Psalm 33.12-22 Blessed is the Nation..
It was in the middle of a very unpopular war, a conflict noted for its shabby ideology and selfish ends. Besides which, it wasn’t going well. On the night of September 13, he found himself sloshing around in a small boat on a mission: He’d volunteered to take part in a prisoner exchange. Sent out just a week after a devastating enemy attack to trade a captured officer for an aging but highly respected American physician, he was not given much chance of success, by he would try. He’d been making his way by water for nearly 2 weeks now, slowly, closer and closer to the enemy, and this night tension hung like a thick fog around him.
He was right to be worried. For this man was no Rambo. A lawyer, in fact. A Christian lawyer, on this mission because he could negotiate. They hoped so, anyway. But when he finally made contact with an enemy ship there was no time for negotiating. They were getting ready to launch another rocket assault! He watched helplessly from the enemy deck. True story.
The English politician William Wilberforce, living during the extremely nationalistic late eighteenth century, defined patriotism as this: "A quality that [binds]men and women to their homeland without confining philanthropy to a single nation." In other words, you are thankful for the place God has put you and a loyal citizen. And, at the same time, you care about other people too. He went on to say how you get that appropriate patriotism. “Christianity is the [abundant] source and the surest preservative."
That’s really what Psalm 33 says; Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord! You care about your country? Want the best for it? Do you want to be a good citizen? Okay Christian, here’s how! No country is saved merely by the size of its army or anything else. But God’s eyes are on those who fear Him and put their hope in Him. So help your country do that, and you’ve really made a difference!
J.I. Packer wrote once on “What the Christian citizen should do.” Listen to what he said; “Chr Cit Checklist”:
Keep informed. Otherwise you can’t judge well about issues, vote well for candidates, or pray well for rulers. Political ignorance is never a Christian virtue. So we need to ask ourselves, “Am I making a responsible effort to become informed on the issues our country is facing? Because if we don’t, we won’t have influence.
Scripture challenges us, "Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good" (Rom. 12:2)
That verse in Romans 12 is saying, Christian, get an opinion, and get ready to stand up and be counted! You can make a difference, and the difference begins with YOU! Withdrawing from the world wasn’t Jesus’ approach. Despite the fact that the earliest Christians were unrecognized and even persecuted by their governments, they were out to understand and transform their society for Christ!
Do you pray faithfully for a spiritual revival to sweep America?
1Timothy 2:1-4 talks about our responsibility to pray for those in power and influence.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.
There is a time when loving your country means making a stink about something that is not right. There are things Christians ought to protest. But we start with prayer, not complaint. The secret effectiveness of prayer is enormous. But we’ve got to do it!
Ezekiel 22:30 says in Judah’s day, God diligently searched for someone to stand in the gap that had been allowed to form in a wall. The wall between what was holy and profane had been breached, and iniquity was bursting through to contaminate the children of Israel. God, despite His search, was unable to find anyone who would stand defensively, through spiritual leadership and intercession, for the nation against the impending judgment that He Himself would pour out. God was searching for someone to take the lead and lead the nation into confession and repentance and a life of righteousness. He didn’t find anyone. Nobody cared enough about their country to be that person in the gap! They were all enjoying their personal lives and didn’t want to be bothered!
Are we standing in the gap for the future of our country? That’s a question Christians need to ask themselves. It is probably our first and number one way of being good citizens!
BE SALT by debating, writing, participating! light (Matt. 5:13-16) We should understand influence as a field of Christian service, alongside the fields of church life, worship, and witness.
The New Testament doesn’t speak specifically about active political participation, but here’s why: it wasn’t an option for first-century believers. The Roman Empire was not a democracy, and most Christians were not even Roman citizens. But we live in a representative democracy! That not only opens the door to a wider range of political possibilities – it also requires more commitment than Christians of New Testament times.
As American citizens we have the right to be involved in the public and legislative arena. As obedient Christians, we have the responsibility to be involved.
An author asked, Is there anything worse than the strange strangulated sense of “I should have spoken?” Our great system of self-government assures every Christian a voice in the affairs of the nation. God wants us to do His will in government, just as in the church and in the home. But we have disobeyed our Lord. We have ceased to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world,” as Christ has commanded.
Edmund Burke said something I’m sure many of you have heard before, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
We need to vote in elections and referendums, whenever there’s an opportunity to express public opinion. Be led in your voting by issues rather than by personalities, and not by single issues viewed as isolation, but your vision of total community welfare. That’s one way in which you can exert influences as the world’s salt and light. Do you vote faithfully in every election for the best candidates, regardless of party?
Why should Christians get involved in shaping their country? In the end there are only two possible attitudes we can adopt towards the world: Escape or Engagement...
’Escape’ means turning our backs on the world in rejection, washing our hands of it...and hardening our hearts against its need.
In contrast, ’engagement’ means turning our faces towards the world in compassion, getting our hands dirty, sore and worn in its service.
Mark Twain: “…a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. … If the Christians of America could persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country -- a country whose Christians have betrayed it and are destroying it...Christianity...is on trial now. And nothing important is on trial except Christianity."
In 1996, Americans spent more than $8 billion on hard-core pornography. The United States is now the leading producer of pornography in the world. There are more outlets for porn in the US than there are McDonalds restaurants.
It is estimated now that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys will be sexually abused before age 18.
During 1996-97, about 4,000 incidents of rape were reported in our nation’s schools There were about 11,000 incidents of physical attacks or fights in which weapons were used and 7,000 robberies in schools that year.
We should not be shocked at the things we see going on in our country. Henry Blackaby wrote in Fresh Encounter: “Christians should not be surprised by the spiritual darkness around us. That is all it can be. Darkness is dark. The greater problem is not with the darkness. The problem is with the light. When light shines, it dispels darkness. We face a growing spiritual darkness in our land because the light is not shining brightly.”
Contrary to popular opinion, America did not being a strong Christian nation. In 1790, only 5% of our population belonged to any church. By 1820 there was one church for every 850 people. Fourty years later our population had more than tripled, but there was now one church for every 610. Another fifty years, with 2-1/2 times as many people, there was one church for every 430. By the late 1950’s church membership in our nation peaked at about 65%. It stopped meaning much. Christians got comfortable. They began to put their flickering light under a bushel! And you know what happens without air!**
While Christian principles undergird the foundations of our country, there are more Christians per capita in Uganda today than there are in the United States. Our country’s a mission field; the largest one in the English-speaking world!
Ostrich! Thinks all is well when in reality it’s most vulnerable! Things aren’t so bad. If you think its not broke, you must be living on another planet! What we really need is not to return to the good old days, but to return to what made the good old days good!
The problem is not just with the world out there, the problem is with the world in here – within the four walls of the church. We need to BE the church! Our lights are not shining brightly enough! Floyd Bartel writes that 95% of all Christians in NA will not win one person to Christ in their entire lifetime. What did Jesus say? [Go/football]
The American church is immersed in its culture! We’ve got to ask, Why does the church exist? What business are we in? How are we going to make a difference? The salt has lost it’s saltiness!
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our future? …
Our American hero must have handled himself well that night, because hours later he was returning from the heat of battle with his man, Dr. William Beane. He also brought something else with him. It was a song. The unpopular conflict was the war of 1812. The man was Francis Scott Key, and the song was the Star Spangled Banner. Surprised?
Key had seen the city of Baltimore narrowly rescued from bombardment by what was then the strongest navy the world had to offer. Unlike many other “national anthems” it doesn’t extol the glories of battle or our land – instead it offers up gratitude to God for an event of unexpected salvation! They feared defeat! Key is looking for his country’s flag, hoping against hope that when dawn breaks, it will still be the flag of the United States flying over Baltimore.
Most Americans know the first verse of the national anthem by heart, but it is the last stanza that expresses Key’s belief that if was God who protected Baltimore:
O! Thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war’s desolation;
Blessed with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!"
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free/home of the brave!
But not if we don’t change our ways of doing things. Renewal or revitalization are just nice words for change. Lyle Schaller says, churches that want to implement Jesus’ mission have no choice: What’s the number one issue facing the churches in America today? Money? Social justice? Imigration? Music? No. It’s the need to implement planned change from within. To get us back on track.
Today, on this forth of July 2000, our country celebrates it’s 224th birthday. This July 4th, instead of just fireworks and burgers in the backyard, we all need to be at the altar of God, asking for a personal revival in our own life. We need a revival with such strength that it will sweep into our community and our nation!
When the people outside the church see God working in us, that will draw them to Christ! And when people are drawn to Christ and converted that will be when you will see change in our nation!
