It was a summons across the centuries to a new and profound application of the principles of religion to nation building. The conviction burned in their hearts that God was sending them out on a divine mission and that they were to found on this side the sea a nation which should bear an important part in the world plans of Christianity. There are no words in the Bible which have a more wonderful meaning in the light of the expanding purpose of God for America than these words of commission to Abraham which were accepted as God's commission to the Pilgrim Fathers. In the days that followed God was as good as his word and the Pilgrim Fathers were as good as theirs.
There is a growing conviction with many leaders in America that one of the central features of our religious life should be this sense of mission. In the history of the expanding Kingdom, God has evidently given to America a commanding place of leadership and power. This is nothing less than a divine appointment. To have such an appointment as this in a time like ours, from our God, is to have a share in a task like no other task the world has ever seen. To make men see that the redeeming of America is strategy of a high order is to strike a high note of summons to extend the sway of Christ to the remotest bounds of our own continent. To hasten the time when this conviction shall leaven the thinking of American Christianity and when this sense of mission shall liberate the measureless spiritual and material energies of America to bless the world should be the aim of every Christian American.
What are some of the signs that America has been called to a place of leadership in the Kingdom? Are there certain principles according to which God selects men and nations for the fulfilment of his world purposes? Do these principles and purposes emerge in God's dealing with America? The answer to these questions has a deep missionary significance.
Among the principles which God has evidently applied in choosing his prophets through the ages, the following are unmistakably clear:
1. Prophets Are Strategically Located.
2. Prophets Are Chosen Because of a Certain Fitness of Character.
3. Prophets Have Resources Sufficient for Their Task.
4. Prophets Remain Such only so Long as They Have Vision and Consecration Adequate to Their Task.
These principles apply to the outstanding prophetic figures of all times. Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Malachi in the Old Testament, Paul in the New, Luther and Wesley in modern times, all illustrate the working of these laws.
The principles stated above apply to nations as well as to individual men. Israel may be taken as an illustration. Palestine was the crossroads of the world. Israel was centrally located so that she had an unusual opportunity to influence the known world. Her leaders had a message and a spiritual insight unique in their day. They were a people chosen not for privilege but for service, and when in the supreme test the nation failed to understand and accept its world-wide mission, God was compelled to move westward in his choice of a new prophetic race to bear his message to the world.