Between
the years of 1861 (when
the Confederates fired the first shot at Fort Sumter) and
1865 (when Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9 at the Appomattox Court House)
America engaged in the bloodiest war in her history. This
war claimed more than 620,000 (when you add in disease, and other related death,
the total is over one million) lives
because each causality was an American. It was a war of American against
American; blue against grey; the industrial north against the agricultural
south; brother against brother. Its effects were horrific.
Still today names like names like Gettysburg
(51,112 causalities), Antietam,
Chancellorsville,
Shiloh, and Chickamauga
stand as a testament to the courage, tenacity and tremendous loss experienced in
that bloody war.
And
yet, I am not here to speak to you this morning about America’s past history.
I want to speak to you about the present; specifically how the present will
affect the future. Currently, American is engaged in another civil war. It too
is a war waged on American soil and places brother against brother. However, it
is not a war for territory, geography or even social correctness. It is a cultural war for the values once readily
accepted but not in serious jeopardy.
Thousands
of years ago a Hebrew prophet by the name of Isaiah wrote these words: “In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah…We have a
strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. 2 Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that
keeps faith. 3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD,
is the Rock eternal. 5 He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty
city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. 6 Feet
trample it down — the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor. 7 The
path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous
smooth. 8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name
and renown are the desire of our hearts. 9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth,
the people of the world learn righteousness. 10 Though grace is shown to the
wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go
on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the LORD. 11 O LORD, your hand is
lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and
be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them. 12 LORD,
you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.
13 O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name
alone do we honor.”
A
former president of the US, Abraham Lincoln said, “America is the last best
hope on earth and the only way that we can be that hope is to live as a nation
that keeps faith.”
The
prophet Isaiah and President Lincoln were on the same page because the prophet said
that the nation that makes God her salvation is the nation that will keep faith.
Think
with me for a moment. If a visitor were to come to our nation and simply look at
our symbols they would assume
that we were a nation that honored the words of Isaiah and our former President
Abraham Lincoln.
For
Example:
•
Congress opens every session with prayer.
•
Our President is sworn into office by swearing with his hand on the Bible.
•
Supreme Court opens each daily session by this announcement, “God
save this honorable Court.”
•
Our Liberty Bell has the words from the Book of Leviticus inscribed on it, “Proclaim
liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” (Lev.
25:10)
•
In 1991 City University of New York conducted a nationwide survey and concluded
that 90% of all Americans identify themselves as either Christians or Jews.
Only 7.5% claimed that they had no religion.
•
If you visit our
nation’s capital you will find that every one of our national buildings is
inscribed with Scripture. Each of
our national monuments is also engraved with the Word of God.
·
What is the tallest building in Washington? The Washington Monument and no
building can ever be built in that city taller than that monument. Do you know
what is inscribed at the very pinnacle on that monument? “Let God Be
Praised”
•
When you read our Constitution you find the presence of our Creator and when you
claim the Bill of Rights you can not ignore the fact that “we
are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights…”
· In 1782, the U.S. Congress voted in favor of a resolution recommending
and approving the Bible for use in the schools.
•
Who can ignore the fact that you can not look at our money without being
confronted, “In God we trust.” On
the back of the dollar is the Latin phrase, “Annuit
Coeptis” which means “God has favored our undertaking.”
· President John
Adams stated, "The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal code as
well as a moral and religious code. These are laws essential to the existence of
men in society and most of which have been enacted by every Nation which ever
professed any code of laws. Vain
indeed would be the search among the writings of secular history to find so
broad, so complete and so solid a basis of morality as the Ten Commandments lay
down."
These
are by a few examples that I use to call your attention to our national symbols.
However,
today if you looked beyond our symbols
you would be devastated to see that there is so
little substance. We often
say one thing and do exactly the opposite and then we wonder why we struggle as
a nation to receive the blessings of Almighty God. Isaiah clearly stated that
Jehovah blesses “the nation that keeps faith.” Certainly we have the symbols
all over our nation but are we in danger of removing the
substance from the symbols! The
erosion began small but now has escalated into a full avalanche to the point
where the symbols mean little if anything at all.
For
Example:
•
In 1963 the United States Supreme Court ruled that reading the Bible in public
schools was unconstitutional.
•
In 1980 the Supreme Court overturned a Kentucky State law requiring the public
school to post the Ten Commandments. The
Kentucky law stated that the “Ten
Commandments are man’s greatest tool in developing the moral character of our
children.”
•
In 1973 the Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade made abortions legal and called the
pre-born child a “non-person.” Now
this is where we also see such great ambiguity because if a pregnant woman is
murdered the person charged with the crime is charged with two counts of murder.
Because of this ruling more than 1.5 million abortions are conducted each
year in our nation and a gigantic amount of these abortions are simply preformed
as a means of birth control.
• At an elementary school in St. Louis a fourth grade young
man by the name of Raymond Raines was suspended because he was whispering a
prayer before he ate his lunch. He
was told by the administration that he must stop or would be expelled.
• A sixth grader in Virginia was not permitted to recite a
poem in class because it had the name of Jesus in the poem.
• In
Pennsylvania a third grader was told to remove a “Jesus Loves You” sticker
from her lunch box.
• In Texas students were told that they could not advertise
their “after school” Bible club unless they removed the reference to “God
or Jesus.”
·
Here is a quote from the Federal Department of Health and
Human Resources Services Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Youth
Suicide: “Parents should know that
homosexuality is a natural and healthy form of sexual expression…Religion
presents a risk factor for youth because of the depiction of homosexuality as a
sin and the reliance of families in the church for understanding homosexuality.
Many traditional [Catholics] and fundamentalist faiths still portray
homosexuality as morally wrong. Religions need to reassess homosexuality in a
positive context. They need to accept gay youth and make a place for them in the
church.”
·
And, as recent as last
week, The Today show aired the story
of a valedictorian Brittany McComb of Foothill High School, whose speech was cut
short when before she could mention the word
-- Christ -- her microphone went dead.
•
In 1983 a well known prominent leader in Washington politics, Michael
Harrington, wrote the book, “The Politics of God’s Funeral” and in his
book he makes this statement, “God is dead and we need to bury him.
Our long accepted moral and social values, based on the Bible need to be
permanently rooted out of our culture and replaced with a secular value system
in which each person determines his or her own values.
Instead of absolute truth we need personal and situational truth.”
In
1860 America went to war against itself. History
calls this war the “Civil War.” Today,
we once again find ourselves at war with ourselves and this time we are
fighting a serious cultural and values war.
We are in a battle for something more than just symbols…we
must have the substance, for without
it the symbols hold no power or hope for the future.
The role
of the Body of Christ in this cultural war is to serve as the general who takes
our orders from the Captain of our salvation.
Christopher
Dawson said, “Christianity is the soul of the Western civilization.
When the soul is gone, the body dies.”
We must reclaim our marching orders and be the salt and light in this day
or the war is lost.
God’s
Word to His children is clear:
Psalm
9:17
“The wicked return to the grave,
all the nations that forget God.”
Psalm
33:12 “Blessed
is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.”
Psalm
46:10
“Be still, and know that I am
God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Proverbs
14:34
“Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
Proverbs
29:2
“When the righteous thrive, the
people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.”
Matthew
28:19-20 “Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I
am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
When
a nation has symbols without substance, it will be evidenced in two
clear areas.
There is
the evidence of Lack of Divine Respect (26:1-6)
The
word “trust” in the Hebrew language means, “to lean upon, to roll upon, to lay weight upon, to take refuge in.”
However when we examine our
symbols we see that we are saying one thing but there is no evidence of
substance and no trust.
(1)
We Have Lost Our
Respect for God’s Security: (3-4)
We
have forgotten that it is God that is our source of peace, prosperity, security
and blessing. Our currency
proclaims “In God we trust.”
Our declaration of Independence says that we are “one
nation under God.” Our
founding fathers adapted in the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”
How
tragic today that we no longer acknowledge or respect the fact that God is our
refuge, that He alone is our security. We no longer trust God! We trust our
technology and our ability as a superpower. Remember that we say it with our symbols but we have no
substance to support our claim.
(2)
We Have Lost Our Respect
for God’s Sovereignty (5-6)
Our
problem in America as a nation and our problem as Americans is that we have lost
our respect for God’s Sovereignty in our lives.
We have forgotten the fact that He has humbled nations and men who have
failed to respect His rule in their life.
Do
you remember an ancient king named Nebuchadnezzar? This man is the hero of
Sadaam Houssin.
Daniel
4:30, “He said,
“Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my
mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”
God
stepped in and showed the prideful King His authority, His rule, His sovereignty
and He humbled him, broke him and then in brokenness he finally said:
Daniel
4:34-37: “At
the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my
sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him
who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from
generation to generation. 35 All the peoples of the earth are regarded as
nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the
earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” 36
At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were
returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me
out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. 37 Now
I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because
everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in
pride he is able to humble.”
Biblical history is filled with stories that demonstrate how
God uses His Sovereignty to humble the nations who hold to symbols but have no
substance.
Psalm
60:6-10:
“God has spoken from his
sanctuary: In triumph I will parcel out Shechem and measure off the Valley of
Succoth. 7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet, Judah my
scepter. 8 Moab is my washbasin, upon
Edom I toss my sandal; over Philistia I shout in triumph.” 9 Who will bring me
to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? 10 Is it not you, O God, you
who have rejected us and no longer go out with our armies?”
We
must return to a proper respect of God and his sovereignty!
The
first evidence of a nation who boasts symbols without substance is a
Lack of Divine Respect for God’s security and sovereignty.
ILLUSTRATION: One day a professor related an incident that happened in his life
while standing on a busy street corner in Ft Worth, Texas. Someone had placed a
bumper sticker that bore the name of God on the sidewalk. It was a heavily
traveled area and the name of God was trampled beneath the foot traffic. The
professor saw that as a symbol for our modern times and wept as he related see
the name of God trampled under the feet of men.
Church,
please hear me when I plead, I do not know the limit of God’s patience but I
know there is a limit. I do not know how close we are to crossing the line but I
know that line exists. Almighty God will not be dishonored and trampled under
foot of man without consequence!
There is the evidenced of Lost of Righteousness
(7-11)
According
to God’s Word the blessing of a nation who chooses to live in righteousness is
that her people will have a smooth path or direction in the way of life that is
level and smooth.
Isaiah
40:3-4: “A
voice of one calling: In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight
in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every
mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged
places a plain.”
Isaiah
42:16 “I
will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will
guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough
places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”
Isaiah
45:13 “I
will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight…”
The prophet reveals in verses 8-9 that the evidence of
genuine righteousness is in the life of a nation. These verses indicate that we
walk in his way and we wait for Him, that we desire His name and that our
passion is Him.
In fact, a generation of young people call themselves the 268
Generation, a reference to the desire to make the name
of God renown. That’s the generation I am looking for! I am looking for a
group, young or old, black or white, male or female whose
heart desire is to make the name of God renown. I am looking for a generation who will say “Yes,
Lord, now what’s the question?”
Verse
10 makes it clear
that those who live in wickedness have been shown grace and they do NOT learn
righteousness. As Americans we have a history of revealing God’s righteousness
and now we have a history of rejecting God’s grace.
The
Faith of our Fathers
Yesterday
The Mayflower Compact adopted when the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod on
Nov. 9, 1620 clearly states the purpose for establishing the colonies: “the
glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King
and country.”
The Founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn said, “If we are not governed by God in this nation then we will be ruled by
tyrants.”
George
Washington: “It
is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”
Thomas
Jefferson who authored
public education in Washington said, “We must include the Bible and Isaac Watts hymnal in our textbooks and
we must never forget that it is God who gave us life and gave us liberty.”
Joseph
Story in 1829
inaugural address as Dean Professor of Law at Harvard said, “There
has NEVER been a period in which common law did not recognize Christianity as
laying its foundation.”
Harvard
University was
established with this creed: “Harvard is
established today for Christ and His Church.” John Harvard, who
left the gift to establish the University said, “Let
every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the
main ends of his life and studies: to know God and Jesus Christ, which is
eternal life, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation
of all knowledge and learning and see that the Lord only giveth wisdom.
Let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to see Christ as
Lord and Master.”
Ben
Franklin:
In a speech given while the US Constitution was being drafted, “I
have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I
see of this truth, that God governs the affairs of men and nations.
And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without His notice then is it
probable that a empire can not rise without His aid?”
Newsweek
carried an article
entitled, “How the Bible Made
America” in which it stated, “The
bible for centuries has exerted an unrivaled influence on American culture,
politics and social life.”
It is
obvious that our founding fathers lived in the fear of God and lived in the way
of His righteousness. But there is
equal evidence that we are in danger of losing that righteousness.
The
Fractured Foundations
Today
How
far have we fallen?
In
1962 a survey in America indicated that 65% of all Americans believed the entire
Bible to true. The exact same
survey in 1992 indicated that only 32% believed the Bible true and more than 50%
of Americans said they feared the “religious right and fundamentalism.”
What
has happened that made millions now celebrate the "Freedom from Religion" instead of the "Freedom of
Religion" as stated by our constitution?
In
the April 1994 edition of Reader’s Digest, an article by former Secretary of
Education William Bennett entitled "What Really Ails America" had this
to say: "Today, much of society ridicules and mocks those who are serious
about their faith. America’s only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry
against religious people. And the only reason for hatred of religion is that it
forces us to confront matters many would prefer to ignore.”
Robert H. Meneilly, writer for the NY Times said, “The
religious right confronts us with a threat that is far greater than
communism.”
February
1993 the Washington Post reported on the front page, “Evangelical
Christians are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.”
10
years ago more than 46% of Americans attended church on a regular basis and yet
today we have slipped under the 40% mark for the first time in our nation’s
history. Our foundations have
been so undermined and fractured that we are now in danger of walking away from
God’s grace, ignoring His judgment and rejecting His righteousness.
Our religious history as a nation is being revised by those who practice “fraction”
; part fact and part fiction.
I
am not saying that we should ignore our problems in the past.
We have NOT always acted in a righteous fashion as a nation.
Our treatment of the Native American Indians, our involvement in
the slavery of African Americans and our hesitation and apathy of
Civil Rights condemn us. However,
you can not ignore the fact that our foundations were poured in faith and
righteousness. It is not an
accident that our currency exclaims, “In God we Trust.”
Abraham
Lincoln said, “Our
nation must be built on moral purpose and not mere opinion of man.
If we yield to the opinion of man then we will see the spiritual life of
the nation destroyed.”
Have
the foundations been destroyed?
Of
all the industrialized nations:
•
we have the highest rate of violent crime,
•
the highest illiteracy rate,
•
the highest debtor rate,
•
the highest rate of teen pregnancy,
•
the highest divorce rate, and
•
Our SAT scores have dropped by almost 100 points in our educational system.
Conclusion:
(v.12-13)
In
the stage play entitled
1776, the actor that plays John Adams
is seen pacing the floor during the session of the Continental Congress in
Philadelphia. In the midst of the
debate to determine if the country returns to colonialism or emerges as a free
nation his heart is filled with anguish and cries out in song:
“Is
anyone there?
Does
anyone see what I see?
Does
anyone really care?”
We
should be asking same questions this morning?
The
evidence is obvious that we are living in a nation that has all the symbols but
very little evidence of substance. So,
does anyone really care? If so,
then we must follow the biblical command and acknowledge the presence and the
power of God in our life. “Lord,
you established peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for
us.” (12)
What
can you do?
•
Renew Your Commitment to God & Country.
Washington
Post survey:
·
4 of 10 Americans can not name the Vice President
·
46% do not know the name of the Speaker of the House
·
50% of all evangelical Christians are NOT registered to vote
·
Only 53% of those registered to vote did vote in 1980
Edmund
Burke: “The only
thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
John
Whitherspoon, one of the first presidents of Harvard University, said: “He
is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active in
promoting truth and undefiled religion and who sets himself with the greatest
firmness to bear down against profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever
is an avowed enemy to this truth, I scruple not to call him an enemy of this
country.”
Tragically,
we who call the Name of Christ are often the ones who cry the most for change
and yet do not even take the opportunity to effect the change by exercising
our most basic right to vote.
•
Examine Your Life Personally
It is so very obvious in an examination of where we are
today that our forefathers honored God and had respect for His laws, His
words, and His precepts and yet today, we are a nation and we are individuals
that have our symbols but where is the substance?
Students
wear WWJD bracelets and yet more than 60% of evangelical students are not
morally pure. We are called to be
the difference makers but tragically we look exactly like the others who live
a pagan lifestyle.
Many adults dress like Christians, carry a Bible like
Christians, are seen coming to church on Sunday like Christians and yet seldom
do you see any control of Christ in their life beyond the symbols.
WHERE IS THE SUBSTANCE?
We
are no different than the nation Israel when God’s prophet rebuked them:
Jeremiah
2:11-13: “Has
a nation ever changed its gods? Yet they are not gods at all. But my people
have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. 12 Be appalled at this, O
heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD. 13 “My people
have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
I
stated earlier that in 1860 America was at war with itself and we called it a
civil war, today we are again engaged in a battle, a battle for the very life of
this nation. We
are in a cultural and values war. Whoever
wins this war will establish what values, what ethics, what morals, what god we
take into the new millennium.
This
is why I am so passionate about our impact on the next generations. Church,
please hear my heart…WE CAN NOT LOOSE THIS GENERATION OF YOUTH! If we do, we
can kiss America good bye!
There
is no greater challenge than these words from the Holocaust Statement
which says it best:
“First
they came for the Communists. I was not a Communist so I said nothing.
Then
they came for the Jews but I was not a Jew and so I said nothing.
Then
they came for the Trade Unionist. But
I was not a trade unionist so I said nothing.
Then
they came for the Catholics, but I was not a Catholic so I said nothing.
Finally,
they came for me and there was none left to speak.”
Jesus
told a parable of the ten virgins. All
of them were dressed for the wedding. All
of them wore the proper symbols but only five had the substance to match the
attire.
Those
without substance perished, they were left behind. The choice is
ours…symbol without substance
equals the death of a nation and the death of a spiritual life.
Sources used in my research.
D. James Kennedy: State of the Church Message 1995; “The
Foundations Be Destroyed” Draper & Bingster; Newsweek-Jan 6, 1998;
Washington Post-November 17, 1997. “A
Nation That Keeps Faith” by Dr. David Cooper; Larry Thompson, Pastor of
FBC in Ft Lauderdale, sermon entitled Symbols
Without Substance. David Dykes,
Pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, sermon entitled America’s
Spiritual Heritage-What Happened? “America Return to God”, various
articles by multiple Christian statesmen, Edited by Thomas Wang, Published by
Great Commission International (2006).
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