A Word for America 2022

Praise God. Father, thank you for the presence of your Holy Spirit that is here. Thank you for the touch of heaven that you are willing to place on your word as it is spoken and received into each of our hearts. Thank you, mighty God, for bringing us to this place, Lord, of understanding that the prayers of even the most feeble saint of God can move your hand and move your heart. We appeal to you, Lord, on behalf of a backslidden nation, a nation that has defaulted in the covenant that our founders made with you. We come to you, Lord, this day, God, and we ask that you would gladden our hearts and fill each heart with faith. Give us the ability to understand your willingness to show mercy one more time. We ask you, Lord, for a mercy moment for this nation, for our families, for our marriages, for our children, for our government, for every part of this country. We recognize that we have fallen far short of the glory that was intended for us, but, oh God, we ask that you would give us one more opportunity to glorify your name again within our borders. Start with each of our lives, every one of us that are gathered here today. God, take us in our littleness, and just as you multiplied a little boy's lunch and fed thousands, would you multiply that which you planted within each one of our hearts, and God, would you feed this generation through your church? Would you help us to glorify you? Would you help us to lift our voices to you? Would you help us to live in a way that honors you? Would you help us, my God, to believe you, Lord, in the face of what seems to be insurmountable adversity? Give us the grace to believe that you are willing to be God to us one more time. Help us, Lord, to focus on what is good and what is virtuous and what is of nobility and what is of good report, and your promises that you'll crush Satan under our feet shortly. My God, my God, my God, my God, we're not here to play games with you. We're not here to waste our time nor yours. This is a holy moment. Speak to every heart. Speak to every life. Give me the ability to convey the words that you've given me to share today. Override my frailty and touch, oh God, this physical body and touch the limitations of my mind. Lord, no one needs to hear my voice today because my voice is limited, but yours can create a galaxy. I ask you, Lord God, to take the thoughts you've given to me and multiply them thousands of ways and speak into every heart and to every life. People who are gathered here in this physical facility and those that are listening online, oh Jesus Christ, Son of God, the cry of our heart is glorify your name again in this time, in this generation. Give us the grace that we're all going to need to stand in a way that will truly bring glory to you, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like to share with you today, beginning at the gospel of John chapter 15, the words of Jesus spoken to the people of his time but have an equal application to you and I today. I want you to think about these words in the context of each of our lives individually but also in the context of us as a nation of people. Here are the words that Jesus spoke in John chapter 15, beginning at verse 4, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit for without me you can do nothing. We cannot honor God. We don't have the power in ourselves to live for God. We can't be a demonstration of who God is without the presence of Christ himself in the power of God's Holy Spirit residing within us and manifesting as it is the glory of God through our lives. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit without me you can't do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he's cast out as a branch and is withered and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned and I think we're wise to look at the context of this particular verse and as we see the burning in our cities on the increase we see the incivility we see the writhing we see the restlessness of the young people of this generation and maybe come to the conclusion have we really been abiding in Christ? Has he really been in us or have we just been talking about him while living lives that are somewhat disjointed from him? If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. This is the cry of my heart now oh God as David the psalmist once prayed search my heart oh God and see me and try me and see if there'd be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way of life everlasting because the scripture does bear witness that the effectual fervent prayers of a righteous person can avail much. One righteous man, one righteous woman has the power historically to move the hand of God. One Esther, one Moses, one Elijah, one person an old man like Moses a young boy like David it doesn't matter somebody somebody somewhere that says God I'm making the choice to let you be God in my life and I'm going to let you have every corner of my heart and I'm going to every day ask you to challenge the thoughts in my mind because God I don't want my prayers bouncing off the ceiling I want to be able to pray in a way that touches your hand and just as the scepter moved towards Esther I want to be one of those persons that can come boldly to the throne of grace to find help in this season of need that we're now living in if you abide in me my words abide in you you will ask what you will and it shall be done for you by this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so shall you be my disciples about 400 years ago a small band of pilgrims headed out searching for a land of freedom that they believed that God was leading them to a place where they could worship God in the freedom of conscience and according to the word of God without being dictated to about what they could believe from the top down that the word of God was going to become their guide they believed that God was leading them to a place where they would form a new society that would truly glorify God on the earth and we've heard it so eloquently spoken about throughout this day today that they formed a compact before they even landed on the shores of Plymouth in the year 1620 that they would be building a nation as they hoped that would bring glory to God on the earth and it would advance the Christian faith and this is the cornerstone of America nobody can debate this who has an intelligent mind this is the cornerstone upon which our present society was founded that they would plant a nation that would be there and would bring glory to God and the advancement of the Christian faith John Winthrop the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 said these words we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill and the eyes of all people are upon us isn't that true of America the eyes of the world have been upon this nation for a long long time the eyes of the world have longingly looked from their own borders to the borders of a nation that was truly blessed by God given abilities beyond our natural ability to do things that we were a melting pot of cultures to do things in 400 short years that other cultures weren't able to do in thousands of years simply because the hand of God was upon us as a nation and people from all different countries and cultures throughout the world looked at America with and they were willing to risk life and limb to get here because there was something about the nation God truly was being glorified and we truly were as the scripture says a city set upon a hill but Winthrop also warned us he said the eyes of all people will be upon us if we deal falsely with our God in this work we've undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world in other words this great nation founded by God on the principle of glorifying God would become the laughingstock of the world I don't know if we've arrived there yet but we're dreadfully close to being the laughingstock right now because of all of the things that are going on in our present day in other words Jesus said if anyone does not abide in me he's cast out as a branch and is withered and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned and today we see our cities being set on fire our young people are burning with uncontrolled and unbridled passions in our streets we see this insatiable lust that's gotten hold of our families and marriages so that people no longer consider any form of commitment to be something to be desired the early settlers covenanted to honor God but I want to ask a question today did they truly honor God in this covenant and have we honored God now I'm going to speak collectively as a nation I understand as you do that great good has been done through this nation in 400 years missionaries have been sent around the world the United States of America has been a place that has been known for its kindness and in some measure its sacrifice but I want to look collectively at this country and ask this question did they honor God and have we honored God Bradford wrote these words at the end of his life and let me read it to you from a historical account of his the end of his life he said towards the end of his long life he was if anything deeply disappointed that his hopes appeared not to have been achieved instead of winning Native Americans to Christ by example in preaching the gospel too often the tribes have been treated shamefully as Christian teaching time and again gave way to expediency and the ways of the world and this by people from New Plymouth not just by outsiders and rather than removing their youngsters from temptation by leaving the ungodly United Provinces the separatists saw them fall more and more into the trap of greed and materialism and though they had sought to distance themselves from a repressive regime and gain freedom to serve God and worship as they pleased intolerance could be an ugly sore in their own communities as well now this is one of the first governors who was looking at the end of his days and and lamenting in some measure that we we were called to be this city set upon a hill we're called to build a society that was going to become something that glorified God in the year and we promised that we would do this but Bradford looked and he said our promises began to fail even from the inception we started to treat people who showed us kindness when we arrived on their shores we started to treat them shamefully and not too long after those who came here under the seeking freedom in America began to take slaves to themselves I'm going to speak about our society I'm going to speak about this nation in the course of history and we took slaves into ourselves having come here for freedom and then taking another whole group of people an entire people group and making them slaves and subservient to our desires to build this just society and tragically much of that was done in the name of God you talk about spiritual ignorance in a nation to take away people's freedom and do it in the name of God and then conscience we've always been a nation that God could reason with as Isaiah the Lord said to Isaiah to the people of God of his time he said come and let us reason together though your sins as red as scarlet they shall be whiter than snow and so the reasoning took to form the form of argument and conscience it brought this nation into a civil war and yes the slaves were set free but sad to say for many they were set free with reluctance and we committed the sin of Cain as a nation Cain who murdered his own brother and when the Lord came to Cain and said where is where is your brother his blood is crying out from the ground and Cain says how should I know am I my brother's keeper and you think of the the difference of setting free a people whom we held captive and yet offering no real solid support structure to these people to start up families and businesses into own land just set them out of course we're still suffering the consequences of that in our present generation in America God blessed us beyond measure but as a society we forgot him we left off reality and we were drawn into fiction through entertainment and we opened ourselves to the gross immorality that Hollywood has baptized this nation in and because of it we began to lust for pleasure without responsibility we became a sexually addicted society everyone wanted sexual pleasure but nobody very few wanted the responsibility that comes from commitment and the creation of life and 63 million children have paid the price in the womb for our lust for pleasure without responsibility have we honored God in this society have we been a society set upon the hill have we done that which has brought his name to reputation throughout the world and then we gave our surviving children to be taught by many who don't know Christ who don't know God and just as in the days of Israel under Egypt where the firstborn sons were the sons that were born to the people of God were being thrust into a river we allowed our children to be thrown into the river of gender confusion we allowed them to be placed under the influence of people who deny the existence of God and deny them the knowledge of God we allowed them to be put in places where they're forbidden to pray mocked if they try to serve the living God and even in sporting events they cannot bend their knee to God without paying a penalty in consequence for it and if that's not bad enough we begin to radicalize our young people in our colleges and universities across the country to hate God to hate one another and to hate their country have we been a city set upon a hill then we took the institution of marriage the closest type the apostle Paul says to Christ in his church this institution that was supposed to be a representation of of him his commitment and his love to his bride and we turned marriage into that which God says it ought not to be and lastly we elected people to high office who despise both Christ and the word of God as a nation we voted them as a people group as a society we voted the people who are in power today into power not everyone I understand that I'm speaking generally as a society people who hate Christ they hate God they hate the word of God they hate the standards of God they want nothing to do with God but we put them into the office that they're in today so my question today is are we truly a city set upon a hill have we honored God have we brought the name of Christ to reputation we're not a righteous society and I'm tired of hearing commentators in the political arena and on news conferences and such like talking about we are Americans we are a virtuous people we are a righteous people we are kind people we are merciful people we are none of these things we're not a righteous society in America anymore because we have broken our part of the covenant we made a promise to God on that ship and we made we continued that promise when we landed on the shores that this would be a nation that brought his name to reputation that the the foundation of this nation would be for the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that God would be our God and we would be his people and we would be the people entering into a covenant to serve him to love him to live for him and to bring his name into reputation in the earth Daniel the great prophet of God in Daniel chapter 9 verse 7 lamenting the condition of his own people of the time recognizing a mercy moment was on the horizon but knowing why they had spent 70 years in captivity Daniel prayed this prayer he said oh Lord righteousness belongs to you but to us shame of face as it is this day we Daniel says we are ashamed we can't lift our faces we have no boast to make before you the only hope that we have is your mercy in America we made the same fundamental error as God's people of old in ancient Israel once did and here's the error we made thinking that in ourselves by sheer force of effort and will that we could be godly without a daily dependence on God himself it's not within us to be godly in ourselves we need an interior dwelling power of God's word and God's holy spirit in us because left to ourselves we will go the other way we will not do what God's called us to do and this is what we have done as a nation we committed the sin of pride proverbs 16 18 says pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before our fall it is the original sin that Adam and Eve committed in the garden of Eden somehow biting into the theological lie that without God we can be godly we can't be godly without God we can't be godly without an honest relationship with the living God we can't be godly by not allowing the holy spirit to be our strength and the word of God to be our guide Israel tried so hard to retain their sense of virtue and be godly by by sheer force of will only to end up hating the son of God when he came and by casting him out of their borders they hated him they they tried so hard to be the people of God then when he came and he challenged their deficiency they became angered with him and said how dare you declare our religion to be deficient how dare you to tell us that we're full of dead men's bones and all of our our ceremonies and all of our righteousness and all of our robes are worth nothing in the sight of a holy God how dare you indict us as this yet it was God himself who had come in the form of his son Jesus Christ they hated him because they were trying so hard to be godly in their own strength if God should visit us today if this should be the day that God marks as a day a beginning of a spiritual moment of mercy or an awakening in America today and if Christ himself were standing in this pulpit and told us that only by abiding in him can we be saved and become that city set upon a hill would we be offended by that would be if would we be offended if his presence exposed our spiritual bankruptcy would be would we be offended if we we we had to lump ourselves in as Daniel did and said we have sinned against you God what would we be offended at the holiness of God pointing out the fact that we made promises but we didn't keep them we make promises and we can't keep them we're we're not God in ourselves or would we say blessed to see who comes in the name of the Lord Jesus said to his own people he stood looking at Jerusalem and said oh Jerusalem Jerusalem how I long to gather you under my wings as a hen would gather her baby chicks under her wings but you would not come behold your house has left you desert desolate you'll not see me again till you say blessed to see who comes in the name of the Lord this is the cry of my heart oh God we have failed we have sinned we have fallen short of your glory but oh God to us belongs shame of face but to you belongs mercy and you told us to come to your throne of grace not in the time when we have it all together but in a time when we know that we have failed and we need the grace of almighty God so I'm coming I don't care who comes to that throne my God I'm coming to your throne not in my strength but in my weakness not having done anything right but having known that the only righteousness I possess is what you've given me by the covering of your blood the only guidance I have is your word the only strength I possess is in the power of your Holy Spirit inside of my life there's another passage in the Old Testament where there was a season where the nation of Israel was coming under the judgment of God listen to the terrible condition in Ezekiel chapter 22 Ezekiel says the word of the Lord came to me saying son of man say to her you're a land that is not cleansed or rained upon in the day of indignation listen to the spiritual condition of God's people God's people God's covenant people the people through whom the whole world was supposed to be blessed the people of Abraham he says the conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey they've devoured the people they've taken treasure and precious things and they've made many widows in her midst the priests have violated my law and profaned my holy things they've not distinguished between the holy and the unholy nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean and they've hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths and I'm profaned among them here's here's a priesthood that rose up and they don't even mention the word sin any longer no such a thing anymore in their theology as having sinned against the holy God they lost an understanding of what is holy and what is not what is clean and what is unclean and they took away in a sense the living relationship that God went ahead with his people her princes or that's her political leaders in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey to shed blood to destroy people and to get dishonest gain her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar seeing false visions and divining lies for them saying thus saith the Lord God when the Lord has not spoken the people of the land have used oppressions committed robbery and mistreated the poor and needy and they wrongfully oppress the stranger so you look at the condition of this nation and say God what could possibly be the hope for these people and it comes to a verse that you you really would never expect to be in the midst of this description and the Lord says so I sought for a man among them who would make a wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land that I should not destroy it but I found none so this is God's God's solution God's remedy to this condition I sought for a man I I searched this folks this is the most religious nation on this time when the face of the earth is looking to show mercy to a nation that really doesn't deserve it they've fallen so far short of the glory of God they've become so corrupt in their dealings from the top to the bottom there's nothing but corruption but yet God says I sought for a man I look for somebody you can imagine his eyes as the scripture says searching to and fro throughout the earth to show himself strong on behalf of somebody whose heart is right towards him could it be said would it be said of our generation that God came down to America and said I sought for a man I sought for a woman I sought for a people I sought for somebody to stand in the gap and make up a wall that I should not have to judge the nation I sought for somebody that is not standing in their own strength they're standing in their appealing to the mercy of God and this is this is the very source of the prayer that comes from my heart now I can't present any righteousness to God apart from that which he's given me in Christ Jesus but my prayer is God have mercy God have mercy on our children God have mercy on their families have mercy there's a hundred million people in America that go to bed depressed many of them addicted to opiates now they don't see a future our young people are dying at the top of every street and the Lord say I'm not looking for an army I'm not looking for a hundred thousand people to gather in a stadium I'm looking for one person could that be you ma'am could that be you sir are you willing to stand in the gap are you willing to go to the throne of God are you willing to be that say God I don't know what I need to be but I'm bringing you what I have as this little boy once brought his lunch and you multiply it and you fed 10,000 people my God I'm bringing you the littleness of my life the little bit of faith I don't have a lot of faith I've only got a mustard seed but you said you could multiply it I'm bringing you a heart that says God search me and change me and bring me in line with what is true and Lord because you promised that the effectual fervent prayers of a righteous person avails much and so Lord I'm not coming here to play games we don't have time to play games we're on the edge now of something that is so dark it's so deep it's so fearful the only thing that can stop it now is you I'm talking to you now I'm not talking about a thousand people or ten thousand it's you it's a man it's a woman of God the only one that can stop destruction from coming into your home is you the only one that can preserve your children from this onslaught of hell is you the only one that can make a difference in your marriage is you our fathers Bradford said were Englishmen which came across this great ocean and were ready to perish in this wilderness but they cried to the Lord and he heard their voice and looked on their adversity in 1620 103 people landed on the shores of Plymouth Massachusetts with a promise in their heart that God was going to give them this place where they could worship him freely it would be a city set upon a hill it would become the envy of the world it would be something that brought glory to God and it would help to further the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world after one year one year of being in this wilderness half of them there were only 51 left in 1621 and those 51 people gathered in a prayer meeting on a house that's now unlocked number one America that's its address lot one America they gathered in this house I had the privilege of praying there on the 400th anniversary 51 people that were half starved 51 people whose hearts were full of sorrow 51 people who had to fight through the doubts and unbeliefs of their own life and their own mind in their own heart 51 people that had no go forward strategy 51 people that were surrounded by enemies they had no strength they were so weak they tied their dead to trees so their enemies would try to which they believe would think they were more than they were 51 people and all they they couldn't make a single promise to God nothing everything they thought they had was gone and I wonder sometimes did the Lord allow them to be brought down to that number so that they would never think it's by my own hand that this battle has been won 51 people in the room I don't know what their prayer sounded like but I believe it must have sounded much like the prayer in Acts chapter 2 when when 120 failures came into an upper room 120 people who promised that they would be with him they would never forsake him they would always be there they were loyal they could be dependent on every one of them had failed him Peter with his wonderful boasting of others may not follow you but I will they may run but I won't I'll go with you to Jerusalem and I'll die with a John who leaned on his his chest and told him how much he loved them all of them fled at the point where they were needed and so these 120 failures like the 51 original inhabitants of Plymouth Massachusetts went into an upper room and began to pray I don't know what their prayer sounded like but if I was there I would just say God I need you we need you we can't do this in our own strength and you saw the beauty of it all under the new covenant and the old covenant we made promises to God and God said okay if you if you fulfill your promise then I'll fulfill mine that's Old Testament under the new covenant God says I don't want your promises to me you can't keep them Peter the apostle says we no longer live by making promises to God but we now live by God's promises to us and those 120 people went in that upper room as the 51 went into that permitting said God we can't promise you anything because we know we don't have the strength we ran when you needed us we didn't stand when we should have stood we didn't do what we're called to do but oh God to us belongs shame of face like Daniel said but Lord to you belongs mercy and so we ask you Lord to come and empower us come and give us your Holy Spirit come and raise us up come and make us more than we are come and make us more than we could ever be and suddenly there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind suddenly the presence of God come because finally he had a people who understood it's not by might it's not by power it's by my spirit says the Lord it's by my spirit this mountain will be moved it's by my spirit this house will be built and there will be a capstone put on it when it's finished and you will shout grace grace grace to it the goodness of God the favor of God the mercy of God the power of God it was all God it was none of us it was all God all we had is a heart to believe him all we had is our own weakness and a heart that says oh God if you will give me the strength I will serve you I will stand for you not in my strength but in your strength and suddenly the presence of God comes 51 people step out of a hopeless room it was a hopeless place and of those 51 a nation of 330 something million people exist today a nation that was brought to fame a nation that in measure at least glorified what God can do in the earth through a surrendered people through the 120 in the upper room they walked out into the marketplace not empowered by a strategy not with a survey saying what will it take you to come to our church but their hearts were filled their mouths were filled their lives were filled by the presence and power of God they recognized we don't live by making promises to God we have failed as a nation in our covenant with God our part failed but the good news is God's part of the covenant still stands if my people if my people are called by my name we'll humble themselves we'll humble ourselves well we'll truly humble ourselves say God we have not fulfilled what we said we would do we found ourselves incapable of keeping our promises our hearts were too estranged from you we are too other than what you are so our promises that we made to you are worthless and it has left our nation in the state that it is today if my people called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven I'll forgive their sin and I'll heal their land it's as if it's as if it was the day that Jesus stood in the temple and said this day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears and he closed the book and he gave it back to the leader of the temple and wondering what the response of the people was going to be will they recognize that he has come or will they just want to throw him off a cliff and hear the next speaker God almighty help us Lord Jesus Christ help us could you stand to your feet please wherever we are I'm going to ask you that maybe join hands with people around you you might want to form a circle of four or five six people and I'm going to ask you to unreservedly cry out to God unreservedly unreservedly say Lord we can't keep our promises so we come to you because your promises never fail we ask you for the strength that we need we ask you for the power oh God I pray Lord Jesus Christ that you would move upon this audience that's here today and those that are online and you would give us the grace to open our mouths and begin to pray you would help us to humble ourselves you'd help us my God to put away our boasting and bragging put away our flags and banners and all of these other things and just simply bend our hearts before you God almighty we ask you for a spiritual awakening in America such as we've never seen in our lifetime we ask you for a mercy moment where millions and millions and millions of people will be drawn into your kingdom we ask you Lord for a harvest so great that nobody could even count it no church could contain it we ask you Lord to do something that we will know as a nation is you and you alone it cannot be attributed to a single person other than you we ask you God to visit our homes visit our family strengthen our homes give us the grace to put everything out that is weakening us give us the grace my God to live for you bless our homes bless our families God send your Holy Spirit into our homes God help us in the marketplace to stand with the giftings of your Holy Spirit and to honor you in a way that can only be done by your life being lived out inside of each one of us oh Jesus son of God son of God do a work that only you can do only you can do this work my God hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah brightly beams our father's mercy from his lighthouse evermore but to us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore let the lower lights be burning send a gleam across the wave some poor fainting struggling seaman you may rescue you may say dark the night of sin has settled loud the angry billows roar eager souls are waiting watching for the lights along the shore let the lower lights be burning send a gleam across the wave some poor fainting struggling seaman you may rescue you may save save trim your feeble lamp my brother some poor sailor tempest tossed trying now to reach the harbor in the darkness may he be lost sing it with me let the lower lights be burning send a gleam across the wave some poor fainting struggling seaman you may rescue you may say lift your voice to God just take a moment and lift your voice to God everyone here people on lift your voice to God lift your voice to him don't be afraid to call out to him don't be afraid to ask for his strength don't be afraid to accept his cleansing don't be afraid lift your voice to God hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah arise shine for your light has come oh and the glory of the Lord rises upon you see darkness covers the earth and gross darkness is over the people but the Lord rises upon you and his glory is over you arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you oh see darkness covers the earth and gross darkness is over the people but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears oh sing it with me arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you see darkness covers the earth and gross darkness is over the people but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears oh arise shine bright of Christ arise shine arise by the power of God arise by the glory of God's mercy arise and become everything that God has called you to be in this hour of darkness in this moment when history seems to be against us God is still on the throne Christ savior by God's grace arise and shine