“THIS IS A FOOTBALL.”

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi was famous for his approach to winning games. He once held a football in his hand in a locker room at half-time as he explained the fundamentals of the game to professional, veteran players who were losing a game; everything from why a football is made

the way it is, to why the field is marked the way it is, to how it’s played, how it’s scored the way it is. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Lombardi believed that understanding, remembering and adhering to fundamentals makes the difference between winning and losing. He was right.

Lombardi was right. There are basics, first principles, things rudimentary and foundational that have to be in place in order to live life well, raise a family, run a business or observe a religion properly. For Americans, there are certain tried and proven fundamentals that have to remain in place for the sake of national survival and the sustaining of individual freedom. When fundamentals aren’t understood, appreciated and adhered to, the best of situations eventually and inevitably turn bad. America is one of those “best of situations” that is turning out bad — very bad.

The fundamentals that made America great have been forsaken by our leaders, forgotten by much of our citizenry, and are foreign to perhaps most of our youth. Why? because of the hatchet job that's been done on them by politicians, the media and the public school system. These fundamentals must be retaught and common sense truth must be restated with at least the same clarity, attention to minutia, and repetition as Vince Lombardi used in his half-time talk to the Green Bay Packers., “This is a football.” “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 1:3).