Welcome to From the Pulpit.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have D.
James Kennedy with his message, America at the
Tipping Point.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said at
Gettysburg that this was a nation which was
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition
that all men were created equal.
He went on to say that they were
engaged in a great civil war testing whether
that nation or any nation so conceived and
so dedicated could long endure.
Today, my friends, we're engaged in another war,
another struggle, even more fundamental in its character
than that.
The question before our nation today is not
whether men are created equal, it is whether
they are created at all.
Whether they are creatures made by God who
have certain inalienable rights or whether they are
merely an accident of time and matter.
Whether indeed this is a nation under God
which can have a new birth of freedom.
Our scripture text today said, Blessed is the
nation whose God is the Lord.
And the Bible asks, If the foundations be
destroyed, what shall the righteous do?
There is no doubt that this is indeed
a nation which was built upon the foundation
of God.
That the Lord indeed was the God of
this nation.
That he was founded upon the principles of
God's word, upon the teachings of Christianity, and
for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.
All of that is under enormous attack and
has been for the last few decades.
In fact, so effective has been that attack
that the historical revisionists have all but removed
every vestige of our Christian heritage from our
textbooks and school.
Even the very monuments in the nation's capital
are being changed and removed that point to
the Christian origins of this country.
You and I were born in a Christian
nation that may not be said for your
children or grandchildren.
That is a concept which has been so
systematically blotted from the collective memory of this
country as to sound in the ears of
most people in America to be an alien
philosophy.
An intrusion of religion into the tranquility of
a secular country.
I would like to simply review with you
first of all today some of the evidence
to the fact that this is a Christian
nation.
Was founded as such and what we ought
to do to maintain it and pass it
on as such.
All nations that have ever existed have been
founded upon some theistic principle.
Either some theistic or anti-theistic principle.
Whether we think of the Hinduism of India,
the Confucianism of China, the Mohammedanism of Saudi
Arabia, or the atheism of Albania, Soviet Union.
We think of America, if we know our
history, we know that this was a nation
founded upon Christ and his word.
Those foundations indeed are crumbling in our time.
There are those in our country today who
are busily tearing apart that foundation who would
gnash their teeth at the idea that this
is a Christian nation.
And will not be satisfied until they have
removed every vestige of our Christian heritage from
not only the minds but the monuments of
this country.
But let's go back to the beginning.
To those intrepid pilgrims that set sail from
Holland to come to this country after fleeing
their native England 12 years before.
Their governor for 30 or more years was
of course William Bradford who gives us the
only history of that period.
And before they set sail from Holland, he
described their motives in coming.
He said they had, quote, a great hope
and inward zeal of laying some good foundation
or at least to make some way there
unto for the propagating and advancing of the
gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those
remote parts of the world.
Yea though they should be but even a
stepping stone unto others for the performing of
so great a work.
That is why they came, said their governor.
They came for the propagating and advancing of
the gospel of the kingdom of Christ.
And after a fearful journey of 66 days
without ever being allowed up onto the deck
of the Mayflower because of the great gales
and storms.
They had last sighted the inhospitable shores of
a winter New England coast.
They harbored there in the bay and before
going ashore they met in the captain's cabin
and wrote the first contract of government or
as they would call a covenant, the first
constitution of America.
Its birth certificate as it is called, we
call it the Mayflower Compact.
It begins with these words, in the name
of God, Amen.
That's where America began.
And it goes on to say, quote, having
undertaken for the glory of God and advancement
of the Christian faith a voyage to plant
the first colony in the northern parts of
Virginia.
And so they themselves here officially declare and
sign that which their governor had said about
them before they left Holland.
That they came for the glory of God
and the advancement of the Christian faith.
That's how America began.
But there are those who don't like to
hear that.
And surely that must have ended with those
first pilgrims, but my friends it did not.
When finally the New England settlements at last
got together and they formed their first bond
in what is known as the New England
Confederation.
They said in that that we all came
to these parts of America for one and
the same end and aim.
To advance the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
One and all they came for that end
they declared in the New England Confederation.
The documentary evidence is voluminous.
It would take hours even to quote it.
It was thoroughly studied by the Supreme Court
of the United States in 1892.
And they gave us what is known then
as the Trinity decision.
And in that the Supreme Court of the
United States declared, quote, That
is where this nation began.
That is the place from which we came.
John Quincy Adams, President of the United States,
said that the highest glory of the American
Revolution was what?
It secured our independence from England.
It got rid of the stamp tax, tea
tax.
What was the highest glory of the American
Revolution?
It dissolved our bonds with Parliament and the
King.
No, listen well, said President John Quincy Adams.
The highest glory of the American Revolution was
this.
It connected in one indesirable bond the principles
of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
One indesirable bond.
Government and Christianity.
Well, they have come with their solvents of
unbelief, skepticism, atheism, Marxism, humanism, secularism.
And they are doing everything in their power
to totally dissolve that indissoluble bond.
And we need to give ourselves to that
task that that bond not be dissolved.
Or else the principles of Christianity will be
replaced by the secular principles of humanism and
atheism.
And life will lose its significance and its
meaning.
Life will become cheap as it certainly presently
is in this country as humanistic principles are
prevailing in more and more spheres of our
nation.
Now someone will say, but yes, doesn't the
First Amendment say that there should be a
wall of separation between church and state?
I wonder if we went out in the
street and took a survey, how many people
would say yes to that question.
Yes, the First Amendment says that there should
be a wall of separation between the church
and state.
I wonder how many here might still believe
that.
Well, if you do, let me remind you
of something.
The First Amendment never mentions a wall.
It never mentions separation.
It never mentions the church.
And it never mentions the state.
Other than that, they're pretty close.
The First Amendment says, quote, Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
It was Thomas Jefferson in a private letter
to the Danbury Baptist who used the phrase
a wall of separation between church and state.
And they are by no means the same
thing.
A wall inhibits people equally on both sides.
The First Amendment only inhibits the Congress.
Congress shall make no law establishing a religion.
Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.
The First Amendment says absolutely nothing about what
Christians or people adhering to any religion or
ministers or clergymen or churches may or may
not do.
Joseph Story, who was the great commentator on
the Constitution, who lived through the formation of
this government, and as a justice on the
Supreme Court, wrote his great work on the
commentary on the Constitution in 1828.
And he said that an attempt to level
all religions, Christianity and other religions, all to
one level and make it a matter of
state policy to hold all in utter indifference,
would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal
indignation.
You see, my friends, most people don't realize
what this nation was like in the beginning.
Even as late as 1776, 150 years after
the Pilgrims landed, this was the makeup of
America.
98%, 98% Protestant Christians.
1.8% Catholic Christians.
.2 tenths of 1% Jews.
That was the makeup of this country as
late as 1776.
That's why Charles Hodge, who was the greatest
theologian America ever produced, who was the glory
and jewel and crown of Princeton, said, quote,
the proposition that the United States of America
is a Christian and Protestant nation is not
so much the assertion of a principle as
the statement of a fact.
But today people seem to think that in
some way religion in general and Christianity in
particular are in some way inimical to good
government and that the purpose of the government
is to keep religion away from the governors
of our land.
A very different view than held by George
Washington who said, quote, true religion offers to
government its surest support.
In fact, Washington said that without God and
the Bible, it would be impossible to govern.
George Washington, our wise father, the father of
America, said that without God and the Bible,
it would be impossible to govern.
And perhaps that is why, having banished the
Bible and having attempted to banish God from
all spheres of public life, we have found
that our Congress cannot even make a budget
that is becoming increasingly impossible to govern this
nation.
In America, it was religion which was the
surest support of good government and it was
the principles of Christianity which were united in
an indesirable bond in the establishment of this
country.
Yes, my friends, you and I were born
in a Christian nation.
I'm afraid our children or grandchildren will be
born in an atheistic one.
Just at a time when the atheistic states
of communism around the world are crumbling and
people are clamoring for the word of God,
so much so that they jammed up completely
the book fair in Moscow when 50,000
Bibles were given away.
They stopped all traffic in every direction, trying
desperately to get their hands on one.
Just at a time when the rest of
the world is realizing the folly of unbelief
and the fatal results in the lives of
people, America continues a pace down the foolish
pathway toward godlessness and secularism.
There were in the beginning and there are
today those who believe that this which we
have received as our patrimony, a nation of
freedom and liberty and only where the Spirit
of God is, is there liberty.
Those that have been willing to fight and
to die for such a country, and if
a nation is built on such exalted principles
as these, if it was created for such
noble purposes as the advancement of the kingdom
of Jesus Christ and the glory of God,
then indeed such a nation deserves our sacrifice
and our support.
It was felt that way in the beginning.
It is felt that way by many today.
Patrick Henry was the golden-tongued orator of
the revolutionary period.
He was a Christian patriot.
He said in his will, I have now
disposed all my property to my family.
There is one other thing I wish that
I could give to them, and that is
the Christian religion.
For if they have that, and I should
not have left them a shilling, they would
be rich indeed.
And if they have not that, though I
should leave them the world, they are poor.
Knowing the foundations of liberty, knowing the bedrock
of Scripture and the Christian foundations of this
nation, Henry was willing to sacrifice even his
life to defend it.
The battle, sir, is not to the strong
alone, but to the vigilant, the active, the
brave.
Besides, there is no election.
If we were base enough to desire it,
it is too late to retire from the
contest.
There is no retreat but in submission and
slavery.
Our chains are forged.
You may hear their clanking on the plains
of Boston.
The war is inevitable.
And let it come.
I repeat it, sir.
Let it come.
It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.
Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace.
There is no peace.
The war has actually begun.
The next gale that sweeps from the north
will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms.
Our brethren are already in the field.
Why stand we here idle?
What is it the gentlemen wish?
What would they have?
Is life so dear and peace so sweet
as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery?
Forbid it, almighty God.
I know not what course others may take.
But as for me, give me liberty or
give me death.
So said the Christian patriot and founder of
our nation.
Thankfully there are yet those in our time
with similar sentiments.
The greatest military genius America ever produced was
General Douglas MacArthur.
For 50 years, he devoted his life to
this country.
He was a man of deep and abiding
faith and love for country.
The only conqueror in the history of the
world who having conquered the nation of the
Empire of Japan said that what is needed
now are tax collectors to collect the taxes
for the conquerors.
No, he didn't say that, did he?
He said what is needed now are 10
,000 missionaries for Japan.
They didn't come.
We see now how right he was.
Snatched tragically at the pinnacle of his career
out of his command brought back in humiliation
to this country.
He found that he received not jeers but
an incredible outpouring of love and appreciation.
He spoke to the Congress of the United
States.
You probably saw it on TV as I
did.
But I think that perhaps the most moving
and touching of his speeches was his last
which he made at his own beloved West
Point as they sat there, these soon to
be officers in the core of the United
States Army.
And MacArthur, now an old man, 50 years
of service behind him, said, the shadows are
lengthening for me.
The twilight is here.
My days of old have gone and vanished,
tone and tint.
They've gone glimmering through the dreams of things
that were.
Their memory is one of wondrous beauty watered
by tears and coaxed and caressed by the
smiles of yesterday.
I listen vainly but with thirsty ear for
the witching melody of faint bugles blowing revelry,
of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear the crash of
guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange mournful
mutter of the battlefield.
But in the evening of my memory always
I return to West Point.
Always there echoes and re-echoes in my
ear duty, honor, country.