Faith @ The First Inaugural Address
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
Lincoln’s faith in God is here expressed in his belief that the constitution itself was a document of divine nature. He believed that the framers faith in the will of the people was like to that of the fishermen on Jonah’s boat in casting lots. God operates in the course of every human decision working all things according to His Divine purpose. Lincoln believed that as people cast their lot in votes it would without war express God’s divine purpose for all those concerning slavery and would avoid the battle forth coming over states rights and the perpetual nature of the constitution. The government existed to preserve and defend its own existence was according to Lincoln a right given by God. His duty was to exercise in faith that belief.
Faith @ Gettysburg
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lincoln expressed this sentiment of our nation being “under God” and having a new birth, or being “born again” as a matter of his faith in God. Birth is a thought that is framed only in scripture in this means. Lincoln believed after the victory at Gettysburg that God had demonstrated the immorality of slavery and secession of states. Lincoln in faith believed he had the moral high ground. The north in his thinking was clearly on God’s side. A nation under God is a nation of the people. Meaning that the will of the people was the arbiter of God’s will for the nation. Meaning that the government existed only so long as it served the will of the people as it is a government “for the people”. Meaning that such a government serving the will of God through the morality of the people will never cease to exist. Only a man with faith in God gives up his power to the will of the people and trusts that such principles established and framed by our founders are of divine nature. God is the determiner of victory as God’s side always wins. Might doesn’t make right, but rather being right makes might.
Faith @ The Second Inaugural Address
(Concerning the war between the north and the south, Lincoln said the following.) Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Lincoln expressed his faith in God by acknowledging that neither side that prayed to God and read the Bible had received and answer to their prayers. Then he acknowledged that God may well have his own purposes in allowing this war. Lincoln expressed his belief that God was judging both sides, the Union, for not acknowledging that all men were created equal under the constitution and had the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Slavery was not just wrong for the south, but for the entire union. Those who plundered their opportunity to rid our great nation of this plight were now experiencing God’s judgment. Lincoln finishes his thoughts with the belief that in the end the Lord is true and always right in judgments on nations, and people.
I see a couple of lessons in these statements for leaders in business and ministry.
• Every business and every ministry “under God” trusts that the circumstances of its existences are in the hands of the all mighty, Creator! Just as God establishes nations, so he establishes churches and businesses for his purposes.
• The preservation of any business or ministry is something that requires dedication and devotion to those who have given their lives and time to assist in the creation and existences of that organization. Present leaders must always look back those whose legacy they inherit to move forward.
• I believe great leaders are aware of the work of the almighty and grasp clearly what God is up to, and then they join the Creator who has gone before them in their journey. All leaders should follow God. All leaders are divinely appointed, but not all leadership is divine in nature.
Is your business under God?
Can you recount the divine nature of your own company’s existence?
How has God allowed you to remain in business and what threatens you presently?
What is God doing right now, and how are you joining Him?
Are there corporate consequences for things that displease God? Explain.
