“The Charge of the Light Brigade: Let’s Make Some Noise!”
Is. 62:1-7; Ezek 33:1-20
As I begin today I want to be perfectly clear. America is not God’s chosen nation. There is only one of those and it is Israel. But America has been richly blessed because of her underpinnings which were planted during her founding. Make no mistake about it – America was created as a religious nation. In fact, as a study of her early documents reveals, America was unapologetically rooted in the particular religious tradition of the Christian faith and in Judeo-Christian principles. The blessings she has experienced have been the direct result of these roots. As the Psalmist wrote (144:15) “Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.”
With that backdrop, let’s examine THE MESSAGE FROM THE PROPHETS. God spoke to Isaiah (62:6-7), “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.” God appoints watchmen for the benefit of His people. According to Isaiah, the task of this watchman is to PREACH AND PRAY. As he stood on the wall he would turn his face towards the people and deliver God’s messages to them, and he would turn towards God and pray for them. The prophet was to make some noise – to the people and to God. He, and in turn the people, were not to rest praying, from bending God’s ears with the noise of prayer, until Jerusalem was re-established.
God spoke to Ezekiel about the watchmen as well. (33:7) “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.” The watchman is not only to preach and pray but also to WATCH AND WARN. He would stand on the wall so he could spot any advancing enemy; upon seeing one he would make some noise by blowing the warning horn to alert the people to get ready for battle. God says, in fact, that if the watchman sees the enemy advancing and fails to warn the people, and any of the people are killed by the enemy, God will hold the watchman accountable. But if the watchman blows the warning horn and any of the people fail to respond correctly, they will be held accountable.
I stand before you each week as your watchman. Part of my task is to preach God’s Word to you and lift you up to God’s throne of grace as I pray for you. Together we are ‘not to rest’ from praying, from bombarding the throne with prayers, until God’s kingdom has fully come on earth. It is also part of my task to identify the enemies that confront and attack us. Together we must enter the noise of battle.
This morning I am compelled to share what I see as I stand on the wall and look out into the world that surrounds us. May it inform and inspire our prayers and equip and motivate us for battle. To begin with, I see a PROBLEM OF SPIRITUALITY. We lost a sense of a “Christian America” because WE HAVE LOST OUR JUDEO CHRISTIAN FOUNDATION. Patrick Henry, in May of 1765, stated, “It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that his nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.” Another one of the founders, Benjamin Rush, said “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible…”
Having lost that foundation we have lost our cherished moral compass. AMERICA HAS LOST HER MORAL DIRECTION. Paulina was a Polish high school student who came to study in the United States. She said that when she first came here, she was amazed by the way teens spent their time. “In Warsaw, we would talk to our friends after school; go home and eat with our parents and then do four or five hours of homework. When I first came here, it was like going into a crazy world, but now I am getting used to it. I’m going to Pizza Hut and watching TV and doing less work in school. I can tell it is not a good thing to get used to.” That really fits our current moral climate, doesn’t it? It is not a good thing to get used to!
I still have statistics from a 1990 report from The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators. The report focused on changing behavioral trends from 1960 to 1990 – a period of tremendous social upheaval n America. Among the findings from that 30 year period: the population increased 41 percent; the Gross Domestic Product nearly tripled; and total social spending by all levels of government (measured in constant 1990 dollars) rose from $142.7 billion to $787 billion – more than a five-fold increase. But during the same 30 year period, there was a 560 percent increase in violent crime; more than a 400 percent increase in illegitimate births; a quadrupling in divorces; a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes; more than a 200 percent increase in the teenage suicide rate; and a drop of 75 points in the average S.A.T. scores of high school students. Those are not good things to get used to.
Consider for example that, 47 percent of students indicate they would cheat on an exam and 66 percent said they would lie to achieve a business objective. As well, some 10,000 young adults from 37 different countries around the world were polled concerning characteristics for choosing a mate. From a list of 18 different characteristics, young men from mainland China regarded a prospective spouse’s chastity as the third-most important attribute; young Chinese women rated it sixth. By contrast, young American men rated chastity 17th out of 18 and young American women rated it 18th. This is not a good thing to get used to. Nor are these words from Professor John T. Noonan: “By virtue of its opinions, human life has less protection in the United States today than at any time since the inception of the country. ...human life has less protection in the United States than in any country of the Western world.” This is not a good thing to get used to.
I’m suggesting that THE REASON FOR THIS SOCIAL REGRESSION IS A SPIRITUAL CRISIS. As William Bennett, former White House staffer put it; we have experienced a “corruption of the heart...a turning of the soul.” There is an aversion to and negation of spiritual things, an absence of zeal for divine things, a silence in the face of the advancing enemy. This is not a good thing to get used to. Scottish author John Buchan, half a century ago, predicted a coming age “when life would be lived in the glare of neon lamps and the spirit would have no solitude. In such a [nightmare] world everyone would have leisure. But everyone would be restless, for there would be no spiritual discipline in life....It would be a feverish, bustling world, self-satisfied and yet malcontent, and under the mask of a riotous life there would be death at the heart. In the perpetual hurry of life there would be no chance of quiet for the soul...” Consider the impact of this lack of zeal, this silence. Love and sexuality are some of the first casualties, as their value, purpose, and context are devoid of any guidelines whatsoever. Dostoyevsky was right in Brothers Karamazov: “If God does not exist, everything is permissible.” These are not good things to get used to. As Alan Crippen II, in his book Reclaiming the Culture writes, “...religion undergirds a public morality that is necessary for maintaining civil order...A democracy without religion is a democracy without morality, and a democracy without morality is an anarchy...a civil society cannot be sustained without public morality, and morality is rooted in religion. Therefore, society needs religion.”
Additionally, THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE SUPPORTS THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGIOUS FAITH AS THE FOUNDATION FOR PUBLIC AND POLITICAL LIFE. As Richard Neuhaus said, “Because politics is a function of culture and at the heart of culture is morality and at the heart of morality is religion, there is a necessary and unavoidable interaction between politics and religion.” Religion births personal morality, which births shared values, which feeds politics and law. Certainly the founders of our country were united in their belief that religion was essential to order. In his first inaugural address President Washington stated, “We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” In his farewell address 8 years later he added, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports...It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. Our 2nd president, John Adams, frequently spoke on this. Some thoughts: “...it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can surely stand...Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people...Religion and virtue are the only foundations.” Suffice it to say, social order depends on strong religious faith. As God is thrown out of our history and taken away as a foundation of our life together, we lose the basis of believing individuals have rights and dignity. We then have no meaning, and no value. Everything is then a matter of mere opinion. This is not something good to get used to. So what do we do?
WE MUST MAKE SOME NOISE. It is true that we cannot put all our hope in politics. But, first, WE MUST KEEP THE CHRISTIAN FAITH PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIETY’S AGENDA. We cannot abandon the political process nor forsake the social agenda. We need to be involved in the dialogues and proposals which affect our laws; we must continue, with even more vigor, offering the Judeo Christian viewpoint in political discussions. We cannot abandon this responsibility; we must demand a seat at the table. Many other viewpoints will be aired – and that’s OK. What is not OK is if ours is missing! That is not a good thing to get used to! Christians, the Church, must be a moral voice to the nation, no matter what the cost. We are to be the light brigade that brings the light of God’s will to bear as a moral conscience to society. As Henry Blackaby said, “The salvation of our nation has little to do with Washington or Hollywood – it has to do with the people of God.”
Second, remember that the family is a divine institution; therefore A DEFENSE OF THE FAMILY IS A DEFENSE OF THE FAITH. As
Frances Schaeffer wrote: “If people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right; the human race is an abnormal wart on the face of a silent and meaningless universe...Without the Bible and without the revelation in Christ...there is nothing to stand between us and our children and the eventual acceptance of the monstrous inhumanities of the age.” Defending and promoting our faith is absolutely critical. Sure – some say “You cannot legislate morality.” On the one hand, this is true – laws cannot change people. But on the other hand, if we don’t make the laws, someone else’s values will! Religious values are at the core of preservation of the family! As the Rev. Steve Hoogerwerf wrote in “The Church Herald”, “It is true that in a democracy we cannot force our moral choices on others. But Christian moral convictions have never depended on universal adherence. They always have depended on the existence of a faithful community that demonstrates what it means to live out such convictions in everyday life.”
Sadly, Dr. W.R. Coulson, one of the founders of value-free education, has apologized for the way his philosophy has affected our nation’s youth. He said, “Youthful experimentation with sex, alcohol, marijuana, and a variety of other drugs – whatever’s popular at the time – has been shown to follow the value-free education quite predictably. We now know that after these classes, students become more prone to give in to temptation than if they’d never been enrolled...(it) turned out to be a deadly scheme we hatched...we owe the nation’s parents an apology.” To defend the family we must defend the faith.
In this, our post-Christian world we need to return to the pre-Christian world. There WE GET DIRECTION FROM JESUS AND THE APOSTLES. How did they seek to build society? What was their method in the midst of a variety of religious expressions? First and foremost they resorted to THE ART OF PERSUASION. They sat, shared, and dialogued with others. Their confidence of the truth empowered them to freely and openly talk of Christ. They weren’t overbearing, always trying to cram Christ down another’s throat, but they gently and firmly shared. Our inability to persuade others – indeed our hesitancy to even try, our fear of trying – has contributed to the demise of the Christian faith in our world. If we truly believe that God’s truth will win out, that it is powerful in itself, then why don’t we willingly dialogue and share with others? How did Paul put it? “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” And they will only believe when they have heard. Unless and until we are willing to return to the gentle art of persuasion, morality will never return to our society.
Also from Jesus and the apostles we learn THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER. 2 Chronicles 7:14 - “If my people...pray and seek my face....I will heal their land.” Or Jeremiah 29:7: “...seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 1Timothy 2:1-3: “I urge, then, ...that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives is all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior.” Abraham Lincoln once said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” As E. M Bounds wrote in one of his classics on prayer, “There can be no substitute, no rival for prayer; it stands alone as the great spiritual force, and this force must be imminent and acting...Many persons believe in the efficacy of prayer, but not many pray...” Let me ask you – which have you done most recently and most frequently: criticized President Obama, told a joke about him, or prayed for him?
Thirdly, we learn THE ADOPTION OF A POSTURE: live godly, Christ like lives. Our commitments must be more than positions we take – they must be principles by which we live. As we live by divine principles and divine power, we are to be walking billboards that invite people to Jesus. The best weapon, for example, against sexual perversion is Christian, godly marriages. The way we live is our true testimony to the world. As Peter wrote, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness...For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ...” This sounds like a good thing to get used to! Indeed it is our charge, the charge to Christ’s light brigade. Only God’s power through Christ will ever reform American politics and culture, for only He can transform people. Without Christ we can do nothing. With Christ, all things are possible.
