What Has Happened To America Series

“What Has Happened To America?”

Introduction:

*This past couple of days I went to a minister’s retreat in Indianapolis,

IN and one of the spkrs was sharing how our children humble us when

trying to teach truths from God’s Word. He said they read to their

children every night and ask them if they understand what they are

learning. He said one time they were reading the story of David and

Goliath and he asked his son what he learned from the story. His son

said, “Never let anybody cut off your head.” Now most of us haven’t heard

that angle brought out in a sermon probably but it is a good point.

*He said the time he would never for get was when his son was about

three. He told this to show that even though we preach grace as well as

we know how, it is so hard for the flesh to really grasp grace. This time

he had read in the story of Daniel and the lion’s dens. Now like every

three year old his son was in love with guns. They did not buy him toy

guns but it did not matter because a bat became a gun, a stick became a

gun. He was gonna play with guns. And so they read him the story of

Daniel in the lion’s den and when they finished they asked him, “Now son,

what would you do if you were in a den of lions?” The boy said, “I would

get my guns and I would shoot those lions.” Now that wasn’t quite the

answer they were looking for so they said, “No son, what if you didn’t

have any guns? Would you pray - God, save me from the lions!” The boy

said, “No daddy, I would say - God, send my guns!”

*The point is, no matter what we preach most people say God give me a

little bit of help and I’ll do the rest on my own. Most people think that

grace is like a bank loan. Now I don’t want to offend Harold Read being a

banker, but let face it. How does one get a bank loan? You prove you

don’t need it. Isn’t that basically the truth? You go in, you show them

your assets and all your investments and you prove that you don’t need

the money and they give you some. You try to go to a bank absolutely

destitute having nothing and ask for money and see what they say. Most

people think grace is like a bank loan.

*Its what God gives you to be saved after you’ve proved you didn’t need

it. I want to make a strong commitment in my preaching to preach what

Paul called the gospel of grace. Many of us in the Restoration churches

think we are saved because of correctness instead of saved because of

Christ. We have to constantly be reminded that we are not saved because

of our correctness. Not our moral correctness, not our doctrinal

correctness. We are saved because we have put faith in Christ. Hear this:

WE ARE SAVED BY THE ATONEMENT NOT BY OUR ATTAINMENT.

*Now I know that you believe that. What I want to address today is a

dilemma that arises as we try to be faithful to the gospel of grace. And

that is: What has Happened to America? How do you balance a doctrine of

grace with a high ethical standard as we have in the Word and the problem

with our society?

*Dear Abbey was written to by a man once. A man wrote Dear Abbey and

said, I am having an affair with two women and I can not marry them both.

Please tell me what to do but don’t give me any of that morality stuff.

She wrote back: Dear sir, the only difference between humans and animals

is morality. Please write to a veterinarian for advice.

*It doesn’t seem like many people today are for Biblical morality. And so

most of us feel like spiritual salmon. We feel like we are constantly

having to swim upstream in a downstream world. And most of us are tired.

Many have given up the struggle already and have just gone back into the

downstream lifestyle.

*What I am learning is that I can not just assume that I can pass over

ethical matters to get on to the deeper truth of Scripture. We have to be

constantly reminded of what the standards are.

*I have performed a few weddings here, but you won’t see much more. Oh

its not that I am going to quit doing weddings, its just that my

standards are getting higher all the time. I have had two couples get

divorced already that I have wedded. This world is so messed up and it is