The Strength Of A Nation

INTRODUCTION

SLIDE #2

• Monday is a special day for our nation. Memorial Day is a holiday where we pause to remember those who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom.

• Freedom has always come to us at a price. There are always forces in the world who want to take away the God ordained freedom that every person on this planet should be able to enjoy.

• We enjoy freedoms that a lot of the world can only look upon with envy.

• We live in a great nation. There are many folks who live here that do not seem to appreciate what we have.

• People have fought and died for what we enjoy today. What did those who died fight for?

• Did they fight so we could squander what was have been blessed with?

• We owe it to those who have sacrificed and died for our freedom to keep the nation strong.

• As a nation, we are traveling down a road that can lead to the loss of what God has blessed us with and what people have fought and died for.

• In his book “The Decline and Fall of The Athenian Republic.” Author Alexander Fraser Tyler who lived from 1748-1813 stated:

• The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years, we read, and those nations progressed through this sequence:

From Bondage to Spiritual Faith -- From Spiritual Faith to Great Courage

From Courage to Liberty -- From Liberty to Abundance

From Abundance to Selfishness -- From Selfishness to Complacency

From Complacency to Apathy -- From Apathy to Dependency

From Dependency back again into bondage.

• In the book of Judges in the Old Testament, you will find a similar cycle with the nation of Israel. They would go from prosperity to sin to slavery to repentance and the cycle continued though out the life of the nation.

• This nation is 229 years old. The above cycle is not inevitable -- it depends on every one of us and on our children and their children, to see that we do not follow that cycle.

• When this country cherished the Godly standards upon which it was founded, the nation prospered, but as we turn our backs as a nation on God, we see that we are not so prosperous, mounting debts, lowering moral standards, more crime, among other things.

• I believe we owe it to those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom to make sure we do all we can to help keep this nation strong and on the right track.

• There are a lot of things happening in our nation that are not good for the nation and if not corrected, will lead to the demise of our nation. When our definition of freedom leaves the role of our creator out of it, we will be in trouble.

• I love my country. In my thinking God and country are to go hand in hand, and our founders felt the same way.

• Of the founding fathers, 52 of the 55 men who formed the constitution were active members of their churches, Noah Webster who wrote the first dictionary could literally quote the bible chapter and verse.

• Without God, this nation will not achieve the greatness that our founders wanted. Leaving God out of our institutions is bad for America, and I fear that unless we start educating people about the roots of the nation, and also making the church be a positive loving influence on society again, we could suffer the fate of all of the other great nations of history, this nation could self destruct.

• I want us to understand that our country was designed to be a Christian nation, and that it is God that makes or breaks nations.

• Founding father Patrick Henry said, “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!

• If a nation is going to stand strong, it must have a strong foundation. That foundation is Jesus. Our country needs to be built on the foundation of Jesus, and off the foundation there are 3 pillars that make the nation strong: SLIDE #3

o The Civil Government, The Family, The Church

• If a nation is going to be strong each one of these pillars must be strong, and they must be built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. If we build these pillars on any other foundation, we will be in trouble. SLIDE #4

SERMON

I. JESUS MUST BE THE LORD OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

• An Indiana farmer took his family to the nation’s capital to see how their government worked. After visiting the House of Representatives, they went to the Senate gallery, where the chaplain of the Senate was speaking. "Daddy," asked the farmer’s ten-year-old daughter, "does the chaplain pray for the Senate?" "No," said the farmer. "He comes in, looks at the Senators, and then prays for the country." Reader’s Digest, March 1992, p. 50