America at 250

I made mention a number of weeks ago my intention to bring a message that is conscious of the 250th anniversary of the nation. And as I was thinking at that time, of course, my mind was fixed on July 5th. But as I thought about it more and I considered our observance of the Lord’s table and what I wanted to say, it just seemed like it wasn’t going to mesh. So we’re dealing with this matter a week earlier than initially intended. And I’m going to be a little different than usual in, again, emphasis.

If you’re new here, visiting here, I’m not one to be preaching about anything that correlates to patriotism or government policy, or you all know that. So if you’re new, just talk to the regulars, they’ll tell you that it’s not common. Occasionally I address matters. And those of you who were here during COVID will know that that raised a moment that required addressing here and there. So this is not normally the emphasis.

I also read some weeks ago the speech that President Coolidge gave on the 150th anniversary, so a hundred years ago. And reading that, I was very encouraged. And I thought to myself, you know, I can use this as a springboard to say a lot of very good things that a past president once said. It wasn’t that I was in agreement with every line, but as I prayed and pondered, it’s taken a little bit of a different direction, and I hope you’ll bear with me.

I know that some of the things I may say you may disagree with, and you may say to yourself, I’m not sure I entirely agree there, but in part of what I’m going to do is actually come from the perspective of an outsider, speak in part as one, especially in the middle section of the sermon. I’ll be drawing from my observations of my own land in the sense of my own nationality, being raised in the United Kingdom. Because not only is there obviously a deep connection between Britain and the United States in terms of history and lineage and influence, but there are lessons, I think, that America can learn from some of the missteps of the United Kingdom, especially in the last 100 years or so.

So I wish to bring some of these things to you. And I draw your attention to Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59. I want to read from verse 9. Isaiah 59, verse 9. Let us hear the Word of the Lord.

“Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

“We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

“We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

“For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

“In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

“And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

“Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

“And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

“For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

“According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.

“So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

“And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.

“As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.”

Amen.

What you’ve heard, beloved, is the Word of the eternal God, which you would receive, believe, and obey, and the people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, thankful for many of the mercies that we enjoy from Thy hand. We’re thankful for the reality of common grace. We acknowledge, Lord, that there are many mercies that we receive and are blind to the fact that these are kindnesses from God: our health, our strength, yea, even the very nation that we live in.

Lord, Thou knowest my heart. We’ve learned to love this nation, learned to appreciate so many of its historic values. And Lord, we ask that if we can shed any light, if there can be any prophetic insight, if there can be any help given, if there can be any direction given to the prayers of Thy church, then so help us. And what is of man and chaff, let it fall to the ground. What is of God, let it remain. And we pray that Christ would be honored and the church would be helped and the name of the triune God glorified.

So give the Holy Spirit now and aid us greatly in conveying what’s here before us and indeed in the listening and receiving. We pray in our Savior’s name. Amen.

To hear some people, you’d almost imagine that the boundaries of nations are man-made and irrelevant to God. And yet this could not be further from the truth. Nations are expressions of God’s sovereign providence. They are not accidental.

Paul says in Acts 17:26 that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men,” and he goes on to say, “hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” The prophets also frequently would pronounce judgments, not just generally upon men, but upon specific nations. And we are told in Psalm 33, verse 12, that a nation is blessed when their God is the Lord. Christ, we know, is said to rule the nations, Psalm 2. The gospel is sent to nations, Matthew 28:19, and Christ will judge nations, nations specifically identified in Matthew 25, verse 32.

Certainly nations come and go. But they are not irrelevant. Thus, as we come to this threshold of 250 years of the anniversary of America, what are we to think?

It was one thing in 1630 for John Winthrop to proclaim the objective that, quote, “we shall be as a city upon a hill,” end quote. Yet it seems quite another to insinuate, as American author Herman Melville once did, that the, quote, “political Messiah has come in us.” Seems stretched, at least it’s a little uncomfortable in terms of reference to this great nation. Indeed, I wonder when he said that a little over a decade later, the very nation that he viewed as embodying a political messiah would be plunged into the most horrific experience of its history in the Civil War.

God is not obligated to preserve every people from the consequences of their sins, nor even to awaken them to the very judgment they live under. It’s quite possible for a nation to live blind to the very judgment God has brought upon them and try to elevate then their own unique qualities as some kind of affirmation of God’s favor. Egypt may brag of its age. Luxembourg may brag of the wealth of their people. But such can be true and still the people be enslaved.

Isaiah describes in chapter 59 of his prophecy a people whose sin had separated them from God. You see that in verses 1 and 2. And their hands are defiled with blood, their lips speak lies, their feet run to evil. Again, this is in verses 3 and 7, and more is said in this passage. And judgment is described as turning backward, justice stands afar off, and truth is said to have fallen in the street, verse 14.

So whenever you come to verse 19, there is a prophecy given of hope: “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun.” It’s not just an army that nations ought to feel the threat of at times. It is a completely different kind of army. It is the army of corruption within the city walls, not just the danger of a foreign enemy, but the rebellion that is happening in public life within the nation itself, the falsehood in their speech, the violence in their hand. These things come as a flood, threatening the very fabric of the society itself.

And yet the Lord does not surrender His cause. He has a purpose across the nations. And so what is described here in verse 19 and 20, “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun.” “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”

There will be a banner. There will be a sign, an ensign, if you like, that will display the fact that there is another side to this story. And there is One who has all power who is going to militate against the opposing forces, whether they be sin or in the forms of false ideology.

“The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.”

There are things that must be recognized here in this very text. The hope is for those that can be described, first, fearing the name of the Lord, turning from transgression, and depending upon, not political machinery, but the Spirit of the Lord. And the hope for America can be summed up, the hope indeed for any nation or people can be summed up in those ways. They must fear the name of the Lord. They must turn from transgression. And they must depend upon the Spirit of God alone to carry the victory that is necessary in their generation.

I want us to consider very simply here this morning America at 250: her blessings, battles, and banner.

And I’m going to be reading. I’ll tell you that now. I know you enjoy, maybe you don’t, but I certainly prefer to have the freedom to be a little more impromptu, having meditated on what I am going to say, a freedom to not be tied precisely to what is in front of me and to deliver it as I carry it within my heart. That will not be the case today. In writing this and rewriting this and being, to be quite honest with you, half the night in finalizing this, I want to convey it as I have prepared it.

First then, note with me her blessings. Her blessings.

And as we consider the blessings of America, many things could be considered, but I want to just draw again a fresh appreciation first for the wisdom of her liberty. The wisdom of her liberty.

If we are to speak of America’s blessings, we must begin with the fact that there is a certain liberty appreciated, or ought to be appreciated, in this land. That God has granted us to live where there is remarkable liberty. We are not to elevate the will of the majority or the permission of the state, but to see the liberty that has come to us, yes, through the very Declaration of Independence, which expresses to us the dignity of man, man made in the image of God.

And that understanding, of course, was foundational to the founding of the land, recognition of the inherent dignity of all men. Not all men being equal in station and position, but an equality nonetheless of each one being made in the image of God. Now again, the language is not expressed as Christianly as one might hope, but there’s no avoiding the biblical, scriptural, Christian influence that was upon the minds of those who developed the founding documents.

What is liberty if it is merely a human invention? What are rights if they are only permissions granted by rulers? If government creates rights, government may abolish rights. If man’s dignity rests upon the consent of other men, then dignity is no longer sacred. It is something that may be negotiated, something that may be taken away.

There’s a sense in which that is the path that we have gone down, not because the founding documents allow for it, but we have run roughshod over this equality of dignity of all men. The way we treat the unborn perhaps is the greatest example of the crime of not supporting what the very founding fathers understood to be a right, life.

The Declaration, at its best, was not merely a political announcement, however. It was, in its fabric, moral. It appealed to, quote, “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” It assumes that the world is created and that creation has a moral order, that man has a fixed nature, and government must answer to truths that it did not invent or create.

Now we all know, no doubt, that the personal views of the founding fathers varied, and yet they consented to the fact of self-evident truths. They’re self-evident truths. There’s a natural witness to these things, they argue. God has not left himself without testimony, Acts 14:17. The Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts, Romans 2:15. Men know more than they obey. They see more than they may admit.

But self-evident truths are not necessarily self-preserving. Just because it’s self-evident does not mean it is self-preserving. Fallen men suppress the truth they know, Romans 1. They take the truth and they bend it according to their pride, according to their appetites, according to the inherent spirit of rebellion within their heart.

And though the founders were right to speak of self-evident truths, whatever they saw clearly, they did not see at all with equal clarity, I don’t think, or how vital it is for the Word of God to preserve the very truths against the corrupt minds of men.

As I was reading over the Declaration of Independence, it struck me afresh that in a certain sense it testifies to its own weakness. They’re self-evident truths. And then they list all the grievances they had with the king, who obviously did not see these things to be as self-evident. He felt himself within his rights to run roughshod over these self-evident things.

It requires Scripture to uphold these things, to uphold the fact that man first stands before God, that he is a creature under God before he is a citizen under his government, that the state may command his outward conduct within its lawful sphere, but it cannot claim lordship over his conscience.

The establishment of America did not create human dignity. It confesses it, it doesn’t manufacture it, it recognizes it. And yet if you remove God’s Word from the consciousness of America, her self-evident liberties can and will be threatened.

The maintenance of America’s liberty is threatened by secular indifference, indeed, by every view that is removed in its moorings from the Scriptures. So we can be thankful for the wisdom of her liberty, because we are still enjoying much of it.

But also, the other blessing I want to draw to your attention is the restraint of her power. Not only the wisdom of her liberty, but the restraint of her power.

Scripture teaches not only the dignity of man, but his depravity, which becomes an inherent problem if you’re involved in a political scenario, any sphere that deals with people. Man is made in the image of God, but he has fallen. And as such, although government is ordained by God, government itself is not God, and if it’s wise, will establish checks and balances to hinder its own overreach of authority.

If anarchy is liberty without lawful order, then tyranny may be described as power without righteous limit. The biblical view of man understands the fallen nature of our being. And so it doesn’t flatter us. Scripture does not flatter us. No matter what position we hold, it doesn’t flatter kings. It doesn’t flatter politicians. It doesn’t flatter judges. It doesn’t flatter political parties or majorities. If it is made up of men, then it has an inherent flaw.

So this is what the Scripture reveals to us. And those who came to this land and established this nation were conscious of this. They knew of the limitations of men. And one of their better instincts was to try and shore up against power being misused.

When Madison argued that, quote, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” he was right. He was right. There has to be a sense of balance in all.

And the French judge who so influenced the thinking of the founding fathers in terms of the branches of government, the influence upon their thinking, recognizing that Europe had a long history of abusive power. And these thoughts that arose, especially during the Protestant Reformation, influencing ecclesiastically, we might talk about the influence even upon Presbyterianism in order to try and, again, remove the powers and influences of any individual or any particular group.

So that same thought is being worked out in the minds of those who deal in the civic arena. And those truths then were embedded into their minds and gave rise to this recognition that we must try to prevent or hedge the future from this encroaching desire of men to wield more government or more power than they ought and abuse that same power.

Washington warned in his farewell address in 1796, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

It is not enough simply to have this understanding of all the right framework. It will constantly be threatened if the morality and consciousness of the people is not in line.

I mentioned that I read Coolidge speaking on the 150th anniversary. He said, “A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up. A tree will wither if its roots be destroyed.” End quote. And these words, these metaphors, these descriptions show their recognition that if we remove ourselves from the moral fabric of the beginnings of the nation, then nothing can save us.

The strongest restraint on America is not its Constitution. It is its conscience. It is the general conscience of the nation that gives it either its greatest hope or the certainty of its destruction. How do the people think? How do they define evil? How do they understand what is wrong?

And thus America, like any other nation, is dependent upon public worship, dependent upon the instruction of fathers and mothers who lead and teach, dependent upon the propagation of God’s truth that will shape the thinking of the people and preserve then this lineage of Christian ethics and morality.

Again, Witherspoon, he understood that civil and religious liberty stand close together. And when he preached in 1776, he warned, “There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.” He has a certain angle that he’s going for there, but civil liberty and religious liberty stand together. And if religious liberty is used only to protect that which is wrong, that which is evil, then you’re going to have problems.

Civil liberty provides the outward peace, yes, but there must be a framing of the very mind and heart of the people.

So we’re thankful for these blessings. I touch on a couple of them. There are many others that could be explored. And it is a tremendous mercy to be able to say that you’re an American. A mercy indeed, let us not despise it.

In the second place, I want us to consider her battles. Not only her blessings, but her battles.

And I’m being very specific here, again, carrying my own biases. I am. I’m carrying my own biases, so you may disagree. There are three areas that I see as a great threat. And the answers are not, again, in political machinery. And we’ll come back, and in my last point, we’ll see the only hope is the hope that’s established in the very text that we read.

What are some of the battles?

In the first place, we might address foreign policy. I have a concern. Certainly one of my concerns for America is the growing bent towards intervention, a framework, a philosophy of interventionism. This is when a nation actively uses diplomatic, economic, military, or covert power to shape events beyond its own borders.

I understand at times why it may feel like it is justified and indeed may be justified on certain occasions. There are times when evil must be restrained. We must align with allies. Genuine threats must be confronted. But interventionism easily exceeds just cause. It easily exceeds just cause.

And what happens over time, if that becomes the reflex, it will drain national strength, it will normalize war, it will centralize power, and it will have this multiplying of unintended consequences. And it will rob a nation of its righteousness.

The nation of my birth ought to stand as a monument of warning. I speak not of the United Kingdom as if I had become her enemy. Far from it. I owe her much. So much. I can still recall being raised in an environment in which Sabbath observance was palpable. Britain was given much. The Bible was an open book. The Protestant Reformation, while not perfect in all of its influence, compared to many other nations, again, there’s much for which to be grateful. It was given, as a general rule, we might say, a Christian conscience. It developed its own common law.

And from there, in a vast endeavor of missionary influence, pressed upon the world the truth of the gospel.

But with the blessings of Christian heritage, of ordering your ways according to Scripture, came power, naval power, commercial power, imperial power, diplomatic power. She gained the ability to reach across the seas, to shape the borders of others, to occupy their lands, to command the trade routes and intervene in the affairs of weaker nations.

Now some of that power was used for real good. I remember sitting in a prayer meeting in Australia, and there was—Australia has its own history with England, which I’m not going to get into now, but it’s, let’s just say, generally there’s a chip on their shoulder about the past, and for understandable reasons.

This woman, as there was discussion revolving around all the injustices that had come from the hands of the British, and the things that can certainly be criticized, her voice rose up and said, but look at the nations where other great powers came in, Spanish, the French, and compare those nations where the British went in, and you will find there is much reason to be thankful.

Not perfect, but the prosperity—Australia is now one of the wealthiest nations per capita in the entire world. Would it have been the same had it been a French colony? Spanish? There’s none of us who would say the empire of the British was always just. You extend to as big as she did, all those areas need to be guarded. You need to secure those trade routes. And when localized rebellions arise, those need to be put down. The influence needs to be maintained.

And every fresh commitment, every new territory, every encroachment into another region requires more money, more ships, more soldiers, more administration. And it can become a real weakness. Oh, there are times it can look and with its power say, we can help here. But then it begins to defend its own interests.

I’m not grieved by the fact that Britain can no longer command the world as she once did, but I’m grieved that her strength cannot even so much as really enrich her own people anymore. She overstretched herself. God’s judgment has been her experience. Slow grind has fallen upon her.

And I fear the same future for America. President Eisenhower also saw this. In his farewell address to the nation in 1961, he said, and I quote, “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

“The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

That was a warning of a general. It wasn’t a man just propped up who’s speaking into areas he knows very little about personally. The permanent machinery of war creates the permanent temptation toward war. God does not give nations power in order to abuse that power. And when we do, while righteousness will exalt a nation, sin will be a reproach to any people.

Foreign policy.

Economic policy is another concern of mine. Moses warned Israel against the tendency to pride and prosperity. In Deuteronomy 8, verses 13 and following, “When thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up,” and thou forget the Lord thy God. And it goes on to say in verse 17, “And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.” Sounds very much like the rhetoric that we become accustomed to in our own day.

When a nation uses what it has not created and borrows strength from generations not even yet born, the future is bleak. And there’ll be all sorts of arguments to justify it. Economic ideas. But it will not stand.

The problem is this, and again, having watched the United Kingdom. Every nation goes through periods of economic tightening. Every nation. It’s unavoidable. There’s always going to be economic tightening. And in a tough economy, the free market, to use that term, will tighten. Some businesses will have to let people go. Some will die. They will not continue to exist.

But government departments seldom die. They are very resilient. And they get bigger regardless of the economy, which creates massive problems over time. Is your business struggling? It may die, and no one is coming to help. Is the school system failing? Increase the budget. Is the health service struggling? Increase the budget. Across every department, that is so.

And the asymmetry of it is destructive. The tax demand increases even when the economy tightens, which makes the very revitalization of the free market even more difficult, trying to recover an economy with an expanding public machinery. And before long, the nation becomes a shell of its former self. That’s the United Kingdom.

After the Second World War, Britain turned increasingly toward nationalization, public ownership, welfare expansion, the banks, coal industry, rail, electricity, gas, steel, transportation, healthcare. It all came under state management, state provision. And obviously the war played an influence. They had been dragged through this awful experience and endured bombing and loss and rationing and exhaustion. The grief of the people no doubt was palpable, but good intentions do not always promise good outcomes.

The government may begin by serving the people and end up by consuming the people. And that’s the danger of statism. It begins by saying, we have to help. And before you know it, the state has to manage life itself in all of its particulars.

If the United Kingdom, just to give you some perspective, if the United Kingdom were ranked among American states, the 50 American states, if they were ranked among the American states by GDP per person, it would fall below every U.S. state, even Mississippi. And if you think that’s bad, when you start realizing that the national figure is flattered by London, because London is still one of the world’s leading financial centers, you take away London, and this global financial center through which trillions flows through all the time, you take away that, and the rest of Britain, you can see, is in a far worse state, far worse.

You give the best possible look at it, it’s worse than Mississippi. More could be said. Again, it’s the people who suffer. The bigger a government gets, the greedier and more entitled it becomes, until the downstream influence on the nation is entirely ignored.

Now you’ve been warned of this, right? Big government, right? You don’t hear big government talked about in the United Kingdom because we’ve been conditioned. The frog in the pot as it boils has become accustomed to the climate in which it lives, though finally it’s dead. But still there’s a semblance of life here.

I come to this nation and people are concerned about the encroaching influence of government, of bigger departments and increased spending, and they don’t want it. Again, another president, Reagan, warned in his first inaugural address in 1981, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” End quote. And he pledged, you can tell me whether he actually succeeded or not, I have my doubts, to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment.

Finally, immigration policy.

This is a prickly topic. I’ll speak as one who’s lived in three nations outside of my own, and as the son of an immigrant. I had those discussions with my own father about immigration policy, and heard from him how he sees it, as an unbeliever, as an immigrant himself, warning about what was happening to the United Kingdom.

We are commanded to love the stranger. The gospel is to go to the nations. And there is to be, there is a certain place for allowing for immigration. I think most nations are enriched by it. I mean, you look at some nations that have closed down immigration, and they’re almost dying out. And, of course, immigrants have come to this land, and this is a land of immigrants, come here, worked honestly, raised families, contributed to the common good, if you like.

But it’s so key that the people coming in love and appreciate the very inheritance that they enter into, that they appreciate the inheritance they enter into.

I have no interest in raising up July 12th celebrations in the United States of America. I’m not interested. I don’t need to force down the throats of those in America the history of the Battle of the Boyne. I’m happy to come here and see the very independence of this land and its own history and enter into the legacy of it all and appreciate it.

Compassion does not require disorder. The nation may welcome the stranger and still remain a nation, but it must have borders, and it must have laws, and it must have moral order, and it must not be embarrassed to require loyalty, lawful conduct, a common language, and assimilation into the common life of the people.

We’ve been sold, and the UK has been sold so hard, the—how do you get the right word?—the enriching of multiculturalism at every cost. But it can only work where there’s assimilation. We have people who come in learning the language, seeking to understand the mentality.

We’ll even go so far—I remember my own father speaking this way—saying that it wasn’t enough for him, he believed, to learn English well, which he did. It was, I wished to eradicate the ability of someone on the other end of the phone to know where I was from, to know that I was not from the United Kingdom. Eradicate, for an accent that would give him away. He said that was far harder than learning the language. It was much more difficult than learning the language itself.

We cannot have a mentality of thinking that all these diverse moral codes and ethics will contribute to remaining as one people.

Again, the UK, after the Second World War, Britain calling for people across the Commonwealth to come and help rebuild the nation. Many of them came lawfully. They contributed. I have no issue with immigrants coming in. They choose and desire to do what’s best for them. I understand why they would do that.

But the failure, the failure of Britain is and has been the loss of its confidence in its own inheritance. She seems bent on dismantling everything that made her strong: her spirituality, her economy, her shared identity. Expand the welfare state, and so doing, allowing anyone who would walk across the border, cut across the sea, to come in and immediately receive the economic benefits of the welfare provided by the state. Well, when you do that, you give greater motivation for the kind of immigrant you don’t really want as a neighbor.

The policies of the United Kingdom have basically legalized the plundering of the nation from within, and it’ll happen here. The lack of national cohesion splinters the nation. You can see it. It’s rising even now in the United Kingdom. We’re embarrassed by the fact that you have a people with shared memories, distinct worship and laws and loyalties, shared moral imagination, if you like. And this is all meant to be a negative. We’re being indoctrinated to despise it.

People come from different lands. There are people in our own shores we would not wish on other lands. The same is true of those who come to our own shores. And I wonder about the future. I wonder, will the Constitution be enough? I fear it will not. I think this is the big danger.

My final remark, I’ll just draw to your attention the danger of a false hope. But Muslims are gonna keep coming in. Hindus and other people will keep coming in to the West. Why wouldn’t they? Here’s where the wealth is currently.

And we are not to advocate for their mistreatment. We’re not to oppose them in a way that is unjust. They have to hear the gospel. We have to love them as men and women and boys and girls made in the image of God. But we have to realize also what the message they carry in, the beliefs they carry in, are not morally neutral.

One cannot avoid asking or thinking, if all the nations in the West are eventually subjugated by Islam, what happens to the Christians? Do we believe that they can come in unhindered by the millions and it not change the fabric of the society? Do we have concern for the safety and welfare of our great-grandchildren? Would you wish yourself to be an Islamic republic or another nation that is governed by Sharia law? Would you wish it for yourself?

If our policies invite persecution to our offspring in future generations, if our policies invite their persecution, they are unjust policies. I don’t know what the answer is. I do know this: indiscriminate immigration is a threat. Join it to a welfare state, and it will destroy the nation faster than you can imagine.

You see the scenes in the United Kingdom? Entire cities overtaken. These councils, Sharia councils running parallel. Now the government doesn’t recognize them. The British government does not give them any power, but they’re running nonetheless.

Finally, her banner. Her banner.

Look at the text. I made mention of the only hope in the midst of rising tide of sin, whether from within or without, God calls the people to fear the name of the Lord from the West. Right across the world, wherever we are, anywhere, everywhere, we are to fear the name of the Lord. And we are to turn from transgression, fearing God, turning from sin, and recognizing that the only hope we have is the raising up of a standard, a banner, that the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up this opposition.

What does He raise up? What is the need for any nation, United Kingdom, America, wherever you care to name? What is the need for the nation to give prominence to it, to help it in its future?

First, raise up the Word of God. Truth has fallen in the street, we are told, and the Word of God must be raised again, not political slogans. It must be the raising up of the Word, the Scripture. The truth must be taught, instructed. Every parent, if they have any sense of concern for their nation, must act in the way that is under their control, first by the instruction of those under their care. Then our positive leavening influence of letting our light so shine before men. The Word must govern it all.

Worship. There must be worship.

I don’t believe any nation has a fighting chance against Islam that abandons the Christian Sabbath. I’m in America. The vast majority of Christians don’t want anything to do. I had a conversation on Friday. Somebody brought their child to our vacation Bible school, and they were telling me they go to a Baptist church, and they hold to nearly everything in the London Baptist Confession, except the Sabbath. And we had a good conversation, but I tried to press upon it.

Listen, you’re taking away. You’re taking away the morality of a people having a right to worship God, to have a day to worship God. So that if a state decides that you’re going to work seven days a week and you’re going to be enslaved to me, there is no prophetic call against their sin. There’s nothing to say. He’s well within his rights. There’s no moral fabric. There’s no moral—okay, we might say about, you know, breaking the seventh commandment, you know, committing adultery, that’s wrong. He shouldn’t be proposing anything or doing anything to go against that.

But if he forces you to work seven days a week, you’ve lost your voice. Now, that’s not the only argument for it. But it was interesting to see his response, just like this light going on in his head, like, oh, I’ve read widely on this subject. I’ve not heard that before.

You abandon the Sabbath, you abandon the strengthening influence of one day, God being honored with one day. If you can’t honor God with your time, you’re not honoring God. And one of the ways a society says they honor God with their time is they give Him the first day of the week.

Worship. Worship. We must raise worship. It must be common to worship. We must give ourselves, yes, to the Lord’s Day, yes, to prayer, yes, to preaching and the sacraments. We must give ourselves to all the means of grace.

There’s also repentance. There must be this turning from transgression. It’s key to the standard being raised up. The Spirit of God comes and works on behalf of those who turn from transgression.

We can be a people proud of our past, we can be eloquent about knowing our history, we can wax eloquent about all the virtues of the pilgrims who came here or the scenario of the establishment of the nation itself. You can go all of that and yet if you do not repent of personal sin, you’re part of the problem.

There has to be repentance.

And then, of course, there is the inclusion of the Redeemer. “The Redeemer shall come to Zion,” preaching up the personal Word of Christ, preaching the finished work.

There is no hope for America if she abandons, if her streets no longer hear the voice of the street preacher, if on her corners are not erected buildings for the preaching of the gospel, if she stops sending missionaries both to home and abroad, if the gospel is no longer declared, it is over and it’s only a matter of time.

America, 250. She’s on an edge. She has decisions to make. And judgment must begin at the house of God.

I’ve said this before, I believe it. You don’t care about your community and you don’t care about your nation if you never frequent a prayer meeting to pray for it.

I trust as God gives me years, and His kind providence will permit me to be a preacher of the gospel in this nation, that I may contribute some good. I’ve learned to love her. Oh, there are things at times you go, that’s a little odd. You know, I remember the first time I came here, 16, and to tip was 10%. Okay, well, I had to get my head around tipping. Well, okay, 10%. Now I go and they want 35%. I’m like, can you not just pay your employees more?

But then I get little reminders. In the midst of summer, the blessing of air conditioning. France and parts of Europe right now are burning up in the heat. No AC, no relief.

I love it here. If I leave this place, it will not be by my own choosing. But I will not whitewash your sins, for I will not help you if I do so.

America needs Christ.

Let’s bow together in prayer.

Pray for your nation. Take ownership of her welfare and beseech the God of heaven to show her mercy.

Lord, show mercy. Show mercy. At times we see little tokens that give us great encouragement. I have lived to experience in many states to observe for myself the wonderful reversal in the matter of abortion. To hear just the other day of the reading of Scripture in Texas schools and other little changes that even a number of years ago would have seemed beyond possibility.

We beseech Thee, God in heaven, show mercy to these shores. Forgive her many sins. Remove all the wicked influences that multiply her crimes. And may she be known by a unified conscience of fearing God, keeping His commandments, and loving Thy Son. Hear prayer.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God, now and evermore. Amen.