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INTRODUCTION
Last week Our Nations Foundation of Freedom - Morality and Religion - that founded in the Holy
Scriptures. Today how that foundation has been damaged.
How did we go from?
1643 New England Confederation: “We all came to these parts of America with the same
end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the
liberties of the Gospel...” (Truth slide #64)
To
2009 the President of the USA said: “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.”
From?
George Washington the father of our country who said “It is impossible to rightly
govern without God and the Bible”
To
John Dewey the father of modern education: “faith in the prayer-hearing God is an
unproved and outmoded faith. There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there is no needs
for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth
is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes.”
From?
1776 the D of I affirms the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God...that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
To
1994 Professor William Provine: “There are no gods our purposeful forces, no ultimate
foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning of life, no life after death.”
How did America change from a nation founded on Christian principles to a nation
antagonistic toward Christianity?
Video: Rev. Robert Sirico 1:30 minute clip (The Truth Project) #10
How did we lose control of this country? What caused us to go astray?
How did America change from a nation founded on Christian principles to a nation
antagonistic toward Christianity?
This list is from the lessons of The Truth Project, along with 2 others I believe are also essential
to know our state today. (There are others, but these major).
1859 Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” published
- No need for God in evolutionary process, survival of the fittest, natural selection.
That book started a domino change of beliefs in our world.
- “Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The
rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single
second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish
Christianity to be true.”
- Thus Darwin took God out of Science. (1809-1882)
1869-1879 President Charles Eliot of Harvard
- Was atheist in a university founded to spread the Gospel. He changed the focus and hired
a fellow atheist to lead the law department. Christopher Columbus Langdell who developed
the case law theory - still used today. Law is no longer established upon revelation of
God in nature and the Scriptures, but case by case. It is evolution applied to law.
- QUOTE: “Langell did not merely introduce a new method of teaching law, he
introduced a new faith concerning law. He believed that man, led by the ablest scholars
and judges, could discover and determine the laws governing human affairs. Because he
believed that man did not need the aid of God and of the Holy Scriptures.” (Truth
Slide #54)
- This theory is called legal positivism, arbitrary law, sociological law.
- Thus Eliot, Langdell, and Judges like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes over a span of a few
decades took God out of Law and Government
About the same time - Friedrich Nietzshe German Philosopher
- Neitzshe had contempt for Christianity and popularized the phrase “God is dead.”
He was influenced by Darwin’s evolution, and applied it to philosophy, his
beliefs have given rise to existentialism - your experience is your truth, and literally
postmodernism - there is no absolute truth.
- Maybe you have seen the quote “God is dead” - Neitzshe; “Neitzshe is
dead” - God. (1844 - 1900)
- Thus Nietzshe took God out of Philosophy.
About the same time - German Sigmund Freud began work in psychology
- I ADDED. Freud wrote “The Future of an Illusion” where he described belief
in God as a collective neurosis. Though Freud late in life sought solace in Judaism, and
though much of his ideas have been repudiated by many, he is still the father of modern
psychology with a large bias against any form of religious faith, most certainly
Christianity.
- Thus Freud took God out of Psychology. (1856-1939)
About the same time - American Educator John Dewey 1859-1952
- Dewey was a pragmatist, he believed in evolutiony not fixed or eternal truths. He
believed education was best to be accomplished by experience rather authoritarian
methods, believed in progressive education. Ethics were derived by a democratic process
of experience.
- Though Dewey thought religion had a role to play in life, he rejected any belief in a
static ideal, such as a theistic God. Dewey felt only scientific method could reliably
increase human good. Logical positivism.
- His beliefs are the basis of modern education where God is not a topic of discussion,
not necessary to education at all - check any public school.
- Thus Dewey took God out of Public Education.
About the same time - Mainline Christianity is going through a revolution
- “Modernist-fundamentalist controversy.” I ADDED THIS ONE.
- In Union Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian school, 1891 new President Charles Briggs
questioned the fundamental doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and opens the door for
theological liberalism.
- Many were seeking to incorporate evolution into Biblical account of creation and
advocating the gap theory, theistic evolution. Even the Scofield Study Bible was caught
in that debate 1909.
- The doctrines of God, the deity of Christ, and salvation were questioned by theologians
like Henry Ward Beecher, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth.
- Neo-orthodoxy grew: Man is capable of knowing God by intuitive experience; salvation is
not a matter of receiving supernatural grace but of developing Christian like character.
- Historical criticism questioned the accuracy and dates of the books of the Bible. The
Bible became a book of religious devotion not a book of divinely inspired, inerrant,
infallible, and immutable truth.
- (Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Sprong rejected the virgin birth and the resurrection
of Christ - you can see the shape his church is in today.)
- Denominations began divide over the fundamentals. Our parent denomination Northern
Baptist Convention was adversely affected too. Professors and missionaries were denying
the fundamentals of evangelical faith, the money the churches were sending was all
centralized, and faithful churches had no say in who believed what. 1947 the
Conservative Baptist Association was formed - our church wisely joined in 1948.
- Thus modernism took the supernatural God out of much of Christianity.
Fast forward to the 1960’s - 1970’s - American Cultural Revolution
- The era of radical individualism, hippies and yippies. Rebellion and riots, free love
and eventually freedom to have an abortion in 1973.
- R. C. Sproul even goes so far to say that the American Revolution of the 1700’s
was nothing compared to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s.
- 1962 Supreme Court took prayer out of the public schools, the next year took Bible
reading out, in following years took posting of 10 commands.
- Courts were now making laws. Courts are redefining the Constitution, and since then most
of the moral cultural wars are lost in the rooms of the elite robed unaccountable judges.
- On a November day in 1963 suddenly Camelot and American idealism died with the
assassination of John F. Kennedy. The same day English Christian apologist C.S. Lewis
dies ending Christianity respectability in higher education in England - carried over to
USA.
- And the military failure in Vietnam killed our understanding of a just war, and a how to
even win a war.
- The media too began to remove God from the mainstream airwaves. Anything that promoted
Christianity was removed, and in its void now are programs that have become even hostile
to Christianity.
- One can stastically show from the 1960’s on - all forms of immorality increased,
divorce increased, violence increased; Knowledge of history decreased, respect for
authority decreased, church attendance decreased.
- The door was open to any belief possible - The unborn is not life just tissue. Sexuality
is individual choice. 50 years ago who would have thought gay marriage would be
culturally acceptable?
- The radical 60’s set us up for this and probably more insanity to come.
- Our culture doesn’t even thank God at Thanksgiving - it is Turkey day. Our
governor’s proclamation last year thanked everyone but God, this year hardly
thanked anyone and still no mention of God. Our President did mention God in a quote
from George Washington.
- Now a new civil religion of individualism, materialism, hedonism and secularization. No
longer Christianity at all.
- Thus the American Cultural Revolution that many of us grew up in removed God from Public
Arena (Society at large) right before our eyes.
At the same time - Rewriting History began - Historical Revisionism
- Our American history is being rewritten removing the references to God, Christianity,
the Bible. Our founding fathers are now called pagans.
- How many people know that the pilgrims came to America to spread the gospel of Jesus
Christ? That Thanksgiving was a holiday to thank God?
- How many people know that half of the 56 signers of the D. of I. were Ministers of the
Gospel? 24 held seminary degrees, most were Christians.
- That several of our Presidents had a personal Christian faith that determined their
public policies? That our nation employs chaplains to lead prayers and Bible studies in
the halls of our legislative bodies around America, and our military bases around world?
- We are told values and ideals hold us together - but most people don’t know what
they are or where they came from. We are ignorant of our history, being taught lies. We
now The Divided States of America.
- Thus history has been rewritten to take God out of our History.
How Shall We Now Live as Christians in our Godless Culture?
TEXT: Deut. 8:10-20 - How did our nation do that very thing?
Our culture has forgotten God!!!!
1. Remember v. 18
- Psalm 77:11 “I shall remember the deeds of the Lord, Surely I will remember
Your wonders of old.” 2 Timothy 2:8 “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the
dead, descendant of David...”
- We need to remember where we came from, Who we are to believe.
- We need to remind people of our history. Plenty of resources: The Bible, Truth Project,
Wallbuilders.com, historical records, modern books, internet... I have preached these
truths - keep repeating.
- Rev. 2:5 “Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and...”
2. Repent
- Luke 13: 3,5 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise
perish.”
- Rev. 3:19 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous
and repent.”
- Abraham Lincoln in 1863 called for a day of National Fasting: “We have forgotten
God...intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the
necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our
national sins, and pray for clemency and forgiveness.” (Truth slide #79,
Lesson #10)
- We need to personally confess our sins, the sins of our families, the sins of our
church, the sins of our nation. We evangelicals are good at telling people to repent
personally, but not good at doing it corporately. We need to humble ourselves before
Almighty God.
- Acts 3:19 “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away,
in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
3. Return
- Come back to God, return to righteous living, start over again in obedience and
faithfulness. Be conscious objectors against the evil and the lies of our culture.
Remember. Repent. Return.
- Malachi 3;7 “...Return to Me, and I will return to you...”
To Return to God, a lifestyle of Christianity in culture requires us to:
- Restudy the Bible. We need to think Biblically, not as the world thinks
— Get into your Bibles, surround yourself with Christian resources. Take your
questions to the Bible. Only 10% of Christians have a truly Biblical worldview, we
believe many lies of the world.
Charles Colson: “The church’s single failure in recent decades has been the
failure to see Christianity as a life system, a worldview that governs every area of
existence.” 2 Tim. 2:15; 3:16-17
- Recover the lost art of Christian discipleship. Live closer to Christ
than to the world. The Holy Spirit is alive/well transforming people. Takes 24/7 belief
and practice. Romans 12;1,2.
- Realize gospel of Jesus Christ is the only answer for the problems of
the world today. God’s redemption of man through the shed blood of Jesus for our
sins. The Gospel is the change. The Gospel is more than getting saved, Christ transforms.
Titus 2:11-12.
- Refocus on our ultimate purpose for living is for the glory of God. The
Confessions of faith - purpose of man: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
From Kyle in The Truth Project: What is the meaning in life: “enjoy what God has
given us and give Him as much glory as possible.” 1 Cor. 10:31.
- Reach into the world through the primary institutions of any culture -
the examples of a gospel living family and a gospel living church. We have to teach our
Biblical and Christian history values to our children, church, & fellow citizens. It
will take work to preserve and renew our culture. But from a Christ lived families and
churches the world is changed... Matt. 5:14-16
CONCLUSION
That is a lot of history. But the faith answers are very familiar.
Warning: Revelation 2:5 “Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do
the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its
place - unless you repent.”
Faithfully live the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Glory of God by the Power of the H.S. I must
preach this and we must teach and we must live this again and again…8 R’s - one more:
“Revive Us Again” #295
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