Lost Identity

My father preached a sermon on Lost Identity from the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah.  He preached this sermon so often that over the years I still remember it.   The text was from verse 23-24.  23In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:  24And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.  We are living in times of religious, economic, social and political confusion; it is often difficult to understand who we are in the daily struggle of life because of the uncertainty of who we have become.  To obtain a true picture of whom we are as a people we must first look to the past.  It has been said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  My father would be identified as a member of the Greatest Generation, this generation is those who came of age during the Great Depression and fought World War II.  The identity of an American born to this generation has some very importance characteristics that identified them the world over.  These were the people that grew up during the Great Depression. My father told about plowing behind a Model T Ford for tens cents an hour so the family could have money to just get by. Just being able to survive the Great Depression took courage. The young men of the day were called to defend freedom and went off to fight in the Big One and the women ran the farms, worked in the factories and raised their children.   My father often said, I left high school to go win a war and then came home to graduate. These are the Americans who came home from that war and built America into a world economic powerhouse. These American’s knew the meaning of sacrifice, both in terms of material possessions and of real blood, sweat, and tears. They were humble people who never bragged about what they had done or been through. They were loyal, patriotic, honest and level-headed. They accepted responsibility for their decisions; they also accepted all the consequences of that decision, whether good or bad. They were not a generation of whiners or excuse makers. They took pride in personal accountability. They were identified the world over as American’s. Today we are more concerned about the ethnoculturalism of a group than are they American.  To be politically correct today we see Americans as prefix-Americans.  All you need to do is add the ethnic background to American and you have the modern prefix-American.  The values of America have changed with the prefix culture.  There are groups who refuse to honor our laws, our language, and our customs.  They want the benefits of being an American without the responsibility of being an American.  When they came to this country they had no intentions of adapting to our cultural, but rather set about to change who we are as Americans.  Some have been so brazen as to say that our country no longer belongs to us.  The anti-American attitude of the foreigners both legal and illegal has intimidated the American born citizens to the point they are afraid to speak against the prefix-Americans.  We are quickly losing our identity of being an American. For the most part Americans want to be liked and understood. I know I do.  But as we are told on a daily basis that there is a disrespect and dislike for Americans around the world we have come to believe we are a hated group of people.  It is however hard to understand this dislike and disrespect or even hatred when people around the world want to attend our universities, find employment in our country and live the American dream.  This dislike and disrespect has created the problem of dealing with those who want to destroy us by changing our laws, customs, and language.  It makes me wonder why they left their homes to change us to what they were not content to live with.  But the real problem of losing our identity is not from those outside but the American people themselves.  We have changed from a independent spirit to one of entitlement.  The innovative and industrious American has been reduced to a video game player more concerned about a sports team than who runs the country.  We have lost our identity. America has become so “diverse” and given into the multicultural ideology that we have lost our national identity.  We apologize to everyone for everything.   We can no longer say “Merry Christmas”, we ignore the Christ of Christmas, and schools no longer have Christmas breaks but Winter holidays. We are fearful of legal reprisal so we ban prayer from graduations but allow other religions their religious freedom to pray when and wherever because we would not want to offend.  Leaders of our government and churches will not lead.  Our government leaders disregard the Constitution; the church leaders disregard the Holy Bible and the American public sits back to watch their favorite sports team while America speeds down the road of destruction. Greed has driven us to economic collapse.  We have allowed a whole generation to become dependent upon the government to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide medical services at the expense of the remaining few who actual work for a living.  Over 45 million people live on food stamps.  Here is the future of this country as we travel down the road of government (slavery) dependence.  When we are no longer a society of responsible citizens carry our own burdens of life and expect the government to provide for us--how soon  we will become a third world society.  Poverty begets poverty which produces illiteracy.  The more illiterate a nation becomes the more the more dependent upon the government.  The more dependent on the government people become, the less personal responsibility, which leads to the moral breakdown of society.   What happened to the proud self-sufficient American of the past? We have been transformed into divided nation where every culture is accepted, every language accommodated, every religion allowed except Christianity.  Our government and legal society has tried to purge Christianity from our history, our National Holidays, our public schools, and our daily life.  When Christianity is gone from this county so will the freedoms we have learned to love.  The stabilizing force on America has been its foundation in Christian principles.  It is our Christian principles which cry out against honor killings, stoning of women, killing of gays, taking the life of the unborn child, and the trafficking in humans.  It is our Christian principles that move us to compassion when we see our neighbor in need.  When America has been purged of Christianity America will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Just as in the days of Nehemiah we are losing our identity.  As Nehemiah took drastic steps to regain the identity of his people America must take drastic steps to regain our identity.  Judgment must first begin at the House of the Lord.  Christian religious leaders must stop trying to be all things to all people and preach repentance, personal accountability, walking upright before the LORD and practice justice and mercy.  Government leaders must serve the people and not special interest or their own special interest.  Government leaders must uphold the Constitution of the United States as they have sworn to do.  Any government official who fails to uphold the Constitution should be removed from office and never allowed to have any dealings with the government again, and lose all government benefits provided for that office