"So it shall be, when the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your
fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not
build, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig,
vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant; when you have eaten and are full; then beware,
lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."
(Deut. 6:10-12)
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, for
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 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." (President Abraham Lincoln, April
30, 1863)
Let us beware lest we, too, forget the Lord who has so richly blessed us.