First, there was a failure of one generation to transfer the truth to the next generation. The other was a determined effort to displace truth with error in order to gain and maintain control of the populace.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (ESV) “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Tim Kephart, writing for a Miami TV station website, reported the growing ignorance of American history illustrated in a survey regarding July 4th.

The survey suggested viewing this ignorance through different stratifications of the populace. Perhaps the most alarming statistic is that between the ages of 18 and 29 forty percent of those polled did not know that America won independence from England.

Little wonder that a large percentage of the population not only does not know that the principles of the Judeo-Christian ethic and values form the core of our very existence, but they fight against the very idea that they do so.

Ignorance has two sources in America even as it did in ancient Israel. First, there was a failure of one generation to transfer the truth to the next generation. The other was a determined effort to displace truth with error in order to gain and maintain control of the populace. God exhorted Israel to establish truth transference in the smallest unit of society, the family. This is clearly delineated in the text quoted above.

Obviously this is the most powerful and effective means of transference provided each family is obedient. It also insures a slow deterioration of truth since failure in one family can be readily overcome by the composite of families. However, when failure to be obedient reaches expediential proportions, ignorance prevails and error controls.

In I Kings 12:25-33 Jeroboam not only divided the nation, but he established and fostered error in order to gain and maintain control. The result was disastrous in two ways. Religious error seeped into every dimension of life generating a society of elitists that failed to practice justice and mercy. Second, it warped worship into a self-center idolatry.

The answer for America is simple. Every Christian family must practice the instructions of Deuteronomy 6 to transfer truth to the next generation.

Second, every pastor needs to do two things. He needs to model this text in his own family. Then, he needs to exhort the men of his congregation to the execution of these instructions and teach them how to functionally implement them through godly loving leadership in their families.

An accurate read of American Colonial history will remind us that the colonists in the vast majority recognized their dependence upon God and expressed this dependence both in public and private prayer. Public prayer was often at the biding if the body politic and modeled by participation. Prayer was widely supported by the variety of denominational structures from Anglicans to Quakers.

In our current atmosphere we will find little support from the body politic for prayer, but surely we can we can find venues through which the diversity of churches today can promote public and private prayer.

Oh, Christian, join your family in prayer. Study the prayers of the Bible. Engage our God on behalf of our nation that we might continue the legacy for freedom and be the engine of the Gospel to the rest of the world.

Learn from history so we don’t repeat history!

Howard Eyrich is a minister in the PCA and currently serves as Pastor of Counseling Ministries at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. He is the author of the best selling pre-marital counseling guide Three To Get Ready, as well as Totally Sufficient and Curing the Heart both in 2nd editions. He and his wife, Pamela, have two children and eight grandchildren.