“Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, ‘If you return to the LORD with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the LORD and serve Him alone;
and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.’”
(1 Samuel 7:3; NASB)

God did an amazing thing when He birthed this nation. In the hearts of our Founding Fathers, He placed the desire to form a nation based upon the realization that it is God who makes laws—man only legislates them. God is the one who gives rights to individuals, and those rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

At the same time, our Founding Fathers perfectly understood that man is flawed and that power is intoxicating. Their experience with the Throne of England and its abuses was fresh in their minds and caused them to structure the new government based upon Scripture (Isaiah 33:22) to create a bicameral Congress with two branches, as well as the three branches of the federal government: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The Legislative branch creates laws, the Executive branch executes the laws, and the Judicial branch enforces the laws. The separation of powers with the proper balance is critical to a government led by fallen man. This mix of theology and practicality has produced the longest standing constitution in the history of mankind!

And yet, over the past few decades, we have seen much “overreach” of power as branches of our government attempt to meddle in areas they shouldn’t. This is where we need to understand what an “originalist” is. From a constitutional standpoint, an originalist is a person who believes that the Constitution should be interpreted with the views of the original authors. Simply put, our Constitution should be interpreted as our Founding Fathers viewed the issues. It is not to be reinterpreted according to the whims of the prevailing culture. In other words, the Constitution is not meant to be a “living document.”

The way Evangelical Christians interpret the Bible is very similar. Seminarians are taught not to take Scriptures out of context, but to discern what the author intended to communicate and what the original audience understood the message to be. This is absolutely critical; otherwise any culture or speaker with charisma could twist the Word of God to their own meaning.

If we believe that the birth of this nation was a miracle, if we believe that our Constitution is the most Christian document of its kind in the history of mankind, if we believe that our Constitution correctly understands God’s blueprint for government while correctly weighing the sinful nature of man, then I would argue that we should pray that our government would be reformed to our Creator’s intent.

To take it a step further, many of our Founding Fathers were raised during the greatest revival in our nation’s history, The First Great Awakening, when they formed their biblical worldviews. Revival preceded the miracle of our nation. Prayer preceded this revival. We must pray for the reformation of our government.

Points for Prayer:

That our government leaders would embrace a biblical structure (Isaiah 33:22).

That our government leaders would understand the fallen nature of man and how that influences legislation (Romans 3:23).

That our government leaders would understand they are held accountable by God (Micah 5:15).

That our government would legislate with the Fear of the Lord (Isaiah 33:6).

That our government would be filled with capable leaders (Exodus 18:21).

That our governmental leaders would put their hope in the Lord (Psalm 33:18).

That God would build a biblical worldview into our government leaders of tomorrow and that they would have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).

By David Kubal
President/CEO, Intercessors for America