America
From the heart of
the pastor:
“How can
we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps.
137:4).
Has our own nation
become as foreign soil to those desiring to live
godly in Christ Jesus? Has America become as an
alien land to the saints of biblical promise?
Has the land of the free and the home of the
brave given birth to such aberrant cultural
leanings that Christians are such prisoners of
societal pressures that their new hearts are no
longer allowed to openly sing God’s new songs?
Has unrighteousness so captivated an entire
nation that the righteous have become shy in
their proclamation of righteousness?
In an audio by
Reverend Iain H. Murray of April 26th,
A.D. 2003 entitled John Wesley, Why are we
interested in the Methodists?, he reads from
a man addressing the national import of a subtle
non-applied gospel to those who are perishing:
“Men who are
destitute of the gospel are destitute of the
only appointed means of salvation; there are no
other means of fitting men for heaven; there is
no other means of turning them from darkness to
light. A community without gospel preaching –
there is nothing worth living for in that
community. It may be rich in rivers, in ore and
luxuriant
in soil; it may be
watered as the plains of Sodom and as accursed
as they. I would not educate a family of
children in such a community for all the
prairies between the Alleghenies and the Rocky
Mountains. Of what value are lands, rivers and
forests if the pearl of great price is not
there!”
Material prosperity
has displaced spiritual concerns in our great
land. Morality has become confused with
Christianity. The ancient paths of seasonal
prayer, the family governing itself in the way
of the Lord and observing the Lord’s Day as God
directs has been forfeited (Jer. 6:16). The
necessity of Christians coming to a personal
conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit taking out
the heart of stone and applying the law of God
to the hearts of men is no longer deemed an
essential in our homes and churches.
Many Americans have
become accomplished manipulators of their
preferences. They deny certain responsibilities
and yet cry for improved positions. Every
person is responsible for his own advancement in
this world premised upon his birth-talents, the
skills he has labored to hone through
disciplined living and the blessings that have
flowed to him from the Lord. Academics,
societal civility, the virtues of the ages and
personal improvement suffer severely when a
culture condescends to violate James 2:9 by
showing partiality to the undeserving at the
expense of those who are laboring in the
vineyards.
John Winthrop’s
Christian political philosophy, following
Augustine and Calvin, was not starkly
individualistic. The new covenant John Winthrop
articulated upon our American shores was
radically different from a social contract,
because the covenant was not merely an agreement
between the citizenry of the settlers, but
primarily a commitment to God. The
social/cultural/political/religious experiment
called America would only succeed if the
community followed the counsel of Micah to do
justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with
our God (Mic. 6:8). Social covenants are
pledges of absolute commitment to pursue the
good for the whole with the awareness of God’s
providential hand as the true determinant.
Nonetheless, the
economy of self-denial is so foreign a concept
in our America that it is actually denied. The
belief in an absolute truth is an uncommon
occurrence. The verities of America’s
foundations are being shaken and she is becoming
a bare blackened rocky monument to the truth
that our God is a consuming fire.
We are in need of
clear thinking, plain speaking, heavenly
motivated cultural shapers. These know that the
well-being of their society is not dependent
upon commerce, politics, market stability,
manufacturing or service industries, or job
creation, but the doctrines of grace being lived
and taught as a matter of life and death. Those
with understanding perceive what the times
demand and aggressively advance the work of
Christ. They are riveted upon one matter and
they are effectively about their Master’s
business. Their precise grasp of the most vital
matters enable them to articulate a
comprehensive declaration coupled with a call to
arms.
Who are those graced
by God to gift their people with sacred wheat
strained of any unholy tares and chaff? Who is
willing to speak with urgency and roar with holy
thunder? Who will hold forth the mind of Christ
though they know that the devil always has the
majority in his camp because his is the way of
ease, self-gratification, quick indulgence and
deathly sleep? There is about those so gifted a
sacred way that captures the imagination of
onlookers because they ambulate with sacred
energy and refuse to fan into flame the strange
fires of worldliness.
Are you willing to
set forth your biblical perception of the state
of affairs in such a manner that others may
appreciate the insights your Lord has blessed?
