GOD BLESS AMERICA

SCRIPTURE READING: Deuteronomy 7: 6-9

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you –

because you were more numerous than other peoples,

·        for you were the fewest of all peoples.

But it was because the Lord loved you

·        and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers

          that he brought you out with a mighty hand

                   and redeemed you from the land of slavery,

from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God;

·        he is the faithful God,

·        keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations

·        of those who

o       love him and

o       keep his commands to a thousand generations.

Throughout their history, as long as the Israelites kept their end of that covenant, God blessed them.  Yet almost as soon as God did so, they would turn away from Him, often in less than a generation. Yet, because He loved them, He would not wash His hands of them, no matter how sorely they tried Him.  All too often, however, they left Him no choice but to lift His grace and allow:

·        drought or

·        flood or

·        pestilence or

·         war or

·        bondage or

·        persecution

 to turn His people back to Him.

Some modern Christians believe that this idea of a corporate or national covenant relationship with God ceased with the coming of Jesus Christ.  They feel that, with the advent of Christianity, God replaced His covenant with Israel with the Church and that God is no longer especially interested in any physical entity called Israel.  They believe that humankind’s relationship with God is now simply a private spiritual matter.

But what if God’s point of view had never changed?

·        What if, in addition to the personal relationship with the individual through Jesus Christ, God continued to deal with nations corporately, as He had throughout Old Testament history?

·        What if, in particular, He had a plan for those he would bring to America, a plan that saw this continent as the stage for a new act in the drama of humankind’s redemption?

Could it be that we Americans, as a people, had been given a mission by almighty God?

·        Were we meant to be “a beacon of hope,” as Abraham Lincoln declared or, a “Light to lighten the Gentiles,” to put it in Scriptural terms?

·        What if, God had called us to demonstrate to the world that if His children put into practice the Biblical principles of self-government, they could indeed create a society of liberty and justice for all?

·        And was our vast divergence from this mission, after such a promising beginning, the reason why we now seemed to be sliding into a morass of moral decay, with our world growing darker by the hour?

Lee Tuveson wrote an insightful book entitled Redeemer Nation.  In it, he sheds light on the fact that the Pilgrims and the Puritans thought of themselves as a people called into a covenant relationship with God similar to the one He had established with ancient Israel.

The Pilgrims and Puritans, as they examined the Scriptures,  saw parallels between the ways in which God had lead them to America and the Old Testament stories of God’s dealing with ancient Israel, saw themselves as called to found a “New Israel” (in their phrase), which would be a light to the whole world. (A city set upon a hill) was how John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, envisioned it.

There is a rich vein of gold that runs through American History. This vein of gold has four main characteristics:

1.     God had put a specific “call” on this country and the people whom He brought to inhabit it.  In the virgin wilderness of America, God was making His most significant attempt since ancient Israel to create a “New Israel” of people living in obedience to Biblical principles, through faith in Jesus Christ.  “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills . . . a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing . . .and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you” (Deuteronomy 8:7-8).

2.     This call was to be worked out in terms of the settler’s covenant with God and with each other.

·        Vertical (Relationship with God)

·        Horizontal(Relationship with each other)

“And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also” (1John 4:21).

Our forefathers saw in themselves the continuation of the Abrahamic Covenant. “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you’” (Genesis 12:1-2).

3.     God did keep His end of the bargain, on both an individual and a corporate basis.  It is a sobering experience to look closely at our history and see just how highly God regarded rightly attitudes of the heart.  One finds long droughts broken by the people of a settlement deliberately praying and humbling themselves, turning back to the God whom they once trusted and had imperceptibly begun to take for granted.

The recorded beliefs of the settlers themselves confirmed this.  In:

·        private diaries

·        public proclamations

The immediate response to any disaster, human or natural was,

“Where do we need to repent?”  In fact, there seemed to be a continuing, almost predictable cycle:  in great need and humility, a small body of Christians would put themselves into the hands of their Lord and commit their lives to one another.  The documented record shows that they would do their best to live together as He had called them to live. And He, in turn, would begin to pour out His blessing on them with :

·        health,

·        peace,

·        and bounteous harvests.

But then as they grew affluent, they would also become

·        proud or

·        complacent or

·        self-righteous

Nonetheless, the blessing would continue unabated, sometimes for a generation or more, as God continued to honor the obedience of their fathers and grandfathers (Deut.7:9).

But inevitably, because He loved them (and because even God’s patience has an end.), He would lift the protection from their land, just enough to cause them to turn back to  Him. 

·        a drought,

·        an epidemic of smallpox,

·        a plague of grasshoppers,

·        an Indian uprising

and the wisest among them would remember.  Like the prophets of old, they would call the people to repentance.

Few Biblical principles are more compelling than this:  GOD BLESSES REPENTANCE. And, in the early days of our history, it was frequently proven that when people began to earnestly repent, what followed was the return of God’s grace.

The Scripture says, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land”

(2 Chronicles 7:14).

This, then, was the key to God’s plan for America: that His people—three thousand years ago, three hundred and fifty years ago or today---would see themselves individually and corporately, in continual need of God’s :

·        forgiveness

·        mercy

·        and support

And this was the secret  of the horizontal aspect of the covenant as well: for only when we know that we are no better than anyone else---only then can we truly love other people.

From this humble position, it is impossible to enter into an arrogant nationalism, a kind of “my country right or wrong” attitude.

Anyone tempted to arrogance concerning our nation’s call or history need only look at how badly we have failed—and continue to fail –to live up to God’s expectations for us.

The great leaders of our past warned us about this.  Here is Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster: “If we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”

4.     This, then, was the fourth and final theme:  at times of great crisis God

raised up great leaders to protect America from destruction so that His plan for us might have a chance of success.

Instead of aspiring to fame and fortune, leaders like Bradford, Winthrop, Samuel Adams, and Washington truly wanted nothing more than to serve God’s people.  And because these servant-leaders were living out the example of One who said, “I am among you as one who serves,” God was able to use them mightily to change the course of American history.

In 1775 when the U.S. Marine Corps was founded, the recruiting slogan stated that it was seeking “a few good men.”  That is essentially what God said to Gideon in ancient Israel, when He reduced his army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred.  And it was what He seemed to be saying three and a half centuries ago, as He began to gather those who were willing to give up everything for His sake in order to dwell in His “New Israel.”

How much of the grace that continues in this country today and how many of the incredible blessings that have been poured out upon this land are a direct result of their obedience and willingness to die to self?  Only God knows for certain.

That grace seems to be lifting now, but as we look through our nation’s history to discover God’s plan, we begin to see what a great difference a few dedicated people can make—and how much is still at stake.

FOR GOD’S CALL TO THIS COUNTRY HAS NEVER BEEN REVOKED.  AMEN.