How does a nation become great?
How does a nation get to enjoy goodness, blessings, and prosperity?
How does a nation get to enjoy peace, safety, and security?
There is one simple answer: let all the leaders and the people of a given nation acknowledge, reverence, and honor God as Lord of all…let them live lives of truth, righteousness, justness, and humility…and that nation will infallibly end up being exalted as a great nation that enjoys goodness, blessing, prosperity, peace, safety, and security.
The corollary here is that the less the leaders and the people of a given nation acknowledge, reverence, and honor God as Lord of all…and the less they walk in truth, righteousness, justness, and humility…the less that nation will be in every regard…and the less goodness, blessing, prosperity, peace, safety, and security they will get to enjoy.
The only exception to this rule is that God has on occasion purposely raised up a Godless nation as a temporary financial power or military power in order to destroy another nation for its greater evilness and wickedness.
Now, God-haters will frequently go nearly berserk when they encounter the message that God blesses a nation and its people when they acknowledge, reverence, and honor Him…and He curses a nation and its people when they do not. But, love the message or hate it…the truth remains the same.
Continuing on…there are some God-haters who like to argue that certain Founding Fathers of the United States were not Christian men. Well, none of us can really know for sure until we move into eternity…because those men are long gone from this earth…and whether they were right with God or not has already been settled between them and God.
But, what we can know for sure from their letters and other writings is that they DEFINITELY acknowledged God as sovereign ruler and providence over mankind. Moreover, the MAJORITY of American people also acknowledged God as sovereign ruler and providence over mankind. And, that acknowledgement, reverence, and respect for God resulted in a nation where more people have been able to enjoy a good life of personal freedom and prosperity than has ever existed in any other nation in the history of mankind.
And yes, we have certainly had our share of problems and challenges as a nation and as a people. Yes, there have certainly been wicked and evil people throughout the course of American history. But still, the goodness that we have enjoyed on every level surpasses anything that has ever existed anywhere in all of history.
In fact, the goodness that Americans have enjoyed is EXACTLY what the Bible tells us will happen for those people who acknowledge, honor, and reverence God. Let’s have a look for ourselves at just one of the many instances in the Bible where this truth is proclaimed…
Psalm 85:7
Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.
Here we have the words of a King praying that God would show him and the people in his nation the mercy that would spare them from the destruction of sin.
Moreover, he is praying that God would instill in himself and his people the desire to walk in the truth, righteousness, justness, humility, and Godliness that makes them right with God.
Stated differently, these are the words of a King who WANTS himself and his people to be right with God.
Continuing on…
Psalm 85:8
I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
Here, the King is asserting that he WILL LISTEN to God…and he WILL LIVE IN GOD’S WAY…because he understands that the result of God’s way is peace…the kind of peace that encompasses all of the goodness, enjoyment, satisfaction, contentment, health, wealth, and relationships that we humans want.
Next, the king then gives himself and his people a warning: do not turn back to sin, evilness, vileness, corruption, immorality, or any other from of wrong-being or wrong-doing…because people who turn to sin will surely suffer as a result of God taking away His peace from them…and they will correspondingly lose all the good that they desire.
Continuing on…
Psalm 85:9
Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.
In these words, the King lays the truth out for all of us to see and understand: where there are people who acknowledge, reverence, honor, and respect God and His ways and truth…well, that is a land that will be glorious and wonderful.
For the sake of completeness, the corollary here is that where people do not acknowledge, reverence, honor, or respect God and His ways and truth…well, that is a land and a people that will be filled with darkness, disgrace, shame, pain, and destruction.
Continuing on…
Psalm 85:10
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Here, the King lays out the “connection” between what we want…and having what we want:
If we want mercy…that is, if we want to be spared from harm and destruction…then we must live in truth.
If we want peace…that is, if we want goodness, enjoyment, satisfaction, contentment, health, wealth, and meaningful relationships…then we must live in righteousness.
The “link” that we MUST recognize and understand is that IF we want mercy…and all the goodness that is encompassed in mercy…then we must live in truth.
Likewise, IF we want peace…and all the goodness that is encompassed in peace…then we must live in righteousness.
The relationship between goodness and God is a LAW that God holds as inviolate.
Mankind will NEVER be able to live in sin, wickedness, evilness, perverseness, immorality, or rebelliousness and still get to enjoy mercy and peace. IT. WILL. NOT. HAPPEN. EVER!
Continuing on…
Psalm 85:12
Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.
In these words, the King states the same truth in yet another way: in the place where there are people who acknowledge, reverence, and honor God…well, that is a place where God will give that which is good…and those people’s lands, their businesses, their food sources, their learning, their work, their marriages, their families, their possessions, and everything else that pertains to them will increase, prosper, and enjoy well-being.
Now, we come to the crux of our message today…
I am IMPLORING you as a Christian to research carefully and vote for the political and governmental candidates who MOST acknowledge, reverence, honor, and walk in God’s ways.
The well-being of our country DEPENDS upon us having political leaders who acknowledge, reverence, honor, and walk in God’s ways.
And, YOUR well-being DEPENDS upon it too!
If you are one of those who thinks that your vote doesn’t matter…if you are one of those who isn’t interested in being bothered by politics…consider this:
Psalm 9:17
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
It is your freedom, right, and privilege to NOT vote. It is your freedom, right, and privilege to NOT be involved in the politics of our country. And while you are squandering your freedom, right, and privilege by NOT being involved…those who hate God ARE VERY INVOLVED…and the nation that YOU live in WILL be turned aside into hell…which means you WILL soon enough LOSE your freedoms, rights, and privileges.
Is that what you want?
Is it worth losing everything that is important, valuable, and precious to YOU all because you can’t be bothered enough to get involved and stay involved?
The fact is, we HAVE BEEN ALREADY seeing this downward trend in our nation. If we look at the last 50 years of America moving away from God…we can plainly see that personal freedoms and rights have been infringed upon like NEVER before in our country…murders are higher than ever before…suicides are higher than ever before…theft, burglary, and vandalism is higher than ever before…broken homes, single parents, and orphaned children are higher than ever before…and so on. Every metric for “bad” is higher than it has ever been before.
And, UNLESS we Christian Americans GET INVOLVED and start voting for ONLY God-reverencing politicians, it is only going to get worse!
Now, I am most likely going to step on some toes right here…and that is okay because if what I am about to say applies to you, then you NEED your toes stepped on!
If you have been voting for Democrat politicians in recent years, then with few to no exceptions, you have been voting for anti-God politicians…and we have already determined that any anti-God nation will be turned aside into hell.
As unbelievable as it may seem, there are Christians who STILL vote the Democrat party-line. In some cases, this is because their grandparents were Democrats…and their parents were Democrats…and so, they are committed to being Democrats too. In other cases, it is because they agreed with what the Democrat party stood for in decades that are long, long past.
Folks, forget about which political party your grandparents and parents belonged to!
Forget about what political parties stood for 50, 100, 150 years ago!
And instead, pay attention to what political candidates stand for TODAY!
In particular, pay attention to whether a given candidate is pro-God or not…and if a given candidate is not specifically and vocally pro-God, then your future well-being…and the well-being of your descendants…depends upon you voting AGAINST that candidate no matter what political party he or she is affiliated with.
One last thing: please share this article with every Christian that you know.