AMERICA’S GREATEST THREAT
ISAIAH 1:1-4, 18-20
INTRODUCTION: We are blessed to live in America and to be able to enjoy its freedoms and blessings. In 1857, James Buchanan in his inaugural address said, "No nation in the tide of time has ever been blessed with so rich and noble an inheritance as we enjoy." Indeed, no nation outside of Israel has ever been so blessed by God. But our liberties, our way of life and the very future of our nation are confronted by a number of threats today. Many have varied and differing views of what is America’s greatest threat. Let us consider some of these threats and see what is our greatest threat.
I. International or global terrorism is a great threat to America.
A. No longer are the terrorist acts of fanatical groups limited to other countries. The events of September 11, 2001 were the act of enemies of the United States, determined to spread terror and cripple our country with fear. To an extent they have somewhat succeeded. We have altered our lifestyles in many areas especially in air travel.
B. Terrorism threatens society by instilling fear and helplessness in its citizens. It seeks to hold a society or government hostage by fear of destruction and harm.
C. We are told that potentially Dozens of al Qaeda terrorists in "sleeper" cells and members of other terrorist groups pose a threat to the United States.
D. U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Florida said, "The estimate is that there are 100 or more al Qaeda operatives inside the United States, some who have been here for a considerable period of time, all of whom went through a training process to prepare them to carry out terrorist plots when they were called upon to do so."
E. Terrorism is a threat but it is not America’s greatest threat.
II. Islam is a great threat
A. Islamic terrorism has been touted as the extreme fringe element of Islam; that true Muslims are called to strive for peace. But understand that as Serge Trifkovic states in his book The Sword of the Prophet, the peace that Muslims are called to implement is impossible without being established under Islamic rule.
B. Islam’s ultimate goal is to rule the world. Islamic theology provides two methods for this to be accomplished. The first is spiritual, as people are lured into converting to Islam. The second is coercive; it is the political/physical conquest of nations. For Muslims, there are no gray areas. They see the world in black and white. To them the world is divided into two big camps: the House of Islam and the House of War. The House of Islam are the Muslims, and the House of war are the non-Muslims. Muslims (the House of Islam) are in a constant state of spiritual – political - physical warfare with Non-Muslims (the House of War) until they subjugate them into Islam. - Copied
C. In the Koran’s Surah 9:29, Allah tells Muslims to fight the people of the Book, "Fight those who do not believe in God and the last day...and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior."
D. When the Arabs invaded Morocco they slaughtered 35,000 Christians and their blood was literally flowing through the streets. The Arabs then removed their white hats and dipped them in the blood of the Christians, which is why many Muslims wear red felt hats today call Fez; the slaughter took place in a city called Fez. These hats are a testimony to the blood of innocent people.
E. In September 1922, Islamic Turks annihilated 200,000 Christians on the Quay of Smyrna’s harbor while American, British, Italian, and French ships looked on. In 1989 it is estimated that Indonesian Muslims had murdered 200,000 East Timorese Christians. Both are examples of the genocide of those who oppose Islam.
F. Author Samuel Huntington predicts that "Muslims in the world will continue to increase dramatically, amounting to 20 percent of the world’s population about the turn of the [21st] century, surpassing the number of Christians some years later..."
G. According to United Nations statistics, the Muslim population in the United States grew by 25 percent between 1989 and 1998. In 1990 there were only about 50 Islamic schools in America. Today the number is over 200.3 Since about 1990 the number of "registered Islamic centers and mosques" has tripled to "more than 2,500."
H. Islam is a great threat but it is not our greatest threat.
III. Immorality is a great threat
A. One of the most pressing problems facing America today is our moral crisis. The debacle of this year’s super-bowl half-time show is not surprising given the moral decline of America.
B. Richard Land told Oklahoma City-area pastors Jan. 31 that the greatest danger America faces is the growing surge of Internet pornography. "If I were going to attack America, I would attack America through sex. And that’s precisely what (Satan) has done," said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC. Internet pornographers grossed more than $1 billion in 1999--a 30 percent gain from 1998, Land noted. Land told the story of an SBC agency trustee who watched her son’s marriage fail due to a pornography addiction he developed as a pre-teen. "It was at 11 that we lost our boy, and until last week we didn’t know why," the woman told Land. "Don’t let your children have unsupervised access to the Internet," Land warned. "Take that computer out of their bedroom. Put it in a semi-public place ... And I’m here to tell you, it’s probably something you don’t need to have private access to either. "This is addictive material. And it is pouring like a cancerous pollutant into the spiritual life of our nation."
C. The rise of immorality in America is a threat not only to society but also to Christianity. This is a serious issue because an immoral society cannot last long. The Barna Research group statistics show that 64% of adults and 83% of teenagers said moral truth depends on the situation that you are in. 19% of the adult population believes that "the whole idea of sin is outdated." 51% believe that "if a person is generally good, or does enough good, he will earn a place in Heaven. When a society’s morals fail, the society fails. - Eight reasons why we need apologetics, www.carm.org
D. There is a storm raging across America. Alcoholism, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, abortion, homosexuality, school violence, child abuse, pornography, rape, robbery and murder pervade our nation. America is drowning in wickedness and immorality.
E. Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
F. We have normalized the abnormal and abnormalized the normal.
G. Dr. Charles Stanley in discussing America’s moral decline said, "We are eroding from within--the heart, the home, our young children. We’re destroying ourselves. We don’t need some foreign nation to destroy us."
H. Immorality is a great threat and will bring upon us God’s wrath but it is merely symptomatic of what is the greatest threat to America.
IV. America’s greatest threat is America’s greatest sin – Ignoring (forgetting God).
A. Isaiah 1:2-4 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah has spoken, I have nursed and brought up sons, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel does not know; My people do not understand. Woe, sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, sons who corrupt! They have forsaken Jehovah; they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger; they have gone away backward.
B. God told Israel that He had made her great and elevated them above other nations only to have them forget Him and rebel against His righteous standards. Even the least keen and most stupid of the animals, destitute as they are of reason and conscience, demonstrate knowledge and submission far more than Israel.
C. America has had a great heritage and been elevated above other nations not by her own goodness but by the grace of God.
1. George Washington "I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, then those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them."
2. Patrick Henry "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions, 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."
D. Psalms 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah; the people He has chosen for His inheritance.
E. Isaiah 1:18-20 Come now, and let us reason together, says Jehovah; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Jehovah has spoken.
F. God warned Israel that their future security was dependent upon Him. If any people persevere in rebelling against God, they shall be destroyed.
G. Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness lifts up a nation, but sin is a shame to any people.
H. Warren G. Harding "It is my conviction that the fundamental trouble with the people of the United States is that they have gotten too far away from Almighty God."
I. Ronald Reagan "If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under."
J. America’s Greatest Sin is that of forgetting God. It is also the greatest danger of America today because God will not allow sin to go unpunished.
K. Psalms 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God
L. Alexander Solzhenitsyn speaking about his own country said: "Over half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ’Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this is happening.’ Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some sixty million people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat; ’Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this happened.’"
M. What does it mean to forget God?
1. We forget God when we live as if He doesn’t exist.
2. We forget God when we claim His Name and do our religious duties, but our daily lives are lived as if He isn’t even there.
3. We forget God when we speak His Name but our worship is not exclusively His, other things such as materialism, work, family, education, self get our attention and worship as well.
4. We forget God when we fail to recognize His gracious blessings.
5. We forget God when we accept the world’s culture and philosophies and reject the immutability of the truth of God’s Word.
6. We forget God when we fail to give unto Him first place in our lives.
V. A call to repentance as our only safety net against the threat of God’s judgment.
A. Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, says Jehovah; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.
B. God told Israel that He was willing to bestow pardon on them; and to restore the relationship they previously enjoyed if they would only repent which meant:
1. Acknowledging their sinfulness
2. Demonstrate a willingness to stop their sinfulness
3. Turning control of oneself over to God.
C. I believe our greatest need today is for personal and national revival. We are not capable in our own strength of facing the threats to our world.
D. We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the 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 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. - President Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, April 30, 1863
E. 2 Chronicles 7:14 If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
F. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
