to the goal of our high calling: liberty and justice for all. Pray God’s revival blessing on America that we may continue to be used to proclaim freedom and be a strong support for the gospel as well as a blessing to Israel. May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations make us worthy of the favors He has bestowed and enable us, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great charge He has committed to our keeping. For all who have committed themselves and paid with their lives we remember with reverence and give thanks on Memorial Day 2009.

For more information on the Judeo-Christian foundations that formed this nation, Drs. Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda have compiled a booklet, God Shed His Grace on Thee, that outlines key documents, letters, writings and events in our history that show forth the hand of God in our nation's birth and destiny. It is available for purchase in our  Online Bookstore.

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