This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, July 1, 2012 by Pastor Paul Mims

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Psalm 33:12-22

Albert Einstein died and went to heaven. As he was walking around and introducing himself, he met a fellow who said, “Oh Mr. Einstein, I have admired you for years. I have and I.Q. of 170.” Mr. Einstein said, “Good, we will talk about quantum physics.” He continued to introduce himself and met another fellow who said, “I have been wanting to meet you and talk with you. I have an I.Q. of 155.” “Good.” Mr. Einstein said, “We will talk about mathematical theorems.” Then, he met another fellow who said, “I have been wanting to me you, but I only have an I.Q. of 85.” Mr. Einstein said, “So how are things in Washington?”

We love to joke about our politicians, don’t we! But that is one of the freedoms we have as Americans. In some countries they would be afraid to do that.

Our great nation was founded on a strong belief in God. Listen to what some of our founding fathers said:

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the gospel of Jesus Christ”.

Patrick Henry

“Do not let anyone claim tribute of American patriotism if they even attempt to remove religion from politics”.

George Washington Farewell Address to Nation

“The 1st amendment has created a wall of separation between church and state, but that wall is a one directional wall, it keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government”.

President Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Danbury Baptists.

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people… it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other…”

John Adams

Last September, Janice and I went to see the place where the Revolutionary war began in April of 1775. We saw the memorials on the green in Lexington and went out to Concord and walked across the bridge where the patriots met the British army and first shots were fired. Hundreds of Americans were killed and over four hundred were killed at Bunker Hill. We went to Boston Harbor where the patriots threw the British Tea into the water. Some fourteen months after this, Patrick Henry was speaking to the legislature of Virginia. He said;

“Three million people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the Destiny of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battle for us. Battle sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

“Besides sir, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come. I repeat it, sir let it come!”

“It is in vain, sir to extenuate the matter. Gentleman may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war has actually begun! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?”

“What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or 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.”

On a cold December night in 1773, loyalists prevented the British tea from entering the colonies.

Governor Thomas Hutchinson allowed three ships carrying tea to enter Boston Harbor. Before the tax could be collected, Bostonians took action. On a cold December night, radical townspeople stormed the ships and tossed 342 chests of tea into the water. Disguised as Native Americans, the offenders could not be identified.

An anonymous loyalist describes the incident.

I dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea… We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water. In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

– Anonymous, “Account of the Boston Tea Party by a Participant,” (1773)

The damage in modern American dollars exceeded three quarters of a million dollars. Not a single British East India Company chest of tea bound for the 13 colonies reached its destination. Not a single American colonist had a cup of that tea.

Only the fish in Boston Harbor had that pleasure. (From EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE)

I checked to see what happened to the signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia.

Button Gwinnett (1735-1777)—After the Governor died in 1777, Button Gwinnett served as the Acting Governor of Georgia for two months, but did not achieve reelection. His life was one of economic and political disappointment. Button Gwinnett was the second signer of the Declaration to die as the result of a duel outside Savannah, Georgia.

Lyman Hall (1724-1790)—Lyman Hall was one of four signers trained as a minister and was a graduate of Princeton College. During his life he also served as a doctor, governor and planter. During the Revolutionary War, his property was destroyed and he was accused of treason. He left Georgia and spent time in South Carolina and Connecticut to escape prosecution. When the war was over, he went back to Georgia and began to practice medicine. He served as Governor of Georgia from 1783-1784.

George Walton (1741-1804)—George Walton was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776, 1777, 1780 and 1781, Colonel of the First Georgia Militia, in 1778, Governor of Georgia from 1779-1780, Chief Justice of the State Superior Court of Georgia from 1783-89, a presidential elector in 1789, Governor of Georgia from 1789-1790 and a United States Senator from 1795-1796. During the Revolutionary War, Walton was captured by the British in 1778 during the attack on Savannah and released within the year. He was the founder of the Richmond Academy and Franklin College which later became the University of Georgia.

On this Fourth of July week, let’s look at a portion of the Declaration of Independence. The Committee of Five along with Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

We have seen other countries try to get free of political tyranny in recent days such as Egypt and other Arab nations. To have the freedom that we have is nothing short of the blessings of God upon us. Now what do we owe to him for his favor and what are our obligations as Christian patriots?

I. WE SHOULD SUBMIT TO THE AUTHORITY OF A JUST GOVERNMENT. (Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.)
Romans 13:1-2.

Try to tell that to some person in Paul’s day when that government was trying to do away with Christians. The control of government under the Roman Emperors was far greater than anything that we can imagine. In fact, Roman law put him to death for preaching Christ. At that time the Christians had no choice but to submit. The main idea is that God overrules in the affairs of men and has established government for order in society. As bad as it was, the society of Paul’s day was orderly. But in the 1700’s our forefathers had the opportunity to establish a new nation and free themselves from England which was not nearly as oppressive what Paul was talking about. Today, we are very sensitive about the encroachment of government into our private lives as we saw with the Supreme Court’s decisions this week.

II. WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO BE INVOLVED IN OUR GOVERNMENT. (Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.) Proverbs 14:34.

It is always a delight to see candidates who profess their faith in Christ. We are fortunate to have candidates for office on the local, state, and national levels who are godly people. But it has come to the point at present that being a Christian is considered by our secular culture to be a hindrance to election. We must not let those who miss-interpret the separation of church and state to have their voices shouting over the true meaning of the separation statement in the constitution. The good men and women in our government have kept us under the favor of God.

Someone has said, “There are some things that will destroy us: Politics without principle, pleasure without conscience, wealth without work, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.”

III. WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO MOVE OUR NATION TOWARD GOD. (To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, “Here am I, here am I. All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations, a people who provoke me to my very face.”) Isaiah 65:1-3.

Listen to these words from Lincoln: “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplies and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these things were produced by some superior wisdom and virtues of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

Although it was at this very time when Abraham Lincoln was president when our nation was young and going through the greatest time of testing during the Civil War that the decision was made to put on our money, “In God We Trust.”

We live in a time called the “Post Christian Era” which means that the Christian influence in our nation is no longer strong. This has allowed the ACLU and others to move to take “IN GOD WE TRUST” off of our money and any mention of God out of public life.

On this Independence Day we need to assert A DECLARATION OF DEPENDENCE on God. If we will do this, we will have his favor upon us.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!