Drawing Strength from Historic Faith

Welcome again.

Thank you to everybody who's had a part of this day.

It's been so well planned and executed and I Want to thank my worship, my worship pastor, eddie, for doing my favorite, my most favorite song in all the world.

You just did battle him of the Republic.

Sherry, my wife is under.

She is very clear on the instructions that when I died that will be Song at my funeral.

Okay, and if she happens to forget Bert, it's up to you to make sure so it is.

That makes my independence day complete to do that.

It's painting behind me.

Anybody familiar with this was by Blake the paint.

The artist is Blake.

It's revolutionary war depiction of something we believe actually happened.

The man in the middle with the blue coat on Is none other than maybe top hero of Mine for the of those days, francis Marion the swamp fox.

There's a movie you may have seen it, the Patriots been out a long time.

He was Mel Gibson, was actually patterned after Francis Marion the swamp fox and some of the Battles actually were pretty accurate as far as his planning and his Ingenuity and his what we would call today his guerrilla warfare Tactics.

In this particular case, he has actually Allowed a British general or lieutenant general to come into his secret camp, I'm sure blindfolded to get there.

He's led in there and they are discussing the possibility of a prisoner swap, and then, while he's at it, he actually offers this British officer to have lunch with him, and they did.

And so then they went on on their way and Francis Marion.

There's a book out, fairly new one.

Basically, the title is something about how Francis Marion saved this country, and you can make.

You can make that case, especially with what was going on in the south, particularly in South Carolina At this point, not far from Florence, which is not all that far from here, in the Swamps, outside the swamps, there was a battle called the blue Savannah, and then that Francis Marion took 60 men and defeated a British Regiment of 200 men, and in the process he picked off and ambushed a detail, coming from Camden, south Carolina, to here to put a hundred and fifty of our Soldiers in POW camp here, and he took all 150 of those soldiers and put them back into the army, and so he was quite a man.

Now Mel Gibson played the part really well, but I'm that's probably where it becomes fictional, because from what we know of what he was like, francis Marion Was five foot three on a good day, had a hawk nose and a high-pitched voice.

He was about the size of an eighth grader, and he lived in the swamp, and so he only bathed about every two weeks, so he was not exactly the most attractive male in the whole region.

Matter of fact, he never married until he was 54 years old, and Then he only lived a short time beyond that.

But it's people like him that we owe a huge debt of gratitude toward, and so let's pray real quick.

Father, just grateful for your word, we're grateful for your strength, we're grateful for your authority that your word clearly states comes before all human power, and so, this day of all days, keep us mindful of our priority to be Christ followers and to be Patriots second, and so thank you in Jesus name.

We pray amen.

I thought today we take a break from our Colossians study, and I was interested in no, because we're almost this country's almost 250 years old.

Right, we're really close to that.

The time in ancient Israel was often marked from the reign of David forward because he was such a remarkable leader, and so I measured out almost 250 years from what we believe David's reign was to the nation of Israel to see where they were, and it was very interesting.

That's why I'm gonna ask you to turn to second Chronicles, chapter 30.

2 Chronicles 30 · chapter mention

That is that time period about.

It's about 750 BC.

The nations have been split into two kingdoms, israel and Judea, and Judea Judah Might have been called.

They are not in the position they were 250 years earlier.

They're in a much weakened state.

And you might ask well, where was the church during those days?

Well, the church was leading the parade of Vulnerability, because it was the religious practices that enabled things like what we would call today temple prostitution.

A Large segment of the Jews were worshiping a God, an idol, bail, and Bail was the fertility God, and so to please this fertility God and send plenty of rain, they decided that it might be a good practice, a sacred thing actually, to bring immorality and sexual practices of every kind you can imagine into the house of God.

And if that wasn't your fancy, there was another way you could go to worship an idol by the name of Molec.

Molec followers had altar set up around a valley just south of Jerusalem called Ben Hennon at that time, and In that place called Ben Hennon, they would have a fire going and they would stoke it up really hot over this idol, this metal idol of Molec and this type of posture, and when the music got loud enough and the fire got hot enough, they would place a baby Into the arms of Molec and that was their sacrifice.

To appease this God.

We don't know how many children perished.

Aren't you glad that today we're a lot more sophisticated than to do that?

We don't need temple prostitutes, because we spend 12 billion dollars watching such stuff on our devices at home.

It's called pornography.

Pornography is important to a lot of people because it finances an industry called sex trafficking, which takes women of all ages to the tune of $32 billion a year in this country.

So those are highly profitable industries.

We don't sacrifice babies anymore.

We kill them in the womb, depending on who you believe.

Last year there were 650,000 in this country who were sacrificed in the name of medical rights and personal freedom.

I'm not sure that's the type of freedom that our forefathers had in mind.

So my question is what made this country great 250 years ago?

What made Israel great 250 years ago, before that excuse for a nation For us?

Was it our military power?

Was it the brilliance of our generals?

Was it that good old American ingenuity.

I believe it was the hand of God, it was the authority of God that trumps every human power imaginable.

If you know your military history and I love military history, I love the Revolutionary War period If you read that, and you read it closely, we had no business winning that war.

We should have never won that war and I believe, as a Christ follower, there's only one answer.

You know, I think, today the modern thing.

If you really want to know what a guy is interested in, if you want to know what interests we pursue and all, just look at somebody's phone TV and all of what they record to watch later on ours, everything that hints of the Revolutionary War and World War II oh, I've recorded it.

Oh, and football, college football, that's it.

Now Sherry has recorded a TV I can't remember the name of your TV program that you record everything up, but anyway, that's her top interest.

So believe you me, I love our heritage and I love what this nation has done in the past and so many of the things we continue to do.

But let's draw a little line here as Christ followers, and let's be careful, because I don't want my patriotism and my nationalistic pride to slop over and take any of the glory away from Jesus himself, because we are clearly in his house and this is clearly about him and everything I mean everything needs to fall underneath that.

You know, because I think we know now that those institutions don't hold the power anyway.

So I got some good news for you.

God's heart back in 750 BC, as we're going to see, and God's heart today is to restore.

God doesn't want to punish anybody, he doesn't want to condemn anybody.

He doesn't want to sentence anyone to a terrible eternity.

He doesn't want to make your life miserable here.

He wants to restore.

But he is God and so many prophets, like Isaiah, have reminded of that.

Though your sins be a scarlet, they'll be as white as snow one day, if if you turn, if you turn toward God through Jesus Christ.

So what's going on?

First five verses of 2 Chronicles 30 is basically an amazing account.

A new king, a new, a new sheriff in town.

Hezekiah replaces Ahaz.

Ahaz was the dad, ahaz was.

My contention is he's top three, maybe top two, of the worst, most evil kings in the history of Israel.

How about that for a resume?

He defines evil and what I described to you was just kind of a normal day in his, in his reign.

So Hezekiah comes on and somehow Hezekiah fears God Somehow.

Hezekiah knows how broken they are, knows that there needs to be a massive reform in the country.

He knows too that's not going to begin with our government, it's not going to be part of our military, it's going to have to be only God who can turn us around and he leads.

He says first thing we're going to do, we're going to bring back the Passover.

How long has it been since we did Passover?

Nobody could remember it had been so long.

It had never been done in anyone's life who was living in that day and that was like the key Jewish festival of the year.

And so he said well, hey, there's where we start.

We're going to bring back the Passover and all that goes with the Passover, the year, the week of feast and all that good stuff.

And they did it.

In month one they planted, and month two they realized priests have stopped being priests.

None of them are consecrated, which means cleansed ceremonially.

We can't get them cleansed in time to do it.

Maybe God will give us a break and say hey, I understand the situation, your hearts are good, so do it.

He does it, y'all, by the third month they are in a massive revival.

Three months they go from killing babies and celebrating it to a major revival.

So let's look at this a little more closely because God, since he wants to restore all of us and that's His heart is when we do turn to Him.

Here's what we need to understand, is going to incorporate.

Number one is worship.

I've mentioned to you the first five verses.

That's basically what they were all about.

Verse one I'll just read that Hezchai sent word to all of Israel and Judah and he wrote letters inviting them to come to the temple and to celebrate the Passover to the Lord of God of Israel.

Hey, you know what?

It had been 200 years roughly since anyone had done a Passover feast, because Solomon was the last guy After Solomon, it tended to just evaporate.

The most major, important worship event of the year every year had been gone for almost 250 years.

So fast forward to me and you.

Oh, and, by the way, don't anybody let you believe that the Bible's not relevant after what we just talked about, comparing 250 year markers, or is this like?

Could this have not been written like last week for our nation?

Worship, as you know, is not about us, it's about Him.

When it's about us, it becomes a battle of styles and preferences and opinions, and what makes us feel good when it's about Him?

It brings us to our knees.

It elicits joy in the worst day of our lives and it brings tears when everything is going well in our lives.

That's called a conviction of a holy God who loves us enough to tell us the truth.

It is about substance and not style, and that is why we're in this room to celebrate Him, not our wants, needs, preferences, necessarily.

And so for that to happen, y'all, there's only one real worship leader in the house.

It's the Holy Spirit.

And if the Holy Spirit is in charge, we're okay.

We're okay, we're okay.

If he is not even present, we're wasting our time.

Zechariah, too.

Prophets typically got up and said I got a bad, I got a tough message for you.

That speaks directly against the culture.

It's counter-cultural.

Zechariah was the same.

Zechariah has a dream.

He comes out the next day and says hey, y'all, I'm just gonna tell you what my dream said.

I don't wanna tell it to you, but God told me to tell it to you, so I'm gonna obey God.

So here it goes.

There's enough of you now to get your act together and move back into Jerusalem, which had been largely in ruins, and fix it up, and all that.

They're letting you come home from exile because we've been wicked for so long.

So as you move back into town, take up residence, start raising livestock and crops there, and they're all like are you crazy?

There's no wall anymore around this place.

That's the height of stupidity.

Is to move into a place like this with no protection will be vulnerable.

And he says well, here's what God said I will build a wall of fire around this place and my glory will defend you.

And so what he is telling this group of people is to deliberately put themselves in a vulnerable position.

But if they believe that he will protect and deliver and provide for them, they have no worries.

He will be better than the best walls ever constructed.

And that is exactly what happened.

Y'all, if we don't believe what we're singing about and reading and portraying God to be about, we're not worshiping.

But if we believe this stuff, the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

So again, if he's here, we're in good shape.

I've not been to Asia, but I've been in a couple of former communist countries and it never fails to humble me and make me feel ashamed sometimes of my attitude personally, because I'll meet and sit down and talk to people who were, like under communism, persecuted and continued to be Christ followers.

I've had a lady you remember her in this little village in Ethiopia.

She had us over for tea and she hikes her shirt up and I'm like, oh, what are you doing here?

Her name was Big Mama.

Every neighborhood needs a Big Mama.

You know Somebody in charge, and she was large and in charge.

But she said I want to show you something.

She hikes the back of her shirt up and there's nothing but ugly, scars, ribbons of scars.

I said how did that happen?

And she said 20 years ago, when we were under communism, they beat me with a rod through my husband in jail for six months.

Why'd they do that?

Because we're Christians.

How'd they know you were Christians?

Because I told them what'd you do after they beat you?

They beat you.

She said I went back to worship.

I went back to worship.

The second thing is six and seven obedience.

At the king's command, couriers went throughout Israel, in Judah, with letters from the king and his officials which read people of Israel, return to the Lord, that word in your translation.

It's either going to be turn or return.

It's the same word God will turn usually, and that was pronounced shubb Shubb, just literally.

It's a change of mind, it's a change of habit, it's a change of life To the God of Abraham, isaac and Israel.

That he may return to you who were left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.

Do not be like your fathers and brothers, who are unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that he made them an object of horror.

As you see, y'all, there is no revival without obedience to God's spirit and God's Word.

It's just that clear.

Ezekiel 2230 is that famous passage where it says God looked all over the earth looking for one man who would stand in the gap for him.

And then one of the saddest phrases in the Old Testament is but sadly he found no one.

Times have not changed.

He's still looking for a man or a woman to stand in the gap for him in this day, in this place, and to say I love everybody, but I fear no one.

And when it comes time to obey, I will obey God first, and if it lines up with the civil authority, then I'm all in.

But if it does not, then I have a decision to make and that decision will be I will stand with God.

There will be no vacillation.

God was very clear to them before and after that.

There were severe consequences coming for a pattern of sin and they were well, well, well into that pattern of sin.

This is important because it leads to the heart being able to be convicted, and some of you know this.

When you're convicted, seriously convicted by God about something, there's not a team of horses that will change your mind.

Oh, you're there and you're not going to shift from that.

Thankfully, that's what happened in 1776 through 1781.

There were a group of men and women who had vowed we're going to die for this cause or we will live as free people.

There is no middle ground here.

There is no negotiation possible anymore, and we're all thankful for that.

Here's the sobering thought.

Our new country immediately went immoral after that.

To a large degree, christian organizations became Christian in style, not substance, and by the turn of the century 1800, there was some wicked, wicked, wicked stuff going on in this country.

But a major awakening happened with Whitfield and Edwards and people like that, and this country had a correction.

We pivoted and we came back to God, and those were great times.

Do me a favor God's never going to bring a revival to this nation until His people are in revival.

I can't control a lot of stuff, but I can control me.

So would you spend a minute just praying silently?

And can I give you a tip?

Get your Bible out.

There's two places I'd like for you to look Romans 8, 1, 1,.

John 1, 9.

Romans 8, 1, or 1 John 1, 9.

If you don't have a Bible, look on with your neighbor.

If you don't have a neighbor, get one out of the pew rack First.

John 1, 9.

Romans 8, 1.

This is about you and the Lord.

This isn't about bad people around us.

This is about my wickedness and your wickedness.

It's called repentance.

It's called confession.

Lord, I'm grateful for all the many times you have turned back to me when I have gotten away but returned to you.

Thank you for forgiveness, thank you for the blood of Christ, thank you for saving a wretch like me and for those who are my friends in this room, and thank you for what you have planned in the future.

Our future is secure because it is anchored in your hope, and so, god, we claim that today.

Amen, thank you.

The three evidence of turning back is just flat old service, verse 8.

He says don't be stiff-necked.

They recall that all the way from Exodus up to that present moment.

Don't be so stubborn and stiff-necked.

He said submit to the Lord, come to His sanctuary and be consecrated forever.

Serve the Lord so that His anger will turn away.

When we serve, not for what it brings us, not to get points, but when we serve because of the love of God in our heart, we get more compassionate.

That's one of our core values.

When we are more compassionate, we become stronger internally.

And when we become stronger internally, we become more honest with God about who we are and we are quicker to admit our weakness and evil and frailties and brokenness.

And he is quicker to turn into this and send His Spirit to cleanse us.

That's the old word called consecration.

It means simply, I've set you apart.

I created you to be better than this and if you let me, I will make you better and your life and everything else will be better.

Jesus modeled it and he said hey, let your light shine before men so that they will see what your good works, so that they will do what?

Praise you, no, praise your Father in heaven.

Oh, that's good stuff.

Your best day on this earth is when you do something smaller, big, for somebody else and you walk away and you get no kudos, no backslaps for it, but God Himself gets gloried for it.

That's the best day because His heart is to restore us.

Nathaniel Green took over as Lieutenant General of the Continental Army from Gates when Gates blew it at Camden, right up the road, and Green had already decided there is no going back for me, it's liberty or death, and he spent his personal wealth to try to feed his own troops many days.

He risked everything.

He was a really good general and he won some crucial turning point battles, like at Cowpens in the upstate, and truly, truly was a war hero.

He also is one reason that we won that war.

He retires after army life and sadly died at the age of 45, roughly 45 years old, penniless, because he gave everything and this new baby country was not really able on its feet well enough to repay him for the sacrifice he made.

Y'all that sacrifices nothing compared to what happened 2000 years ago on the cross, and we know that.

The fourth thing that's so clear is prayer.

If you return to the Lord verse nine your brothers and children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land For the Lord.

Your guide is gracious and compassionate.

He will not turn.

Look down at verse 27,.

The priest and the Levite stood to bless the people and God heard them.

Why, cause?

Their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place.

There's not gonna be any comeback in this nation until the people of God start living in revival.

And when we pray, can I challenge you?

When we pray, we need to get good.

We need to get better at praying, not the symptoms, but into the soul.

We should be praying for health reasons, for our people we love, but that's symptom of something deeper.

We should be praying for the porn industry to be eradicated, but that is a symptom of something deeper.

There is a brokenness in the human heart.

That is what we need to be praying for and when that starts to turn, that's called revival and that's God's heart is to restore.

People do what they do because of a deeper reason, which alludes to the brokenness of sin and the open and pornography.

The dopamine drives somebody because that's the feel good chemical released into our brain.

But you know you can get dopamine a lot of ways that are God honoring and wholesome and providing in that nature, and that is part of our job in this culture and this day is to do it.

But you know what, regarding prayer, no, god does not move until we move.

That's the way it was in 1776.

That's the way it was in Hezekiah's day when he started to move and God honored it.

That's the way it is in 2023.

When God brings a revival to this land, is the people of God need to be the ones to move.

So you know, I've struggled.

I've struggled the last three years, especially of as a leader, saying when do I remain silent on issues and when do I speak out?

And I know y'all have to and I know it's that way at work and I've had discussions with some of you about this.

I don't have the golden wisdom for that.

I'll just say this my personal philosophy I've chosen to only speak out specifically about things going on wrong.

I felt like in our country when leaders directly were responsible, because we are a nation of followers and I hold our leaders at a higher standard of accountability than I do our followers, and so I think, looking back the times, I have called out someone, it has been truly a leader and they truly have been responsible.

I remember having a lot of fun criticizing Putin when he went into a place he's not supposed to be, of course, and his leadership and all of that.

I criticized Trump too at one point for something I thought that he did.

That was absolutely senseless.

I think it's time to say one thing and then move on.

As evidence say that we either turn back or we're in trouble from God for the consequences of our sins.

But the other day, with a pride month event on the White House lawn, when a transvestite by the name of Rose Montoya takes his shirt off and reveals his surgery to the whole world and hundreds of families standing around there, that's a desecration y'all.

And there is never a planet that's gonna be right to do.

And it did not make me angry, it just it made me cry and it grieved me, and it still does.

And then to hear our president call him a hero, encouraged, courageous, when we know what today and Tuesday means, where a lot of real heroes have spilled their blood for what we enjoy today.

I'm not condemning our president, I'm just saying he's dead wrong and I have been dead wrong and I'm sure I will continue to be.

And I think we've long passed the watch out about political comments y'all.

That's not a political comment, that's a moral, spiritual issue there, because last time I looked there were things on the law books that said you get arrested for indecent exposure, and that's exactly what that was.

I didn't choose to end on that, but I do wanna point that as how urgent and how grave our situation is in this nation, because if we do not turn, god will not overlook.

He never has and he never will.

And so we have our work cut out for us.

And if you're interested in what Jesus taught, political comment, his commentary Jesus gave an editorial on politics of his day.

It was actually to a politician, his name was Pilate, and Jesus said let me remind you, you would have no power if you were to be a politician, if my father had not given it to you.

That's where I am and that's where you are.

Our power comes from the mighty hand of God and that's who we report to, because his heart is to restore, to not destroy, and he will, if we allow him to do that.

So let me give you some good news.

Verse 26, there was great joy in Jerusalem.

Since the days of Solomon.

There had been nothing like this in all of Jerusalem 23,.

The whole assembly agreed to celebrate the festival seven more days.

So for another seven days they celebrated joyfully.

They're not going to church, they are having an experience with God that seven days would not contain.

So they just continue to do it another seven days.

You know what that's called in the modern era Revival.

Revival is when we don't really care so much about our watch.

It's about what he's thinking and what he's doing and what he is doing in me.

And that's revival.

He will move in my heart and your heart when you and I move toward him and we repent, because our job, frankly, is to repent on behalf of a broken country that is still a great country, still a great country, but we are in trouble and we need to acknowledge that.

I think, on this day of all days and so there you are, 80's going to come up I'd love for you to I don't know what we got planned to sing, but I would love for you to come down and pray at the steps for this great nation and your heart and family, if you need to.

But also, please, please, please this is my kind to ask and the balcony, and down here the first 20 seconds, would you just grab the hand of your partner, whether you know the person or not, and just pray for each other and our soul and our ability to be the Christ followers we need to be in this culture.

Would you do that for me?

I know you will, I know you're good for it, I know you will be faithful in that, so why don't you stand and let's do that?