History, Liberty, Freedom, Hope, Matthew 21:28-32
This weekend we are celebrating the 240th anniversary of our nation's birthday. The Declaration of Independence was originally approved on July 2nd, and the next two days were spent debating some of the wording and the final form was approved on July 4th. It wasn't signed for another month, actually August 2nd, and even then there were five who did not sign it. Two never did sign it, one recanted but only because he was captured by the British several months and put into jail, tortured, starved and beaten. Only after several months did he recant. He was released and when he got back to his home in the state of New Jersey he retook his oath of loyalty to that state.
Celebrating Independence Day of July 4th is a significant thing that we do; it is important. It is a reminder to us of why this nation was founded, of who the people were who founded this nation and what their vision was. Because only in understanding that vision, only in understanding their framework, can we understand what it is to be an American. We have lost that concept in recent decades. We focus more on the melting pot and secondary ideas that on the defining ideas and values and standards that are embodied in our founding documents. Belief in those values is what made America great and the beacon of light to the world. It is the implementation of those values based on those biblical Judeo-Christian beliefs that made this a place for people to escape enslavement, poverty and oppression. Without that foundation of Judeo-Christian ethics and value, and the core spiritual realities that are embodied in the Bible there cannot be a place of refuge, because without that foundation there is no real understanding of freedom and liberty.
And so it is vital for us to reflect upon our foundation, year in and year out. We need to know how it is that we came to be a unique people, a unique nation among the nations of the world, and to be reminded that it was ultimately God's providential grace that raised up this nation. And only when we understand the past can we begin to understand where we need to go and what we need to do as we reflect upon our future. If God grants us a future it will only be if we return to the roots of our foundation.
The idea of celebrating certain days in remembrance of past events goes back to the early days of the human race. But as Christians, when we look at the Bible, we see that there are numerous days that are set aside by God for the purpose of remembrance.
We can think of others things where certain key events happened in the history of Israel where God had them erect a monument or something that would be a reminder so that when subsequent generations would come along they would be teaching opportunities to teach history to the next generation.
History is the most important thing that we can study; it is the foundation for everything else. History, in my opinion, is the glue that holds everything together and once we get away from history and understanding it then everything will fall apart. This is exactly what has happened in our culture over the last hundred years as progressives, the revisionists, have sought to denigrate history, change history, and rewrite history. And it changes the culture.
Now we have a generation of people who are relatively ignorant of history and they have no idea even why we celebrate. They think we celebrate the fourth of July. We do not celebrate the fourth of July; we celebrate Independence Day, which took place on the fourth of July.
Looking at the Bible, it is interesting that the first command to remember something occurs in Exodus chapter thirteen in connection with the birthday of the nation of Israel. Exodus 13:3 NASB “Moses said to the people, 'Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the LORD brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten'.” This is related to Passover. Passover is the independence day of Israel.
Every year when this occurred they rehearsed what happened. They went through the story; they asked questions; they engaged the children so that they learned what God did in their past, how the existence of their nation was unique and distinct in that they were God's special chosen people with whom God entered into a special covenant. There never has been before and there never will be again a nation like Israel. And it is through the telling of that story year after year that God designed a way to strengthen that foundation.
But when they got away from it, when it became just something that was rote, when it was something that was no longer connected to the spiritual realities—understanding the reality of God—then instead of worshipping the God of Abraham and Isaac—they turned to idols. When they turned away from an understanding of God's grace in bestowing His favor upon them they entered into a slavery to their sin nature that simply resulted in slavery to oppressing powers.
By the time of the first century and Jesus is in confrontation with the religious leaders what we find is that, much like today, the people observed Passover but they don't understand why. Most of them have lost that understanding of the true spiritual realities, much like in this nation today.
Someone said this (built off an original quote by Winston Churchill): “A nation that forgets its past destroys its future”), which has been expanded to include past, present and future: “A nation that forgets its history impoverishes the present and destroys its future”.
That is an important principle. When we don't know history, when we don't know why we do what we do or where things came from, then we can't appreciate what is going on today. A nation that doesn't appreciate its past will destroy its future.
Winston Churchill also said: “Study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft”. What he meant by statecraft is what we talk about in terms of politics and law, what makes a nation work, what makes a nation prosperous and what destroys a nation.
Sir Edmund Burke, a British politician at the time of the American war for independence, a political philosopher and member of the House of Commons, wrote: “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it”. And we see this happen, again and again and again.
One problem for many of us is that we have an understanding of where America has been in its past, an appreciation for some of the more prosperous times, for times when this nation flourished both in terms of its economic power as well as its military power. We remember a time when there were genuine spiritual revivals in this nation and when if we said, “This is what the Bible says”, it carried weight, it carried authority, and it was respected because that was what the Bible said. We didn't need to say anything else.
We remember a time when there was a greater economic stability, greater prosperity, and a time when the government valued the nuclear family so that if you were parents with two children you hardly paid any taxes, and because of the prosperity of the nation only one parent had to work. The economic lifestyle of a family with only one breadwinner in the late 50s and early 60s could only be matched by the late 70s with two working adults who were working 60-70 hours a week each. By then they were also paying a much more burdensome tax rate. The government made an enemy of the family, which is the very core to sustain a culture. It fragmented the family and a fragmentation of the culture was one result.
There are a lot of things that we can look at in the world today. We can watch the news each night, get up in the morning and focus on our culture, and those of us who have perspective and wisdom and understanding see where it is going and how horrible it is. Our culture has turned into a cesspool. Unless there is something that changes it is only going to get worse.
In a current editorial former congressman Tom Tancredo from Colorado raises the question:
Why do we continue to celebrate Independence Day when we no longer cherish independence?
Maybe that thought has occurred to some of you; it certainly occurred to me. As I thought about our nation and our past, and I see the direction we are going, sometimes it is hard for me to think and be very patriotic because I cannot support the policies of this present government. But we have to stop and reflect on a much broader scale than just what is going on today.
Tancredo raises some of the issues we are all familiar with:
Our schools no longer teach our children the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Our elected officials no longer protect our sovereignty. Our courts do not recognize or even comprehend God-given inalienable rights for which the patriots of 1776 pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Our professors, priests and futurists are so enamored of global citizenship they see individual rights as an anachronism. Multiculturism is not an idea to be debated; it is the new orthodoxy to be obeyed, or else.
We could add to his questions other observations. Our political leadership has become corrupt. On the one hand we have a political family that has sold out to the highest bidder. One presidential candidate is for the first time being investigated for federal criminal actions. Her honesty is ranked lower by most people than almost any candidate in history. Many believe she committed treason in her failures as Secretary of State to act to protect our embassy in Benghazi in Libya.
Her opponent has his own set of moral and character flaws. He is crude, crass; he jumps off without thinking about things. He has many odd and unusual ideas, and many people react to him.
We have congressional leaders so addicted to their personal power and the wealth that they have accumulated serving our nation that with few exceptions they can no longer be trusted to serve the people, only their own self interests.
I heard a question about the Clintons the other day: How can two people who have dedicated their lives to serve the country be worth $200-million?
A local congressman has tripled his net worth in his last three terms in Congress. He didn't have much to begin with; now he is worth over a million dollars. How does that happen?
Our political and bureaucratic leaders seek to radically transform the cultural, moral and spiritual foundation of the nation, and to a large degree over the last 100 years of progressives have been very successful. We have very few conservatives or believers in the history of this nation or the exceptionalism of the United States teaching in any college or university in this country. As a result our young people are being brainwashed into progressivism and a totally false view of reality when we send them off to college.
One of the first things attacked if they have a faith in the Bible or Jesus Christ, is that faith. They are singled out, belittled, ridiculed and disrespected for being Christians. So in order to save some self-respect they give up what they have been taught by their parents.
We are often asked the question: What can be done? Is this irreversible? And if we put our focus on the tempest and the waves of history and circumstances, like Peter did when he was walking on the water, then we are going to sink just as he did. There is hope; there is always hope.
In the last 20 years it has been popular to do man-on-the-street interviews. Somebody goes out with a microphone and start asking questions like, Why are we celebrating Independence Day, what are we independent from? The answers make the nation look like a nation of ignorant fools. But there are many educated people who understand the issues and understand history, and they are working hard behind the scenes and in front of the cameras to try to change things and to make a difference.
But when we focus on our modern self-indulgent, morally bankrupt and politically corrupt nation we are speeding down a highway to political slavery and putting ourselves under tyranny again, and it is easy to get depressed. We have to remember that our hope is in God, in His providential grace, and that nations rise and nations fall according to His will and according to His plan.
2 Chronicles 7:14 is often quoted out of context: NASB “and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” That has to do with Israel. The best passage is in Jeremiah 18:7 NASB “At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy {it;} [8] if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.”
There is always hope, but that hope is based on turning to God.
[9] “Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant {it;} [10] if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.”
The issue is a nation, a culture's orientation to God.
We were blessed in the founding of this country because we had a leader who understood the providence of God and the grace of God. He saw some dark days in the early days of the revolutionary war, and this nation has seen many dark days. There were times in the early years of World War II when it was not certain that the allies would win. There were times in the late twenties and the thirties at the time of the Great Depression when people did not think they would ever regain prosperity in this nation. People were unemployed, and lacked food and clothing.
There were dark days during World War I, there was the terrible time of the War Between the States when it wasn't sure whether the nation would be united or not. There were many times between the 1790s and up until this present time when this country went into a deep spiritual and moral decline. Christian leaders in this nation in the late 1790s became extremely discouraged. Then we had the second great awakening, which started in New England in places like Yale and Harvard and other universities, and it started among college students there. In the south is started in churches in various country revivals.
During the time of the American war for independence not all of the colonists supported the cause of independence. But they were tenacious, vocal, did not give up, and they were passionate about their cause because they believed in the righteousness and the justice of the cause. Most of them were motivated by deeply embedded Judeo-Christian values.
One of those who kept people's focus on the future was George Washington. He told his men to never despair:
Our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better. So I trust it will again. If new difficulties arise we must only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigencies of the times. Never give up.
On July 3, 1775 George Washington was given command of the newly formed Continental Army. The Continental Congress had selected him to organize the farmers and local militia to develop and army that would be capable of defeating the world's greatest military power. One of his first orders to his men was this:
Every officer and man will endeavor so as to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country. To the distinguished character of patriot it should be our highest glory to add the distinguished character of Christian.
Notice how he was calling the people to live to the highest moral and ethical standard, not to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, not affirming everybody's sinful inclinations. He recognized that Christian character and duty would be at the core of the survival of the nation. He said:
It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.
One thing we have lost in our secular education is the realization that the founding fathers (that is a “sexist” statement and has been for 20 years. But they were male; we should be proud of that. It doesn't matter what color they were, what gender they were; what matters in their ideas, their values) gave us a nation that provided freedom, liberty and prosperity, a nation that became the greatest nation in the history of the world and one of the greatest exporters of biblical Christianity throughout the world; a place where everybody wanted to come and nobody wanted to flee. It was grounded in a spiritual reality.
That reality didn't begin in the 1700s, it was rooted in the Puritan political thought that was developed in the 1600s in England, and that in turn had a tradition going back in British common law going back to the Magna Carta, and even before that to the Dooms [Saxon word for laws] of Alfred the Great, which were built upon the Old Testament. Alfred the Great knew Greek and Hebrew and he translated the Psalms into the vernacular of the British language at the time.
That is the foundation, a Judeo-Christian foundation. Without that foundation there cannot or will not be a future. This was recognized by other leaders.
Samuel Adams, often thought from the 60s generation as just a revolutionary, was referred to in his generation as the father of the American Revolution. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty, was instrumental in the Boston Tea Party, and after the establishment of the United States he served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and Governor of Massachusetts. In his will he wrote:
I recommend my soul to that Almighty Being who gave it and my body I commit to the dust, relying upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon for all my sins.
That is a very clear Christian testimony.
Regarding the fourth of July he said:
We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven, and from the rising to the setting of the sun let His kingdom come.
Regarding the people, he said:
It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men.
We are what appears to many a small congregation. But there are hundreds if not thousands of small congregations like this. We can all be part of this and set brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. They did not have many in number in 1776 but they were passionate and were involved, and they made a difference.
Sam's cousin John is better known because he was later vice president and president of the United States. He said:
The safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God...
We have a saying around here, that God controls history and that we are to trust in God and not in men. But some take that to mean that we don't do anything—just hold our hands and maybe pray. But that is not how it was understood at the time of the American Revolution. They trusted in God but they kept their powder dry and they sharpened their swords. They became involved, but they understood that what they did would not have lasting impact apart from God, and their ultimate trust was in God.
…and the national acknowledgement of His truth is an indispensable duty of people under Him.
He said about the Declaration:
It laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.
When we read the Declaration of Independence we read about the Creator. It is grounded in a creator-creature distinction; it is grounded in biblical truth. That is why the progressives are attacking it. The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.
He also said:
Now I will avow that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.
It is common today to find people who are sceptical and who challenge the role of Christianity in the founding of the nation. We will also find many who say that it was all influenced by rationalism of the day, influenced by the Enlightenment; Christianity had very little to do with it.
There was a study done by Dr Donald Lutz at the University of Houston, a political science professor. It was a ten-year project in which they analyzed over 15,000 political documents from 1760 to 1805. They looked at 3154 citations. The purpose was to determine what they quoted the most? What writings influenced the founding fathers the most? Where do they get their ideas?
What they discovered was that the most often quoted source for political ideas was the Bible, mostly the Old Testament. Over one third of the direct quotes came from the Bible. So much for this so-called separation of church and state!
The next most quoted source that was quoted one fourth as frequently as the Bible was from John Locke. He was a great political philosopher but he was reared in a Puritan home, and a lot of the quotes that came from John Locke were paraphrases that came from biblical verses. His ideas came from the Bible as well. Another sixty per cent of all references came from authors whose original source goes back to the Bible. So the number one influence on the thinking of the founding fathers is the Judeo-Christian heritage of the Bible.
Most of what they quoted came from the Old Testament: Leviticus, Deuteronomy, some of the prophets. At the time of the war for independence the majority of those living in the United States were Christian. What they looked to for guidance on law and government policy was the Old Testament. This is why we must affirm that institutions and government of the United States of America is firmly grounded on a Judeo-Christian worldview and that it was designed to function on that basis and not on a secular basis. This is why John Adams said that it could only be sustained by a moral Christian people. If you take that out of the equation it will collapse.
So there is hope; there is an action plan. We need to pray. The most important thing that we can focus on is prayer. 1 Timothy 2:1, 2 NASB “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties {and} prayers, petitions {and} thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.”
Let me suggest that when the government is out of control, and it is, then we can no longer act and go as if everything is nice and hunky-dory. We can't be consumed with the day-to-day events of our lives and our family and enjoy our work because of we don't get involved now, then we will come under tyranny very, very soon. It is now that we have to act.
We have to remember to keep our priorities straight. We trust in God; we don't trust in man. Jeremiah 17:5 NASB “Thus says the LORD, 'Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD'.” We don't trust in man. We don't trust in political parties; we trust in God, but we still work. We can pray al day long that God will provide for retirement. You also need to be putting money aside for your retirement. There is the work that God does and the responsibilities that we have.
Psalm 118:8, 9 NASB “It is better to take refuge in the LORD Than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the LORD Than to trust in princes.
We need to witness. We need to evangelize those around us. We need to grow spiritually ourselves so that we are strong in the faith, and we need to challenge others to do so. We cannot be complacent; we need to be passionate about our faith, and we need to be lighting fires in the minds of men for freedom.
We need to get involved in the political process, from the precinct level all the way up. We need to know who our precinct leaders are, who our state representatives and senators are, who our federal representatives and senators are; we need to call them to let our voice be heard. They say that they get so few calls, maybe five or six on one issue; so if the entire congregation called on one issue that could sway the whole vote.
Getting involved politically is not political activism in a negative way. That is not marching in the streets, causing riots and burning things down. It is part of our civic responsibility as citizens of the United States.
We need to educate ourselves on the issues so that we can talk with people about them. We need to teach our children, our grandchildren, and anybody about the past and what made America great.
As we wrap up I want to direct attention to this parable in Matthew. This is the parable of the two sons. Jesus is judging the elders and the chief priests. There are certain similarities between Israel and the United States as background to this. Israel's independent state occurred originally on the 14th of Nisan in 147 BC; the US Independence Day occurred on July 4th, 1776. Both are grounded in the gracious provision of God's providential interference in history. Both are celebrated annually to remember what God did, to remember the circumstances of the founding.
But negatively, though there are some among the Jews and some among Americans who still remember and believe in the founding spiritual principles, most do not. Most in both nations have forgotten the source of their freedom and their liberty. The same was true in the first century in Israel. They celebrated Passover but the religious leaders had forgotten the grace basis on which it was founded. In Israel they had succumbed to physical idolatry and were taken out of the land in 586 BC, but in the second temple period they made an idol out of their law.
In the US today we have made an idol out of our emotional fetishes and our sinful proclivities, giving everybody the freedom to sin as much as they want.
Israel rejected God, and in Matthew 21-24 Jesus indicts the nation, passes judgment and announces the sentence.
In the United States the signs of judgment are all around us; yet we are still here. God still has a plan for us. We still have the freedom to proclaim the gospel, we have the freedom to send out missionaries, we still support Israel and the Jewish people, and there is still hope and we have to focus upon that. The application of this section is important.
Matthew 21:28 NASB “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ [19] And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went'.”
In the setup of this we see an emphasis on the grace of God. It is not apparent in English. It says the man had two sons. They are called TEKNON, not HUIOS. They are TEKNA, beloved children. The focus here is that God still viewed these two sons as of value to Him and that He loved them.
What Jesus is pointing out here through these two sons is the prophecy of the religious leaders. He does this through contrasting the sons. He tells the first one to go work today and the son says he won't. He is going to be rebellious. This is a picture of sinners; they don't care about God. But then as they think about it they change their mind, and they go; they obey.
It is important to point out that the word “regretted” there is the Greek word METAMELOMAI. Two words in Greek that are important are METAMELOMAI and METANOEO. METANOEO usually means to change your mind; it is more of a thought word. But METAMELOMAI is more of an emotionally laden word. But sometimes it is really clear that the person who just emotionally regrets something doesn't last. It is like when you wake up in the morning and your clothes are tight and you say you need to go on a diet, then by noon your are eating a big dessert. You regretted it in the morning but it doesn't last, there is no change in behavior.
But here we have a change. So sometimes METAMELOMAI involves a real change. The son says he won't do it, he regrets, and he goes and does it.
Matthew 21:30 NASB “The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I {will,} sir’; but he did not go.” So the issue is which one is really being obedient to the father? The religious leaders say the first one.
The first son who starts off being rebellious pictures the sinners, the unrighteous that were looked down upon by the religious leaders—the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the immoral ones. Jesus said they did the will of the Father, they believed. Jesus said they are going to get into heaven because they did the will of the Father.
Matthew 21:31 NASB “Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.”
Matthew 21:32 NASB “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing {this,} did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.”
The point here is the belief in the specific promise of God as it was at that particular time. They did not believe Him. It wasn't related to their behavior, it was their belief in the message. The issue is on the word belief. They believed; the religious leaders did not believe. Jesus said to the religious leaders that they “did not even feel remorse” [METAMELOMAI]: they didn't do what the first son did; they didn't change their mind and then do the right thing and believe. The issue is belief, because that is the issue in the gospel. That is the issue in our eternal destiny and that is the issue in a nation.
That is Jeremiah 18:6ff. If a nation believes in God and follows Him then God will relent of judgment. But of they do not then God will bring the judgment. That is the focal point of this short parable. It is that Jesus is holding out a hope. He has a subtle offer of the opportunity to change their mind and obey God. That hope is always there for us.
We can all get down and discouraged over what is happening around us, for any reason. The same thing happened to the psalmist. Once in Psalm 42 and once in Psalm 43 he says: “Why are you cast down my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?”
What is the solution? Hope in God. Put your focus on God who is in control. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are of the day. Get your eyes off of the circumstances, whatever they are, and put your focus on God. He is in control and He loves us. He is going to provide for us no matter what happens in those external circumstances. Psalm 43:5 NASB “... Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”
Psalm 130:5 NASB “I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.” That is the focal point. We focus on the Lord; that is our hope.
Psalm 146:5 NASB “How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in the LORD his God.” It is grounded in the promise of God. That is why we have to be occupied with the Scripture and focus on Him.
Then the passage that is the ultimate hope passage in the Scriptures: Lamentations 3:20ff.
“Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me.
“This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.
“The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.
“{They} are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.”
“The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him.
“{It is} good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD.
The focus is hope. When we think it through biblically it doesn't matter what the Democrats are doing, it doesn't matter what the Republicans are doing, or what the idiots in California are doing. What matters is that God is in control and we are here to serve Him. Our hope is built on Him, and that is it.