Flames That Threaten America
July 4th sermon
Chuck Sligh
July 5, 2015
(Adapted from a sermon by the same title by Tim Patrick on SermonCentral.com)
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation of this sermon is available upon request by emailing me at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
TEXT: Turn in your Bibles, please, to Isaiah 9
INTRODUCTION
How many of you have ever been near a fire that was raging uncontrollably? It’s a scary sight, I’ll tell you.
Illus. – Back in 2004 our family took a trip to Provence, France. We had heard been warned of massive wildfires in the area we were going through, but decided to go anyway to get to our destination—Marseilles. For a good portion of that day’s trip we drove through a broad valley, and on the eastern side we could see the hills afire, probably more than a mile or two from where we were, but close enough to be scary. You could see the flames rising up and massive amounts of smoke rising from them. Fire is a frightening thing because it is so dangerous.
In the Bible, we find wickedness compared to a fire.
Look with me at our text in Isaiah 9:18-19 – “For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. 19 Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.”
The reason I use this text is because we Americans celebrated Independence Day yesterday. I love my country, but I wonder how much longer it has before its glories are a thing of the past. When we look at how God dealt with Israel, the comparisons to America are uncanny. I believe that the same fires which destroyed Israel may well be flickering in the background in America.
Today, let’s examine three conditions that were present when God judged the nation of Israel and see what warnings they teach us today.
I. THE FIRST CONDITION WAS A PEOPLE FILLED WITH PRIDE. – Go back earlier in Isaiah 9 and look at verses 9 and 10 – “And all the people shall know even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, 10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars”
God was sending judgment on the Israelites. They made two mistakes.
• First, they ignored the cause of the calamities.
• Second, they arrogantly boasted that they would rebuild. – It is as if they thought they did not need God.
The Bible says a lot of bad things about pride:
• Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. (Prov. 16:18)
• 1 Peter 5:5 – “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”
• And Proverbs 29:23 says, “A man's pride shall bring him low, but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.”
I could give you countless examples, but suffice it to say, God hates pride.
As I look at America, I see an extremely proud people. I’m not talking about patriotic pride of being American, which is good and healthy. I’m talking about the arrogance we have to think that we can defy God; ignore His Word; mock His moral code; kill our unborn; promote that which is evil and perverted and debauched; ignore our politicians’ corruption as long as they’re “on our side,” that we can outlaw prayer in schools. In our pride and arrogance we have abandoned biblical principles; we have fallen headlong into an ethos of hedonism; we have embraced, celebrated and now even enshrined in law what God calls an abomination. And then we wonder why the foundations of our country are crumbling around us; why crime is soaring; why ISIS and Russia and China are all on the ascendency and America and its allies are declining in power and influence.
Listen to what Abraham Lincoln said of us almost 150 years ago:
“We’ve grown in numbers and wealth and power as no other nation has grown…We’ve vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our own hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient…,too proud to pray to the God that made us.” (As quoted in America, Return to God, edited by Thomas Wang, p. 80.)
Or listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 2:1-5 “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.”
If America continues to go the way of the heathen nations, do not be surprised if God laughs and mocks us in our foolish pride, and speaks to us in his wrath, and vexes us with His severe displeasure.
America, WAKE UP and repent before it is too late!
II. A SECOND CONDITION WAS INTERNAL CONFUSION.
Look at verse 16 of Isaiah 9 – “For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.” The phrase “they that are led of them are destroyed” literally means, “those who are guided by them are brought to confusion.” Without the moral compass of the Bible, the Israelite leaders devolved into a babble of confusion. Does this sound familiar?
In verse 19, when we’re told that God’s anger would fuel the fire of judgment against Israel, Isaiah says, “no man shall spare his brother.” This refers to anarchy. Because there was ungodly leadership from their national leaders, there was confusion and anarchy among the Israelites.
Quote: Back in 1992, Dr. James Dobson wrote, “We are involved in nothing less than a civil war of values—a collision between two ways of seeing life. This is not an issue of two alternatives from which to choose, but a life and death struggle. One value system is going to predominate. One is going to rule the country.” (James Dobson as quoted in America, Return to God; edited by Thomas Wang; p. 97.)
The lunacy of some of the answers of some of our leaders defies credulity.
Illus. – Recently a new approach to delinquency adopted by several large U.S. public school systems, including the Los Angeles Public School District, decrees that students cannot be suspended or expelled from school for “willful defiance.” The idea is to keep delinquents in school so that they’re not deprived of an education. But anyone with a brain could tell you that this is a just a recipe destined to produce smarter criminals!
These schools have become anarchic prisons where teachers and students are held hostage by thugs from elementary school up through high school who now run rampant and can do anything they want. While their leaders “cause them to err, those who are led of them are brought to confusion.”
God’s Word has a simple answer that makes sense to anyone with half a whit of common sense. – Proverbs 22:10 says, “Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.”
I could spend hours giving you examples of this kind of madness, but you get the idea.
III. A THIRD CONDITION WAS A PROGRESSIVE WORSENING OF WICKEDNESS. – Notice verse 18 – “For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.”
Illus. – When I was a boy, I was in the Boy Scouts. I remember going out on a scout jamboree, a gigantic gathering of Boy Scouts from around the country, where we all camped out in tents. During that time, they taught us how to start a campfire. We were taught to take dried grass, twigs, paper and the like for our kindling. Once we got those items burning we would move to sticks and progressively move to larger items until we were able to place big logs on the fire.
Fires always start small, but if not controlled, grow exponentially in size and danger.
Illus. – In 1947, Harvard sociologist and historian Dr. Carl Zimmerman studied the deterioration and ultimate disintegration of various cultures and published his findings in his scholarly book, Family and Civilization. His research showed conclusively that there is a definite pattern to the rise and fall of every great nation, empire, and civilization. Zimmerman asserted that the very same patterns appear in every single case, without fail or significant variance. He discovered eight common elements that were present in every culture that disintegrated and declined.
This was in 1947, and Susan and I remember Dr. Wyman Porter telling us these things in our Bible classes in the Christian college we attended in the 1970s. They seemed far-fetched to us then, though we could see the trends even then. Listen to these eight common elements of every civilization at the cusp of its destruction:
• One, marriage lost its sacredness; it was frequently broken by divorce.
• Two, the traditional meaning of the marriage ceremony was lost. Alternate forms and definitions of marriage arose, and traditional marriage vows were replaced by individual marriage contracts.
• Three, women lost interest in child bearing and mothering, preferring to pursue power and influence.
• Four, public disrespect for parents and authority in general increased.
• Five, juvenile delinquency, promiscuity, and rebellion accelerated.
• Six, people with traditional marriages refused to accept family responsibilities.
• Seven, desire for and acceptance of adultery grew.
• And eight, there was an increased tolerance for sexual perversions of all kinds, particularly homosexuality, with a resultant increase in sex-related crimes. (Carle Zimmerman, Family and Civilization, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947. pp 776-77.)
All of these have been slowly but surely growing like a cancer in our society for the last 60 years, and just ten days ago, the United States Supreme Court tied it up into a neat little bow in its gay marriage ruling. As we watch the rise of our enemies from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and whatever flavor of the day of radical Islamic terror (Al Queda yesterday; ISIS today), do we have the moral fortitude to stand against the barbarians at our door? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
CONCLUSION
Well, what can we do? I would suggest two things we can do as God’s people:
• First, we can get involved in reshaping our nation.
I believe that every citizen has a responsibility to vote. If ever our voice needed to be heard, it’s now. Knowing that the next president will probably appoint one to three of the next Supreme Court Justices, which, let’s face it, is really the only body of government that counts anymore, it’s all the more crucial to vote for those who stand biblical principles, and who will appoint judges that uphold biblical principles.
One well-known preacher said this:
“If our country survives---and I realize that’s a big IF---it will be because there is an awakening in the lives of committed Christians across our nation who finally begin to realize that it is not only their opportunity but also their absolute responsibility to be intricately involved in the political process of our country and to use that involvement to turn this nation once again to the Lord.
For much too long we have allowed our government to grow father and farther away from the direction that God has always demanded our nation take. At the same time we have yielded the control of our country to a godless, secular, humanistic philosophy that has absolutely sapped the strength and spiritual vitality America has always had. Never before, in the history of Christendom, have so many believers been willing to forfeit their liberty and freedom without even putting up a struggle.” (Richard Hogue as quoted in America, Return to God; edited by Thomas Wang; p. 127.)
But can I be honest with you? As important as this is, and it is important, it’s not enough because, folks, in the end the battle for the soul of our country is not a physical battle. It’s a spiritual battle which leads me to my second personal application of today’s sermon:
• That is that we should apply the 2 Chronicles 7:14 principle.
We’re fond of talking about all the sins of everyone else out there in society, but God teaches that a nation’s revival begins with HIS people.
Listen to 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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.”
How might we see a great healing of our land?—When GOD’S people humble themselves, pray, seek God, and turn from our sinful ways. Only then will we hear from heaven; only then will God forgive our sin; and only then will God heal our land.
Brethren, it’s happened before, and it can happen again. Twice in our history, the U.S. slipped into moral decay, though never to the degree that we have today.
By the early 1700s, the moral rectitude of our Pilgrim and Puritan founders gave way to moral laxity and sin. But many of God’s people humbled themselves and prayed to God and sought God diligently and passionately and turned from sin. And God raised up powerful preachers like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and John Wesley who called God’s people to repentance in what became known as the First Great Awakening. There was widespread revival, conversions of whole communities, and a return to godly living. Many scholars see the First Great Awakening as the precursor to the American Revolution.
Again, after the Civil War, America became a fat, greedy, voracious nation, devolving into moral decline again. But a group of believers in some churches of New England began to pray for another revival. They humbled themselves, and prayed earnestly and repented of sin. Again, God raised up great men like D.L. Moody, Wilbur Chapman and G. Campbell Morgan who carried on great revivals that had long lasting effects on society.
God has done it in the past, and if He tarries His coming again, He could do it again if GOD’S people all over the nation follows this formula.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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.”
