Quote from Forum Archives on July 3, 2006, 3:07 pm

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

GOD AND COUNTRY

July 2, 2006

 

TEXT: Matthew 12:15-21

 

Last Sunday evening, Lois and I attended the service at the Miami County fairgrounds. The musical, “With Liberty and Justice for All,” was very good. There were hymns and patriotic songs that were both familiar and unfamiliar. Members of the Armed Forces were recognized. Words of our nation’s Founders were read. Songs and prayers were offered for God to bless America.

As I sat and both worshiped God and enjoyed the musical, though, a question crossed my mind. Is it really appropriate to intertwine to this extent my allegiance to God and my allegiance to country? Are we setting up a system through which our holy God is being defined by a secular government? Or one in which our Lord’s instructions are masked by allegiance to a nation of this world?

Christians must always be aware that offering our allegiance to anything in this world, especially loyalty to a system of government, has the potential to conflict with our allegiance to God and His Kingdom. The prophet Jeremiah discovered this in his day. Imagine being directed by God to tell his people to surrender! How much more unpatriotic can it get than that? Yet, this is exactly the message from God that the prophet proclaimed to his people. Jeremiah 21:8-10 tells us: “Furthermore, tell the people, ‘This is what the Lord says: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death. Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians who are besieging you will live; he will escape with his life. I have determined to do this city harm and not good, declares the Lord. It will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will destroy it with fire.’” That would indeed be a very tough message from God to have to deliver to fellow citizens living in a country you love. Even though there are those today who suggest that America surrender in this current war, they are typically the groups that deny obedience to God, so I don’t think their message is from the Lord. But like Jeremiah had to do, Christians must keep in mind always that our primary allegiance is to God.

Which brings me back to my ponderings from last Sunday evening: Is it really appropriate to intertwine to this extent my allegiance to God and my allegiance to country? In the gospel text I have already read this morning, Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42, stating that Jesus fulfilled this prophesy: “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.”

It is that last sentence, “in his name the nations will put their hope,” that catches my attention and gives me a clue to answering the question I pondered. There are several things about the founding of America as a nation that makes it unique; one of them is the overt and outspoken statements of faith made by our Founding Fathers as they struggled with the issues of declaring independence from England and then forming this Constitutional Republic. In this evening’s service, I will be showing the video entitled “The Spirit of the American Revolution” by David Barton that will cast even more light on the faith of our nation’s Founders. I draw from that resource, and a few others, this morning to determine if this nation has put its hope in Jesus’ name.

Our own Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate as the “birthdate” of our nation, begins this way: “IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The fundamental foundation for the basis of our very Declaration of Independence is the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." What did the Founders mean by this? Well, we know what they meant by this because it comes from Commentaries on the Laws of England written by Sir William Blackstone. Sir Blackstone’s philosophy of law is quoted extensively by the nation's Founders, and his book was used as a law textbook in American universities for several decades. The phrase in the Declaration of Independence refers to, and is defined by, Blackstone's presuppositional basis for all law. Sir Blackstone writes, “Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being... And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will... this will of his Maker is called the law of nature... These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil... This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.” (Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries of the Laws of England, Vol. 1, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1879, pp. 39-42)

From this nation’s outset, the men who forged its shape and destiny submitted and subjected themselves to the higher authority and Lordship of God. This is prevalent throughout their writings of both public and private nature. In his documentary, David Barton points out that the first act of the Continental Congress was to pray. And this was no “bless the meeting and get on with it” prayer. Grown men, serious about the gravity of the tasks they were about to tackle, fell to their knees and implored God at great length for His guidance and wisdom and intervention in all they were about to undertake. Another issue they took up quickly in the early days of the Revolution came after England placed a trading blockade on the colonies. Of all of the goods that America depended upon from overseas imports, what do you think it was that the Continental Congress moved quickly to ensure that the colonies received adequate supplies? Bibles! The Continental Congress leading a nation at war against the greatest power in their world was concerned about shortages of Bibles in the colonies, and they devoted valuable time and resources to obtain adequate supplies. (David Barton, “The Spirit of the American Revolution,” VHS) That’s a pretty good indication of which way they leaned when we read, “in his name the nations will put their hope.”

This is quite a different reality of the role of the Christian faith in government than organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State would have us believe. Let us continue. John Adams, a member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the second President of the United States of America, wrote to Tomas Jefferson in a letter dated June 18, 1813: “The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of your Gentlemen could Unite… And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were united: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence. Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.” (William J. Federer ed., America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, Coppell, TX: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994, pp. 4, 12, & 13)

John Adams’s son, John Quincy Adams, was active in the affairs of this nation as well. At the age of fourteen, he became the American representative, appointed by Congress, to the Court of Catherine the Great in Russia. He served as the sixth President of the united States. Throughout his life, he was a popular speaker at 4^th of July celebrations. At the age of 70, he proclaimed to the inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport on July 4^th, 1837: “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before.” (William J. Federer ed., America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, Coppell, TX: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994, pp. 15 & 18)

Is it really appropriate to intertwine to this extent my allegiance to God and my allegiance to country? That country being the United States of America? Even though times have certainly changed, I still believe that my answer can be “yes!” I believe that it can be “yes” because of the basis on which the men declared independence and formed a new nation: “In his name the nations will put their hope.”

As a result of this nation, and our celebration of this nation’s birth, we hear and know a lot about “rights.” There are a lot of “rights” being argued these days, and not all of them are good for us or for society. The Bible speaks of a right, too; a right that we should consider with even more gravity and seriousness than those rights our Founding Fathers struggled to secure for themselves and posterity. This right is found in John 1:12-13. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” In fact, this verse became a sign from God to me to speak this morning of “God and Country.” As I pondered whether or not to even attempt to intertwine the Gospel with patriotism, for fear of being taken the wrong way, John 1:12 was taught as the memory verse at the Child Evangelism Fellowship 5-Day Club on day 2. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

It is my hope that everyone here this morning is able to claim that right, given by God’s invitation. Let us celebrate this God-given right, and all of the other rights secured by the Founders of America from their bedrock belief that the guiding hand of our Savior has blessed us mightily, indeed. “In his name the nations will put their hope.”

 

Rev. Charles A. Layne
First Baptist Church
Bunker Hill, Indiana

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