America — A Covenant Nation

Several weeks ago, a good colleague and professional First-Responder wrote me disagreeing with an earlier article I wrote. He challenged, and actually strongly disagreed with me, that our nation was born by a covenant with God. ONLY Israel holds a covenant with God he stated. This article and my following do NOT take away or in any stretch of the word detract, minimize or question the covenant the Lord made with Israel and holds to this very day. Israel was birthed by Yahweh Elohe Yisrael (the Lord God of Israel — Judges 5:3; Psalm 59:5; Isaiah 17:6; Zephaniah 2:9). No other nation on the planet has God’s Hand on and over it like Israel. But this article and Part II in a couple of days makes my argument that America was given to the Lord for our birth and development, and as George Washington took the first Oath of Office to the Presidency, Washington made a pledge, a covenant with the Lord on behalf of our nation. It is my contention, America, for the very most part, has walked away from the covenant made and what we already are seeing, and soon to come, will be God’s strong, strong discipline and humbling on our nation. I pray We the People repent and come back to the Lord and the founding principles that birthed our nation. Failure to do so, I believe, will cause punishment not just discipline.

PART I: Reading General Washington’s diary, I could not help but come away with the belief that Washington knew the God of the Bible, the One and True God, the Olam El (the Everlasting God), the same who Christopher Columbus sought at the beginning of his walk into destiny, the exact God who directed both the Puritans and the Pilgrams, and now whom General Washington needed to seek and walk in humility (trust) with through the coming conflict of all conflicts up to that time. Washington had to feel like he was walking into the Valley of the Shadows that David of Psalms 23 writes so eloquently about. Similar to David, and so many others before him, Washington must either depend on the Lord of lords and King of kings and allow God’s rod and staff to guide and strengthen him, or certainly he and the dream of a land dedicated to God would certainly perish.

Make no mistake about this: the forces of darkness were gathering to diabolically extinguish America once and for all, even before she got the chance to step into her destiny. America, “the shining city on a hill,” (taken from Matthew 5:14) and used by John Winthrop, a Puritan Pastor in his 1630 sermon forewarning that the new community by the Puritans would be observed by the world, and if they failed to uphold their covenant with God, their faults would be exposed. So, America, the city on a hill that could shine bright with God’s glory and grace, God’s abundance, and be known throughout the world as a people and government who fully understood and applied the laws and eternal rules ordained by heaven in the daily lives of those who reside in this land, was to be eviscerated and exist no more! I believe Washington and the fathers of our nation more fully and completely understood this reality than do the elected officials of our day and time.

General Washington knew something else, too. He was going to make a pledge before God much similar to the one Abraham in the Bible’s book of Genesis Chapter 21 made. Washington pledged to enter into this Revolutionary War for the purpose of establishing a covenant with God that this newly formed nation will submit (cooperate) to the ordinances of God and allow God to bring us back into compliance with those ordinances when we stray, to allow God to establish His form of government based on Judeo-Christian principles, especially as outlined in the Bible’s books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus but not at the expense of the other books in God’s Word.

The covenant Washington made was symbolized on a white flag with an evergreen in the middle under the bold words: An Appeal to Heaven.

The evergreen or tamarisk tree is a slow-growing but long-living tree. Strong and capable of resisting harsh conditions, it is a tree that signifies an everlasting covenant with God. No one plants an evergreen tree for themselves because the tree is too slow growing from its shade by the one who planted it but is a tree future generation will enjoy. When Abraham of the Bible planted such a tree, and when George Washington chose that tree, both men were saying to future generations: You will sit under the shade of the covenant I made with God and enjoy the benefits thereof; you will enjoy the rewards from the efforts of the previous generation.

General Washington chose for our country’s first flag, An Appeal to Heaven flag, not the Betsy Ross flag with its stars in a circle on a blue field, and the red and white stripes we came to know as kids studying history. The Appeal to Heaven flag flew up and down the Hudson River on all forts, in many towns throughout the colonies, on battlefields like Bunker Hill, and even over the Continental Congress meeting in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. This flag was taken into battle by the Continentals during the early months of the Revolutionary War. The Appeal to Heaven flag even flew on the first ships of the first navy of this country; six schooner ships purchased by George Washington with his own funds. I seriously doubt on October 20, 1775, when the Appeal to Heaven flag was adopted and placed into action, General Washington was thinking that fourteen years later, he would be standing on a balcony overlooking thousands of his fellow citizens and publicly declaring the covenant he had become intimately acquainted with on the field of battle. He barely knew if he would survive himself the bullets and cannon fire of the most powerful military on the face of the earth at that time.

As we know, General of the Army George Washington did survive the battles and bullets of not only an army in the natural sense but also the spiritual deluge launched by forces of darkness not the least bit happy at the foundation being laid that would celebrate the truths and blessings of the One True God and Creator of All: Adonai.

End of Part 1.

©2026 Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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