God’s Word is the only answer to those who call evil good. It is only through His Word that lost sinners
may come to know God’s saving grace. Yet,
as we take God’s Word forth, we face an increasingly resistant and determined
foe.
Unlike any other nation in the world, America
was founded upon Christ and His Word. In
His sovereign providence, God established this land of America – a nation
unique in the history of the world – the first nation to have freedom of
religion. At the time of our founding, religious
tyranny prevailed all over the globe.
Only in America was full religious freedom granted for the very first
time. Here God established a nation
founded by the Pilgrims and the Puritans who came with evangelical
Christianity. Here the Bible was
believed and the gospel was preached.
Today our Christian foundation is under assault. Some in our country gnash their teeth at the
idea that this is a Christian nation and will not be satisfied until they have
removed every vestige of our Christian heritage from this nation. America has become a nation that glorifies
violence, illicit sex, and rebellion.
She has forgotten its true founder.
The founders of this country had many reasons
to believe the LORD God was establishing them here and scattering their enemies
from before them. The sovereign God
declares about Himself through Isaiah the prophet:
I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me that people may know, from the rising of
the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and
there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and
create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:5-7 ESV)
To achieve His sovereign purposes, God gave His people victory
over His enemies, especially in circumstances that here humanly
impossible. We see this over and over
again in the Bible. The early Americans believed
that God helped them repeatedly. Without
His help, they could not have settled their colonies or even survived in the
difficult conditions in this initially hostile land. They certainly could not have defeated the
greatest military power in the world with a ragtag army of farmers.
In 1778 George Washington wrote a letter to a fellow patriot,
Thomas Nelson Jr., in which he marveled at how much the Lord was helping the
American cause. General Washington said
that God has helped us so much that anyone who can’t see that and can’t thank
Him must be worse than an unbeliever.
Today, it is difficult to say we are still a Christian
nation.
The Pew Research Center recently reported that the number of
Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid
pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are
religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew research
polling.
In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from
just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include
more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics, as well as nearly
33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation.
Current research by the Barna Group revealed that only 9% of all
American adults have a biblical worldview.
A “biblical worldview” is defined as believing that absolute moral
truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it
teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic;
a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or by doing
good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing,
all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.
The Barna Group also observed that less than one out of every five
adults who profess to be born-again Christians have a biblical worldview.
The research data showed that one pattern
emerged loud and clear: young adults rarely possess a biblical worldview. The
current study found that less than one-half of one percent of young adults,
those aged 18 to 23, have a biblical worldview, compared to about one out of
every nine older adults.
If God is sovereign, declaring the end from
the beginning – how is it that it seems the world is flying apart? Habakkuk cried out to God:
O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or
cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes
forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.
(Habakkuk 1:2-4 ESV)
Lately, offending Christians is what passes for entertainment
these days on major television network programs and motion pictures. And this is happening as America continues in
an economic malaise that has shrunk household wealth to levels not seen since
the early 1990’s. Yet, the LORD has
entrusted to us his resources needed to take his Gospel to the ends of the
world. By His providential grace, we are
not standing on a dusty dirt road in Namibia or Kenya or Tanzania waiting for
someone to bring us the good news of Christ Jesus.
God is sovereign – but we have a responsibility. Hear God’s
Word in Acts 13:
As they
went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next
Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout
converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them,
urged them to continue in the grace of God.
The next Sabbath almost the whole
city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds,
they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul,
reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary
that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the
Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,
“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
And when the Gentiles heard this,
they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:42-48 ESV)
Writing under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, Luke affirms the sovereignty of God over all of life while at the same
time affirming the significance of human activity, as evidenced by the
remarkable human effort and sacrifice involved in proclaiming the gospel. Again, God is sovereign – but we have a
responsibility to take His Word to the ends of the earth.
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature (Mark 16:15).” Our LORD grieves
over the destruction of the lost, “…for I have no pleasure in the death of one
who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live! (Ezekiel 18:32)”
Our Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all
should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
Jeremiah 17:15: Behold,
they say to me, “Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come!”
Are we doing EVERYTHING we can to send the Word?
We cannot give up – we cannot quit. The LORD God called us to walk in this work
of reaching His lost. We are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared
beforehand. Hear God’s word in 2
Timothy: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of
Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of
this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
There is much more work to be done, and the
urgency increases with each passing day.
I appeal to you by the mercies of God:
be a good soldier; pleasing Him who enlisted you. May God bless you as you continue to serve
Him.
David Curry is a Ruling Elder at Center Grove Presbyterian Church and former State President of the Gideon's ministry.
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