MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, kANSAS, OK
(Powerpoint slides used with this message are available at no charge. Just e-mail me at mnewland@sstelco.com with your request - #236.)
A. There are two verses of Scripture that I think are very important for us not only to hear, but to remember. The first one is Proverbs 14:34 - “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
And the second is Psalm 33:12 - “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance.”
ILL. Some of you may remember that 11 years ago last week, by a 2-1 vote, a 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional.
They ruled that the phrase “one nation under God” in the pledge was an “endorsement of religion” & thus violated what those 2 judges stated was the “constitutional mandate of a wall of separation between church & State.”
Now, folks, there are several things that are absolutely & historically false about that statement. And I want to deal with that in just a few minutes.
But first, it was interesting to witness the reactions throughout our nation to their ruling. I’ve never seen the vast majority of Americans so united against a judicial ruling as it was against that one.
President Bush was the first to speak out, & he called it “ridiculous.” Not to be outdone, a number of Senators called for a vote on it. And whenever the Senate votes 99-0 about anything it is time to take notice! Then the House of Represen-tatives voted unanimously to condemn the ruling also.
To top it all off, Judge Alfred Goodwin, one of the two judges who issued the ruling, decided to order a “stay” on its implementation – which meant that until the court said differently, everything went back to the way it was before the ruling was made.
All of this uproar started because a California atheist claimed that his daughter was being traumatized by hearing her classmates say the word “God” in her presence.
Then it was discovered that the daughter wasn’t bothered by the word at all. In fact, her mother said that she & her daughter regularly went to church together. Also, that her daughter readily joined in with other students in saying “one nation under God” when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance!
B. Now this reminds me of that time in the Bible when the brothers of Joseph, after the death of their father, were so afraid that Joseph would take revenge upon them for the terrible things they had done to him when he was young.
They begged for his forgiveness & the Bible says in Genesis 50:18-20 that they “…came & threw themselves down before him. ‘We are your slaves,’ they said. But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?
‘You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done…” (Genesis 50:18-20)
C. Did you hear that? “You intended it for evil, but God used it for good!” I believe that was exactly the result of that ruling 11 years ago we have been talking about.
Do you remember some of the things that happened as a result of that ruling? For example, when that ruling was made known we saw on television almost all of the Senators & Representatives rushing to the capitol steps in order to be seen reciting the Pledge together, including the words “one nation under God.”
The very next morning, instead of the usual almost empty chamber for the opening prayer, with TV cameras running, almost every seat was full. That day, at least, they wanted the voters to see that they were there when the chaplain was calling upon God in prayer for our nation, & our nation’s leaders.
That was 11 years ago. And I reminded you of it this morning just to point out how much things have changed for the worse in such a short time.
The simple act of declaring that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it contained the words “under God” raised such a furor in the media that it didn’t take long for the courts to reverse that ruling.
D. But today a lot has changed. Just look at the rulings made by the Supreme Court during the last two weeks - & how uncritically the media reacted to them!
ILL. How about what happened in Texas just this last week! The Texas Legislature was deciding whether to limit late-term abortions. And outside of their building pro-life & pro-abortion groups were carrying signs proclaiming their opinions.
What have you heard in the main-stream media about what happened there? Or did you hear anything at all about what happened? Well, let me tell you. The pro-life group was singing “Amazing Grace.” And the pro-abortion group was trying to drown out their singing.
And how were they trying to drown out the singing of “Amazing Grace”? By shouting over & over again as loud as they could, “Hail Satan, Hail Satan, Hail Satan.” And one of the pro-abortion demonstrators shouted, “Mary should have had an abortion!” Mary should have aborted Jesus!
Eleven years ago such actions would have been reported by the main-stream media, & there would have been almost universal condemnation. But now the media seems deliberately to ignore it when Christians & Christian values are attacked.
It is obvious, isn’t it, that we have come a long ways from the faith & heritage of our Founding Fathers?
They were the ones who proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from God – that men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty & the pursuit of Happiness.”
In a sense, the basic framework of our country grew out of this concept of God-given rights. But take God out, as so many have tried to do, & we are left with a nation whose freedoms stem from nothing more than the whims of those in power, a concept the framers of our Constitution absolutely rejected.
But in the early 1960’s the U.S. Supreme Court removed both prayer & the Bible from public schools. Then, in 1966, Time Magazine declared that God was dead. And that was just the beginning!
ILL. Thomas Segal wrote, “In a nation where the vast majority of citizens profess their belief in God, our courts have ruled there is no place for His word, His praise, or His glory in any public place from the schoolroom to the city park.”
E. By the way, a few minutes ago I promised to say something more about the often-repeated statement that our Constitution mandates a “wall of separation between church & State.” And it wouldn’t be hard to spend all the time I have left this morning talking about that.
ILL. But let me just quote what 3 of the highest judges in our land have written on that subject, & then I’ll get on to the main point of my sermon.
New York Judge Gallagher wrote, “Much has been written in recent years ... about ‘a wall of separation between church & state.’ ...[This statement] has received so much attention that one would almost think at times that it is to be found somewhere in our Constitution.”
But folks, it isn’t. Those words aren’t anywhere in our Constitution.
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote, “I think that the Court’s task . . . is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the ‘wall of separation,’ a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution.”
And when he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist wrote, “But the greatest injury of the ‘wall’ notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights... (1)
“The ‘wall of separation between church & State’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly & explicitly abandoned.”
So folks, the next time you hear anyone say that our Constitution mandates a ‘wall of separation between church & State’ realize that they are just parroting an often-heard but absolutely false statement.
ILL. Was it Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda who said, “If you tell a lie long enough, & loud enough, & often enough you can make people believe anything”? Well, that is exactly what has happened with the phrase, “wall of separation between church & State.”
F. I think you have gotten my point. In the brief time we have left, let’s get on to the 2 Scriptures we mentioned at the beginning of this sermon. They were:
“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people,” and “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance.”
As we consider those verses, we could go in 2 different directions: We could mention many of the things going wrong in our country, & why God should bring His judgment down upon us. But that is not what I want to do.
PROP. Instead, let’s recall some of the things America did that have made her great, & have called down the blessings of God upon her. And, as a result, I hope this sermon will make you eager to make our nation right with God & great once more.
“Why should God bless America?” Because we have been a good nation. We have tried to do the right things. “Righteousness exalts a nation: but sin is a disgrace to any people”
I. GOD HAS BLESSED AMERICA BECAUSE WE ARE A GENEROUS PEOPLE
I’m convinced that in the past God has blessed America because we have been a generous people. The United States has never been a selfish nation. From the beginning, our Christian foundation has led us to care about & to help others.
Jesus told us to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). And the apostle Paul told us, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20).
ILL. Back in 1973, Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator, delivered this editorial on his TV program. And it created a lot of comment. It was even put into the Congressional Record. Let me read part of it to you.
“This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous & possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
“Germany, Japan &, to a lesser extent, Britain & Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars & forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
“When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, & their reward was to be insulted & swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
“When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
“The Marshall Plan & the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
“When the railways of France, Germany & India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. But when the Pennsylvania Railroad & the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them even an old caboose.
“I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to help Americans in trouble?
“Our American neighbors have faced it alone, & I’m one Canadian who is… tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
II. GOD HAS BLESSED AMERICA BECAUSE RIGHT MAKES MIGHT
Secondly, I’m convinced God has blessed America because right makes might. Terrorists live by the opposite principle. They think that if they have bombs, & are willing to die to use them, that they can terrify their enemy into submission. They think their might makes them right.
But America has always believed just the opposite. Think of this small struggling nation in the 1700s. We were a nation of farmers. We didn’t have the industrial factories of Britain - we depended on her for our supplies. And we depended on Britain’s army & navy for our protection.
So when it came to the American Revolution, we had none of the ingredients to win except we had “right” on our side. And remember, right makes might.
In our little log cabin schools children received a basic education in reading, writing & arithmetic; but most importantly, they also learned what was right from the Word of God.
Because our founding fathers believed they were right, they waged war. The 13 Colonies had few armaments & limited resources. They faced the largest army & navy in the world at that time, & the largest empire in history, the British Empire, & defeated them.
Out of that conflict our founding fathers produced the Declaration of Indepen-dence & the Constitution of the United States that gave the greatest amount of freedom to the greatest number of people.
And the United States grew to give the greatest good to all mankind. Why? Because they believed that right makes might.
Look at all the wars the United States has fought & compare them to the wars of other nations. Think of the empires that have gone to war to gain territory & wealth: Spain, France, & the other European nations.
But the United States has refused to get rich off the wars she wins. Our nation even turns around to give to those we defeat, & build back up the nations who have attacked us.
The American experience of freedom & liberty has been tested in every century & in almost every generation: from George Washington in Valley Forge, to Abraham Lincoln, to Ronald Reagan who challenged Russia, “Tear down this wall!”
It seems that there have always been challenges to American freedom, & today we’re being challenged again. I’m convinced that the only way we can win is to remember that right makes might.
It’s not getting God on our side that is important. We must be on God’s side, & if we are, then God will bless America again.
III. GOD HAS BLESSED AMERICA BECAUSE CHRISTIANS ARE TRYING TO CARRY OUT THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Finally, (& I’m drawing this to a close because we’re running out of time), I believe that God has blessed America because Christians in this country are trying to carry out the Great Commission.
When Jesus said, “Go into all the world & preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15), the church has taken that command seriously.
From the very beginning of our colonies the settlers sought to reach out to the Indians & others with the Gospel of Christ. But since World War 2 in particular, the United States Center for World Missions in Pasadena, CA, reports that there have been more than 600,000 career missionaries who have gone out to almost every part of the world.
And what did these missionaries do? Obviously, they went to evangelize & win people to Christ. In the process they established hospitals, orphanages, clinics, agricultural centers, schools, colleges & seminaries all over the world.
And some of them have paid the ultimate price for their dedication to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
CONCL. In closing, if you are truly concerned about America; if you earnestly want God to bless her – then it is time to commit yourself fully to live a life in harmony with the will of God.
INVITATION:
1 Quotes from “Original Intent” by David Barton, WallBuilder Press, Aledo, TX, 1999 - Pg. 14
* Credit: The basic idea for a portion of this message came from an excellent sermon by Jerry Falwell
