�The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty...� Isaiah 61:1a
Realizing that this is the World Wide Web, I apologize to those who are not from the U.S. for my choice of subject matter this week. July the 4th is one of our high civic holidays in this country. With that in mind I am drawing upon a little bit of our local history to consider the purposes of God.
This isn�t always a bad thing - although I don�t believe it should be the normal manner of preaching. The Word of God is timeless and everlasting, unlike the course of our temporal nations. But, I do believe that we can explain the spiritual things which we have not seen by using the example of physical things that we have seen.
Jesus did this sort of thing in John, chapter three, when He reminded Nichodemus of the physical healing that was engendered through looking in faith at the bronze serpent which God told Moses to lift up in the wilderness. Jesus used this example of natural history, found in Scripture, to prophecy of His impending death on the cross.
What I am doing here is a little worse, however. I am taking the verse out of context. The context of the verse is that the Messiah would come to offer salvation. A little more than that is involved, but this is the broad overview.
I do not believe, however, that I am doing violence to the principle of Scripture. The principle is that the coming Messiah would lead the people into a new walk of righteousness before God.
We can trace our nation�s history as a sovereign state to July 4, 1776, when the proclamation was made that our representatives had signed a document called the �Declaration of Independence.� This document made us something new. Whereas before we had been colonies of Great Britain, we had now joined the commonwealth of free states upon the earth.
Of course, our representatives just saying it was so did not make it so. We had to go through the process of the Revolutionary War to enable that statement to become fact.
I might also note that we would have been unable to effect this change by ourselves. Other nations, most notably France, came to our aid or we would have failed in our effort.
That is somewhat like our Christian lives. We did not become Christians simply because we said we were such. We could not have done so. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that in the matter of our salvation, �...we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.� Our good works, or good intentions, have nothing to do with obtaining our salvation. These can only be a result of that salvation.
First, we made a Proclamation of our Cause in the Declaration of Independence. Many people do not like to acknowledge the fact today, but we based the entire premise of our free society on an appeal to Deity. The Declaration of Independence is rife with such appeals. Indeed, if we were to remove these appeals from the Declaration we would be left with a very short writing without authority or continuity.
Such is our salvation. We Christians, who were as are all men - the servants of Satan in our natural state, were able to declare our freedom from the stranglehold of sin only because of an appeal to Deity. Without our acceptance of the work of Jesus Christ, and His Lordship in our lives, we would not have been able to repatriate ourselves to the Kingdom of Heaven and from this physical world of sin.
The freedom of our nation was founded upon that Declaration of Independence. Freedom was established upon a foundation which was based upon a written word.
So also is our salvation. We have a Sure Word in the preserved Scripture. God did not hide His Revelation from the world for a thousand years, as we have been told by all too many �theologians.� He gave us a Word we could trust to found our spiritual lives upon, and to guide our physical lives as we dwell in these bodies of clay.
Whereas the Declaration of Independence gave notice to the rest of the world that we were a free nation, the Scriptures of God give counsel to us - the Christian - as to how to conduct our daily lives as free men and women in a world of sin.
The Declaration had notified our �Mother Country� that we had a new relationship with her. The Scripture gives us the glorious notification that we have a new relationship with the God of the Universe.
In our march to national independence we had to make a Prosecution of our Cause. We fought our Revolutionary War to gain that independence. As Christians we do not have to fight a war to gain our freedom from sin. That war to gain freedom from sin was won by Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. Our duty is to accept the results of His victory.
Those early patriots of our nation marched into battle in defense of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. It was not an easy task but they put foot and hand to the task, and muskat as well.
As Christians we are called into a Spiritual War. Satan, we can rest assured, will not let our witness and word flow easily into the battleground of intellectual and spiritual conflict. He will fight us all the way.
We do need to be wise warriors. Too many take up arms in this Spiritual War. They fight in a carnal nature. May we constantly be reminded that we are not to �whip the enemy;� we are to �woo the lost.� Be careful lest you mistake the command to �...earnestly contend for the faith...� from Jude 3, with a call to incite conflict. We are called to take up arms. But, those arms are the arms of Jesus, open wide, to give peace to the lost.
The verse above, Jude 3, read in its entirety, says, �Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.�
We contend for the faith �once delivered.� If a pastor, evangelist, or even a �theologian� comes with the message that God wasn�t powerful enough to preserve His Word, or that it was somehow lost to the faithful for any number of years, we should stand up and say, �No! God gave us a secure Word. He said that Hell and all her forces could not destroy the Message of that Word.�
We do not look for new doctrinal stances; we look for old Biblical assurances. I just read today that a major denomination was ready to give its approval to �gay,� so-called, marriages. Why, if this is proper, did not churchmen of the past champion the issue? It is because they based their doctrinal stance upon the revealed Word of God. Today we have a very sad theology which is based more on cultural leading than on the leading of the Holy Spirit of God as revealed through the Preserved Word of God.
Now, I have nothing against the homosexual. I really don�t. Most of those which I have known I have been happy to call �friend.� Does that mean that I condone that lifestyle? No. I can not condone what God has condemned.
In the meantime I am reminded that I am an old and fat guy! What does the Word say about sloth and gluttony? Now I done quit preaching and started a meddlin�. I had better not begin to feel superior to anyone! The only good thing I can say about myself is that I am a child of the King through the grace of the Father!
We need to contend for the faith. God�s doctrine is worth standing for even when we stand against some intellectual theologians. That is especially true when they put more faith in their intellect and theology than they do in God and His Holy Word!
I am not against theologians or learning. I have five degrees myself. But, I can acknowledge that I will never understand more than the God Who created Heaven and Earth and all that is therein. I�d better just trust Him - even on those few instances when I feel like I want to disagree. Remember Jonah? Read his book; it�s only four short chapters. We remember him today not because of his great intellect or social ideals; we remember him because he honored God (finally!) even when he disagreed!
We need to contend for the faith!
The Revolutionary War was not an easy time for all those soldiers. Remember Valley Forge? Many of those soldiers were walking through the snow in their bare feet. They were ill clothed, ill fed, ill paid, and ill housed. Yet, they continued! They understood the importance of that for which they were fighting. Their will to win the prize often kept them going when their bodies were ready to quit.
There are some hardships for the Christian soldier in this day. We are given problems from our own government over the prosecution of our cause. The first amendment to our constitution has been turned on its head. The prohibition that congress could not establish a national church - which was clearly the meaning of that amendment! - has been used to banish all legal mention of the God Who was the purpose of our cause in the Declaration of Independence. A piece of paper with the Ten Commandments, a historical reality of the culture of the day during our fight for independence, or the simple singing of a �Christmas Carol� at a school function is called the �establishment of religion!�
How can one establish that which is already in existence? A national church, such as the one proscribed in the first amendment, would have levied a tax to support itself. What we have now is the establishment of a secular faith which does that taxation. And, as would any state backed religion, this faith seeks to suppress any religion which might compete with it. This �secularization� of the public life is itself an establishment of a �religion� in a real sense!
In the end, when the Revolutionary War was completed. The victory was won. We had secured that national sovereignty which we had claimed back in 1776.
Christian, you are on the winning side. Often it appears that the days are dark. We know that our feet are �...shod with the preparation of the gospel...� (Ephesians 6:15), but our socks sure seem cold and wet! Paul said to, �...endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.� (II Timothy 2:3)
We win in the end! In the meantime, be all that you can be for your Savior. You owe it to Him. You also owe it to your fellow human who stands in need, whether he ever understands it or not, of that same saving grace which has been issued you from the Throne of Grace. Jesus offered that grace to mankind. Who are we to refuse to take His Message?
After the Revolutionary War came the time of the new nation�s effective governance. We moved into the Perpetuity of our Constitution.
We had our Declaration of Independence; and we continued to honor it. We still do! But, we soon realized that there was more to this idea of �nationhood� than simply saying it was so. We needed a Constitution that would give means to our lives as free men. Some regulation was needed lest the tyranny of the strongest overwhelm the ability of free men to freely act.
It is the same with the Christian, in a sense. We glory in the thought of our salvation. We never grow beyond the wonder that God could possibly love us enough to send His Son to die on a cross to freely give us this salvation.
But, as we continually read and study His Word we find that there is so much more. His love extends beyond even Calvary. He cares about our lives. He continues to give us meaning to our day to day lives. We find that the New Birth leads to a New Life.
Even before the Constitution was a reality, the nation began to present itself before the rest of the world as a new nation. We attempted to take our place among the community of mankind.
So also must the Christian never forget that he is also part of this world even while being a citizen of the next. Even while living with the glorious expectation that Christ could return at any moment, we must continue to work and plan as though He were not coming back for another thousand years! We need to do this in both the physical planning and the spiritual planning of our lives and endeavors.
To sum up in closing: We need to realize, as Christians, that we are the children of God. May we act like who we are. Whereas Adam and Eve had turned their backs on God in the temptation of the Garden, we were allowed the privilege of turning back to God through the wooing of the Holy Spirit and the death of Jesus Christ. What joy and honor is ours!
We need to begin to live a new life in Jesus Christ. We have thrown off our old master, Satan, and have the energizing of God within our souls. Our weakness is simply an opportunity to see His power!
We also need to publish these truths to the world at large. Some people may tell us we can not speak of Jesus. Our own timidity may tell us we can not speak of Jesus. But, God has told us He will give us the power and ability to speak of Jesus. Which of the three will you trust?
Many people in this nation are discussing that our borders are too porous. They say that too many �illegal aliens� are being allowed to cross those borders. Well, the border to the Kingdom of God is wide open. Everyone who would wish to enter may freely do so. The problem is that there is only one pass through this mountainous region. It is a straight path. It is a narrow path. But, to attempt to take any other route is to fail and to die in the rugged and unfamiliar terrain of this spiritual walk.
Jesus, see John 14:5, is the only Way to enter. Notice that He did not say He would show the way. He said that He IS the way.
If you are not a Christian, if you have never received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, why not? Jesus stands now, with his arms wide open, ready to receive you into His love. Accept Him. It�ll be the best decision you will ever make!