GEORGE WASHINGTON: WHEN CHARACTER COUNTS

   It was at 10pm, on a Saturday, on the fourteenth day, of the month of  December, in the year of our Lord 1799, that the man who was known as a farmer, Commander of the 1st Continental Army, President of the United States, Father of his country, and patriot went home to be with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. George Washington was sixty-seven years-old when he died.
   He literally stood taller than most men of his time, but his greatest asset was his personal character.  When he became Commander and Chief of his fledgling country, it was by the power of his unquestionable character that he was able to keep the newly founded government together through those early days of turmoil, possible rebellion, and emerging political fractions.
   We modern Americans take the exchange of power of one head of state to another for granted.  But it was not always that way.  Before Washington became president, no other world leader in history had willingly given up their position of leadership at the height of their power and popularity. Julius Caesar did not.  Later, Napoleon did not.  Washington began what would become a somewhat unwritten agreement between U.S. Presidents that would not be broken up until and including the presidency of Hebert Hoover.
    George Washington was not a deist as most modern historians claim him to be.  A deist, as Benjamin Franklin was one, saw God as being like a watchmaker, who would make to watch, wind it up up, and then let it run on its own.  Deist did not believe that God intervened in human affairs.  So, deist did not see any use for prayer.  According to George Washington, what students would learn in American schools "above all" was "the religion of Jesus Christ."  Washington recognised that the protective hand of divine providence had intervened in his own life many times.  He was also a avid practitioner and believer in prayer.  Upon taking the oath of office for his first term as President of the United States, he added of his own "so help me God," and then bent over to kiss the Bible.

SELAH

Proverbs 13:22a

   A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children,  (ESV)

Proverbs 12:22a