The Character of a Nation, Isaiah 32:1-8
Introduction
The Pledge of Allegiance is not a verse composed by the Founding Fathers of our republic. It was written especially for children; in the summer is 1892 to commemorate that year’s celebration of Columbus Day in public schools throughout the country. The pledge first appeared in print on September 8, 1892, in The Youth’s Companion, an educational publication. In its original form, it read: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which is stands -- one nation indivisible-- with liberty and justice for all.”
Its author was Francis Bellamy, an assistant editor of The Youth’s Companion, who intended it for a one-time recitation. But its immediate popularity transformed it first into an annual Columbus Day tradition and then into a daily classroom ritual. It became one of the earliest verses memorized by students. Since its debut, Bellamy’s pledge has undergone two major alterations. In 1923, the National Flag Conference of the American Legion replaced the somewhat ambiguously personal “my Flag” wording with the more explicitly patriotic "the Flag of the United States of America." And in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill that added the words "Under God.”
Transition
The pledge of allegiance comes to us in its present form after having been shaped, transformed, over time to its present condition. So too, ours is a nation which has had its character shaped by specific factors over time. Our constitution was written by faithful men who had their characters shaped by some of the very same factors which shaped our national character.
This morning we will examine the shaping of the character of our nation specifically with regard to the influence that Christianity and the Bible have had on this nation. We live in perilous times where history is constantly under the attack of the pen of the revisionist historian and his social agenda.
This morning I seek not to persuade you toward any particular political ideology or perspective. I long only to put on honest display the simple truth that Christianity has had a profound impact upon the shaping of the character of our nation and to propose what this implies for modern American Christians.
In our day there are agenda driven political and church leaders who seek to use the history of our nation to their advantage on both sides of the political aisle. There are excesses on both sides of this issue. Whether one is conservative or liberal, there are great liberties taken on both sides.
There are those who seek to use the Christian heritage of this nation as justification for the church to place its emphasis almost entirely upon seizing political power. The idea is that if we could just take America back for God then we could create the utopist society that our Pilgrim forefathers envisioned.
Many of these people have made the grace error of equating conservative political ideas with Christian faith. Implying that to vote a certain way is the primary means of expressing one’s faith in Christ.
There are others who, for the sake of their political and social ideologies, would prefer to revise history as to erase and wash away the Christian roots of this nation. For many of these folks issues such as slavery, oppression of women, and the injustices handed out to Native Americans negate the very notion that early American people in general and the framers in specific, were Christian people.
This morning I want to share with you what I believe to be a much more balanced view and practical national theology for the modern Christian. Indeed, this nation has an imperfect history, as do all nations and any organized group of people; where there are imperfect people there will always be imperfect results.
O, but it is equally true that this nation is founded upon principals and ideas so profound as to be unparalleled in all of human history. It is likely that no greater a document will ever be produced by human hands than that of the beautiful constitution of the United States, upon which so many fledgling democracies have been modeled. The declaration of independence with its soaring ideology is among the most profound promise laden scripts in modern or ancient history.
Ours is a nation founded by Christian men and women and built upon plainly biblical principles of freedom, charity, and liberty. The promises built into our constitution however are not strong enough to stand on their own. The promises made by the framers of the American way of life are like a check written which each succeeding generation must continually cash.
Exposition
Today’s text is a passage which speaks prophetically with regard to the coming reign of Christ, messiah, upon the earth. The biblical prophetic timeline is such that time and again in the Bible we see the promise that this earth is passing away. The things of this world are fleeting. They are all passing away.
The things of God are eternal. Today’s text speaks of a king who will reign in righteousness. Some have suggested over the centuries that this king as already come. There have been those who asserted that the prophet Isaiah was speaking of King Hezekiah who reign in Israel as the
King Hezekiah did restore godliness to the throne of Judah. He served after the model given to him by his great grandfather Uzziah. His predecessor Ahaz had fallen into idolatry and had led God’s people astray. Hezekiah restored temple worship to the one true God of Israel. He was equally adept in dealing with the Assyrian threat which loomed over God’s people.
Hezekiah was a great and godly king; even a king who exemplified righteousness. But this passage more explicitly points us to the coming reign of Christ at that time when Jesus shall return to this earth in glory to fulfill the promise of God to restore the earth to its intended splendor for a thousand years, when the lion shall lay down with the lamb and every tear shall be wiped away.
You see, the biblical message is not that our ultimate home is heaven, though that is the place for saints of God who depart from this life. There is coming a day the Bible declares that we who are alive by faith in Christ according to the grace of God will see this very world restored, this is known theologically as the “millennial reign of Christ” and what a glorious day that shall be!
Then we will be caught up into the new heaven and new earth into eternity in communion and fellowship with God. Indeed, the king of whom Isaiah speaks is no Hezekiah, though he was a great and godly king, that king of righteousness is Christ himself! Our ultimate hope does not lie in earthly kings or kingdoms.
We are first and foremost citizens of Christ eternal kingdom. In an age of an overly politicized media, of rampant competing social agendas, and their proponents who tug at our ears and hearts, we do well to remember this.
We look forward to the coming messianic age when Christ shall sit on the throne. Our task is not first and foremost to size political power because we know that there will be no perfect kind until He reins no perfect kingdom until He reigns; there will be no kingdom free from disappointment and imperfection until His.
However, knowing that He will one day return to judge the living and the dead rightly fuels us to be wise stewards of the freedom and liberty that we have been given. Knowing that one day He will make all things new rightly gives us the hope necessary to fuel us to do what we are called to do today.
While our eternal hope for the world rests in the assurance that Christ will one day return to establish His throne upon the earth for a thousand years, we do have a responsibility to influence the culture around us. The recognition of our eternal hope does allow us the freedom to abdicate our responsibility here and now. The light of Christ shining in us ought to be boldly displayed to the world.
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16 NIV)
No doubt Jonathon Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was referencing this passage of Scripture when he penned these words in 1630 in his famous sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity”:
“Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine each other in brotherly Affeccion, wee must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, wee must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekenes, gentlenes, patience and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make others Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his owne people and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then formerly wee have beene acquainted with, wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it; Therefore lett us choose life, that wee, and our Seede, may live; by obeyeing his voyce, and cleaveing to him, for hee is our life, and our prosperity.”
The earliest settlers of this great nation sensed a divine calling to establish a free and Christian society in the new world. To suggest otherwise is to deny or ignore the plain truth of history. And yet there are those who would tell us that though the puritan separatists, the pilgrims, were obviously Christian believers, surely the framers of the constitution were deists, that is, that they were merely people who believed only in a vague and distant conception of god.
If, as many modernists have and continue to state in our time, the framers were non-Christian people who believed that the Christian religion and ethic had no place in society, then how do we explain quotes such as these?
John Adams in 1789 wrote that, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”
George Washington, speaking to a gathering of the Reformed Dutch Church said, “While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.”
The Christian influence on the shaping of the character of this nation is undeniable to any person of intellectual integrity and historical honesty.
I would argue, however, that for those of us who see plainly and want to stand firm for the truth of the way in which the Church influenced the shaping of the character of this nation, that we must not be content only to declare this truth but to do something with it.
Conclusion
My wife and I recently obtained a fish tank for the family to enjoy. Among the fishes we placed inside of the tank are a handful of genetically engineered bright colored fish called GLOfish. These little fish have had the gene of other glowing aquatic animals such as jellyfish and sea coral placed inside of their DNA.
As a result these fish appear to glow all of the time. Likewise, the light of Christ has been fused to our DNA. No matter where we are the light of Christ ought to shine forth in and through us!
We have been a great legacy. If we fail in our task to handle appropriately the legacy handed to us from those brave men and women, who suffered such great pains for the freedoms that our generation often squanders, what will be the legacy handed from us to the next generation?
American freedom and Christian liberty are both great treasures. I would suggest to you today that in the day to day experience of our lives we do well to handle both well and take great care to be faithful stewards of them.
We must let the light of Christ shine in us as we celebrate Christ and the liberty and legacy he has given to us in this most blessed of nations. Amen.
