Sermon for 7/1/2007- Independence Day
Deuteronomy 8:10-20
The Daughter Devoured the Mother!
Introduction:
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln said: WE have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
WBTU:
A. In 1990 the US Census Bureau reported that there were 39.3 million poor people in the US. But the Census Bureau also reported in 1990 that nearly 40% of all “poor” households owned their own homes; nearly 60% have more than two rooms per person; nearly 60% have air conditioning; 64% own a car; 50% own a microwave; 25% have an automatic dishwasher; and 91% have a color television.
B. Did you know that 1.3 billion people live on less that $1 a day?
C. Did you know that if your income is at the official US poverty level that you are among the top 10% of wage earners in the world? We have the highest household income levels in the world.
D. If you own a home--better off than 95% of world. Largest homes in the world.
E. Highest percentage of educated people in the world, many have college degrees. The computer has made people’s lives more efficient and convenient. The amount of information available and the speed at which it is transmitted has exploded.
F. We have the lowest unemployment level in the world.
G. Our democratic system of government has become the envy and the model for countries around the world.
H. There are about 300,000 places of worship, where anyone can freely worship.
I. The entertainment and leisure industries are flourishing. Luxury automobiles, movie theaters, home theaters, music, sports, amusement parks, vacations.
J. Medical and health care advances are allowing people to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
K. Many of the poor in foreign countries would love just to eat from our dumpsters.
L. We are a blessed nation. We have come a long way from immigrants with nothing but the clothes on their backs and we have carved out of the wilderness this great nation of ours. We should be applauded. However, this is the problem.
M. This is the same issues that the Israelites faced. In this chapter, Moses is warning the Israelites that when they go into the land of milk and honey to not forget God.
N. How many are forgetting God today? Vs. 17 seems to be a big problem today. It is not that people are atheists or God haters. It is just that they don’t need God.
O. The 1965 film classic, Shenandoah, features a memorable and outlandish prayer. With his eight children seated for dinner, the father, played by James Stewart observes, “Now, your mother wanted all of you raised as good Christians. And I might not be able to do that thorny job as well as she could, but I can do a little something about your manners.” After a forgetful and now convicted son removes his cap, Stewart then leads them in a thoroughly ungrateful prayer: Lord, we cleared this land; we plowed it, sowed it, and harvested. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway Lord for this food we are about to eat. Amen. On DVD Shenandoah Scene #2 Family Supper
P. Few have the gall to say it outright, but many think the same as this movie father; they see themselves as “self-made” men and women. This attitude was certainly a temptation for the Israelites, so God issued them a warning through Moses.
Thesis: What is so wrong with believing that we are self-made men and women?
For instances:
I. It is untrue.
A. No matter how much work we have done to get success, we are always dependent upon circumstances, of which we are powerless to bring about or to avoid.
B. Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay called The Ways to Wealth and in it he said: Do not depend too much upon your own industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things, for they may all be blasted without the blessing of Heaven.
B. We have to bring in the word Providence which means the universal sovereign rule of God. Everything is orchestrated by God and for God. Those fortunate circumstances of life are not luck; they are part of God’s plan for us and the world. We cannot succeed unless the Lord wants us to succeed. (Prov 19:21 NIV) Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
C. By my efforts and work! No, this is really a gift from God. Vs. 18.
II. It is ungrateful
A. Without the Lord’s mercy and grace, we would have been destroyed long ago!
B. (2 Cor 9:15 NIV) Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
C. How would you feel if helped someone and they didn’t care for you?
D. A true Christian is a man who never for a moment forgets what God has done for him in Christ, and whose whole activity has its root in the sentiment of gratitude. JOHN BAILLIE (1741–1806)
IV. It is the reverse of what God wants.
A. Vs. 16
B. If people take the credit, God’s purpose for their lives is being thwarted.
C. (Prov 3:34 NIV) He (Lord) mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble.
D. (Isa 42:8 NIV) "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.
E. Cotton Mather, a preacher in New England, offered this advice to the young Benjamin Franklin as Franklin approached a low-hanging beam in Mather’s parsonage: You are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard bumps.
III. It results in being mischievous
A. This leads to pride instead of thankfulness. It leads to selfishness. It breeds a covetous and hateful attitude if not fought against and overcome.
B. Bill Bright said: If America insists on being the major exporter of pornography, the major importer of drugs, and promotes immoral degeneracy, she will pay a price. God cannot tolerate us further. As someone once said, “Unless God chastens America; He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
VII. It will sooner or later bring humiliation and suffering.
A. (Prov 29:23) A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.
B. Pride exposes one to much shame. (Mat 23:12 NIV) For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
C. The humiliation and suffering will come in some form, but it will come:
1. By the removal of the wealth and a sudden plunge from prosperity to adversity. Some men have to part with all before they will learn that God gives all! (Job 1:21 NIV) The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."
2. By removing the ability to attend to worldly concerns (Isa 48:22 NIV) “There is no peace," says the LORD, "for the wicked."
3. By some catastrophe that burns away the pride, and remove the corruption and ungrateful attitude. (Chuck Colson) (1 Cor 3:18 NIV) Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. (1 Cor 3:19 NIV) For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness.”
4. If, after warning and humbling, God is not heeded and pride still reigns supreme, then God will remove them. (Isa 2:12 NIV) The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled)
Conclusion:
A. Vs. 20- Nations that think they can get on alone are eventually left to their own.
B. Canaanites, nation of Israel are great examples.
C. God will not be ignored. (Psa 9:17 KJV) The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
D. Cotton Mather (from above about Benjamin Franklin) also said of America: Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother.
