Psalm chapter 9, and reading
two or three verses here, but using verse 17 as our text. And let me give you my subject
this morning. My subject is the danger of forgetting
God, and the subtitle of my message would be America, repent. And from this psalm, we're going
to look at it. Look at verse 15 through 17 of
Psalm chapter 9, please. The heathen are sunk down in
the pit that they make. In the net which they hid is
their own foot taken. The Lord is known by the judgment
which He executes. The wicked snared in the work
of their own hand, higion sila. The wicked shall be turned into
hell, and all of the nations that forget God." Now, our text
again, or rather our subject again, The Danger of Forgetting
God, and the subtitle is America Repents. And the sermon will
likely have two parts this morning as we look at this text and open
it up, and then apply some things to our own country, nation, and
society. Because of the nature of the
subject that we are dealing with here this morning, I feel compelled
to give a little bit longer than usual introduction to this message
so that we might set the tone that our hearts might be ready.
For as you know, it is more often my custom When I preach, it is
more often my custom to take some theological approach under
the Scripture or open up some portion of the Scripture, some
doctrine that has to do with our great God or with our great
Christ and of the salvation that we have in Him. Usually we study
from a particular passage of the Scripture to declare the
saving grace and mercy of Christ Jesus our Lord. Also, I realize
that some might hear these things this morning and hurl the accusation
against me that I am preaching politics, that I'm even violating
the separation of church and of state that we hear a lot about
in our day. To answer such a person, I would
remind them, remind us, and you, that the prophets in the Old
Testament, the prophets of God, did speak about things that were
political. They rebuked both the kings and
the people. And they spoke of both the political
and the spiritual state of their nation at the time. They cried
out against the sins of the people, beginning at the very top with
the kings and the princes, and then the priests and such like. They cried out against the sins
of the people, and they did so in the name of God Most High
and Most Holy. and even rebuked the king. Remember how Nathan came to David,
lay his sin before him, and then said, Thou art the man. Now, in other times, preachers
were invited to speak to the parliament over in old England
and speak to them the word of God in the very parliament house. And not only that, but to speak
to them frankly about spiritual matters and about the state of
the nation. In bygone days, even in our country,
some of us can remember when preachers and pastors of the
churches were invited to speak at many of the high school graduations. Particularly in little small
towns was this the case, that one of the pastors, one of the
ministers would bring the message at the graduation service. Now,
in our time, all reference to God, to the Bible, and to Christianity
and their beliefs are banned completely, almost, from the
educational arena. All the while, teaching the kids
in those schools that homosexuality and gayness is good, as they
like to call it. Now, another issue that might
be raised is that such as the Old Testament text of the Scripture
on these matters. And you might say, these things
are peculiar and are particular to the nation of Israel. It is true. The nation of Israel
was a theocracy. That means that the law of God
was their law. that the law of God was imposed
upon the nation and that they were governed, they were ruled,
not by laws that men made up or that parliaments passed, but
by the law of God which he gave as a sovereign ruler. It was
enforced by magistrates and by judges who acted in the authority
of God. Now, this is why under that old
economy, blasphemers, adulterers, homosexuals, rebellious children,
just to name a few, were stoned to death for their transgression
against the law of God. At other times, God directly
and intermediately intervened by bringing catastrophic judgment
upon the people for their sin, such as making the earth open
up and swallow many of them at one time. Now, one reason that
is given why the sins were to be so severely judged and so
severely punished in the old economy is explained, for one
place, in Leviticus chapter 18. Now, I don't want to go there
now, but in Leviticus chapter 18, after giving them a catalog
of most horrible sin that were to be avoided by the people because
they were committed by the nations in the land to where they would
be driven out. And such sins as incest and bestiality,
homosexuality, the sacrifice of children there in Leviticus
chapter 18 is forbidden. And in verse 24, And verse 25,
such things defile a society. And in verse 25, hear these words,
the land is defiled and vomits out her Also, in verse 27, that's
at the end of Leviticus chapter 18. In Numbers 35, 33 and 34,
Deuteronomy 21 and 23, Jeremiah 2 and verse 7, and even in Deuteronomy
24 and verse 4, we read this exhortation. Thou shalt not cause the land
to sin which the Lord hath given for an inheritance. Listen to that again. Thou shalt
not cause the land to sin which the Lord hath given for an inheritance. These things defile the land,
not just the people, but also the land itself. Now, abominable
sins are said to defile the land. and the unnatural sin mentioned
in such places as Leviticus chapter 18. Oh, they're horrible there
and would make us blush to read them in mixed company. Make it
subject, however, to the judgment of Almighty God. The land, hear
this, is made a partaker of the punishment of the sins of the
people. Perhaps I should have said, the
land is made a partaker both of the sin and of the punishment
of the people. You have a great example of this
in Genesis 3 and verse 17 through 19, mentioned by Paul in Romans
chapter 8, verse 19 through 21, where the creation is made subject
to bondage because of the sin of the creature. Now, having
said all of that, And all of that pertains, I concur, to the
nation of Israel. We admit that our nation is not
a theocracy. The laws of God are not our civil
laws, although the majority of them were in the beginning based
upon, in some way, the law of God. Still, we are told that
the things that are written afore in the Old Testament, the things
that happen unto others, were written for our admonition. 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 11. That such things as occurred
there are examples for us. 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 6,
the things that happen to the Jews are that they might not
fall into the same sin and suffer the same consequences as God
visited upon them. And no doubt, there certainly
is profit in seeing how it was that God dealt with nations when
their cup of iniquity was full to the brim and overflowing. how our God dealt with them,
because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness
and ungodliness of men who hold or literally suppress the truth
in unrighteousness." Romans 1 and verse 28. And in pursuing such
a subject, we may view it from three aspects, please. We may view it from the standpoint
of nations, of whole nations. We may view it from the standpoint,
second, of churches, that is, of whole churches. And we may
view such things from the standpoint of individual, that nations or
churches or individuals might transgress against the Lord and
fall under His chastisement. Remember what God did to the
family of David because of the sins that he had committed. Now, with all of that behind
us, coming to Psalms 9 and verse 17, the wicked shall be turned
into hell and all the nations that forget God. All the nations
that forget God. Let's focus on the last part,
or the last half of that verse, and then zoom in on the words
that forget God. These are our imposit. And then the dominant word that
carries the thought here is the word forget, forget God. Because, as Spurgeon put it,
verse 17, quote, is a warning to forgetters of God, unquote. Not just individuals, but nations
as well. The forgetters of God. Let that be in our memory for
a while now. Now it might seem to some, it
probably would seem to many, that forgetfulness is not a big
concern. that we do not consider that
forgetfulness might be much of a sin at all, and not something
to be taken over seriously, but they are mentioned in the same
breath with the wicked. And as George Horn wrote some
two hundred years ago, and I like this quote, quote, the true state
of both man and nation. is to be estimated from one single
circumstance." And what is that answer? Whether in their life
and in their pursuits they forget or remember God. That much turns
upon whether they forget God or whether they remember God. Now we're careful to note that
the psalmist here does not refer to neglecters of God in that
sense or word, not that practical atheism that says in their heart
there is no God, Psalm 14 and 1. Nor does the psalmist here
seem to be speaking of the open and idolatrous even that lay
all around. They call idols their gods. They have not forgotten God per
se, for they never knew him or they never acknowledged him.
Now, to forget God seems to imply some previous knowledge and acknowledgement
of God, some profession, some admission of some kind or degree. We study here and we find that
the Hebrew word is from the primary root word meaning to mislay,
to mislay and thus to become oblivious. to mislay and become
oblivious of lack of memory or attention given to a particular
thing, as if being covered over, is forgotten, and thus to forget
in this sense of the word is to become oblivious. oblivious
to the claims of God, to the worship of God, the laws of God,
and such like. Some thoughts I glean from the
pen of John Howe now, who lived from about 1630 until 1705. These thoughts I attribute to
him, that said forgiveness of God does not imply atheism. We want to keep that in our mind. But it does exclude the prime
and main essentials of religion, and is how, it implies that a
man does neither esteem nor value the all-sufficiency and the holiness
of God. Nor does he fear Him, nor live
in subjection unto His laws and commands, nor aim at the glory
of God as the end." This is a man who has or been forgetful of
God. We must bear in mind, we must
remember of Him who is the fountain of all spiritual blessing, and
to whom all praise and honor and worship is necessary. And
forgetfulness, the neglect, is the fountain of vice. Remembrance
is the source of all virtue. Neglect is the source of all
vices. One more story. or rather stone,
let us lay before we move on and speak of our own country
and society. And it concerns the multiple,
one after another, warning that Moses gave to Israel about their
entering a dwelling and living in the land of Canaan. He exhorted
them lest they forget the glory that they had seen at Sinai. Oh, Moses brings that before
them. You will be brought into a land.
God will drive out your enemies. It will be a land flowing with
milk and with honey. But be ever so careful that you
do not forget the glory and the wonder that you saw at Sinai. And in Deuteronomy 4 and verse
7 and verse 8, what a great God they had, said Moses, and such
a righteous law they had been given by that great God. God so near them. No other nation,
he said, had God so near them. And he called them a great nation
because God was their God. But let's listen to more exhortation
from Moses unto that nation, that is, the nation of Israel,
ready to go into the land and possess it. Deuteronomy 4 and
verse 9, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen,
and lest they depart from thy heart. Let it not be. Deuteronomy 4.23, take heed lest
you forget the covenant of the Lord which he hath made with
you, and make unto yourself a graven image. Deuteronomy 6 and verse
12 again, beware lest you forget the God who hath brought you
out of the bondage of Egypt. Again in Deuteronomy 8 verse
11, beware that you forget not the Lord thy God in keeping his
commandments and his judgments and his statutes. Deuteronomy
9 and 7, remember and forget not how you provoke God in the
wilderness. On the other hand, They are exhorted
to remember. The exhortation is double. Remember and forget not. And the time came when Moses
charged them in Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse 18, of the rock
that begot you, be not unmindful and have forgotten the God that
formed you. Oh yes, forgetting about God. That is a dangerous thing. It
brought judgment upon Israel time and time again when they
forgot their rock that delivered them. They forgot the great deliverance
they had at his hand, the great law from his mouth, and the great
direction from his wisdom and power. And it brought upon them
a chastisement. Now, with that in mind, let's
go to the second half of our study of the morning for America. Now, the land of the free, the
home of the brave. The founders did set up a government,
but it was not a theocracy, nor a monarchy where power is concentrated
in one person, nor did they desire to establish oligarchies in this
nation where power is concentrated in the hands of but a few elite,
nor did they intend to crown a king as a sovereign who might
have all power over them in all matters, supreme authority, but
they established a republic whose power lies in the citizen. Or let me say it this way. They
established a republic with the intention that the power lay
in the hands of the citizen. And they chose leaders to go
and to represent them and govern in accordance with the Constitution
which was drawn up, ratified, and signed as the law of the
land. Now this is the definition of
the rights, the liberties, the duties, the freedoms of the citizens,
and the limit of the power of government, and to keep in check
government offenses. The Constitution is to that purpose. Now before I go along, I have
an analogy. It's been in my sermonical plot
a long time. And I think here is a good place
to use it, for I have been anxious and this seems the proper place.
And it concerns the analogy between the Constitution and the Bible. In that, the Constitution of
America, we define that Constitution as that by which the country
is governed. It is the law of the land. It enumerates the rights and
the liberties of the citizens, and nothing is to be done or
a law imposed that does not meet constitutional muster. It enumerates what is to be done. It is spelled out very, very
clearly for us, the constitution of our country. Now, on the other
hand, the Bible. is the infallible, inerrant,
inspired Word of God to guide the churches and individuals
in their Christian life. Nothing is to be done by the
churches. Nothing is to be done except
what is scriptural. The Bible is the only rule for
the people of God. In every matter of faith, government,
rule, and practice, to every question we must ask ourselves
this, What saith the Scripture? Now, the one governs our nation
and our rights, and the other governs the Church. Now, my brethren,
I by no means am putting the Constitution on the same level
with the infallible Word of God. That would be a blasphemy. But the point is this that I
want to make. One governs the country, the
other governs the churches. But the point is both. Both have
been trashed. They have been trampled upon.
They have been violated. They have been perverted. They
have been ignored. They have been set aside. They
have been rejected. They have been denied. and made
to say what people want them to say. John Adams once wrote,
quote, our Constitution was made only for a moral, religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other. Benjamin Franklin wrote, only
a virtuous people are capable of freedom. And the same argument
can be made concerning the Scripture. They are for a moral and a religious
and a God-fearing people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. and only a regenerate people
are capable of true Christian liberty which is in Jesus Christ
our Lord. Now, brothers and sisters, there
are forces that are at work in this country that are determined
to abolish both the Constitution and Christianity. Of course,
unless it is that social, liberal, apostate Christendom that some
folks are attached unto. Then there are the accolades. They are called trailblazers
when they stand for that which is against the Word of the Lord
and against Constitution. Let us illustrate. Earlier this
summer, that would be the year 2010, here in Houston, A bunch of churches, a ministerial
alliance or whatever they were, decided that their Sunday service
would be dedicated to pushing the immigration bill. A lot of
churches here in town went together and decided they would preach
and push on the immigration bill that Sunday. Then later, They
preached on social issues on a given Sunday. These were liberal
churches. I might call them apostate. The
speakers of the house urged the ministers to preach in favor
of the health care bill and the so-called comprehensive immigration
reform, which is a code name for amnesty. And we all know
it. Had these been conservative churches,
had these been Bible-believing churches, had these been those
churches that take the Bible as the errant and infallible
guide, then they would have been chastised for violating the separation
of church and of state. But because they were liberal
and stand on the liberal side, therefore they got away with
it. Now, our nation, like Israel of old, has been richly blessed
by God, blessed by God in its formation and its development. Wise patriots who came here gave
us a wonderful constitution, the greatest nation that has
ever been in the history of the world, the land of the free and
the home of the brave. life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. Let us thank God. for being born in this land and
raised in this place. But let's remember something.
So soon as Israel was settled in their new land, so soon as
they were settled, they began to forget the goodness of God,
the covenant of God. They began to adopt the ways
of the heathen. And one named Jeshurun that we
read about, Deuteronomy 32 and verse 15, waxed fat and kicked
against the Lord, it said. When their eyes boiled out with
fatness, then they forgot the God of mercy that had helped
them. Hear the prediction. of Deuteronomy
31 and verse 20. Moses gives them this prediction. For when I have brought thee
into the land, which I swear to their fathers, that flows
with milk and with honey, and they shall have eaten, and filled
themselves, and waxed fat, then will they turn unto other gods,
and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant." Our earliest
leaders gave us the Constitution, and they warned the people against
entanglements in foreign affairs of other nations. They warned
against giving the bankers control of the money in our young nation. I forget if it was Jefferson
or Franklin, but one or the other said, the bankers are a greater
threat to the nation than a standing army. As did Israel, the people
of America forgot God and what His good providence had brought
to pass in their behalf. They took their liberty for granted
and to excesses. Less and less did they remember
And did they honor our God? Bolder and bolder they became
in their defiance of the God of heaven. until in our present
day some blaspheme in public without a blush at all. It's sad to say now, our leaders
are for the most part, for the biggest part, are corrupt and
they are passing corrupt laws on the people. Our politicians
are self-serving fat cats who sit in their ivory towers beholding
to the special interests that have bought them, who have plundered
the treasury, who have spent the nation into bankruptcy. The government that started as
being of the people, by the people, and for the people has become
the enemy of the people, the greatest threat to our liberty
and to our freedom is not Al Qaeda or the Russian communism
or the Chinese missile, but our very own government. It is more likely that we will
be destroyed by our moral rot than from without. The country
has lost its soul. We most likely will destroy ourselves,
bringing the judgment of God down upon us. How bad is it in
this country? Well, I have been gathering articles
and information and doing research and putting together many articles
for quite some time now. from the paper, the internet,
and such like, from which things it seems that God has mingled
a perverse spirit in the midst of us, like in Isaiah 19 and
verse 14, as he did to Egypt. And when God mingled a perverse
spirit in the land of Egypt, their princes became fools and
were deceived, and they caused Egypt to err in all things, and
to stagger like a drunk in his vomit." God sent strong delusion,
and the leaders became addled-brained, and foolish, and stupid, and
led the people in a dangerous way. In America, the people have
now elected several openly homosexual politicians to offices. In Los
Angeles, at Fairfax High School, an 18-year-old boy, an open homosexual,
was voted queen of the prom. And he said, quote, he felt invincible
when he was crowned queen of the school dance, unquote. The president, proclaimed June
of this year as LGBT Pride Month in America. LGBT is an acronym
for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month. Obama said, quote, we will continue
to be an ally and a champion of their agenda and will repeal
the Defense of Marriage Act, unquote. He said that many Americans,
that'd be you and me dear brother and dear sister, still hold to
old worn out attitudes and arguments about gayness. Americans still
hold to worn out attitudes, he said. This quote is from August
2008, from him. Quote, I believe we can achieve
equality for the millions of LGBT people living in this country,
and they will play a major part in bringing change to Washington,
unquote. In keeping with June being LGBT
Pride Month, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, put
out a special message, and I have a copy of it, urging employees
to celebrate the many contributions that the LGBT community made
daily to the fabric of American life. Again, their contribution
to the richness of our diversity as a country, and celebrate the
diversity that has helped shape and strengthen NASA and our nation."
NASA employees got that. They were encouraged to have
functions to celebrate LGBT Pride Month, the employees of NASA. There is a war being waged against
biblical Christianity, and that war is being waged principally
from the homosexual community, I believe is how they call it.
And the government is on their side, not on our side, passing
laws one after another to protect homosexuality, making what they
call same-sex or same-gender marriages to be equal, making
it a special hate crime to oppose it. and they don't want us just
to accept it, they want us to celebrate it. That's the word
that they use. The movement, as well as the
government, not only wants us to be accepting of it, but to
say that it is a good thing and a good alternate way of life. On the Internet the other night,
Professor Ken Howell was fired from the University of Illinois
for agreeing that homosexuality is immoral. Students who heard
him say that wanted him charged with a hate crime, a hate crime
for agreeing that homosexuality is a sin. An article in the Houston
Chronicle, July 18th of this year, told of the Helena, Montana
school district curriculum that would teach kindergartners intimate
anatomical terms, teach first-graders about gay love, and fifth-graders
the different ways to have sex. The Today TV show, a lot of people
watched that. They held a wedding contest Because
he did not cover homosexuals, they threw up a great cry. So
they said, okay, homosexuals, same-sex, they're also eligible
to be in the contest. And then they issued this statement,
Today Show, quote, Today is a long-time supporter of the LGBT community,
unquote. The NEA, National Education Agency,
has come out in support of homosexual marriage, homosexual adoption,
and issues concerning the homosexual agenda." Did you know that a
man in England this year was arrested standing, kind of a
street preacher, standing on the corner, and he named homosexuality
as being a sin among other sins, and he was arrested on a street
corner in England. Oh, you say that's England. Well,
my point is, it may soon be so in America. The humanists and
the progressive have managed to seize control of most of the
American institutions, such as the government, the schools,
the colleges, the news media, Hollywood, television, and yes,
many denominations and churches have fallen in on their side. Most of such institutions are
far from the Constitution and far from the Word of our God. And political correctness has
become the new cultural communism. You say certain things in a public
job and you are gone. Political correctness has been
imposed upon us to stifle free speech and free expression and
suppress the truth and protect the lies that are being spread. Again, on the internet the other
night, three young people, I think they call themselves missionaries,
three young people were arrested for passing out copies of the
Gospel of John at an Islam gathering or convention in Michigan. I think the city was Dearborn,
but I'm not sure. And the Gospel of John was printed
in their language as well. America's hands are bloody from
the millions of abortion. It is legal to intentionally
abort a living, growing baby. even some outside of the womb,
and even partial abortion, which is even called that. There are
some cold-blooded killer doctors who are making amends off of
this. We have enriched themselves,
they have enriched themselves simply by aborting babies. Don't be surprised, brother and
sister, if abortion is covered eventually in the health care
bill. You have to understand that abortion
has become useful to them as a tool for population control,
though they would never, never admit it. I'm on record as saying,
The society that will kill the unborn by the millions will sooner
or later euthanize the old, the infirm, the melty, incapable,
and such like. The society that will do one
at this end will eventually do that at the other. And by the
way, that's catching fire in some other countries, and there
has been a doctor in our country that has advocated it, been to
prison for it, but he has advocated assisted suicide. Now, the change
may have come slow in America, but it was constant, and I think
our politicians have now become traitors to the people, deliberately
giving the country away. The people are blind sheeple
being led off of the cliff, it seems, and except America turned
back. except God put hooks in our jaws,
except the gospel is preached in power, except people are led
to put their trust again in God, all good and all liberty will
be lost forever. There are many haters of God
in our country. They're not indifferent anymore.
They are haters and open enemies of God. And let me say this in
closing, it will not be a political party that saves us, but the
mercy of God Almighty, if it occurs. It will not be a political
party that saves us from this, but the mercy, a sovereign, powerful
work of Almighty God. We are, or have become, a wicked
people. We are ripe for the judgment
of God. We are ripe that God might chastise
us and bring down His wrath upon us. Oh, that we could cry out
from the housetop, America, repent! But yet, if God gives us over
to deception, then what shall we do? For His deception is irresistible. Oh, my brother and sister, a
little different message this morning, but I think that perhaps
It could be needful and applied.