HEAL OUR LAND
ILLUSTRATION:
French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, after visiting America in 1831, said, “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests—and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning—and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”
COMMENT:
The America that Alexis saw in 1831 is not the same America today. I may have been rather naïve, but I believe the America that I grew up in as a boy is not the same America that my grandchildren are growing up in today. If Alexis were alive today and visited America for the first time, I personally don’t think he would have written: “America is great because America is good.”
A. Has America CEASED being GREAT?
1. A Nation is as GREAT as is its ALLEGIANCE to God.
-“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord . . .”- Psalm 33:12a
2.. Sadly, I believe America has become less and less a nation who recognizes God is Lord.
ILLUSTRATION:
I believe it all started when Madalyn Murray O’Hair and her proponents successfully led the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 1963 decision, to ban organized PRAYER in public schools. Now PRAYER had been BANNED at most SCHOOL SPONSORED SPORTING EVENTS, GRADUATION COMMENCEMENTS and other SCHOOL SPONSORED SCHOOL EVENTS.
It has been ruled that the 10 COMMANDMENTS can no longer be displayed in COURT HOUSES and other PUBLIC BUILDINGS. And although trial witnesses are still asked or given a choice to place their hands on the Bible while swearing to the tell the truth, the phrase “so help you God” has been removed.
The debate still continues in federal courts as to whether it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL to say the PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE because of its REFERENCE to “ONE NATION UNDER GOD”.
Now a movement is under way to remove the phrase “IN GOD WE TRUST” from American currency.
B. Have we as a NATION ceased being GOOD?
1. When God is no longer REVERED then a NATION will gradually slip into MORAL DECAY.
ILLUSTRATION:
Since the Roe vs. Wade ruling in January 1973 there has been close to 50 million unborn babies, who were “knitted together in their mothers’ wombs and fearfully and wonderfully made” by God Almighty (Psalm 139:13-14), who have been ABORTED—legally MURDERED, if you will.
Now CONGRESS and our COURTS are trying to redefine MARRIAGE as God intended between one man and one woman, and make it LEGAL for HOMOSEXUALS and LESBIANS to MARRY each other. “MEN with MEN and WOMEN with WOMEN that the Bible clearly teaches is SINFUL and UNNATURAL”- Romans 1:26-27
2. Regardless of what our COURTS and CONGRESS are doing, I believe MANY Americans, and possibly the MAJORITY, are against ABORTION and GAY MARRIAGE.
MESSAGE:
COMMENT:
The only reason that America HAS BEEN and, I believe, STILL IS the GREATEST NATION on EARTH is because God has RICHLY BLESSED us. However, it is by God’s CHOOSING if America remains GREAT. Our GREATNESS is not CONTINGENT upon how POWERFUL we are. It’s not DEPENDENT upon who’s ahead in the ARMS RACE. Whether we have a DEMOCRAT or REPUBLICAN in the WHITE HOUSE doesn’t matter. Our GREATNESS and our SURVIVAL are DETERMINED solely by our FAITH in God and making Him LORD and KING!
This is especially EVIDENT at this time when many of our own GOVERNING LEADERS are attempting to DETHRONE God and with the ever declining MORALITY in our COUNTRY, I think you would agree that our NATION needs the HEALING TOUCH of God, our Lord and Savior.
HEALING of our NATION is AVAILABLE only if America FOLLOWS God’s INSTRUCTION laid out in II Chronicles 7:14 (READ).
During the PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION, the Bible on which the PRESIDENT-ELECT takes the OATH of OFFICE, is opened to the PASSAGE we just READ. I can only HOPE and PRAY that our PRESIDENT and our FUTURE PRESIDENTS take SERIOUSLY God’s INSTRUCTION for HEALING a NATION.
I. ACTIONS AMERICA MUST TAKE TO PROMOTE DIVINE HEALING
A. HUMBLE ITSELF
1. Being the WEALTHIEST, the most POWERFUL, and/or the most INFLUENTIAL, are not the CHARACTERISTICS that God is CONCERNED about in a NATION.
COMMENT:
Because I believe America is all of these I just mentioned, it is so easy for our nation’s LEADERS and for us as its CITIZENS, to be rather PRIDEFUL. Now, this doesn’t mean that we can’t have PRIDE in our NATION. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong in being APPRECIATIVE that we LIVE in a NATION that has been GREATLY BLESSED by God.
But we are not to become ARROGANT thinking that we are BETTER than other COUNTRIES and other PEOPLES. Furthermore, we are not to think that we have become a GREAT NATION by our own POWER and STRENGTH, nor to think that we are INVINCIBLE—that we could never FALL.
2. God has always DETESTED a PRIDEFUL HEART—a HAUGHTY SPIRIT—whether it is within INDIVIDUALS or within a NATION.
a. “PRIDEFULNESS” or “HAUGHTY EYES” is listed first on God’s HATE LIST- Prov. 6:16.
b. Listen to what God says about a prideful NATION- Obadiah 1:1-4 (READ and COMMENT)
3. The remedy is to HUMBLE ourselves before God.
a. James 4:6b- “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
b. James 4:10- “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.”
COMMENT:
Only as long as our NATION’S LEADERS and we as CITIZENS of this great country HUMBLE ourselves before Almighty God and BOW to Him as the KING of kings, will AMERICA continue to be GREAT.
B. PRAY AND SEEK GOD
1. AMERICA exists on PRAYER and the SEEKING of God.
COMMENT:
The sturdy men and women who CROSSED the OCEAN to come to our LAND, came not seeking SOIL for their PLOWS or GOLD for their POCKETS, but LIBERTY for their SOULS.
After our PILGRIM forefathers landed at Plymouth Rock, they knelt on their knees, thanking God for their new country.
2. Our forefathers were looking for a PLACE where they could WORSHIP God FREELY as they CHOOSE. Thus, America was BORN and FOUNDED upon the PRINCIPLE of FREEDOM of RELIGION.
COMMENT:
A countless number of men and women have FOUGHT and DIED for that FREEDOM. All of us have read the story of George Washington. During those stark days at Valley Forge, the SOLDIERS were STARVING and FREEZING to death. General George Washington was seen on his KNEES in the snow, PRAYING and asking God to be with them and BLESS their EFFORTS as they FOUGHT for FREEDOM. (“Prayer at Valley Forge” by Arnold Friberg)
During the days of the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, when they were experiencing difficulties and problems were multiplying, Benjamin Franklin, called upon the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS to get on their KNEES, PRAY and ask GOD’S BLESSING.
3. Although PRAYER has been taken out of our SCHOOLS, our LAW-MAKERS open every SESSION with a PRAYER—and as long as we have the FREEDOM to do that, I believe
AMERICA will continue to be BLESSED.
C. TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS
1. We have already seen how America not only has allowed IMMORALITY to creep into our NATION, but how many of our NATION’S LEADERS have made and are trying to make these IMMORAL and GODLESS ACTS . . . LEGAL.
ILLUSTRATION:
Obviously with almost 300 million AMERICANS, it is impossible to completely ERADICATE IMMORALITY—we can’t even stop it in our CHURCHES and in our FAMILIES. But to legalize the MURDER of UNBORN BABIES and to legalize GAY MARRIAGE are reprehensibly EVIL and a SLAP in the FACE of Almighty God.
2. America cannot continue to SURVIVE and FLOURISH as a NATION without our TURNING from our WICKED WAYS and RETURNING to God.
COMMENT:
Author and speaker Zig Ziglar said that “In all of HISTORY, no CIVILIZATION has ever survived after openly accepting HOMOSEXUALITY as a NORMAL way of LIFE.”
Richard Rogers, one of my Bible professors, often said: “If God allows America to continue to embrace HOMOSEXUALITY without DISCIPLINING our nation, then He should raise Sodom and Gomorrah and APOLOGIZE.”
II. ACTIONS WE CAN DO INDIVIDUALLY TO SEEK GOD’S HEALING OF OUR NATION
A. PRAY for our NATION and our LEADERS.
1. I Timothy 2:1-2- “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone for kings and all those in authority. . .”
COMMENT:
We can COMPLAIN about our GOVERNING LEADERS and the MORAL DECLINE of our NATION all we want, and that won’t SOLVE anything. We can COMPLAIN about the incessant POLITICAL MANEUVERING that goes on every ELECTION YEAR, but it doesn’t RESOLVE the TURMOIL that each ELECTION YEAR brings.
2. Instead of COMPLAINING, which I have certainly done my SHARE of; we should spend that time in PRAYER lifting this NATION and those in AUTHORITY up to God asking for His REMEDY of the PROBLEMS that we FACE.
ILLUSTRATION:
Joe Wright minister of the Central Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas led this prayer in the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka a few years ago. The prayer was originally written by Bob Russell of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky and was led by him at the Kentucky Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Frankfort.
Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good," but that’s exactly what we’ve done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism. We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people, and who have been ordained by you, to govern this great state. Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
B. RESPECT our GOVERNING LEADERS (whether you VOTED for them or not)
1. Romans 13:6-7- “. . . authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”
a. Paul- “We are to respect and honor those in authority because they are God’s servants.”
b. Peter- “. . . honor the king”- I Peter 2:17b.
COMMENT:
Someone objects: “Well, It’s easy for Paul and Peter to say that because they didn’t have to PUT UP with our GOVERNMENT!” Right — their GOVERNMENT was much WORSE! No CONSTITUTION, no CIVIL RIGHTS, no ‘RIGHT to PRIVACY’, no guaranteed RIGHTS at all.
Not only that, Paul is writing to people who lived in Rome the HEART of the ROMAN government. Nero was the EMPEROR, the KING that Peter said was to be “HONORED.” He was a HEARTLESS, GODLESS, practicing HOMO-SEXUAL, who hated Christianity with a PASSION.
Christians weren’t being told that they were to RESPECT Nero’s UNGODLY LIFESTYLE, but they were to RESPECT his OFFICE.
2. We may not LIKE how our GOVERNING LEADERS live and how they lead this country, but we are to RESPECT their POSITIONS of AUTHORITY.
3. If you don’t like the way our GOVERNING LEADERS are leading this COUNTRY . . . VOTE!
C. OBEY our NATION’S LAWS
1. Paul- “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves”- Romans 13:1-2.
2. Peter- “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by Him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men”- I Peter 2:13-15
COMMENT:
America is a nation GOVERNED by LAWS. And these LAWS are put in place for our PROTECTION and WELL-BEING. And if we VIOLATE those LAWS, those in authority are SANCTIONED by God to PUNISH us. As long as our NATION’S LAWS do not VIOLATE God’s LAWS, we must ABIDE by them whether we like it or not.
CONCLUSION:
A. May God CONTINUE to BLESS our NATION, and may our NATION continue to HONOR God.
