Sermon preached at Faith Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Virginia, on Sunday, July 4, 1993, by the Rev. W. Graham Smith, D.D.

Transcription

1 Sermon preached at Faith Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Virginia, on Sunday, July 4, 1993, by the Rev. W. Graham Smith, D.D. PSALM 11:3 When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS ARE BEING DESTROYED WHAT THEN? Thank God there are foundations that cannot be destroyed! The foundation of God s throne cannot be demolished. He is, and always will be, the Sovereign Lord of this universe which He created and which He sustains. The foundation of our salvation, Christ and His Cross, cannot be demolished. Every single soul that our Lord has chosen to be saved will be saved by His sovereign grace. The foundation of our hope, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, cannot be demolished; for He did indeed rise from the dead as the eternal Conqueror of sin and death. But obviously, as our text indicates and as history confirms, there are foundations which can be and have been destroyed. President Woodrow Wilson wrote these insightful sentences: A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from, or what we have been about. Now it is a plain historical fact that our founding fathers were, to all intents and purposes, committed to the establishment of a Christian nation, based on the teachings of the Word of God. That was the foundation. George Washington, himself, said, It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible. Patrick Henry said, The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed. And, John Quincy Adams, our sixth President, made this amazing statement; So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. And that great statesman, Daniel Webster, wrote: If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering, but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, and bury all our glory in profound obscurity. John Jay, who along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, authored The

2 Federalist Papers, and who was selected by George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, spoke profoundly when he said, Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. There is an interesting story about Abigail Adams, the famous wife of our second President, and a born-again Christian. In the presidential campaign of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were running for President and Vice President, and Mrs. Adams was appalled at the thought of these two unbelievers attaining the highest offices in the nation. These men were Deists, and deists believe in an intelligent Creator God, but deny that He providentially guides or intervenes in any way with the world s course or destiny. Jefferson, therefore, did not believe in the atoning work of Christ, and denied the resurrection of our Lord because he did not believe in any of the miracles of the Bible. That tragic figure, Aaron Burr, was the grandson of the great Jonathan Edwards, who was perhaps the greatest theologian this country has ever produced. But at the age of 20, Burr, in his own words, had completely and forever rejected the Gospel according to Jonathan Edwards. So, Mrs. Adams, in a letter to her husband, wrote: Can the placing at the head of the nation two characters known to be Deists, be productive of order, peace and happiness? Compare that attitude with the situation today where ungodliness in politics and government has been obtruding itself into the realm of the moral and the spiritual with increasing devastation of our Judeo-Christian value system. What would the father of our country who said, It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible, think if he knew that today: it is unconstitutional for The Ten Commandments to hang on the walls of a school since the students might be led to read them, meditate upon them, respect them or obey them ; that it is unconstitutional for a Board of Education to use or refer to the word God in any of its official writings; or that in his native State of Virginia, a federal court has ruled that a homosexual newspaper may be distributed on a high school campus, but religious newspapers may not. And the sad litany could go on and on and on, but the bottom line is that politics is increasingly injecting itself into the moral and spiritual realm of the Church. We have now, for the first time in the history of our country, an administration which intends to enact into law a violation of two of the Commandments of God the 6th and 7th Commandments. 1. The first, of course, is the promise to endeavor to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which will remove all restrictions on abortions in all 50 states during all nine months of pregnancy, for any or no reason at all. It is the most barbaric attempt ever made against the unborn by a U.S. President and Congress. President Clinton has ordered taxpayer-

3 funded abortions in all military hospitals, which means that Christians will be forced to pay for the killing of little defenseless children. This legislation is a violation of the 6th Commandment, You shall not kill (Ex. 20:13). The N.I.V. correctly translates the Commandment as You shall not murder it means to unlawfully take the life of one who is innocent. The Bible certainly commends and commands capital punishment of murderers. But the taking of the life of the innocent is absolutely forbidden in Scripture. The Bible calls it murder. Intense political pressure is being exerted upon the Food & Drug Administration to legalize the use of the French drug, RU-486, a do-it-yourself abortion kit which enables a young girl to become pregnant, take a pill, kill the unborn baby privately and do it again and again and again. The surgical procedure of abortion and the existence of abortion clinics will be a thing of the past. Needless to say, this is chemical warfare against the unborn. The Scripture declares in Isaiah 5:20, Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil. 2. There is a promise to pass a national Gay and Lesbian Rights Act, which would grant special civil rights status to those who are practicing the homosexual lifestyle (which is for the most part a chosen lifestyle). That, of course, is a violation of the 7th Commandment which forbids all manner of sexual immorality. The President would dearly love to lift the ban on gays in the military. Someone has said that that would be like taking a 20-year-old, red-blooded heterosexual man in college and telling him he is going to live in a women s dormitory. He is going to sleep with them, shower and bathe with them, eat with them; and he s going to be doing that for the next four years. If that young man has any lustful thoughts, he would realize that he has just entered paradise! For the first time in our nation s history, the American government is trying to say to our children and young people, Gay is Okay. This is a clear defiance of God s condemnation of the homosexual lifestyle as recorded throughout the Scriptures. Homosexuals are pouring out of the closet, but they must not be allowed into the foxhole. The homosexuals have targeted the military, not because lifting the ban will strengthen the nation s defense, but because the military is the ideal vehicle for their larger agenda which is open cultural acceptance of homosexuality and the elimination of Christianity from public life. 3. Then there is a third problem that has been going on for the past 20 years and is certainly not peculiar to this administration, but one that should strike terror into our souls. I refer to the incredible deficits we have been running up in this country. We have never before seen anything like it. The deficit is rapidly approaching five trillion dollars, and the rate of acceleration of this deficit growth should strike fear into the bravest of hearts. Let me illustrate this for you. A million dollars in thousand-dollar bills makes a pile four inches high; one billion dollars, a pile 333 feet high; one trillion dollars, a pile 63 miles high; and five trillion dollars, a pile 315 miles high! Now, I want you to understand the moral implication of all this; This deficit, in fact, violates the 8th Commandment which says, You shall not steal (Ex. 20:15). The deficit is

4 nothing other than stealing. The Bible says in many places (1 Kings 21:3 for example) that inheritances should be passed down from the father to the son or daughter; and Proverbs 13:22 says that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children s children. But today we are doing precisely the opposite. We are, on the national level, taking money to use now, and we are charging it to our grandchildren. That is the exact opposite of what God commands us to do. It is, in fact, a violation of the Commandment against theft. It is borrowing money we will never pay back. We are simply leaving it to be paid back by our children and grandchildren. During President Reagan s administration, the Grace Commission told us that at the current rate of spending, by the end of this century, the federal debt will equal the entire federal budget, which would succeed in bringing our country down to complete financial bankruptcy. The sad fact is that all American citizens will be punished for the ungodly actions of our leaders. Proverbs 14:34 says that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. You simply cannot violate the commandments of God and get away with it, either as an individual or as a nation. We can t break God s laws; we can only be broken by them if we fly in God s face. Henry W. Longfellow stated this truth so eloquently when he wrote: Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small. It was George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, the statesman after whom our fine neighboring university is named, who said: As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, PROVIDENCE punishes national sins by national calamities. People often ask, Is AIDS the judgment of God against homosexuals? We know that God ordains all things that come to pass. He either directs or permits everything that happens. So, I believe that AIDS is unquestionably from the hand of God. In the Old Testament we read how God caused ten terrible plagues to fall upon the nation of Egypt. So, I believe that AIDS is God s judgment, not simply upon homosexuals; it is God s judgment against America and all other nations as a result of their endorsement of a lifestyle that God has condemned. Indeed, it is a judgment against all immoral persons, for there are promiscuous heterosexuals in this country who are going to die by the millions unless they repent and turn from their wicked ways. But, someone says, How could AIDS be a plague from God since innocent people are dying the hemophiliacs and the Arthur Ashes? Folks, that s the tragedy of sin the innocent suffer too. Every family in Egypt suffered that Passover night because of the sin of the Pharaoh in not setting free God s people from bondage. The Bible tells us that to the fourth generation, people will suffer because of present violation of the commandments of God (Exodus 20:5). A recent article from U.S. News & World Report estimates that by the end of this decade, the annual health care costs in America could be as high as $514 billion just from AIDS. Such a situation could totally destroy our country s health care system.

5 So, the inevitable question confronts us What can we do? We must believe that national reform is possible. 2 Chronicles 7:14 is a promise of God when He says, If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. God is fully capable of reversing the moral direction our nation is taking and calling us back to Himself. If, for a moment, we doubt the almighty power of God, our case is hopeless. But believe me even though it may seem that there is an unstoppable tide rising toward the complete eradication of God in public affairs, remember that movement has been initiated and is being maintained by a very small minority of the nation, Take hope, fellow believers. All that is needed to restore what has been lost in this Republic is for the majority to rise up and do what God wants us to do. 1. We must aggressively resist the agenda of radical minorities. Homosexuals, abortionists, New Agers, Libertarians, atheists and the whole ungodly crew, represent hardly more than 5 percent of the total American population. The majority of Americans believe strongly in God and traditional moral and family values. Our national disgrace has been the shameful apathy of the people of God. Over 70 million Americans profess to be born again Christians. If only the majority of God-fearing Americans will rise up in outrage, there is still time to turn our country back to the faith we once professed to espouse. 2. We must reclaim our public schools. Although multitudes of Christian parents across the country are now home-schooling their children; and although there are now 34,000 Christian day schools in America; nevertheless, the majority of Christians still send their children to the public schools. So, we must not surrender our schools; we must stand and fight for them. Abraham Lincoln was extremely perceptive when he asserted that our schools are the future. He said, The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. Christian parents have a duty to become active in Parent Teacher Associations; monitoring closely what is going on in the school; examining textbooks and courses of study; offering to do volunteer work in the classrooms; gaining the trust of teachers and administrators, so that they may earn the right to make suggestions as to how true moral values may become an integral element in the curriculum. Attendance at school board meetings when vital issues are being discussed is imperative. Parents must engage in continuous dialogue with their children with regard to what is going on in the classroom and the school. 3. We must become active in the political process at the grassroots and above. For the past 75 years the conduct of government has, by and large, been turned over to people who are not believers, Millions of Christians have said they will have nothing to do with politics because it is dirty business. Well, folks, that dirty business is besmirching the whole country; and if godly people will not take up the reins of government, ungodly people certainly will. The Bible makes it very clear in Proverbs 29:2 that when the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan. Until we learn that lesson, we are going to

6 groan. We must get to work at the precinct level, making our voices heard; writing and phoning our Congress persons and senators; supporting conservative causes with our time, money and prayers. Believe me, it will make a difference. 4. We must live upright, God-fearing lives, absolutely free of hypocrisy and pretence. In the words of Titus 2:10, we must adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. The ungodly world around us cannot help but be impressed, challenged and convicted by Christians who make their faith attractive; who are salt and light, and who are not afraid or ashamed to say a good word for Jesus Christ. What a difference even one Christian can make in an office or classroom! We can be as bright lights shining in the midst of a benighted world. To be such people, we must, of course, give ourselves to prevailing prayer, that we may be, by God s grace, the people He wants us to be; and that we may be able to intercede on behalf of the ungodly, that the Lord may move in their hearts and cause them to repent, receive Christ, and then follow God s holy commandments. 5. We must evangelize America as we have never done before. Political involvement and active personal evangelism must go hand in hand. It is because we have failed to obey the Great Commission; it is because we have failed to witness for Christ, that so many people in this country today do not take God s Word seriously. They do not love and obey God, and they do not trust in Christ because we have failed to communicate the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have kept the Good News to ourselves, and that is why ungodliness abounds in our land, instead of believers multiplying as the Bible says we should. This is our mandate, and God have mercy on us if we fail Him. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, It is the duty of nations...to own (admit) their dependence upon the overruling power of God... and to recognize the solemn truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the LORD. AMEN.