Watchman Willie Martin Archive

                                                                                 Chapter Six

                                                                Israel Arrives In America

We have seen by what stages, and under what names, the major part of the people of the House of Israel made their way from Assyria through Europe into the Isles of the Sea north and west of Palestine. The tribes which, a thousand years before Christ, had concentrated on the Western Front of Asia, were, a thousand years after Christ, concentrating on the Western Front of Europe. It is rather strange to think that, in our own times, during the Great War, World War I, Israel again stood on both of these Western Fronts, but this time as nations united and as great military powers.

Our historical research has shown how practically all of the time of Israel's settlement in Palestine there was a considerable "leaking" of Israel's population toward the Isles of the West. Detachments of the people had been going to and fro between Palestine and Britain for centuries, many of them settling down in the Isles.

About a thousand years ago, when the last detachments came overland, under the names of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Normans, and others, these unrecognized tribes of the captivity were compelled to fight their several ways into the appointed place. They all go in; not one of them could be kept out. And while all this was going on, others were sailing the seas and arriving on the North American Continent. Although the historians ignore that fact.

The Scottish Declaration of Independence

"To the Most Holy Father in Christ and Lord, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Macolm, Earl of Lennos, William Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Stewart of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, Guardian of the Earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St. Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernathy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the West where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken by a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His passion and resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most Holy Faith.

Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles by calling ‑ through second or third in rank ‑ the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron for ever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favors and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harbored no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy.

The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Maccabaeus or Joshua, and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to our laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom ‑ for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose vice‑regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privations brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling‑place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your holiness's memory if (which god forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to the help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbors. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbors they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace. He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.

But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favoring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge, we commit the maintenance of our cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.

May the Most High preserve you to His Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days. Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid."

Historians may write about the Norman Conquest and the exploits of William the Conqueror in 1066 A.D. but students of the Scriptures know that the Normans were but a long separated part of Israel, blindly demanding entrance into the appointed place, and getting it, neither conquering nor being conquered, but reuniting and contributing their tribal elements to the national character.

The Normans were the final trekking remnant of the tribe of Benjamin. Guided by a destiny they could not evade, which forbade them to settle in the inviting parts of Europe that feel to their lot, they were at last led into the Isles. That is always the word to use with regard to Israel, that were "led." It is the word the Scriptures use.

The word usually used of Judah is "driven," which describes a different sort of moving influence than that which "led" Israel. Israel was "led" out of Egypt, not driven. Israel was "led" out of Samaria, not driven. Israel was "led" out of Assyria, not driven. Israel was "led" across Europe, not driven. Israel was "led" into the Isles, not driven. And Israel was "led" into America, not driven hither.

That leading for Israel still exists and modern Israel can go as fast and as far as it follows the leading. Today the nations of present‑day Israel are not submitting to being led and thus our spiritual and economic captivities still linger upon us. The geographical leading has been accomplished in its westward movement. Israel shall be no more moved out. Nevertheless, by the judgment of God, certain alien systems and customs will be moved out of Israel. The geographical movement is now to be superseded by the spiritual movement. When the tribes and parts of tribes, which went to the Isles by the sea routes centuries before, were invaded by the tribes which came slowly overland across Europe centuries later, the governing prophetic word was: "Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength." ^[1]

In the Islands the people did renew their strength in every way, strength of law, of national unity, of racial power; strength of population, religion and wealth. From England men of Israel began to venture forth and claim their inheritance on the earth. They won control of the seas in great actions. If they had been written about in the Old Testament, when men saw God's hand in events more clearly, they would surely have been given a miraculous content. The Israel peoples spread into many lands and their language became the highway of the world's thought and poetry and religion.

We, who compound these truths are sometimes accused, not only of being self‑glorifiers, but also of being overly pro‑British in emphasizing the regathering of Israel in the Isles. I once heard a minister say, "Oh, what you say is just English egotism, the English always think themselves better than anyone else." (It is a defect that is not confined to the White Race only). As for this being an English doctrine, however, let us say that it is as much rejected by Britons as by Americans. As a matter of fact, this doctrine originated in Palestine and in the Bible.

Wherever you find a people doing what Israel was to do, you have discovered who and where Israel is in modern times. Whether or not we, as a people, accept or reject the truth that our nation is one of the Israel nations in the world today, the fact remains that, on broad lines, we are fulfilling Israel's mission and responsibility.

That part of the plan that depends upon God's given word goes steadily forward. The people foretold and redescribed are here. In other terms than we use here, men and women are always recognizing this in actuality. A pre‑eminent fact in world diplomacy today is the basic unity of the Anglo‑Saxon peoples. That unity was long ago foretold.

We of the Untied States did not create that unity; indeed, we have raised every barrier against it. We have made war twice on England and threatened war several times. We have spread anti‑English prejudice through our school books for 150 years. We have allowed our country to be used as a base for virulent anti‑British propaganda.

Yet Anglo‑Saxon unity stole upon the world as irresistibly as the springtime comes. One of the phrases heard from time to time today is "the English‑speaking peoples." This may seem to shut out people of other tongues and nationalities, but language and nationality are not the final marks of a people. Israel was to speak other tongues and be called by other national names, but this was not to destroy the inherent unity of Israel.

What called the various peoples to the United States? It was not the fact that they spoke the same language, they did not. Nor was it the fact that they came from the same kinds of political conditions, they did not. But they thought the same thoughts, and they came here because their heart's language was the same. They are all now a part of that great human influence which we describe as "the English‑spea­king peoples."

And these are not all; the English‑speaking peoples do not merely comprise those whose native tongue is English, but those in generations yet to come whose adopted tongue shall be English. There are some elements in God's good purposes for the human race that require the English tongue for their promulgation.

Righteousness is Disregarded

These are circumstances which have come about without our collusion or support; indeed, they have come about in spite of our utmost opposition. Even if we would, we cannot sing a paean of praise to the British people or to the American people. God has done great things through them and for them, but that they themselves are, or have been, great is a claim we cannot make. We cannot build a boast for ourselves out of work which God Himself has performed according to His promise.

When We think of the oppression of the people of Britain in former times, of a feudal aristocracy fighting and feasting while the families of England languished in squalidness; when we think of little English children driven to the first factories before daylight and kept until after dark, condemned all their lives to ignorance, all to build the great British commercial fortunes; when we think of social and ecclesiastical dignities and rulership built upon the brewing of beer and the distilling of whiskey; when we think of the blood which Christian England has spilled of her choicest saints, we cannot sing a paean of praise to Britain. No, this truth of the whereabouts of modern Israel is not pro‑British. The Divine lash upon modern Israel's sins is a grievous thing and forbids all boasting.

When we turn to the Unite States of America and recall the hypocritical character of much of our public life, of our intense engrossment with material pursuits; when we think of the vast reaches of economic slavery, of our antagonistic social classes, of our lawlessness, our violence, our corruption in high places and low, our shameless surrender to sex, our descent to dirt in drama and literature, our trampling of the Lord's Sabbath, our supercilious sneer at religion, our dollar aristocracy and our teeming millions of pauperized citizens, so please don't try to tell us that the truth that enables us to see these things is a truth invented to glorify them! The truth concerning who and where modern Israel is does not and never can exalt man!

Yet these are God's people. In the Old Testament you read about their seemingly endless record of wrongdoing and you are amazed that they continue to be God's people. You see them in the present day, just as they were of old, having the highest privileges and making the lowest use of them. Nevertheless, God goes on doing great things through His people and we, as Bible students, know that the purpose of God will yet be fulfilled in them. The growing pressure of Divine judgments upon us, as individuals and as a nation, indicates that the time of fulfillment is drawing near. The final word concerning us is not "if you will"; it is "you shall." We have not been drawn from the ends of the earth to the ends of the earth only to defeat the will of God for the world through us. No! He will do His will and we shall do it.

Let no one harbor the thought there, that the aspect of truth which we espouse has for its purpose the glorifying of men, or a nation or a race, it glorifies God's purposes as they are to be fulfilled through men. The highest justification of man's existence, and we are constantly cheating ourselves of it, is that we shall be vehicles of God's earthy purpose.

We know the routes, and the nature of the times, and the manner in which our fathers came from Palestine to the Isles. We know the racial elements which composed the peoples from whom America drew her sons. I do not omit mentioning that along with Israel, over all those routes, came other people also. These great migrations were not confined to the Israel peoples alone. On the flanks of the great trek, and in the wake of Israel, there were always others.

When Israel came out of Egypt there was a mixed multitude with them, always ready to complain, always ready to return to the leeks and onions of Egypt ^[2], never able to see God's hand in events, and the first to hold rump conventions and elect opposition leaders. It is not unnatural to suppose that when Israel came out of Assyria, many Assyrians followed too. The road was open. Peace and safety lay further on.

No wonder many people left and kept resourceful Israel company along the way, at length settling themselves across Europe in places that pleased them. This mixed multitude were the forerunners of the Jews, and their descendants have followed their leadings, wherever Israel has moved there the Jews have followed to live on them just as parasites always do their hosts. Israel is not the only Eastern race we can identify in Europe today.

The friends of Israel in those ancient lands and times are friends still, while Israel's ancient enemies continue their enmity in their modern homes. The picture today is about the same as it was except that now Israel is no longer at the mercy of any enemy. God's promise of power, independence and progress to Israel has been fulfilled. The larger fulfillment of all of God's promises waits on modern Israel's repentance and acceptance of the Divine will. This is appoint we always return to, God has fulfilled His word to us, but we have not fulfilled our word to Him.

As to Israel's life in Britain, we need not speak at length about this now. It is open to all who care to read. In spite of grievous faults, religion was always a living concern in Ireland, Scotland and England. The Bible, as the Book of the People, began its rise in England. The throne and commerce are founded on faith in God.

As you stand in Westminster Abbey, at the place where the kings and queens are crowned, you read, in letters arching the chancel, this great agreement and confession: "The kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." This is taken from Revelation 11:15 and, used in such a way, it is an absolute declaration of the Kingdom of God on earth superseding all other kingdoms.

The rude stone that lies beneath and within the ancient Coronation Chair is held by fond tradition to be the stone brought by Jeremiah to Ireland, the veritable "stone pillar" whereat the kings of Israel were crowned ^[3]. The shout, "God save the King!," that rises to heaven at the coronation, is the literal cry of ancient Israel ^[4]. The known history of that ancient Stone of Scone renders it one of England's most prized possessions.

We said commerce too. One reads, above the Royal Exchange in London, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." This is taken from Psalm 24:1. Thus, the deep dignity of religious truth is intertwined with the familiar things of common life. It is God's mark on Israel in Britain. Whatever else has come between, we cannot forget, we cannot evade the fact that, from that migratory way station, we of this American nation have our religion, our language, our governmental standards, our distinctive national ideals [at least before we allowed the Zionists to take over control of our Congress and President, and thus Judicized our laws, courts and school curriculum]. We cannot deny our history.

Desolate Heritages

It is not the object of this presentation to seek out Israel in Britain only; we seek the Israel that was in Britain as a place of intermediate sojourn on its way to America; widening the territorial bounds of the "appointed place" ^[5] to include the desolate heritages, as foretold ^[6]

American Israel can be traced in British Israel long before the Pilgrims crossed the sea. The first slender tendrils stretching over the wall ^[7] were the explorers and adventurers in their restless search of the Western Ocean. They were led by a way they knew not to find a land they had never known. God was making paths in the sea against the time when Israel would be ready to come. He was already nurturing, in the central shires of England, a life that would move them to come.

As it had happened many times before in the life of Israel, priestly and kingly power in England became oppressive. The Lollards arose; then came the Brownists, Separatists and Puritans, and with them a host that was friendly to liberty of conscience.

The University of Cambridge was a center that fed the intellect of this new‑forming branch of Israel which, all unaware of its destiny, was growing in the midst of Israel in the Isles. A state of mind was forming that not only led to the flight of the Pilgrims but to Cromwell's Revolution which interrupted the kingly succession for twelve years.

These divisions were implicit in the steady formation of the root of American Israel in the very midst of British Israel. Divinely permitted advance preparations at one side of the main stream of events were not lacking.

Spaniards opened up the coast lands of the South and founded in Mexico a flourishing civilization, with universities, cathedrals and great wealth of gold long before the Pilgrims came, but the land was not for them.

Frenchmen, fired by religious zeal for Indian souls, pushed through to the Upper Lakes and far down the Father of Waters, the Mississippi River, but the land was not for them. Dutchmen founded New Amsterdam, a goodly people and a blessing to these shores [until the arrival of the Jews] but the land was not for them. The cavaliers of England came to Virginia, with state religion and high degree of birth, British power behind them and Anglo‑Saxon ideals within them, but not yet was the land ready for them.

These were all instruments of a Preparatory Providence, opening the way for the smallest, the weakest and the least ambitious of all the invasions, which, because it was the strongest spiritually, was to define the character of America. There were other Providences, unknown at the time, but immensely important later.

How assiduously God works when His own purposes are on foot! Not a minute detail is overlooked. There was a perfidious Englishman who betrayed the confidence of some Indians of Massachusetts and seized them, carrying them off to sell as slaves in Spain. One of them, by the name of Squanto, escaped, made his way to England, learned the language and was afterward, by the kindness of an English merchant, returned to his native shore. Keep in mind this instrument of the Divine Providence, Squanto the Indian.

There were other Providences at work. As this growing branch of Israel in the English shires grew more and more interested in spiritual religion, a religion that would be free of the stultifying appendages of a worldly ecclesiasticism, they more and more incurred the displeasure of the authorities in Church and State.

They would never have been able to undergo the period of incubation necessary to develop them into a loyal fellowship if they had not been given special protection from harassment and arrest. It happened that where these like‑minded seeds of American Israel lived, at Scrooby Manor, which belonged to the See of York, one William Brewster was bailiff and postmaster, a man who was not willing to hunt down his neighbors who were called Puritans because they sought a purer worship of God. So the seed grew unmolested.

This man was succeeded by his son, also William Brewster, who, thirty years later, became the famous Elder Brewster of Plymouth Colony, New England. In his turn, he too used his office, his wealth and his social position to protect his worshiping neighbors from trouble. As a young man he had been secretary to William Davison, who was Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, and had accompanied Davison to Holland where he observed the brave Hollanders in arms for the freedom of religion, which they won. Doubtless here was the seed of the later flight of the Puritans to Holland.

On his return to Scrooby, Brewster would tell of Holland. The little Puritan church met in his barn. Thither came Reverend John Robinson, a name immortal in the spiritual annals of America, and William Bradford, afterwards Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Thus, the quiet incubation of the leaders of Israel to the farther West went on, and when the force of persecution could no longer be evaded, they were not like frightened, scattered sheep, but a strong federation of Christian families gathered in a church that was also an economic unit, with a pastor like John Robinson and leaders like Brewster and Bradford.

We must never forget that the real beginning of America was a little believing church. We should marvel at the guiding and defending Hand of Providence that, in spite of kings and prelates, allowed that little church to be gathered. Eventually they sought religious freedom in Holland. They were not rude, unlettered peasants. Many of them were graduates of the ancient English universities and able to read their Bibles in the original Greek and Hebrew. However, being gentlemen, scholars, men of peace, they lacked one element necessary for the rude work of the pioneer on a barbarous shore.

Sailing to The New World

Another wonder of Divine Providence. There was a man of Lancashire, the same country from which George Washington's forebears came, by name: Miles Standish. Disinherited because of his Puritan sympathies, left without property, although sprung of a wealthy family, Miles Standish had gone to Holland to offer his sword against the Spaniards in the fight for a free Christian faith. There he rose to the rank of Captain. When finally the truce came, Captain Miles Standish wandered to Leyden, the very city where the little Puritan church of Scrooby had settled a year before.

Whether he joined the little church, we do not know. Our opinion is that he did not; he was a soldier, not a theologian. That little church had enough theologians. God was giving them a soldier who could arrange their self defense in the new wilderness, a Joshua for their Moses.

When that little church had found to its sorrow, after ten years of life in Holland, that the work of getting a living among a strange people can take too much out of the life of the soul; when they found that religious liberty in a free country can exist side by side with an appalling amount of religious indifference; when they found the Dutch disregard for the Sabbath too heavy for their consciences to bear; and when they had become thoroughly alarmed by the effect of Continental life, even at that early day, upon the minds and morals of Puritan boys and girls, for all these reasons, as written down in their records, they decided to go away to the wilderness of America.

There they would rear an exterior community life more representative of their interior spiritual life, and Captain Miles Standish went with them. Every American schoolboy knows this gallant captain's exploits in behalf of the little beleaguered garrison of God at Plymouth Rock. These are Providences as marked as any that attended Israel in the flight from Egypt. And there were more. When they sailed west, they carried a patent for lands in Virginia.

They would not have been happy in Virginia, they would have found many of the same conditions that irked them in England and Holland. Winter and storm drove them on Cape Cod; their Master Mariner would take them neither to the Dutch at New York nor to the English at Virginia; they were compelled to settle on the bleak shore of the north. They came ill‑equipped for strife and they found this land they had not sought had been denuded of Indians by a plague several years before, so that the immediate territory was uninhabited. Then, not long afterward, ignorant of almost all the ways to preserve their lives in the new country, losing nearly half their scanty number by death in a few tragic weeks, who should come into their settlement one day but the Indian Squanto!

It was his old home (he had found all his people slain by the plague) and remembering the kindness he had received at English hands across the sea, hands that had rescued him from slavery and returned him to his native coast, he paid the debt of kindness and taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn. He showed them how to fertilize the rows with dead fish, how to do a score of necessary things, and became their potent ambassador of peace to the powerful Indian chiefs round about. Truly God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. Our American history is in reality a continued Bible, with God's miracles never absent.

Who were these Pilgrim Fathers? They called themselves "the seed of Abraham, God's servant, and the children of Jacob, His chosen." It is so written in their own records. They called themselves "a vine out of Egypt into this wilderness." These are their words. They used the old Israel word "led," not "driven," denying that either England or Holland had "driven" them out. Their passage hither was speeded by the great Israel texts. They braced themselves in trouble with the great Israel promises. They allotted their land as Israel did. They purged their settlement of blood and crime by following the counsel of Moses, the lawgiver of Israel.

The Israel blessing of long life was vouchsafed many of their number: of 51 deaths recorded of persons who came to the colony during the first ten years of its settlement, only four were under 80 years of age, the youngest being 73 years.

Fifteen of them were over 90 years old; four of these over 95. When Israel was brought out of Egypt, Moses was tremendously impressed by the mighty character of the event. He challenged the people: "For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?" ^[8]

Moses went on with his questions: "Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?" ^[9]

However, the same mighty acts of God occurred when this American nation was taken out of the midst of another nation. The canon of the Bible is closed, but the work of the God of the Bible goes on.

Being of Israel, our forefathers proceeded in all their plans after the pattern of their forebears. Let us always remember that the planting of the United States of America, the hereditary strain that determined our country's character, was a spiritual planting. The fathers who planted this nation were Christians. They came on a specifically Christian venture.

Get it fixed in your mind, beyond the power of any false history to erase, that the planting that determined the genius of this nation was a church, not a tow, not a colony, not a trading or exploring venture, not a gold rush, but a church. A little Pilgrim Church crossed the sea for the sake of its church life, that is the true origin of our United States.

America's Compact to God

Observe, therefore, how closely the parallels run between Israel and the United States. There is a striking similarity in the beginnings of both. When Israel of old came out of Egypt, from the continent of Africa to the continent of Asia, in a free parliament of their rulers, and in a free convention of their people held at Mount Sinai, by individual vote they elected Jehovah the Head of the State. It was a distinct and solemn national act.

When American Israel came out of the continent of Europe to the continent of America, they too made a covenant with Jehovah; they drew up national documents of agreement with Almighty God. We, as citizens of this nation, are bound by what our nation has officially done. Allow us to show you the cords by which we are bound, and which still strongly hold us. The control of the Antichrists of today notwithstanding.

Let your imagination picture, if it will, a little shallop tossing on the Atlantic Ocean near the tip of Cape Cod. There, encompassed by the waters, before a single foot was pressed on Plymouth Rock, our fathers called a solemn convocation in the stuffy cabin of the Mayflower and drew up what is known as the Mayflower Compact: "In the Name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, a voyage to plant the first colony...do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, combine ourselves into a civil body politic."

That Was The Beginning of Our Politics: "In the Name of God, Amen." with increasing accessions from the godly people of the old lands, the number of the colonies grew to four and federation became desirable. A man of God drew up the Articles of Federation: "Whereas, we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end; namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity, we therefore conceive it our bounden duty...that, as in nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue one."

That Declaration Made Us A People: It was the forerunner of our government. (What a descent we have made since then!).

We have already dealt with the great division that occurred between Judah and Israel over the matter of taxation; how Israel rebelled against the Throne of David and declared its independence, setting up a separate government. The same thing occurred with Israel in America. The British government forgot that the colonists were British men and adopted the strange Jewish un‑British policy of taxation without representation.

The number of colonies had increased to thirteen by that time, as there were thirteen tribes in Israel. Again there came a mighty division in Israel, for the colonies revolted against the rule of England. Determining to do this, they produced another great covenant document, the Declaration of Independence, and therein once more their allegiance to Almighty God is declared. Sometimes we become aware of an agitation to "put God in the Constitution" and it is implied that we are a godless nation because Deity is not mentioned in our Constitution. However, the Constitution is not our greatest national document.

All of them are based on the people's allegiance to God. Not one of them has been or ever can be amended! Our Constitution, on the other hand, is a blueprint of our administrative political machinery. It can be, and it has been, amended from time to time. It is a changing instrument; it need not declare so unchangeable a condition as our rightful allegiance to God.

We often wonder how many Americans see the three great acknowledgment of God in our Declaration of Independence. Let us point them out to you in brief passages.

1). "The separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." There we acknowledge God as the Creator of mankind.

2). "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions." There we acknowledge God as the Moral Governor of the universe, beneath whose awful Hand we hold dominion over the land and the people.

3). "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." There we fervently acknowledge God as the Providential Guide, the Protector and Savior of peoples.

We conclude, therefore, that in the Mayflower Compact, the Articles of Federation and the Declaration of Independence we have a threefold cord of solemn obligation which binds us in covenant relationship to the law of our God. Our patriotism and our religion grow on the same stem. Out of our own mouths we are judged.

In ancient Israel some of the people could not follow the revolt against David's throne and, equally so, some Americans could not follow the colonies in the Revolution. They could not bring themselves to be separated from their old homeland. These went to Canada and built up the great Dominion to the north. Consequently, like Israel of old, here are two governments, two nations, of the same people, living side by side.

Today, for which we thank God, the bond between us is peace and understanding. Once again in our American history a division was sought and there was a great Civil War. However, the Divine divisions were not complete and a Union that never fully existed before was forged indissolubly in the fires of that civil strife. There are no more divisions on God's agenda.

God Keeps His Word

Are all these national documents of which we speak but ancient commitments of an earlier generation of whose religion we are slightly ashamed today? Not at all. This Israel strain has persisted down through the generations, even though the nation at large seems to have forgotten its destiny because it has ignored its God. We call this "God's country" but we do not always know the truth that lives in those words. Yet some have always known. George Washington knew and he called this "the second land of promise." At the close of the Revolution, when he laid down his conquering sword, he said, "My gratitude for the interposition of Providence...increases with every review of the momentous contest."

When they made him the First President of the United States, he stated: "It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe...No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which we have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."

Hear Abraham Lincoln say that he was but "an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, His almost chosen people." Lincoln's mind stumbled at the fact, he did not know the identity of God's people, but his heart told him aright. His mind was full of the Providences that made him think of this people as God's "almost chosen people." But God makes no "almost" choices.

As a people we are no more worthy than any other people, it may be that, because of our neglect of them, we are less worthy than any people, but true it is, nevertheless, that great covenants of profound influence on the earth have been fulfilled through us.

This being so, the praise and the glory belong to our covenant‑keeping God. This is not a doctrine that exalts any race or nation; rather, it extols the power of God. It is no modern form of fanaticism; nor is it religious peculiarity run wild. This is the most fully provable public truth we know. The United States today represents one great body of Israel, bound by Israel's responsibility, fulfilling Israel's destiny. The marks of Israel are on us everywhere. Our eagle, for example, is an Israel emblem: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him [this was spoken of Israel], and there was no strange god with him." ^[10]

When the moment came to choose the design for the Great Seal of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were chosen as the committee. I think it is one of the most remarkable passages in our history that both Franklin and Jefferson, professedly freethinkers, proposed designs having to do with Israel. Franklin proposed Israel safely crossing the Red Sea while the hosts of Pharaoh were engulfed, and Jefferson proposed Israel being led by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night ^[11].

Then look at the Great Seal that finally evolved. What do you find on it? On the obverse side thee is the eagle with thirteen stars above its head, thirteen letters in the motto which flutters on a scroll from its beak, thirteen paleways adorning the shield on its breast.

In its right talon there is an olive branch with thirteen leaves and thirteen olive fruits; in its left talon thee are thirteen arrows, fledged with thirteen feathers. Here are seven sets of thirteen on one side of our Great Seal. Thirteen was the whole number of the tribes of Israel. The thirteenth tribe was Manasseh, whose name means "forgetfulness." If there was ever a people forgetful of its past, it is this last, this thirteenth, this Manasseh‑Israel people in the United States of America.

Look at our Great Seal again. Whence do we get the olive as our national flower? It is the sign of Israel every-where throughout the Scriptures. Turn to the reverse side and you see "a pyramid unfinished." Why a pyramid in the United States of America? We thought pyramids belonged to Egypt. Nevertheless, on the Great Seal of the United States there is a pyramid of thirteen courses of masonry and above it, floating in the Glory, and having emblazoned on it the All‑Seeing Eye, is the Capstone which was never set. This is "the chief cornerstone," ^[12] spoken of by our Lord as the stone which the builders rejected ^[13]. By this means He referred to Himself.

The headstone of the corner, the apex stone, was never set on the Great Pyramid of Gizeh in Egypt and from this fact an analogy of great spiritual significance is derived. The Capstone has not yet been set on our national "pyramid" either; not yet been set on our national "pyramid" either; nor will it be placed in its rightful position until our nation conforms to the Divine purpose which was predetermined. It hovers there on our Great Seal; it floats there in the Glory, as if awaiting the moment when it shall descend to complete our national structure with a Divine completion. The Great Pyramid on the United States government Seal should occasion no surprise. It was the genius of our ancestors that build the Great Pyramid in Egypt ^[14], under Divine direction, and incorporated therein its mathematical confirmation of Divine truth for a scientific generation to read.

Upon examining our national emblems, a Bible‑reading shepherd in the desert of Mesopotamia, who had never heard of the United States, would exclaim, "Surely this is the people Israel!" Yet all of this came about without knowledge, without intent, on the part of the statesmen who fashioned the designs. Truly, it is a most remarkable circumstance. But Israel must be Israel wherever her sons abide.

In recent years the attempt has been made by the anti‑Christ, anti‑ Christian, anti‑American enemies of Christ, Christianity, and America to steal the signs of Israel for themselves. Thereby preventing our people from learning the wonderful truth:America is the New Jerusalem and New Zion as spoken of in the Scriptures. The Israel which was to come!

Destiny

Our premises and our conclusions rest on nothing merely human. We do not build on such flimsy foundations as a so‑called "Nordic theory." We do not draw our strength from boastful racial egotism. The covenants of God set forth at length in the Scriptures, they are the rock of this faith. Even though the track of Israel from Assyria to the Isles were lost to us, and though the Providence of God in our American history were absent from our national records; yes, even though no Israel emblem had ever appeared on our arms, escutcheons and seals, yet, from the covenants of God with His people, and their present operation upon our nation, we could still know who we are and what we are here to do.

The Divine covenants are absolute; God has said that He will never change or annul them. He has declared they will stand as long as the sun and moon endure. Following the Lord's declaration that the day would come when He would make a New Covenant with His people ^[15].

He proclaimed through His prophet: "Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast of all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord." ^[16]

However, God's covenants have certain optional clauses. If we keep the terms of the National Covenant entered into at Mount Siani, it will be to our blessing; if we do not obey, it will be to our correction. ^[17]

Nevertheless, the covenants are always in force; nothing we can do can annul them and God will not annul them. His will is always being done. Make no mistake about that, God's will is done. If His will is not done through us, then it shall be done to us. God says "I will" and "they shall" in speaking through the Prophet Ezekiel about the operation of the terms of the New Covenant: "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: And they shall be my people, and I will be their God." ^[18]

The supreme proof we have that we are still God's covenant people, although we have failed miserably in doing our part, is that we are still within the scope of His correction. The clauses of chastisement are operating. If God had cast off His people whom he foreknew, He would have broken His contract with them. He would have annulled His promises and His covenants would not now be in force. But they are in force, an irresistible force!

The apostle wrote that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" ^[19] A vice president of the United States once said, "It is a fearful thing to fall out of the hands of the Living God!" We are still in His hands and the lash of correction will continue to be felt until it accomplishes its end. The day will come when the people will give voice to the words spoken through the Prophet Hosea: "Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." ^[20]

Our God, the Holy One in the midst of Israel, will yet have the salute of our banners and the allegiance of all the people. Great voices in heaven have already proclaimed what will become an actual reality ^[21].

Our Inheritance

Our forefathers came to the shores of the North American Continent to lay the foundation of a Christian society. The church was to be the central influence in our lives; the administration of the affairs of state was to conform with the requirements of the Law of the Lord. It is a matter of grave concern today that our nation has departed so far afield from the faith and trust in God manifested by the Founding Fathers of our country.

We have forgotten what the Pilgrims fully recognized, that unless God prospers our undertakings, we labor in vain. The Psalmist stated it all too well: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: [The marginal rendering is: 'they labor in vain that are builders of it.'] Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." ^[22]

Now that our nation is rich in lands and houses and possessions, having an abundance of the things which provide for physical well‑ being, the people have turned aside from heeding Moses' warning: "Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God...and thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day." ^[23]

While sojourning in Egypt, Joseph's father Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) performed a special ceremony with Joseph's two sons. Ephraim and Manasseh, in his presence, having to do with their inheritance. Joseph's boys were placed before him and Jacob crossed his hands so that the younger son (Ephraim) might receive the blessing reserved for the elder (Manasseh). Joseph remonstrated with his father, but Jacob said to him: "I know it, my son, I know it: he [Manasseh] also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." ^[24]

Today the United States of America is that Great People. We do not refer to ourselves as a great nation so much as we use the very Biblical appellation foretold to designate our national status, a Great People.

The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States confirms this: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Prophet Isaiah directed a message to the people of God, warning them of a time to come when many among them would face extreme tribulation. The reason is given: "Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." ^[25]

The history of God's people is replete with instances when they were gratefully aware of the Lord's actions in their behalf, only to quickly turn aside into paths of disobedience. When our Pilgrim fathers set sail to go to the New World, no doubt the Psalms of David fortified them daily and perhaps they often repeated this affirmation: "Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me." ^[26]

The Lord did lead them and, as further stated by the Psalmist, "They remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer." ^[27]

They had every reason to be thankful to God who was, as the prophet expressed it, the Rock of their strength. Therefore, at the outset they planted pleasant plants; that is, desirable plants, in laying a foundation of righteousness in the new land to which they had come. In the morning of our nationhood our good seed did flourish; in the daytime of our development into a Great People our planting grew with a vigor.

However, expanding the graphic analogy, Isaiah stated that when the people were no longer mindful of God, the Rock of their strength, they began to set "strange slips" among their pleasant plains.

The Hebrew word translated "strange" means "foreign or profane" ("godless"); it has the significance of "to turn aside." This implies that, forgetting the God of our salvation, we would turn away from our Divinely‑directed way of life and we would cultivate strange and foreign ideologies, doctrines in opposition to the Law of the Lord and diametrically opposed to the terms of the National Covenant the Lord made with our forefathers at Mount Sinai ^[28].

Among the strange slips we selected from the foreign soil of atheism were those which bred Higher Criticism, Modernism and Judaism. This fostered disbelief in the veracity of the Scriptures and ripened into the Great Apostasy that has settled from the goodly spiritual plant our forefathers nurtured when they came to these shores.

Our nation has fared no better in the realm of politics. We have departed far afield from the kind of government our forefathers who were present at Mount Sinai were instructed to put into operation. It was to be a representative form of government, with spiritually qualified men selected to speak for the people ^[29].

The Law of the Lord was to be the basis of its constitution and was to be administered as the law of the land. Our government was never, under any circumstances, to degenerate into a godless democracy. The only time the people of Israel lapsed into a democracy was when Aaron, in the absence of Moses, listened to the voice of the majority and gave them the golden calf to worship ^[30].

The mob ruled and the people sinned. God never intended His people to succumb to mob rule. The Founding Fathers of this nation recognized that danger and wrote a constitution for the United States that provided for a representative form of government, a Republic, not a democracy.

Now, however, the strange slips of democracy have been deliberately set out and they are being raised to full flower. Our governmental leaders have even adopted many of the tenets of Marxism and Fabian Socialism, grafting them into the body politic, with the result that our Republic has died.

How tragic it is that the Prophet Isaiah found himself impelled to prophesy: "But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." ^[31] The marginal rendering is very explicit: "But the harvest shall be removed in the day of inheritance, and there shall be deadly sorrow."

All signs point to the fact that our nation should now be preparing to enjoy what the phrase "day of inheritance" foreshows, experiencing the fullness of the covenant blessings bestowed upon us. Instead, there will indeed be deadly sorrow as the time of trouble deepens, which is described by the Prophet Daniel to be "such as never was since there was a nation." ^[32] At the present time our society is in a state of degeneration and decay and our nation is undergoing the throes of judgment.

We flounder as a people on the edge of a pit of destruction. Addressing Himself specifically to the United States of America, as recorded in the 18th chapter of Isaiah, the Lord communicated a message through the prophet that He would rest in His dwelling place during a specially fixed period and refrain from intervening in behalf of His people.

This will occur prior to the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 26:21 where God's "place" is also mentioned: "For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood [or bloods; the origin of her races], and shall no more cover her slain."

The foundations of America, Christ's Kingdom, on earth is being shaken. Who is to blame? Slick propaganda machines bamboozle us with accusations and counter-accusations with such rapidity that it seems impossible to think things through calmly and rationally, well alone discern the truth! Crime is soaring. Armed robbers, in police uniforms, steal vast sums of money daily, under color of law; Federal Agents are killing people indiscriminately in scenes reminiscent of the worst gangster days of Chicago. Elderly people are murdered in their homes and farms in order to steal their land and possessions.

Do we have a hope and a sure guide amid the bloodshed, the propaganda barrage, the near-anarchy, the moral disintegration, the uncertainty, the fears and the doubts? Most certainly we have! Peter talks of "a more sure word of prophecy" which we would do well to note, as a light that shines in a dark place. ^[33]

In the midst of such bad news Paul could joyfully commend the Ephesian elders "to God and the Word of His grace" ^[34]. The writer to the Hebrews speaks of our "sure and steadfast" anchor of the soul. ^[35]

The Scriptures relate: "O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land [America] before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever? And they dwelt therein and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, (for thy name is in this house,) and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and mount Seir [The Jews], whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; Behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit. O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee." ^[36]

Before the harvest is gathered that is mentioned in the 17th chapter of Isaiah, the Lord states: "For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches." ^[37]

Through the pruning and purging fires of tribulation, the Lord will lop off the growth of the strange slips in order that the plant itself may again bear righteous fruit. Our desperate need today, as individual Christians and as a nation, is to experience a great spiritual renaissance, a return to Jehovah, the God of Israel, an awakening to the necessity to obey His commandments, statutes and judgements.

When we do this as a people, we will be able to join in the affirmation voiced by the Psalmist: "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings, and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God." ^[38]

In the face of unavoidable catastrophe, the moment of confrontation with the Lord God Almighty will come when the citizenry and all governmental office‑holders in our nation will earnestly desire to embrace the fruits of repentance as His people.

Following this we will renew the pledges of our Pilgrim forefathers in order that it may be well with us and with our children. Then, and only then, the enemy within will be destroyed, the foe without will be vanquished and the Great People of the United States of America, The White Race, will be delivered from all workers of iniquity.

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