I can get windy. Before I start
with the sermon this morning, I had a little thing happen yesterday
while I was out and about that was kind of interesting. For whatever, however it works,
I am either blessed or cursed with the ability to stop and
talk to people who I don't know. And carry on conversations. Sometimes that's a blessing,
sometimes it's a curse. Depends on how much of a hurry
I'm in. I usually stop at a little gas
station store there on Loop 336, North Loop, the Chevron station,
to get gas. And I did yesterday. And I've
known this for a long time. I've had some minor discussions
with the people that run the store there, Muslims. You go
to mini-marts, little convenience stores in Conroe and all over
the place you see Muslim people, Pakistanis, Afghans, any kind
of people, but a lot of them are Muslims, and I've had some
conversations with them before. And yesterday, while I was in
there, this person on the side, which takes care of the business
and all, and just said, after they handed over their money,
they said something to the effect of, God bless you. Well, this
Muslim man was particularly talkative yesterday and that led to a quick
discussion about, well, exactly what do you mean? Do you understand
the God you're talking to and who his prophet is? And I've
had these discussions before, and anyway, I stood there listening
and eventually I ended up in the discussion. But we talk about
missions worldwide. We have a missionary that we
support in Mexico and what have you, but the mission field is
on our doorstep. Everywhere we go there are people
of all kinds of religions and persuasions just all around us. I was there to get gas yesterday
and ended up having a discussion about the Quran and Islam and
God's prophet Muhammad. And it was an interesting discussion,
but I myself have read the Koran, I've read the commentary on Shia
Law and the Hadith. I've read these things. My dad
worked in Iran and Saudi Arabia for years and it piqued my curiosity. So I can carry on a conversation.
What amazed me or floored me to some extent was the person
that was there, a lady, that was just enraptured with what
this man was saying. She said she was a Christian,
she's a follower of Jesus, but she was completely bum-fuzzled
by what this man was saying. He says over and over, but your
own Bible says this about God's prophet Muhammad. And she said,
really? Really it does? And she was just
enraptured, surprised, amazed to see that Muhammad is in the
Scripture according to this man. Well, I have not seen Muhammad
in the Scripture. I have not. He said Moses spoke
of a prophet greater than himself that was coming and this is Muhammad.
No, Moses spoke of a prophet greater than himself that was
coming that is Christ. My point in bringing this up
is, and I'll not belabor this, but we as Christians should know
and understand the faith once delivered to the saints. There
are those from outside of the church and those from inside
of the church who assault us. And they can lead us astray at
times with words that sound familiar to us, but are not. The man kept saying, but your
own Bible says this. Your own Bible says this. And I said, no it doesn't. No
it doesn't. But your Quran says this. He
said, oh no it doesn't. You misunderstand the Quran. Well then, printed words don't
mean anything? Oh, you have to have a Muslim
explain it to you. And then of course the subject
of Jihad came up, and that can get convoluted pretty quick.
I'm not going to belabor the point except to say that these
people are all around us. They're all around us. And to
the ill-informed, they can sound very convincing. They really
can. And I'm not saying, and let me
make this clear, I'm not saying that this man was a terrorist.
Not saying that. Not saying that he was going
to twist off at any minute and declare jihad on me and kill
me. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is he is
a convinced believer. He's here and he is proselytizing. That is, he's spreading his message
with the hope that I will become Islamic. We're told in the Scripture to
test all spirits. They even, at the church that
was established at Berea, tested to see that what the Apostle
Paul told them was correct. And they were reckoned by the
Scripture as being noble for doing that. To wind this part, let me just
say, let us all be noble. Let us know the Word of God.
so that when we hear those who will say something that sounds
familiar, but is wrong, that we will be able to recognize
it for what it is. Because these people are all
over. And I say this because the man was Muslim yesterday,
but you know what? It's the Catholics, it's the
Pentecostals, It's any brand of religion that we want to talk
about. We need to know the Word of God. It needs to be right here. It
needs to be firmly implanted so that we may discern right
from wrong and be ready in a moment's notice to remember and draw upon
that. Okay, I'm getting off that soapbox
and moving to another one. I have two scriptures that I'll
read. One is incredibly short, the
other is incredibly long. Bear with me, and then I have
some other scriptures I will give you references to. If you're
interested, please write them down because I want you to take
this Meditate on these things. Go back and review them and make
sure I'm not just up here spitting out words. That's certainly not
my intention. The first passage this morning
is Judges chapter 21 verse 25. And the scripture says, with
regard to the period of the Judges, In those days there was no king
in Israel. Everyone did what was right in
his own eyes. That's the short passage. The
long passage is from 1 Samuel chapter 8 verse 1 through 22. When Samuel became old, he made
his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son
was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. They were
judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in
his ways, but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted
justice. Then all the elders of Israel
gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to
him, Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your
ways. Now appoint for us a king to
judge us like all the nations. But this thing displeased Samuel
when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed,
to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel,
Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you,
for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from
being king over them. According to all the deeds that
they have done, For from the day I brought them out of Egypt,
even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they
are doing to you. Now then, obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn
them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over
them. So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people
who were asking for a king from him. He said, these will be the
ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons
and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to
run before his chariots. He will appoint for himself commanders
of thousands, commanders of fifties, and some to plow his fields and
to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the
equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to
be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your
fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to His
servants. He will take the tenth of your
grain and of your vineyards and give it to His officers and servants. He will take your male servants
and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys
and put them to His work. He will take the tenth of your
flocks and you shall be His slaves. And in that day you will cry
out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves.
But the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people
refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, No, there
shall be a king over us, that we may also be like all the nations,
and that our king may judge us and go before us and fight our
battles. And when Samuel had heard all
the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord.
And the Lord said to Samuel, Obey their voice and make them
a king. Samuel said to the men of Israel,
Go every man to his city." Some additional scripture I'll put
before you for your note and reading. I'm not going to read
this now, but later you can kind of mull these things over if
you want to and think of it. But Romans chapter 13 verses
1 through 7, this is where Paul talks about Christians and government.
Then from the Proverbs chapter 8 verse 15 and 16 and Daniel
2.20-22, these passages talk about God raising up kings and
nations and disposing of them as He will. The passages that
I will draw from today mostly, but not read today, is from 1
Kings 1-14. That's a lot of passages. Then
also a consideration in the process, but we'll not necessarily read
through it or discuss it, is Romans chapter 1, verses 18 through
32. And this describes the descent
of a society from godliness to godlessness or paganism. My topic
today is loosely God's people and government. Now, I understand
full well that two things you're never supposed to discuss are
God and government. Well, we're in church, so I hope
we can feel free to discuss God. And the Bible has many, many,
many things to say about government, so I do feel free to discuss
that, at least in this setting. Government is important to us. As Christians or non-Christians,
government is important to us. Every level of human society
has some form of government, whether we call it government
or not. If two of us meet in the parking
lot out here to just have a conversation, we have an implied government
between the two of us. Certain rules of conduct that
we will follow. I'm not going to get in your
face and spit all over you. No, we're going to carry on a
discussion. I'm not going to call you names, I'm not going
to kick you in the shins, and you're not going to do the same
to me. That's government. rules of order for how we will
conduct ourselves in public. So government begins at the lowest
level and goes all the way up to the highest level. We have
government in our families. Every one of us in this room
understands that. There is, whether it's absolutely spoken or not,
it is certainly implied that there is a hierarchy, a government
within the family. My kids don't run my household. I do. I'm the king. That's the government. So there's
a government there. There's a government at the county
level. There's a government at the state level. There's a government
at the federal level. There's governments all up and
down. And this is built into us as people. There is, of course,
the ultimate government is God over His creation. I think we
understand that. So government is important. It's important to us. What I'd
like to do today is look at an instance in the life of the civil
government of the nation of Israel. And I'm going to look at Israel's
government because they're God's people. And we as Christians
reckon ourselves as God's people, so there are some parallels,
some things that we should be able to see. Now, I do realize
we are not a theocratic nation as Israel of old was. So there
is not a direct parallel between Israel and us. Can't make that
case, won't make that case. But there are some dynamics that
we can follow through that will give us some things to think
about, some ideas about how things should or should not work. And
it's there that I want to light today. We're going to go kind
of over a history of the development of God's government in Israel,
running through this, because I think it's important to see
how we ended up from God personally commanding one man, Abraham,
to the establishment of a king over Israel. There was a progression
of government throughout the history of Israel, and we'll
look at that. The first government established
among God's people was, as I said, a direct rule. God over Abraham. God came to Abraham, spoke to
him directly. There it is. Ruler, slave. Master, slave. There was the
government. God directly in charge of Abraham. From there we go to a second
government, and that was that of Abraham over his household. This is a period in the history
of Israel that we call the patriarchal period. The fathers ruled. Israel was confined to a small
group of one family. and the head of the house ruled
it. He was the absolute. What Abraham said in his house
went. Patriarchal rule. The third government
expanded out beyond that, and it was still patriarchal rule,
but as the twelve sons went and established their household,
They ran their households. Abraham didn't necessarily come
to Isaac's house and say, this is the way it's going to be.
There was that guidance, that following, certainly as long
as Abraham lived, but each man was in charge of his own household. He was the authority within his
household. It was a patriarchal government. With the father, the patriarch,
as the head, the leader, the sovereign, the absolute. Then
we go through a period of disarray as Israel was moved into Egypt
and suddenly Israel had no government of its own. If they did, it was
underground because they were enslaved. They were subject to do whatever
the pagan overlord said. From there, God freed them, they
were brought out, and they were again under the rule of God. Now understand that in the providence
of God, He was ruling all of this. There's no question about
that. But I'm speaking from a perspective that we would see on our level,
and that is that they had been under pagans, they didn't appear,
God didn't appear to them, they didn't see Him. He brings them
out. They see God in His manifestations. They're back under His rule and
guidance. Moses is His spokesman. So Moses becomes the absolute,
the ruler. Everything is brought before
Moses. He's the mediator before God.
He is the ruler of the nation. At this time then, we have two
governments develop. We have the civil government
under Moses and then we have the development of a religious
government that is on the side under the Levites, under Aaron. And this is an interesting dichotomy
because what we have is civil government over here, which rules
with the mundane affairs of life, the everyday affairs of life,
and then you have the religious government over here dealing
with the spiritual concerns and acting also as the conscience
for the mundane. There was this interaction between
temple and government and the temple, well tabernacle at that
time, served as the conscience of the nation. There was an interaction. Moses
dies. The mantle is passed on. to a
series of what were called judges. This was a system of government
that was set in place actually under Moses. If you'll remember,
he was in the desert, they were wandering, and Moses was being
worn out by the daily concerns of his people. Let's understand
that Moses had his hands full. The Scripture records when they
left Egypt, there were 600,000 men plus women and children of
the people we call the Jews. And they brought what the Scripture
says was a mixed multitude with them. These were other slaves,
people of other nationalities, people of other religions that
took opportunity to gain freedom and they came out with the Jews. A million people coming out with
him. That's a lot of folks for one
man to deal with. And Moses' father-in-law, Jethro,
said, this isn't going to work for you. It's too much for one
man to handle. And Jethro suggested and Moses
put into place this system of judges where Men ruled over a
thousand men. Below that, a man ruled over
a hundred men. Below that, another man ruled
over fifty men. Below that, another man ruled
over ten men. There was this hierarchy, so
I would bring my concerns to the fellow closest to me that
ruled over ten. If he couldn't solve the problem,
if it was too much to take, that he would go to the next level.
It's very much so like we would call our court system an appellate
court system in this day. This is the government Moses
had put in place. With Moses gone, there was no
leader, absolute leader at the top, but the system of judges
remained. But, as happens in time, Men are sinners. And unless God graces us with
perseverance of heart and preserves us, we decay. We fall apart. We go to our lowest levels. Just by nature. And that happened
during the period of the judges. The Scripture that I began with
said, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did
what was right in his own eyes. The system of law broke down. People reverted to their sinful
natures. They were selfish and they did
what they wanted. That breaks a society's back. It cannot last that way. And
directly, the people were panicked. My goodness, we can't even walk
down the streets? There's killings, there's rapings,
there's all kinds of stuff going on. We need law and order. They go to the prophet. They
say, we need some peace here. We need a king. Look over here to the Philistines.
They've got a king. You know, they can walk down
their streets at night. Look over here to these Amorites.
They've got a king. There aren't folks breaking into
their houses. We need a king. Well, this upset
the prophet because his position was that God is your king Let's
go to God with this. They said, we need a king. We
need a king. Samuel goes to God. God says they want a king. Give
them a king. Give them a king. But, this is what they're going to
get with their king. God is our perfect King. His
rule is just. His rule is righteous. As He
builds a people, they are just and righteous. You build a nation
without God, look what you get. You want a king like the Philistines? I'll give you a king like the
Philistines. But this is what you're going
to get. And Samuel tells the people,
this is what a king will bring to you. From 1 Samuel 8 verses 11-18,
let me give you an outline of the things that God says this
government is going to bring to you. You want it. You think it's going to be a
good thing, but here are the unintended consequences. Count
on them. Number one, verse 11, harsh rule. It is implied in the entire passage
that this is not going to be just rule. It is not going to
be merciful rule. It is not going to be kind rule.
It is going to be harsh rule. Expect it. Number two. The second thing. Verse 11. Military conscription. A king
doesn't stand without an army. This king will be taking your
sons and putting them into his army. Expected, harsh rule, military
conscription. The third thing, verse 12, a
bureaucracy. A bureaucracy. Kings don't run
kingdoms without a lot of bureaucrats. There's lots of day-to-day business
that kingdoms have to do. And it all requires some paper
shuffler somewhere to do it. Expect it of bureaucracy. Next, verse 12 also, forced labor. Forced labor. You don't build
a kingdom without labor. You can expect forced labor.
People are going to be put to work doing not their own business,
but the king's business. Verse 13-15, redistribution of
the wealth. This king will take your money,
your goods, your things, and put them in his pockets, in his
coffers. Verse 16 and 17, again he reiterates,
forced labor. You're going to be busy doing
not your own stuff, but the king's stuff. And high taxes. You can't run a kingdom without
money. The king's not going to have
his own. He's going to take it from you. expected. Now, all of this, let's
put it in contrast to what they had before. The system broke
down because of the sinful nature of men. But did the government
of the judges require a lot of money? No, it didn't. It was citizens ruling over themselves. They met to discuss concerns
as we've seen in the Bible at the city gates. So there was
a central location placed to meet. They met at the city gates
and that's where they decided matters. But it wasn't a big
bureaucracy. It wasn't a big expensive deal. It didn't involve all kinds of
stuff. It was citizens taking care of
their own businesses. Now they're going from citizens
participating with other citizens to a kingdom and the transition
is great and it comes with a great cost. Now, this was the warning given
by the prophet Samuel. Did it come to pass in the life
of Israel? The answer is yes. The nation
of Israel as established by the king first anointed by Samuel
and then those that followed him, the nation of Israel lasted
only 100 years. 100 years. That was through the reign
of Saul, David, and Solomon. With Solomon's son, the kingdom
broke apart and became two separate nations. The nation of Israel
was established under the kings, lasted 100 years. and you can
follow its digression, its descent, its decay as you read the pages
of your scripture. Saul was anointed the first king.
He was a military ruler. His government was a loose alliance
of military men made up from the twelve tribes. It was not
a hard, fast, strict government. Saul had Things he was dealing
with. He was fighting enemies, trying
to secure a place for the nation to even exist. So, they had a
king, but they weren't unified as a nation, and they really
didn't have a spot on earth they could say was the nation. They had a king, but no nation,
let's say. Saul goes through his insanity. He dies. David becomes the king. David, again, is a military king. He is not a civil king, so to
speak. The nation, when he takes the
throne, when he bears the crown, was a loose alliance. David's
contribution was that he gave the nation central focus and
established it as a unified people. One people made up of twelve
tribes. He unified the nation. Then, as he conquered the city-state
of what we now know As Jerusalem, he gave this new nation a capital,
a focus, a location. That's David's contribution,
but you cannot say that he really built a strong government. Solomon
follows David upon the death of King David. Solomon has the
luxury of a unified nation. a specific place on God's green
earth, a capital, and the crown. Solomon builds a nation and a
government. He broke the nation back into
twelve districts, this time not as unique people. He didn't say,
well this tribe stands alone, but he broke them into twelve
administrative districts. Each one had a governor that
he appointed that was answerable to him. Solomon was the absolute. He was the sovereign. He established
then at the national level and at the district level, the state
level if you will, he established bureaucracy, minor ministers
to handle the business of government. So we now have a government bureaucracy
put in place, clerks to handle this, folks over here to record
this deed or edict, such like that. He established a taxation
system. You now, in the districts, in
the tribes, are obligated to provide for the greater nation. Each of the twelve districts,
each of the twelve tribes, was responsible to provide for the
upkeep of the nation for one month out of the year. They had to provide, in doing
that, laborers for the building projects. They had to provide
money and supplies for those projects. So if they needed wood
for construction, it had to come from their district or they had
to buy it somewhere and provide it. They had to provide a military
in proportion to their district. And they had to provide for the
upkeep of that military. They had to provide for the upkeep
of the bureaucracy that Solomon had put into effect. And they had to provide for the
king and his household. Do the math. Takes a lot of money. In a relatively short period
of time, if you'll read your scripture, you'll find out that
the nation of Israel was screaming about taxation. You're killing
us! You're killing us! I can't pay
another dime! You can't build a nation without
structure. Focus. He was a great builder. He built a nation. And I mean
built. Physically built a nation. He
built the temple. Now let's understand that was
honorable and I don't mean to make this sound like this is
a bad thing. It's not what I'm saying. He
built the temple. It took 11 years to build the
temple. He built his royal palace. It took 13 years to build the
royal palace. He built towns within the borders
of Israel. He built towns for the nations
surrounding Israel that were allied to Israel. Today we would
call that foreign aid. And he built ships for the seagoing
nations that were allied with Israel. Israel was not a seagoing
nation. You can look at a map and see
that they don't have an ocean anywhere. They're not there.
But they built ships, or paid to build ships, for those nations
that were adjoining them, that were allies, that were friendly
nations, and needed ships. Israel provided that for them.
Again, do the math. It's a lot of money. It's a huge requirement in money. It's a huge requirement in forced
labor. It's a huge requirement in military. Within a few years of Solomon's
reign, The people of Israel were already chafing. We can't do
this anymore. You're killing us. Solomon's answer was, we're building
a nation. Straighten up. Take it. We've
got work to do. The people's became more disenchanted. Solomon
himself over the course of his monarchy, his reign, got off
into all kinds of pagan religion introduced to him by the many
wives he took. He basically set his godliness
aside and ruled from his pagan lusts. If you'll read in those
passages about Solomon's government, you'll find out he enriched himself.
The Scripture said he was the richest man in the world. Read
about all the horses, all the palaces, all the wealth he possessed. It's not like he went out and
dug a ditch and somebody gave him a dollar for that. He was
taking it from his people. He became more and more greedy
and self-absorbed as his life progressed. Solomon is a tragic
study in the decay of a human anyway and it plays out in the
life of his nation as well and it's very unfortunate. Solomon
reigned for 40 years and he died. His son Rehoboam took the throne. The people were excited. They
saw this might be an opportunity for change. Let's go to the king. Let's see
if he can be reasonable. Let's bend
his ear and talk to him. Let's see if we can persuade
the king. They sent, as their leader, as
their representative to talk to the king, they sent a man
named Jeroboam. Jeroboam approached the king,
he was given audience, and he laid his case out. The people
of Israel cannot bear this anymore. We're taxed to death. You're
taking all our laborers out of our districts. We can't even
get our own work done at home. And it appears to us that you
who are of the tribe of Judah are giving a disproportionate
amount of favoritism to Judah. All of the other tribes are suffering
while you enrich Judah. We can't do this. Please hear
us and act accordingly. Ease our burdens. Be fair. Be
just in your government. Rehoboam listened. He said, I need to think this
over. I need to think this over. And he went to his bureaucrats. And he said, what about this?
I said, there's nothing to it. There's nothing to this. These
people are a bunch of whiners. That's all they are. They're
weak people and they don't understand how government works and they're
just whining. They need to be put in their
place. So, Red Bull went back to the
people. And he said, no, I don't see
that you have a case at all. You don't have a case. You're just a bunch of whiners
is all you are. And in fact, you've irritated
me with this. And now you think it was hard
before? I'm fixing to drop the other
shoe. I'm going to make it harder. I've got a kingdom to run. I've
got things that need to be done. I don't need to be listening
to this whining. You thought taxes were low before?
I'm fixing to give you more. You thought conscription was
difficult before? Wait till now. I'm not going
to put up with this. There was a civil war. The nation
of Israel broke in two. The southern kingdom, consisting mostly of the tribe
of Judah, kept Rehoboam as their king. Ten tribes went with Jeroboam
as their king and took the name for their nation as Israel. The kingdom split. Two kings,
a people disunited. The kingdom of God, as Samuel
spoke of, anointed the first king and laid it in place, lasted
100 years. And it broke apart. The unified nation that David
left as his legacy lasted 40 years after his death, for a
total of 100 years in the Kingdom of Israel, and it has never existed
again to this day. People say, oh, oh, oh, the nation
of Israel, yeah, they went through their exiles and what have you,
and then they were dispersed for the thousands of years, but
now they're there now. That's all the same. No. No. The nation, the unified nation
of Israel that Samuel spoke of and as God told the people He
would give them existed for 100 years. That's it. And they succumbed
to their own greed, their own lust, their own moral depravity.
It is an unfortunate story, but as you look at people's desires,
their expectations in government, their governments and their rulers,
you can see the decline of the nation of Israel. It's unfortunate. And I will
say this, we've looked at Israel. We've talked about the nation
of Israel, but it's a pattern that is repeated over and over
and over, even among pagan nations. We don't have to cite the nation
of Israel to see this pattern repeated. Nations build up, they
lose their vision, they decay. They decay. A lot of words, long story. What's the point? What are the
lessons to be learned from this? today. What can we think about?
What can we take home? First, the human governments,
any government, any government, even though it's based on good
principles, even godly principles, and established by good and godly
men, still break down. They still break down. Every
generation that is born on this earth is a new generation of
sinners. And sinners do not see the vision
of justice and righteousness. You cannot understand that until
God captures your heart. So sinners Rise up. They come into even a good government,
and it must by necessity decay. It must. So any government, human
government, any government, even though it's established on good
and godly principles, will ultimately break down unless God is merciful
and intervenes. Good government, will have checks
and balances. I talked about the division in
Israel between the civil government and the religious government
being centered in the tabernacle or the temple. The temple acted
as the conscience of the civil government. That was a check
and a balance. The division by Moses of the
people into groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens was
a division of people and it serves as a check and balance. It serves
as a check and balance because anybody can get sideways once
in a while. And if somebody gets sideways,
then somebody over here can step in and say, well, whoa, whoa,
whoa. Consider that. Let's get right
with that. A good government we'll have checks and balances
because anybody is subject to error. Anybody. Anybody. The downside of that is that
checks and balances only work as long as people in government
choose to honor them. That's another issue. A third
thing to gain from this is that no government without a strong
influence of God and a thoughtful application of His laws will
stand. It cannot stand. There is no
justice without God. There is no mercy without God. There is no right and wrong,
really, without God. We have our human ideas and concepts
and things of what may be just, what may be right, what may be
fair, what may be good or bad. But apart from the influence
of God, we don't know if that's right or wrong. We don't know
if that's right or wrong. It may be good for me, But is
it ultimately good? Can't know that unless God tells
me it's good. So any government that does not
have the influence of God on it cannot and will not stand. Now, I'm going over, forgive
me, I'll wrap this up right now, I promise. There is, I think, an application
here. I've told you at the beginning
that there are parallels between governments. We've talked about
the theocratic nation of Israel, so not everything applies perfectly,
it cannot. But there are some dynamics that
I think we can see here. I think because I am a biased
human individual and I have my method of presentation, I think
you've probably determined some parallels already from the things
that I said. Our nation is struggling with
a lot of issues today. A lot of issues, and I won't
go into that. I don't want to make this just in your face political. That's not my point, but I do
want us to think. And there are many in the nation
saying, we need a law to correct this. We need a law to correct
that. Do you know what laws do to pagan people? They make them mad. That's all
they do. Go down to Montrose. and tell
a homosexual that he's wrong? Is he going to pat you on the
back and say, you know, that's right. You're right. I'm going
to consider that. Not at all. Go tell somebody who's wrapped
up in an immoral life of liquor and women that they're not doing
the right thing. They're not going to receive
that. Laws don't change people. Except in one sense, they turn
them from law-abiding citizens to criminals. The problems that
our nation face are not necessarily legal problems. They're spiritual
problems. A sinner cannot understand what
freedom means until he's been set free by the Son of God. Christ
said, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Nobody,
and I'll make a bold statement and I may be criticized for it,
but I'll stand by it. No man can understand freedom
and liberty who is not a Christian. It's not here. It's not here. They may have
a human idea of what freedom means, but it's not real freedom. We are living in a nation now
that is full of sinners. When this nation was established,
it was just almost to a man Christian. Now there's big arguments about
that, but let us say, and let us understand, read your history. just very much so a Christian
nation. And the Founding Fathers understood
that if we ever ceased from being Christians, this wasn't going
to last. Because people degrade their
selfish desires. We're there. We're there. But, are the answers to our problems
under the law? No. You know what? We've got
bunches of laws on the books already and people break them
every day. We don't need more laws. We need Christ. We need
Christ. The answer to the problem in
America is not political, it's spiritual. And it centers in
evangelism. People need to know they are
sinners. And they need to know that there
is a Savior. The answer to our nation's problems
is in evangelism. It is presenting Christ. Now
I understand that we believe in the sovereign grace of God.
And you will never hear me discount that. that God must indeed move
on a people, but we also understand that God moves through means.
As one man speaks to another, so is the gospel spread, and
so then does God save people. The answer to our nation's problems
is not law, it's evangelism. In fact, it's freedom from law. Sinners need Christ. As Christ
saves sinners, their hearts change. As their hearts change, so the
nation changes. That's the process. We've seen
this happen in human history. Israel of old went up, they went
down. God would capture their hearts
again, they would go back up. God can indeed capture a people. He can indeed change their hearts. He can indeed guide nations through
the hearts of people. At the time of Christ, there
were only a handful that said Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Within the course of 300 years,
the entire Roman Empire had been conquered for Christ. Changed hearts, a changed empire. The period of the Reformation,
God again captured a people. Europe changed. It went from
pagan Catholicism to Reformational Christianity in a period of 50
years. From that sprang the United States
of America. No Reformation, no United States
of America. Wouldn't have happened. God can
capture a people. He can change their hearts. He can change their nations. There are parallels to our government
and what we've talked about today, and I hope that you can see that.
I hope that the message didn't sound negative or, well, I hope it didn't bring
you down. It's a historical fact. Israel decayed. We're decaying. That's not the end of the story.
Let us indeed look at ourselves, look at those around us, and
pray that God would indeed rescue us. Our God is able. We sang today, a mighty fortress
is our God, indeed He is. Let us hold fast to our God and
Jesus Christ. With that I'll end. I hope I
didn't run you out of here. I hope I've given you things
to think about and I hope that you found the message meaningful.
With that I'll close and end. Brother Craig, if you would please
close us in prayer.