"BLESSED IS THE NATION WHOSE GOD IS THE LORD"
“BLESSED IS THE NATION WHOSE GOD IS THE LORD”
Psalm 33:12
JULY 1, 2012, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
JULY 4, 1776, the Year of Our Lord
“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.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and Pursuit of happiness.---That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.---That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and provide new Guards for their future security.” (Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence in Congress, July 4, 1776)
Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord…”
“The meeting of the Second continental Congress in May 1776 was well underway in Philadelphia when a tall 44-year old Virginian, Richard Henry Lee, stood before his peers and called for the Continental Congress to pass a resolution declaring the independence of the American colonies…
Congress did not vote that day but enlisted Lee’s fellow Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, to draft a Declaration of Independence for their consideration. Finally, after much debate and several revisions, on July 4, 1776, fifty-six brave patriots adopted the Declaration of Independence to form a new nation that was to become known as the United States of America---a nation dedicated to a new and somewhat radical proposition that all men were created equal an endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…”
This new experiment of personal liberty and human rights through representative government was uncommon, if not unheard of for its day. Ultimately, at great cost, the colonies won their freedom in 1783, and the American experiment was underway…
The source of the government of the Founding Fathers was the Holy Bible. It is the book that bound colonial American society together from Maine to Georgia. Our seventh President, Andrew Jackson said concerning the bible, ‘That book, sir, is the rock upon which our republic rests’….On the whole; Americans are a people who love the Bible and the God of the Bible. There is no book more powerful than the Bible to shape the morals and values of men and nations to be right and noble and just. It has proven itself over and over again in the formation and continuance of the greatest nation in history, the United States of America.
While other nations have built their governments upon the shaky foundations of communism, socialism, and countless other anti-God philosophies, only to see those foundations crumble, America stands without equal as a beacon of hope and freedom in a hurting world…” (Dr. Richard G. Lee, There’s Hope America)
“All public policies---whether sound or ludicrous, whether from the judicial, legislative, or executive branch---will always reflect the personal ideas and beliefs of the public officials making those decisions.
Public policies directly affect the individual citizens who are the intended objects of those policies. Public polices also have a direct impact on the entire city, state, or nation in which a policy is implemented, for just as God holds individuals accountable for what they do, He also holds communities, states, and nations accountable for what is done by their public officials.
As the Reverend Chandler Robbins reminded the Massachusetts legislature in 1791:
‘The Supreme Governor of the word rewards or punishes nations and civil communities only in this life… (Political bodies) have no existence as such but in the present state; consequently (they) are incapable of punishments or rewards in a future. We can conceive no way in which the divine Being shall therefore manifest the purity of his nature…towards such societies but by reward or punishing them here according to their public conduct (i.e. their public polices).’
George Mason---the Father of the Bill of Rights---had previously affirmed that God judged communities for the public stands and policies of their political leaders. On the floor of the Constitutional convention in 1787, he reminded delegates that:
‘As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities.’
When fellow delegate Luther Martin returned home from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, he reminded officials in his state of the same message:
‘It was said---it ought to be considered---that national crimes can only be, and frequently are, punished in this world by national punishments’.
Because God blessed or cursed nations, states, or communities based on the policy positions taken by each, it was vital to place at the helm of government individuals who would take stands that God could honor and bless, thus causing the entire nation, state, or community (and those within it) to be blessed. As President George Washington reminded Americans in his “Inaugural Address”:
‘The propitious (favorable) smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained’.
Regrettably, in recent decades, the three branches of government from the federal to the local level have too often been filled with public officials who are politicians rather than statesmen---with individuals whose personal belief systems have not merely disregarded but have even countermanded the eternal rules of order and rights which Heaven itself has ordained. When these rules are disregarded by leaders, all citizens pay the price…
Policies removing religious principles from the public sphere have been accompanied by a corresponding decline in public morality.
Very simply, officials who enact policies violating what George Washington called ‘the eternal rule of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained’ harm the entire community under their influence.
In Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus describes a man who had a good field, growing a good crop. That man awakened one morning and discovered that his crop was filled with tares and weeds. How did it happen that his field went from producing good to also producing bad? In Matthew 13:25, Jesus provided the answer, explaining that while the good men slept, the enemy came in and planted the tares. Jesus did not fault the enemy for doing what he did; the problem was that the good men went to sleep. This is what has happened in America; too many of the good people have gone to sleep concerning their stewardship of government, embracing apathy that results in ruin.
A signer of the constitution John Dickinson warned:
‘Political slavery is ever preceded by sleep.’
Much of the blame for the condition of America rests on the shoulders of the ‘good men’---the church and people of faith who went to sleep, thus allowing the enemy to enter and sow his tares.” (End of quote from David Barton from Keys to Good Government)
Where are called and anointed statesmen like the Signers of the Declaration of Independence who passionately declared: “…And for the support of this Declaration, with a reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
“What is the solution to reversing the negative trends of recent years? Jeremiah 6:15 instructs that if one wants the ways of peace and bounty, he should go back to the old paths. What were some of the “old paths”? Consider what was taught by early leaders such as John Jay, not only the president of the American Bible Society and the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court but also one of the three founders most responsible for the ratification and adoption of the Constitution, Jay directed:
Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty (as well as the privilege and interest) of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers…
It is shocking that some of our basic religious rights are now objects of legal challenge, but it simply confirms that if citizens desire to exercise their God-given rights without penalty, they must have political protection to do so---they must elect leaders and judges who embrace God-fearing values and will protect God-given rights…
History repeatedly affirms that God-fearing leaders will protect God-given rights. Public policies will reflect the values of those making the policies more than the values of the documents under which the polices are made. John Francis Mercer at the Constitutional Convention explained:
‘It is a great mistake to suppose that the paper we are to propose will govern the United States.’
That is, Mercer and the other framers understood that it was a major error to believe that the Constitution would govern America. He correctly observed that it would not be the constitution that would govern America but rather…
It is the men whom it (the Constitution) will bring into the government and the interest (they have) in maintaining it that are to govern them. The paper (i.e. the constitution) will only mark out the mode and the form. Men are the substance and must do the business.
Officials in all three branches wear an oath to uphold the Constitution, but the reality is that the acts proceeding from each branch will more accurately reflect the values of those involved in that branch than the values of the Constitution (or any other governing document).
For this reason, Christians and God-fearing people of faith must be involved in government, and ---as all others do---they must carry their values with them, for this is what allows our government to operate as efficiently as it was intended.
As John Adams reminded citizens:
‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other’.
We must elect individuals who embrace the timeless biblical values so important to both the proper operation of our constitutional republic and our own future as a nation. Understanding this, the Rev. Charles Finney strongly admonished God-fearing citizens in his day:
‘The church must take right ground in regard to politics…Politics are part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to the country as part of their duty to God…(God) will bless or curse this nation according to the course (Christians) take (in politics)’.
The Reverend Matthias Burnet of Connecticut similarly charged citizens:
‘Finally, ye…whose high prerogative it is to…invest with office and authority or to withhold them, and in whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider well the important trust…which God…(has) put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable for them…Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights, and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.’” (David Barton, Keys to Good Government)
This past Tuesday, we studied the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Revelation 6. This is a vision of the righteous judgment of the “wrath of the Lamb” (6:17) to not only individuals, but to kings of the earth, great men, rich men, chief captains, mighty men, every bondman, every free man, the heavens, the oceans and the earth.
Only the Lamb has the authority (“exousia”) and power (“dunamis”) to open the seals. By His life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension, He alone has the right to rule what He has conquered. He conquered with power as a man taking back the dominion of Satan over the earth. The first Adam gave up the dominion and the Second Adam took it back. Jesus has now been given the authority to rule as “prince of the Kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5). In the court of Heaven the four beasts and the 24-elders sung a new song saying, ‘You (the Lamb) are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every kindred, tongue, people and nation’.
It is my faith statement that God’s spirit of Judgment operates in these horses as celestial agents of God’s government. As Christ takes the scroll of destiny and proceeds to break one seal after another, the unveiling properly begins. His action in Heaven determines events on earth.
A great earthquake is a recurrent sign of divine visitation in the Bible (Ex. 19:18; Zech. 14:4; Mt. 27:51). In the natural, I believe the entire universe will be and even now is being shaken. Catastrophic movement occurs world-wide as a great earthquake dislocates mountain ranges. The earth is racked with convulsions. The seas don’t know where they belong. The islands, which are mountain tops, disappear.
Changes occur in the skies as well; the sun is darkened, the moon turns blood-red and the sky recedes. All these vents are described in Old Testament prophecies (more than 60 of them) as signs that herald the coming Day of the Lord.
A complete convulsion of heaven and earth is implied; the use of such language to describe political upheaval is also well established in biblical prophecy. The picture of chaos-come-again in Jeremiah 4: 23-26, where desolation caused by foreign invaders is intended.
As each seal is opened, each horseman is summoned by one of the four beasts. The Messianic games begin, but it is not the usual race; it is the apocalyptic death-race.
I did an in depth study of all four horsemen in Tuesday’s Bible Study, but for the purpose of today’s message concerning the blessing of the nations whose God is the Lord and the wrath of the Lamb against kings of the earth, great men, rich men, chief captains, mighty men, every bondman, every free man, the heavens, the oceans and the earth who defy and deny Him. One judgment seldom comes alone. We can summarize that when the white horse rides it is in war and conquest, followed by the fiery red horse of war and bloodshed; the black horse is famine and the pale (green) horse has two riders, Death and Hell.
“No man in heaven, nor in earth neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon”. It is my Faith Statement since the Lamb is the only one who has the authority to open the books, neither satan, or any man on earth or any celestial being in Heaven has authority over the judgments as and when they are unveiled.
Rev. 5:12: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory and power, be unto him that sits upon the throne, and unto the lamb for ever and ever.”
Death and Hell were only given power (‘exousia” –“authority”)over a fourth part of the earth to kill with sword, hunger, death and the beasts of the earth but to not hurt or touch the oil and the wine.
I claim that for Spirit filled Christians as well as the roots of the grapevine and olive tree which grow beneath the earth. Grain grows on the surface. There is a definite limitation to the authority given to the riders of Death and Hell.
The United States of America was founded as a Christian nation by Christian men of God.
“The good in the United States would never have come into being without the blessing and power of Jesus Christ…the truth is that the soul of America is, at its best and highest, Christian”. (Charles Malik (1906-1967).
Psalm 33:12-22: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. The people He has chosen as His own inheritance. The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the places of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; he fashions their hearts individually; he consider all their works. No king is saved by the multitude or an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength…Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name; let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in you.
Preached by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V. I entered into the laborers of the American Patriot’s Bible, Dr. Richard G. Lee; Keys to Good Government by: David Barton; and excerpts from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Pastor Carolyn Sissom as posted on the website under Bible Studies; The Declaration of Independence; Charles Malik, Ambassador to the United Nations from Lebanon. Comments and conclusions are my own and does not reflect the views of those who “I entered into their labors.”