Reclaiming America for Christ

Reclaiming America for Christ – April 11, 2013

 

What has happened to America?  What have we become?  Have we become the nation that our forefathers had pledged their sacred honor?  Would they be disappointed in what we have become?

 

Some of you know, I am a firm believer that America was founded on Christian principles … by Christian men and women.  And I’m (by no means) alone in that conviction.

 

Ronald Reagan said this on February 9, 1982 at the National Religious Broadcasters Annual Convention (almost 30-years ago to the day): “It’s been written that the most sublime figure in American history was George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge.  He personified a people who knew that it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness, that they must seek help from God – their Father and Preserver.  Where did we begin to lose sight of that noble beginning, of our convictions that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to?”

 

Lest I be accused of only referencing a Republican president, here is what Harry Truman said: “I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.”

 

How true!  Our country once lived by God’s teachings.  We had that old fashioned “Can Do Attitude” – that optimism that seemed to get us through all the difficulties that the world tossed our way.  Where do you suppose Americans gained that “Can Do Attitude”?  I believe it was from Scripture as found in Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”  America once believed that our strength came from above; and by acknowledging it – came many blessings to our Great Nation.  I believe we were once at a place in America when we could admit that we were weak … in order to draw strength from God.  And this is something that we still need to do today. 

 

As I look at our nation, I see politicians and people that have given up on God.  The once great nation deemed as a Christian nation by our forefathers is now considered by our current president as the direct opposite.  On April 7, 2009, President Obama commented during a press conference in Turkey in which, speaking for Americans, he said that, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation - at least, not just.  We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”

 

That phrase – “Whatever we once were… ” reveals just how far separated from God our country has become.  We have quit on God; and it began long before this administration.  We quit on God by kicking Him out of our schools; by eradicating Him from the sphere of our government; by removing Him from influencing our lives.

50 years ago, I believe the majority of Americans would never have imagined we would have become what we have become today.  We are a product of our own demise.  We became complacent and comfortable; we became tolerant and accepting.  The bottom line is: We Quit!  We quit living as a Christian nation (years ago) … long before liberalism got its foothold in our society.  We quit when we placed God second to everything else in our lives.  We quit when we became afraid to speak His name in public.

I, like many of you, love our country; and I believe in what America represents.  I believe that we were founded on Christ’s Love.  But unfortunately, I believe we have strayed off course.  It’s time to reclaim this nation for Christ … as One Nation Under God. 

 

If we are going to reclaim America, how are we going to do it?  I think the Scriptures are very explicit.  There are two things that need to be done.  Interestingly, they are the first and the last commandments that God gave to us.

 

I. The first one, called the Cultural Mandate, is found in Genesis 1:28, where we are told to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” and that we are to have dominion over all things.  We are appointed by God to administer His teaching to every sphere of society — not only to the individual, but to the family, the parents, the schools, the government, the arts, and everything which God has something to say about.  As we sing in the hymn – “This is my Father’s world ... ”  We are to bring His truth to bear on every sphere of society.  If we don’t, then society will do something else.  And that is precisely the problem we are in today … because we failed to fulfill that Cultural Mandate; we failed to be involved.

 

Let me ask you: Are you registered to vote?  Are you aware of the issues of our day?  Do you cast a vote?  Do you engage in the moral debates of the politicians?  For a ‘secular’ American citizen to fail to register and vote is a failure to fulfill a patriotic civic duty.  For a ‘Christian’ American citizen to do so … is not only to fail in that way … but it is to sin against God.

 

Now, I suspect a number of you are asking, “Did he just say what I thought he said?”  Yes, and I’ll say it again: For you as a Christian American citizen to fail to register and vote is a sin against God.

 

Most Americans don’t even know what a sin is … so it’s no wonder they don’t know that failure to vote is a sin.  A sin is any failure to do that which God has commanded us to do, or any doing of those things which He commanded us not to do.  Jesus commanded us, “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21) … which, at the least (in a democratic republic), means that we exercise our franchise — we register and vote.

 

Dear friend, if you are not registered and you haven’t been voting, you need to repent.  Get registered, get informed, and vote.  I hope that you will become active in our society — not only involved in voting, but in all phases of the culture in which we live.  Otherwise, views hostile to that which God has taught us in His Word will prevail … not only in education, the media, and entertainment, but also in government.  We need to be involved in all these areas.  The fact is in the pudding: had we been involved in our society and determining who will serve as our elected officials, things would be significantly different then they are today.  For too long, Christians have been sitting in the bleachers … instead of getting on the field.  And as a result, unbelievers who do not worship the true God and scorn His commandments, who want to do their own humanistic godless thing, have been more than happy to do so.

 

Seriously, my friends, what do you want for America?  Gary Bauer, who once served as president of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., said it well when he said – “I want to see an America where I don’t have to worry about date rape when my daughter goes out for the first time at college.  I want an America where, when a young man pledges to love and cherish and honor her for the rest of their lives, there’s a good chance he means it.  I want a country where children come first again and where virtue is honored; a place where values matter and the American dream is still real.  I want a country where families no longer have to hide behind barred windows, where criminals do real time and aren’t released on a whim or a technicality.  I want a place where children can play in public parks again without fear, and where adults can walk across those parks at night.  I want an America where families would spend more time being real families, not watching artificial ones [on television].  I hope for a land where love of country is seen as a virtue again.  Where the young are taught the unique blessing they have received just to have been born in such a place.  In my America, the schools would work once more.  Political correctness would be thrown out, and the goal of education would once again be to teach our children to have ‘knowing heads and loving hearts.’  In this land, racism, quotas, and special rights would be rejected, and all our children would be taught to judge their fellow citizens by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.  I see a country that respects life again, where drive-by shootings and one and a half million aborted babies each year are seen as a disaster.  Here responsibilities would be as important as rights, and a handshake would be something [once again] to rely on.  In my country, working men and women would be praised, not penalized by ever-growing government.  The truly poor would get a hand up, not a handout.”

 

This is the kind of country Bauer wants.  Question!  Is that radical?  If so, count me in.  How about you?  Is that the kind of country you would like to see in America?

 

But I hasten to add, all we can do to influence our society is not going to change human hearts.  It is going to remove the obstacles that the ungodly have brought in to oppose that changing of human hearts, but not  without a fight from the enemy of God and His people – Satan.  He will fight in every way possible to impede the progress of the Gospel of Christ.

 

You see, human nature cannot be changed by legislation.  It can only be changed by the indwelling Holy Spirit and Gospel of Christ.  We need to get government out of the way so the Gospel may go forth unimpeded today.

 

Which leads me to the second command –

 

II. In addition to the Cultural Mandate, there is the Great Commission – to share the Gospel — to preach the Gospel to every creature.  That is our task.

 

Let me ask you: Are you engaged in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others and thus advancing the Kingdom of God?  May I remind you what the real purpose is of this nation?  Let us hear the answer from the people who founded this country.  When, for the first time, in 1643 representatives from all of the colonies got together in New England, they wrote the New England Confederation.  In that Confederation they said these words: “We all came into these parts of America for one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  THAT is the purpose of America!

 

Are you part of what America is all about?  Are you part of what the Kingdom of God is all about?  Are you part of what Christ commanded us to do?  Are you proclaiming the Good Tidings to people in this nation?

 

You see: That is what is wrong with America.  We can cast the blame on the atheist, the agnostics, the ACLU, the NEA – pick whichever one of those you like – and all sorts of other godless institutions.  But a great share of the blame must be laid right at the door of the Church and right in our laps.  We have disobeyed the Great Commission to share the Gospel of Christ, which is the last thing God told us and the first command He gave to His followers.  If all of the Christians in America simply led one person to Christ this year, this nation would once again be overwhelmingly Christian, and most all of the problems of society would vanish.  The solution to those problems is for us to become involved in our culture and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  If Christians would do those two things, this nation and this world would be transformed almost overnight.  It would be glorious … would it not?

 

My friend: Are you living in silent rebellion to God’s command? for that is the problem of this country.  The problems of this country are due to that rebellion.  Judgment must begin at the house of God.

 

Now, some of you would argue that America is not a Christian nation.  I suppose they have forgotten about the man who said this just a few decades ago: “I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses … whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia … or to the Charter of New England … or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay … or to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut … the same objective is present; “a Christian land governed by Christian perspectives.”  Care to guess who said that?  It was the very liberal Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren.  Are you surprised?  Yet, today that is supposedly an offense …

• in spite of the fact that John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the first Supreme Court of the United States, said, “This is a Christian nation,”;

• in spite of the fact that President Harry Truman said, “This is a Christian nation”;

• in spite of the fact that the entire Supreme Court, made the Trinity decision of 1892 and after examining all the various documentary evidence involved in the founding of this country, unanimously declared, “We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth … this is a Christian nation.”

 

You wouldn’t know that from what is being taught in our public schools.  Almost all reference to the religious founding of this country has been censored from our textbooks.  There is virtually no mention of anything concerning the Christian involvement in the founding of America.  Therefore, we have tens of millions of people in this country who haven’t the foggiest idea where this country came from or who started it. 

 

Let me inform those who have sat in a public school over the past 50-years:  All of the Pilgrims were Christians.  That is why they came to these shores … for religious liberty.  Even 150 years later, in 1776, 98% of the American people professed to be Protestant Christians; 1.8% professed to be Roman Catholic Christians; .2% professed to be Jewish.  That means, 99.8% of the people in America in 1776 professed themselves to be Christians.  I know of no other nation in the world that was founded by a group of people who so uniformly professed a single religion.  For 300-years, this nation has been a Christian nation (since the Pilgrims landed here), until the past 50-years … when it has endured an increasing assault by atheists, agnostics, secularists, humanists and communists of every stripe imaginable.  There has been this unceasing barrage of attacks against the Christian institutions of this country and they have been enormously successful in taking over the entire public education system and most of the media.

 

Again, my point is this – the time has come for Christians to reclaim America, and defend the spiritual liberty and values that made this nation great.

 

If we continue the way we are going, and if Christians do not begin to do something to change it, we are going to see both peace and prosperity utterly demolished in this nation.  The time has come and is long overdue when we need to reclaim America for Jesus Christ.  I say this without shame and without apology — Christ is the only person in this world, and His cause is the only cause in this world, for which we should have no embarrassment and no shame, and we should say, “Yes, we want to reclaim America for Christ.”

 

And we can do it – “For we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” (Philippians 4:13)  We can do it by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, by the power of His Gospel, by Christian men and women being committed to share the power of that Gospel … which is the only power that can transform lives.