Today over half of our country is receiving some form of government assistance. Government dependent people out number private sector people in our country. Even in our churches, everyday drug addicts and alcoholics call asking for money.
In 1887, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, said this about the fall of the Athenian Republic 2,000 years earlier:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate who promises the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loss of fiscal policy. This is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota says, “He believes that the United States is now somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some forty percent (49% today 7/10/14) of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
I don’t know when Professor Olson wrote his deduction, but it looks as if our country might be in the “apathy to dependence” stage. Our country needs a turning back to God. Not only have her citizens become dependent on government, but they have forgotten God. Our country not only needs to be stirred out of her apathy and her dependence on government, but she needs to return to God and His precepts for living.
The following prayer was prayed by Greg Laurie on the National Day of Prayer in Washington, DC, May 2nd, 2013.
Father, we come to You to pray for our nation, the United States of America.
How You have blessed us through the years, Lord! We rightly sing, “America, America, God shed His grace on thee.” Yet we see trouble in our culture today. We see the breakdown of the family, crippling addictions, and random acts of horrific violence.
Lord, we need Your help in America. In recent days, we have done our best to remove Your Word and Your counsel from our courtrooms, classrooms, and culture. It seems, as President Lincoln once said, that we have “forgotten God.” But Lord, You have not forgotten us! You can bless and help and revive our country again.
Scripture tells us that “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Lord, in Your mercy, we ask that You would exalt our country again. We have had a number of great awakenings in America. We have experienced times of refreshing, and revivals that changed not only the spiritual but also the moral landscape. As the psalmist said, “Will You not revive us again, so that Your people may rejoice in You?” (Psalm 85:6).
That is our prayer for America today, Lord. Send a mighty spiritual awakening that will turn the hearts of men and women, boys and girls, back to you. You have told us if we will humble ourselves and pray, and seek Your face and turn from our wicked ways, that You will forgive our sins and heal our land (2 Chronicles7:14).
Forgive us today, Lord, and heal this troubled land that we love so much. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.