Pray for the Inauguration, Leaders, and Nation

Two Presidents, One Nation, and the Duty of Its Citizens

The Trump-Vance inaugural committee recently updated its list of entertainers for its numerous inauguration-week celebrations. In an effort to show a heart for unity, that long list includes celebrities from such varied musical genres as Country, Pop, and Opera. It even includes The Village People, whose controversial ‘70s hit song, “Y.M.C.A.” has been a favorite campaign rally feature.1

For public safety, news reports reveal that many roads are closed to vehicles and over 11,000 military and police are present to help protect the elected and the voters alike. With a 2025 inauguration-only price tag that far surpasses the USA’s entire first-year (1789) federal budget—even after adjusting for 236 years of inflation—a lot of victory-focused celebrating and negative free-speech protests will take place tomorrow in Washington, DC.2

How It All Began

Significant amounts of celebrating also occurred on April 30, 1789. That’s the day that George Washington, the first US president, was inaugurated. But the tone was a bit different. In fact, the day began when the bells of churches rang out at 9:00 AM with a call to prayer and worship. As sanctuaries were opened, they were filled. All morning, the people worshipped and prayed. They thanked God for victory in the terrible Revolutionary War, for the newly ratified contract between the states—the Constitution, and for the retired General George Washington’s willingness to leave his rural life behind and accept his nation’s call to help lead the new government.

A parade that included around 500 soldiers ushered Washington’s coach from his rented residence at 3 Cherry Street to Federal Hall on Wall Street in lower Manhattan. With a sea of jubilant spectators crammed onto the cobblestone and dirt streets, the overwhelmed hero of America’s War for Independence prepared to take the never-before-used oath of office. From a second-story balcony, with no amplification or modern-day video displays, the unanimously elected plantation farmer humbly raised his right hand. Simultaneously, he placed his left hand on a large, borrowed Bible before him. In God’s sovereign plan, it was open to Genesis, the book of beginnings. How very appropriate that was, as Washington and the people surrounding him launched a new beginning unlike any other in world history.

Repeating the words required by the US Constitution, Washington committed, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”3 History records that, after what was likely less than one minute to repeat his oath, George Washington added the four character-revealing words, “. . . so help me God.” Then, in further affirmation of his respect for the Creator and his holy Word, he leaned forward and kissed the Bible.4

In a loud voice, the Chancellor of New York “then turned to the teeming streets below and shouted ‘Long live George Washington, President of the United States!’”5 The crowd roared “hugely,” and within seconds, the bells of the city rang out. Rifles saluted, and cannons boomed. Then, from aboard ships in the bay and across the river, more cannon blasts echoed. At the same time, a myriad of celebrants burst forth in rapturous joy! The news was not “live” as we take for granted today, but it spread with the explosiveness of gunpower, and quickly all knew that George Washington was now President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America!

From that balcony, the 57-year-old former general was ushered just a few feet to the Senate chamber. With hands trembling and his voice barely audible at times, the attitude of “the father of America” immediately changed the tenor among the senators, representatives, and other VIPs assembled inside, beyond the celebratory throng outdoors.

With every eye and every ear focused upon him, a historic speech later published throughout the thirteen former British colonies and far beyond began. With great earnestness, Washington quietly and humbly stated, “[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States . . . .”

Still Our Duty

May we be found praying, “supplicating” to use the words of President Washington, for God to lead our newly appointed president, as well. Our world is every bit as broken and needy as that of 1789. Wars raged in that era as they do now. Though there were no political parties when Washington took office, within a few short years intense disagreements as to how the US should operate had created two fundamentally different schools of politics, and personal and society-wide morality was degenerating. We certainly still see this today.

Let us pray earnestly, as George Washington did, that the legacy of the new US President and the much-changed US Congress will become a fragrant aroma to our Creator and Savior as they are faced with challenges that he can use to change hearts for eternity!

The Legacy of the “George Washington” Bible

Within months of Washington’s inauguration, three Scottland-born printers who also lived and worked in the USA’s first capital city approached Washington to become the lead “subscriber” to a family study Bible that was already much admired in the United Kingdom. He agreed, and by the silent inclusion of his name atop the list of 1,278 other subscribers, a 10.25 x 16.5 x 3.5-inch tome of nearly 1,100 pages with over 200,000 notes and cross-referenced verses was published. It was the first full English language Bible ever printed in New York and the largest illustrated study Bible ever printed in the USA.

Frontispiece from The Forgotten George Washington Bible

That Bible, known then as the New York edition of Brown’s Self-Interpreting Bible, is now known in its just-released 8.5 x 11 hardcover form as The Forgotten George Washington Bible. It impacted families throughout America and in Australia, England, and Scotland. It was the most-reprinted English Bible in the world for over 130 years, until Scofield’s evolution-accommodating study Bible of the early 1900s. The 1792 KJV Self-Interpreting Bible’s striking original frontispiece includes imagery that was both clearly patriotic and profoundly Christian because it depicted the US Constitution as intentionally Bible-based and dependent on the light of God’s Word.

George Washington signed his copy and wrote in it, including some of the history of his own family. A page from it was even torn out in 1848 and buried in the cornerstone time capsule of the towering Washington Monument. Washington was also the only president to ensure that all of the enslaved people whom he had the legal authority to free were freed and provided for through his Last Will & Testament.6

After years of research, Dale is convinced that Washington’s Bible is an important and invaluable surviving object of antiquity from America’s founding era—second only to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He hopes that one day a President-elect will take his (or her) oath on this historic copy of God’s Word and said he believes that although time is short, “The same God who can turn a man’s head at the last second, can turn a heart as well!”

For more details and for ordering information about Mason’s reprint of Washington’s signed Bible with over 100 pages of history and documented stories, visit www.GeorgeWashingtonBible.com.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.