Sermonette: September 17, 2018

"A nation of firm purpose you keep in peace, in peace for it trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever! For the Lord is an eternal Rock " (Isaiah 26:3)

Last week, the sermonette concluded with the phrase "if we lose sight of the purpose of our great nation that was formed like no other in the history of mankind, we will become consigned to mediocrity like all of the rest."

What is our nation's purpose?

We find the answer in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence where it states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It has been the purpose of our nation to guarantee these rights for its citizens and work to secure and defend these rights elsewhere, especially when and where they have been in great peril. Has the United States done this perfectly throughout its existence? Of course, not. However, this is its purpose and all of humanity is better because of its existence. Where would mankind be if the United States had not been there to defend freedom in World War I, World War II, forty years of the Cold War including Korea and Vietnam, and other more recent actions?

The serious reality is that had the United States not been there, oppression and tyranny would have triumphed around the world. As the sign on one of the properties at the end of town says, "Freedom is never free. Thank you Veterans for your service." Fortunately, our country has been a beacon of hope for people fleeing genocide and religious persecution since its inception. Many of us can trace our ancestry to someone who left their home country to escape various forms of persecution. Gratitude is usually very much on the heart and lips of a first generation immigrant. Subsequent generations often forget the pains taken by those first generation immigrants to obtain freedom, especially those relating to freedom of religion, and they begin to take those rights for granted.

Which brings us to the very source of the divide in our great nation: belief in God. As John Adams said at the time of the founding of our country, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In recent decades, we have seen a disturbing trend of declining Sunday worship attendance and increases in those who claim to have no religion at all. As the quote from John Adams reminds us, it is absolutely imperative for these trends to reverse in order for our nation to survive.

How do we go about reversing the trend?

We all who are broken and consistently in need of God’s mercy and healing power, need to turn to the inspired word of God through the prophet Jeremiah for an answer “Do what is right and just. Rescue the victim from the hand of his oppressor. Do not wrong or oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood...” (Jeremiah 22:3) then leave the rest up to God.