Sunday Mornings Bringing America Back to God July 4th 2010
Have you seen the back of the Herald Dispatch? Ps. 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.
Prayer…
The book of Judges in the O.T. records the history of the nation of Israel for 305 years after the death of Joshua. Israel declined, backslid, and got away from God. If you study the book you will find that there are many frightening parallels between nation of Israel and America.
Israel was established by God Himself, and God gave Himself to them. He also gave them the law--the 10 commandments and the covenant. And He gave them Canaan, the best land of the earth at that time. And so God gave them the Lord, the law, and the land.
God only asked them for one thing in return--that they would love Him, obey Him, and serve Him. What did Israel do? They denied the Lord, they defied the law, and they defiled the land. So, God had to judge them.
The parallel with America is obvious and alarming. No nation has ever had a Christian beginning like the USA.
We too have been given the Lord, the law, and a land, and we’ve denied Him, defied Him, and our land is being defiled.
1. America has denied the Lord.
The Lord is slowly but steadily being expelled from every public venue. It started in the public schools, and has spread to public places, court houses, our coins, our pledge of allegiance, and on and on to the point where today we are fighting battles about what we can even say in the church!
It is no longer just about the separation of church and state but rather the separation of America from the God Who founded her and has so blessed her! America has denied the Lord...
2. America has defied the law.
The Supreme Court says that it is against the law to display the 10 Commandments in a public place, reasoning that if you display them people might ponder them and if so, they might obey them, and that would be a violation of the separation of church and state. We are doing just what Israel did. It is now the official position of our government that the 10 commandments are dangerous! Wouldn’t want kids in school to see Honor your mother and father/ Don’t lie or steal/ wouldn’t want them to see ’thou shalt not kill’ because what if they obeyed it!
Ladies, what if you broke down in the worst part of town and had to walk, after dark, to find help. While you walk a group of 4 men leave a house you are passing and begin walking just behind you. How do you feel?
As you listen to what they are saying you notice they are talking about God, and have just left a Bible study session. You turn around and see they are all carrying Bibles. How do you feel now?
The direction our once Christian nation is now going in is just foolish,
and contrary to basic common sense. We have allowed the world to chip away at our core of morality. Like Israel, we have denied the Lord, defied the law...
3. America has defiled the land.
We’ve done this in many ways, but perhaps the #1 way is found in the spilled blood of aborted babies.
God took away His glory from His people Israel when they did such things. And I believe He is in the process of removing Himself from the US. We need a national revival. We need a moral and spiritual awakening. I don’t know what it’s going to take. If 9/11 wasn’t enough, what will be enough?
The book of Judges is the record of God raising up 13 men to deliver Israel from backsliding in order to bring about national revival.
Barna Research shows that 67% of Americans say there is no such thing as absolute truth. They say that right and wrong are not clear...what is wrong for you is not necessarily wrong for me. If that doesn’t scare you, consider that they did the same survey in evangelical churches like this one and among Sunday morning attendees 52% said the same thing! Imagine, Christians saying there’s no black and white, right and wrong!
Look how Israel got to this point. It was thru a series of compromises.
2:2a God had told them to drive the enemy out of the land, and further, not to have anything to do with them. They were to separate themselves from the world, just as we are supposed to do today.
1. The Canaanites that they feared.
1:19 They were afraid. They could have trusted in God and won, but they were afraid to try with those who were strong. They said, these people are impenetrable. We cannot conquer them. Therefore we might as well learn to accommodate them, surrender to them, and learn to live with them.
And there are some Canaanites that we are fearing in America today:
• Many of our leaders want to surrender in the war on terror. They say we are losing and we might as well quit trying to win. We need to sit down and negotiate with the terrorists, and stop trying to police the world.
And in so doing we invite them to come to us.
• Many leaders today are calling for an end to the war on drugs. They say that we have lost, so we should surrender and legalize it. Because if we legalize it we can control it, they say. Yeah, just like we have full control over alcohol, right? But trying to control drugs by legalizing them is like trying to control a fire with gasoline.
• Many parents are surrendering in the area of sexual promiscuity. They throw up their hands and say, well, you’re not going to be good, so just be careful. Here, wear protection. Now what message does that send to a young person? In the past few weeks there has been much controversy School system in Mass. decision to hand out condoms to children as young as first graders…
We are putting ambulances at the bottom of the cliff, when we are supposed to be putting fences at the edge of the cliff!
It’s time we get back to confronting our culture with the truth of God and His Word.
Young people, God wants you to be pure and chaste.
He wants you to be a virgin when you get married! We’ve become afraid of the confrontation, and way too sensitive about how we might offend someone who has gone too far. Well, whom shall I offend? Man, or God?
The truth is offensive, but it is our only hope.
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
• We’ve become so politically correct about homosexuality that it has become wrong to say anything about it. We say we personally are against it, but leave it as a personal decision and ok in our society in spite of what God says and in spite of what always happens to a society when they go that route.
The Canaanites that they feared...
2. The Canaanites that they favored.
1:28 They said, look, we can use these people. They made slaves of them, in spite of the fact that God said not to have anything to do with them. Sure they are wicked, but there’s some good can that come out of them.
What about America today? Legalized gambling, the lottery, and such things. Look at the gain we can find from something that many consider only to be bad. Why, we’ll build roads and schools, and generate lots of tax dollars! Isn’t it sad that our government has turned itself into a pimp? Think about it. A pimp puts women on street corners to lure in men, in order that he, the pimp, might profit from their vice. And our government now encourages its citizens to participate in a vice so they can profit.
It’s time we stop saying look at what we can gain and start asking, what might we lose by doing this?!
Canaanites that they feared, favored...
3. The Canaanites that they fellowshipped with.
1:32 Hey, these people aren’t that bad. They may worship different gods but they are good neighbors. We read on and find that Israel learned their wicked ways and entered into their idolatry, including the sacrificing of their children to Molech.
Israel ended up in the last verse of the book where every man did what was right in his own eyes...and God had to judge. The parallels today are paralyzing when I consider them.
Some say arrogantly, "Would a loving God allow that?" If we ask for it! "Where was God when those students gunned down their classmates at Columbine?" I’ll tell you where He was, you expelled him in 1962! You threw out the Bible and prayer and said, God, you’re not welcome!
Is there any hope? Where there’s God, there’s still hope!
2:16 God would always rather forgive than to judge...but if we insist, well, we should be afraid.
A benevolent gentleman during the civil war saw a young lady being auctioned off as a slave. He began to bid just above every bid he heard until he finally won the auction, paying a very high price. They say that after winning he began to walk away, and she followed him. He said, "Young lady, I bought you not to own you, but to set you free." "Free?" she asked. "Yes, free to go wherever you want and do what you wish." She replied, "Then I choose to go with you."
After all God has done for America, how can we spit in His face as we are? We need to pray for national revival!
As we pause to remember our freedom will you pause also to remember the God who brought us here.
Ps. 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance. Prayer…
