The Measure Of A Great Nation

An expository sermon from Deuteronomy 4:1-10

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

The Bible would you open it to Deuteronomy chapter four? Deuteronomy chapter four. We're taking a break from our study of 2 Peter, as this is 4th of July weekend. I like to uh address the national holidays and the occasions of those. And uh even on this independence day, I think that there is a connection in Scripture that we can see that is helpful to us. And so Deuteronomy chapter four, I want to read verses one through ten this morning as our text. It says, Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord your God, your fathers, give you. You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal Peor, for all the men that followed Baal Peor the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day. Behold I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do so in the land whither you go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but teach them to thy sons and thy sons' sons, especially the day that thou stood before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today asking you to open our hearts, our minds, our ears to receive your word. Father, we uh acknowledge that we are blessed to live in this country. When we survey the political landscape of the globe, we understand that not every government is equal, not every land enjoys the freedoms that we enjoy. And uh Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the opportunity that we have, and we pray for that for all people on this planet. But Father, first and foremost, we are worshipers of you before uh we are patriots to any country, and we want to understand uh those basic principles and tenets that make a country great, and that we make sure, Lord, that we stay true to those. So God help us to understand your word today, and not just to receive an interesting lesson, but to make application to our lives to live out your truth, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. In this text of Scripture, Moses is addressing the nation of Israel really in his last address. Deuteronomy means second law, and so he is repeating a lot of things that he has previously said to an earlier generation. Moses has been informed that he's not going to be able to lead the people into the promised land, and he is extremely concerned about their success in occupying the land that God has promised to them and not having a failure like they did 40 years earlier. As he is addressing the nation of Israel, there was a term that stood out to me. If you notice verse 7, what nation is there so great who has God near to them? And as we read this chapter, you'll actually find that the term nation or nations is used nine times in this chapter. And so he is addressing them not just on an individual level, but he is addressing them on a national level and even on a global level as he makes references to the nations of the world. And while this passage is specifically speaking to Israel, we do discover that there are some principles that can be applied to any nation. And since we're celebrating our 250th anniversary, I thought that it would be good to look at this text of Scripture and to learn some of these national lessons. However, let me say up front that I do not believe that this passage of Scripture is speaking to America. It is speaking to Old Testament Israel. America and Israel are not the same. America has not replaced Israel. America cannot simply take all the promises that God made to Israel and say, hey, they are now applying to us. That is improper interpretation of Scripture. But when we discover a principle, a principle is transcendent. And when we look at that and we say, well, what made that nation great? And there's a principle there, then we can apply that to our own nation for that. You see, I do believe that America has played a unique role in the history of our world. I do believe that God has used it in a unique way, not only as an example of what a national polity based on Christian principles achieves, but also as a missionary sending agency. When we just look at the survey of America, we can look back and say, okay, we understand that there were some distinctly Judeo-Christian principles that were embedded in its understanding of liberty. And then we understand that that becomes the water in which the citizens are swimming, and they then just come to mobilize to take the gospel into the world. And when you look at it from a mission's perspective, you understand that America has sent more missionaries into the world than just about any other nation in the world. And for those reasons, God has used America in a unique way on the global landscape. I would also go on to point out that what makes a nation great is not its military might, it is not its GDP, it is not its economy, it is actually its nearness to God. That is the one criteria that makes a nation great. For example, at the time that Moses speaks these words, Israel does not have a mighty military complex. Israel does not have a gross domestic product. Israel does not have a booming economy. As a matter of fact, at this very moment when Moses is speaking to Israel, they can't even grow the food to feed themselves. And so when we're looking at that and we are hearing that God is saying you're a great nation, well, we can't attribute it to military. We can't attribute it to their GDP. We can't attribute it to their economy. It has to be something else. Yet they're called a great nation for one reason and one reason only. It's because they're near to God. So I want to show you from these verses what it means for a nation to be near to God. What does that mean? You don't be near to God just simply because you say you're near to God. You're not near to God simply because you just want to be near to God. The Bible says, can two walk together except they be agreed? For us to be near to God, we've got to be following his truth. We've got to be walking in his ways. And so, what is it that makes a nation great by being near to God? Well, number one, a nation near to God has legislation and jurisprudence based on the sacred text of Scripture. What do I mean by that? Well, legislation is laws, jurisprudence is judgments in the court. And so a nation that is near to God has its laws that are based on the sacred text of Scripture, and it adjudicates court cases on the principles of Scripture. I find this in verses 1 and 2, where he says, O Israel, unto, hearken unto the statutes, the judgments that I teach you, that I command you this day. You know, Moses issued laws and judgments for the nation of Israel based upon God's revealed word. It was Moses who receives the word from God, and then Moses distils those laws to Israel. I found it interesting that it was George Washington who, in his first inaugural address as president of the United States in 1789, said, the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expressed on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained. And so when we look back into history, we say our very first president recognized that they were trying to base their rules, their laws, on what is divinely revealed in Scripture. What are God's rules and laws? Furthermore, did you know that the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., that there is an engraving of Moses holding the Ten Commandments at the center of the pediment entering the building? And then when you walk into the Supreme Court building, on the great oak doors that go into the court itself, you will find the Ten Commandments enumerated and engraved into the doors. What does that tell you about the Supreme Court? Now I'm not saying what it tells you about every justice who sits on the court, but what does it tell you about the idea of the Supreme Court in our land in its founding? It tells us that they had a high esteem for the laws of God as expressed in the Bible. So much so that they carved it into the building, and it cannot be erased, even in our secular time. When you look at America, make no mistake, it it began as a nation whose laws and judgments are based on the sacred text of Scripture. And you may be one who says, Really, you're just pro-Christian? You're trying to tell me that because our laws are based on this sacred text that it's better than laws than the other. Well, you just look at the laws of other countries. For instance, in North Korea, you can be sent to prison or even executed for owning a Bible. Is that a good law? I mean, even in America, we understand that though some of us may believe the Bible is the Word of God, we don't want people executed who don't believe that that's the Word of God. We don't seek laws that would imprison people for being Muslims or for reading the Quran, because we understand, based on Scripture, that God has given us liberty. And so when we do look at the landscape of nations, we understand not every nation has laws that are equal and fair and good, because not every nation has laws that are based on the sacred text of Scripture. Number two, a nation near to God has made a convictional choice to stick with God. A nation near to God has made a convictional choice to stick with God. In Moses' day, the people who constituted the nation of Israel had made a conscious choice to stay with God and not to pursue other gods like Baal. That's what he says there in verses 3 and 4. Hey, there were some people who followed the idols of other lands, and they are not with us today. But you have chosen to follow the Lord as your God. Likewise, I would say that the history of America cannot be told without the history of Christianity. There are some who want to try to divest America of all of its Christian history, but you simply cannot do it when you look at the facts. When we look at the origins of America, we understand that there were these people called pilgrims who came to this land. And these pilgrims came to this land because they were seeking religious liberty. They, as they came, you have to remember, came during a time when all the major religions of the world were already established. Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, and so they all are in existence at that time. But in the 1500s, there was something called the Protestant Reformation. And the Protestant Reformation began to sweep over Europe and it was a return to biblical Christianity. And those people who were involved in the Protestant Reformation become the fodder who come to the United States of America seeking this land where they can worship God according to their conscience. And when the New World opens up with the American colonies, many of them migrated here in search of religious liberty. And so the early settlers who would be the progenitors of the founding fathers were people who had made a convictional choice to stay with God intentionally. Number three, a nation near to God has influential teachers of God's Word. A nation near to God has influential teachers of God. We're just simply walking through the text. The first verses we see they have they have legislation and jurisprudence that's based on the sacred text of Scripture. We find that verses three and four, they've made a convictional choice. They have chosen to follow God. They have actually made a conscious choice to seek with God. And now here we find in verses four and five that they have influential teachers of God's word. Moses says in verse 5, I have taught you. And then he goes on to say, as the Lord God commanded me. The influential teaching of Moses on the nation of Israel cannot be underestimated. He is the one who writes the first five books of the Bible, and it really becomes the constitution of Israel. It is the baseline for their laws, it is the baseline for their court system. I mean, it is all laid out there. And so Moses has taught them God's word, and it has influenced them and it has brought them nearer to God. And likewise, when we look back to early America leading up to 1776, we must consider the theological influences of its teachers, preachers, and writers. There are men like Roger Williams and John Clark who founded Rhode Island. And Rhode Island is unique in history because Rhode Island sent John Clark to the king who petitioned for a charter. And in that charter, the Rhode Island Charter, they were granted true religious liberty, which is the first document we have in history that guarantees religious liberty to its citizens. And then when you look at Rhode Island, they're the last to ratify the Constitution. Do you know why? Because the Constitution did not have the Bill of Rights ensuring their religious liberty, and their charter did. That was founded by two Baptists named Roger Williams and John Clark. You can look at the preaching of George Whitfield and John and Charles Wesley that swept down south on that southern frontier and took the gospel from New England to Georgia and had a tremendous impact in stirring a great awakening in our nation. There are men like John Edwards, who preached the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and who is considered to be the greatest American philosopher in history, even by secularists, when they read John Edwards' writings, and he was thoroughly Christian and he was thoroughly biblical. Or take, for example, John Gnot. John Guneau was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York City. And he became an army chaplain during the Revolutionary War. And he is the pastor who baptized George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Schubel Stearns was a man who went from the north down to the south and started a church in South Carolina known as Sandy Creek. And within 17 years, they started 42 Baptist churches as far west as the Mississippi, as far south as Georgia, as far east as the Atlantic, and as far north as the Potomac River. In fact, Sandy Creek Baptist Church is considered to be the mother of all Baptist churches in America. That's all going on leading up to the revolution. Do you not think that there was some sort of spiritual influence? With all of that activity that is happening, we understand that these men were preaching and teaching and writing, and it had an impact on those who founded this nation. It is undeniable that these teachers of the word had an impact on the foundation of our nation. Number four, a nation near to God has a distinctively biblical worldview among the nations. A distinctively biblical worldview among the nations. In verse 6, it talks about how Israel stands out among the nations of the ancient Near East in their unique worldview. One of the great obvious differences is that Israel was monotheistic. They believed in one God, while all the ancient Near East countries around them believed in pantheism, many gods, and so they stand out because they had this biblical worldview, so much so that they're considered to be Jews when all the other nations are categorized as Gentiles. If that tells you nothing else, it tells you they had a different worldview. Interestingly, though America is an ethnic melting pot, it has stood out among the nations of the modern world as a Christian nation. Isn't it interesting? I was watching a documentary recently on our Founding Fathers, and it talked about how that America, in this American experiment of liberty, wasn't simply based upon the race or the origin of the people, but it was based upon the ideals of liberty. And anybody who ascribed to those ideals could come and be a part of it. And that's what we find happened in America as migration happens and Ellis Island and all of that. We are a mixing pot. And when we look at our nation, we understand that we have been unified in a large way by this Christian theology. For example, our worldview of liberty, which is based in Scripture, has made us unique in the world. We have a very unique view of liberty. We believe that all people are created free and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. But not every nation in the world believes that way. And so we have this unique standing in our worldview. And by the way, that's based in Scripture. Thomas Jefferson recognized that God created the mind free, the conscience free, and that it could not be bound or imprisoned by law or by man. And so we understand that there is this fundamental principle of liberty that God created in us. It's one of those things that makes our worldview different among the nations. Fifth, a nation near to God has a history of divine providence. We find this in verse 7. The story of Israel cannot be told without God likewise, neither can the story of America. How would you tell the story of Israel without God? You can't. It begins with God calling Abraham and saying, I'm going to make out of you a great nation. And then we find the providential hand of God working through their lives, like Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, Moses, and on and on and on. You say, Well, you really think God had a providential hand in America? Well, let me just read to you what Benjamin Franklin said in the Constitutional Convention of Philadelphia in 1787. He said, I have lived a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow can Not fall to the ground without his notice? Is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? The interesting. That's one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, so Ben Franklin. And he says, it's impossible for a nation to be birthed without the aid of God. Obviously, he saw the providential hand of God in the founding of America. By the way, that's not just the opinion of one of the founding fathers. Listen to the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence. We're pretty familiar with the first sentence. Then we get a little fuzzy. It's kind of like when we were singing the battle hymn of the Republic. I don't know if y'all didn't know this, but the screen on the back wall wasn't turned on, so we didn't have anything to read. We were pretty strong on the first verse. Then we kind of fell off after that because we're not used to those. Listen to the last sentence in the Declaration of Independence. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, capital P, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And then they signed their names to that. And so they were all witnesses that they were trusting in the divine providence of God in the act that they were taking. And then lastly, but most importantly, a nation near to God is at risk of drifting away from God. We find this in verses 8 and 9. Verse 8, you'll notice the reference to this day in verse 8, and the admonition to all the days of your life in verse 9. What that tells us is that just because you begin your walk near to God does not guarantee that you will remain near to God. And Moses says, as you are this day, that it may be that way all the days of your life. He says in verse 9, take heed to yourself, keep diligently the commands, lest you forget. What are they in danger of? Well, they're in danger of forgetting the past. If you look at the meta narrative in Scripture, what is about to happen is they're about to hit the jackpot. They've been living in the wilderness for the last 40 years. They can't grow crops. They're relying upon God for manna and for water, but they're about to enter into one of the most fertile pieces of soil on the planet. And they're going to go in and they're going to experience wealth and prosperity and success. And there is a tremendous danger that when you and I are experiencing the blessings of God, that we forget the God who blesses. And so he says, Be careful unless you forget the past. Don't forget how you got here. And then he also warns them about failing to teach it to the future generations. He finishes verse 9 by saying, But teach them to your sons and to your grandsons. Not only do you need to remember these and don't forget them, but you need to keep passing them on and passing them on and passing them on because this is the secret to success for your nation. And if you drop the ball, you will not keep the nation that you have. And sadly, this happened to the nation of Israel. As the Old Testament records for us. For example, centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah brought a word from God to the nation. Listen what he said. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, what injustice, what injustice have your fathers found in me? That they have gone far from me and have followed idols and become idolaters. Oh sadly, though Israel began as a nation near to God, they began as a great nation because of their nearness to God in a few centuries. The assessment is they've gone far from God. They've departed. Furthermore, Jesus described the nation of Israel in Matthew chapter 15, verse 8, with these words. These people, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Oh, may that be a cautionary tale for you and I as a nation. That this nation that once started out as the nation nearest to God has drifted far away so that the Son of God says, They're far from me. They're still giving me lip service. They're still singing, God bless Israel. But in their heart, they've departed. They're far away. We are selectively Christian, is what I've noticed in America. There are occasions when we want to wave the Christian flag and celebrate that we have some sort of Christian roots, but by and large, a lot of times it's just lip service, especially when it's done from public forums and platforms. I'm concerned today that America has followed the same trajectory as Old Testament Israel. We started out as a nation near to God. You can't look back at our history and not see that we started out as a nation near to God, but we have drifted far away from Him. We have wandered. We have substituted other things. We have allowed the blessings of God to eclipse the God who blesses. In the book entitled The Death of a Nation, the author John Stormer concluded that America had drifted away from God and needed to return to Him. And in the final sentence, he writes this Nations, however, don't turn to God. Only individuals can. I'd say that's a very accurate statement. You can look at our nation and you can say, hey, we're not where we were. We have drifted from there. But the reality is a nation doesn't turn to God. You're not ever going to have a decree, a legislation, a judicial ruling, an executive order that turns our nation back to God. Only individuals turn to God. And so on this 250th anniversary, I believe that the most patriotic thing that we can do is to turn ourselves to God in helping turn our nation. Legislation doesn't do it, right? What if Congress makes a law that everybody has to be Christian? Do you think everybody in the United States will follow that law? Well, of course not. What if the Supreme Court rules that everybody, that law is right and everybody has to be a Christian? Do you think everybody in the United States is going to be a Christian? How about if the president issues an executive order that says everybody in the United States has to be a Christian? Is that going to make us all be Christians? So how will we get there? When the church obeys the Great Commission to take the gospel to our neighbors. That's how we bring our nation nearer to God. It's not political activism. It's not social media posts. It's not doing all the things that seem to get so much attention. It is you simply caring about somebody near to you and saying, Let me share my faith with you. Listen, I understand, I understand that there was a time in my life when I didn't think I needed a God. But there was something gnawing inside of me that made me feel like there's something missing. There's something missing. And I tried every option on the table, and I kept trying different things, and it never quieted that voice in me until somebody, one of my neighbors, invited me to go to church. And at church I heard that gospel message, how that we all had sin. That was that missing piece in my life. And that even worse than that is the consequences of sin, that sin had to be judged by God one day. But the best news I ever heard was that God loved me, and that he sent his son to die for me, and that he paid for my sins on that cross, and he made an atonement that satisfied the righteous requirements of God's law. And that I didn't have to go to church, I didn't have to pass through the baptismal waters, I didn't have to say a number of prayers. All I had to do was believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I could be saved. And my friends, I made that decision years ago, and I would recommend it to anybody that I know. It is the only thing that I know fills in the missing peace in your soul. And so I would encourage you to share the gospel with your neighbors if you want to do something good for your nation. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank you so much for your word. We want to be instructed by it. We want to be exhorted by it, Lord. We want to be confronted by it. I know that I'm not alright. And I know that I don't want to be told that I'm alright when something is wrong. As much or as unpleasant as it may be to hear the diagnosis, I want the truth. Father, I believe that's true about everybody. And so today I pray if there's anybody here today who doesn't know Christ, I pray that they would receive that uncomfortable truth. That there is a sin problem, that there is a sin penalty, but that there's a sin solution in Jesus Christ. Father, I pray for us as believers that we would take seriously your great commission for us to go and tell others the good news of Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, we understand that it is essential for soul salvation, but it's also beneficial for the soul of our nation. That as we lead others to Christ, it draws our nation nearer to you, and a nation near to you is a nation that you can bless. And so, Father, I pray that you would help us respond accordingly to your word, and may we praise you and glorify you when we recognize what you have done in our national history and how you have blessed us individually to be a part of it. I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.