Heart Problems

So there he was, no fooling. With artillery fire splashing all around, General Jackson stood like a stone wall. Pieces of a nearby tree fell like rain upon him after it had been hit by a cannonball. He was later asked how he could remain so calm amid the chaos of war. His response was, “My religious belief teaches me that I’m just as safe on the battlefield as I am in my bed. The Lord has already appointed the day of my death so I need not worry about that. I live my life and prepare myself so I will always be ready to meet my Lord when death does overtake me.” And he was right. Through many battles where reason dictates that he was not safe, he came through unscathed, and his creed was indeed prophetic not only to how he would live, but as to how he would die. His heart was right with God. Endowed with the uncanny ability to consistently enter into battle against a superior force and come out with a win, Jackson was one of the most indispensable generals of the Civil War. A war that came as the result of the pride festering in the heart of the American people. Unlike Jackson, America had a heart problem, and it was so bad it led to the single most destructive war in American history. 

The heart of the people is of great importance. Just as the heart of the individual determines how they live, the heart of a people determines their culture, and how they are governed. Jesus said in Mark 7: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” All of the political issues at the forefront are issues of the heart of the people. Do you like Bernie’s socialism? You can contribute that to theft and envy of the wealthy. Heart problem. Think gun control will curb murder? Murder is a heart problem. LGBTQ? Sexual immorality is a heart problem. Prison population full to the brim? Wickedness is a heart problem. I can go on but you get the point. 

Our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge said this: “Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The REAL heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.” The first two years of the Civil War saw the Confederacy conquer insurmountable odds. Outnumbered, out supplied, and out financed, yet the South was capable of frustrating the plans of the superior forces of Lincoln and the North. It seemed that God was on the side of Lee and Jackson. But then something happened, on February 20th, 1862 Lincoln’s son Willie died. He was devastated. He had made it through two years of casualty reports from the war, but this event caused him to rethink his views on sin, righteousness, and judgment. Lincoln was not a Christian, however, sometime in 1862, I believe Lincoln’s heart changed. And the following year, a change in the heart of the American people would be reflected in a resolution of congress.

The US Congress put forth a resolution that Lincoln should proclaim April 30th, 1863 as a national day of prayer and fasting. Lincoln, having recently himself had a personal experience of prayer and repentance, penned this proclamation:

“Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

The national day of prayer and fasting was observed on April 30th, 1863. At 11:20 am the following day the first shots were fired at the battle of Chancellorsville. Lee and Jackson continued beating overwhelming odds for two days straight, so much so that Lee began to believe that he could take the war to the north, and win. Jackson had just directed his most brilliant leadership of the war. 

So there he was, darkness had fallen as he and his staff set off on a mounted reconnoiter of the eerie woods. Once they had gathered the necessary information, Stonewall turned his party back toward friendly lines. As they approached General Lane’s brigade, the soldiers mistook him for Union cavalry and opened fire. Stonewall was struck three times and later dropped from the litter as he was being carried to the field hospital. His arm was amputated and on hearing that Stonewall would not be with him while recovering from his wounds General Lee retorted, “He has lost his left arm, and I have lost my right.” He was correct, the genius Stonewall had exhibited time after time was irreplaceable. The tide of war had turned. Stonewall had said, “My religious belief teaches me that I’m just as safe on the battlefield as I am in my bed. The Lord has already appointed the day of my death so I need not worry about that.” God had accomplished his plans with Stonewall, and the irony of his death was that he was perfectly safe when cannon and rifle shot were pouring all around him. But he was accidentally killed on returning to the safety of friendly lines. This all took place during a battle that had formed battle lines on the same day as the national day of prayer and fasting. Chancellorsville was pivotal for two reasons: It gave General Lee the brazen confidence to take the war to the north, to Gettysburg. At the same time it took out Jackson, his right-hand man, who many historians believe would have helped produce a different outcome at the battle of Gettysburg, the battle where the tide of the war went decidedly to the Union. 

We are once again in a time of upheaval and uncertainty. We hunker down in the middle of a global pandemic, our livelihood is in question as the economy tanks. The price of oil went bust. Our society is filled with violence, immorality, and secularism. The left tells us that the answer to gun violence is gun control. The left tells us that we are immoral if we don’t accept the many genders they have equated with reality. We shrug our shoulders as 5,000 Oklahoma babies are aborted a year because the courts allow it, even as the fifth amendment says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. We can’t pass enough laws to make our state a safe or good place. As Calvin Coolidge said, “It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.” The only way to make things better, is to first appeal to the One who changes hearts. I propose that we set aside a statewide day of prayer, and fasting. That we stop all nonessential work to focus on God, to ask His forgiveness, and to plead for His restoration through His Spirit. This should be our primary action before we do anything else.

Lamentations 5:21-22 NLT

“Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again!

Give us back the joys we once had!

Or have you utterly rejected us?

Are you angry with us still?”