When the thirteen colonies were still a part of England, while our country was seeking its independence; Professor Alexander Tytler wrote about the fall of the Athenian Republic over two thousand years previous to that time, he said:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s great democratic civilizations has been two hundred years [the Old Roman Empire as a notable exception].  These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith

From spiritual faith to great courage

From great courage to liberty

From liberty to abundance

From abundance to selfishness

From selfishness to complacency

From complacency to apathy

From apathy to dependency

From dependency back to bondage

 America has been a nation for over 236 years, a world power for around 100 years.  Some would say we are still in the selfish stage, while others might say we are in the stage of apathy, still others would even say we are entering the dependency stage (based on the fact that over 50% of the US population is receiving government assistance, over 60% alone are on food stamps).  If any of these are true, then the only place Christians should find themselves is on their knees, seeking God’s forgiveness, grace, and strength to face the trouble testing this nation is about to enter.  May we again say as a nation: “In God We Trust.”

Source
Black, Jim, “When Nations Die”, Tyndale House, Wheaton IL, 1994.

The difference between ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment’ is like an
eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was ‘involved’
the pig was ‘committed’.”

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