Independence?

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Tomorrow, America will be celebrating the 235th anniversary of her Day of Independence.
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Celebration marks the remembrance of the 4th of July, 1776, when the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, separating itself from the power of Great Britain and forming a new sovereign nation.
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America would be a new national entity with her own form of government, her own laws, and devoid of foreign influence.
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And she would be founded in many ways on the principles of liberty and justice, both of which are derived from the pages of Holy Scripture.
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In fact, it is important to point out that 94% of the writings of the founding fathers of the U.S.
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contain quotations from the Bible.
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The famous Liberty Bell, which we are all familiar, has part inscribed this, Proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof.
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And that, of course, is a quotation of Leviticus, chapter 25, verse 10.
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An image of Moses carrying the tablets of God's law faces the Speaker of the House of Representatives in our nation.
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First Vice President and Second President John Adams wrote in 1798, Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
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It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other, end quote.
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Our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, said, quote, No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible, end quote.
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At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin asked, God governs in the affairs of men, and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? End quote.
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And because of these guiding scriptural principles, America has enjoyed the choicest bounties of heaven.
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She has been blessed with power and prosperity far above any nation that the world has ever seen.
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We talk about ancient world empires, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Romans.
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But never has there been a nation with the power and influence of America.
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However, sometimes the blessings of God cannot be handled by people and they actually become a launchpad for complacency and rebellion.
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What concerns me greatly is that in our day, there is a new push for independence in America.
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But unlike the positive push for independence in 1776, this new push is of a wholly different sort.
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The push for independence today is not a desire to separate from the power of a foreign nation or from the government of another power.
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The push for many for independence in our country today is a complete and utter independence from God.
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It is a push to remove God from every area of public life and relegate his presence in our nation to simply a hobby that is practiced for one hour, one day a week.
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This is why I've entitled my sermon Independence with a question mark, because as much as we need to celebrate and I do believe we need to celebrate and be happy that our nation has its independence from Great Britain and is a nation in and of itself, we need to be cognizant of the fact that many in our nation have a desire to call independence from God and to seek independence from God.
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And as such, we are in a very precarious situation.
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I want to make this point clear because some of the things that I say today may be able to be contrived differently.
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I want to say this to begin.
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I love our nation and I love its heritage.
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However, I do not believe that America will be able to stand as a blessed nation that we have been in the past if we continue to throw God out of the picture.
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It cannot happen that we continue to call for God's blessings with our right side of the mouth and call for his exclusion with the left side of our mouth.
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It cannot be.
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And I make this statement not based upon my own vain opinion, for it is worthless, and my opinion is worthless, but based upon the example of Scripture, because for it is only in Scripture that we find the truth about what happens when nations turn from God.
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And I want to use an example today from ancient Israel, but I want to paraphrase something.
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I want to sort of set something aside in the very beginning.
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Something we must be careful, beloved, is we must not make a direct parallel between Israel and the United States.
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That is often done.
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It is often done that people use passages of the Bible that relate to Israel specifically, and they apply them to the United States.
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And beloved, that is called eisegesis, that is reading into the text something that is not there.
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And we have to be careful not to automatically read something about Israel and apply it to the United States of America, because the United States is not Israel.
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However, that being said, I want it remembered, that is an important statement.
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What we can do is we can look to examples of Israel as a nation, and we can see God's dealings with them and know that if God dealt with them in a certain way in regard to their sin, they being his people called by his name, that we certainly would do no better if we follow the track of sin than they.
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So this morning, we're going to be looking at a text from the prophet Micah.
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So if you'll turn in your Bible to the book of Micah.
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It is just right of the book of Jonah that is in the minor prophets.
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And remember, minor does not indicate any less of importance, but less in size and scope.
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The book of Micah, we will see is a relatively short book, and we are going to be looking at chapter three.
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The prophet Micah is speaking to the people of Israel, the people's blessings, which were great and many had led to prosperity.
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But their prosperity had led to greed, materialism and corruption.
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Hear that again.
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The blessings of Israel had led to greed, materialism and corruption.
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Does that not sound very familiar? Micah is preaching to them in regard to their sin and regard to God's judgment because God's patience had become exhausted.
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Can God's patience be exhausted? The Bible says God is long suffering.
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That means he is very patient, but it also says that God doesn't have unending patience, that he will bring wrath on a nation when it is deserved.
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And we see this throughout Scripture.
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And this is the promise that Micah is giving to the people of Israel.
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And he points out three distinct groups, three distinct groups who are most worthy of the judgment that God is going to bring.
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And these are the three groups we're going to look at today as we examine the text.
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The first group is corrupt politicians.
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Yeah, he's going to deal with corrupt politicians.
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But very quickly after that, he's going to deal with compromising preachers.
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And then finally, he's going to deal with complacent citizens.
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So he's going to hit everybody from the top down, politicians, preachers and people from the top down.
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And that's what we're going to look at this morning.
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But let's stand together and read the text.
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Micah, chapter three and verse one through twelve.
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Micah three, the word of God says, and I said here, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel.
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Is it not for you to know justice? You who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people and play their skin from off them and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.
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Then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them.
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But he hides his face from them at that time because they have made their deeds evil.
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Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray.
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Who cry peace when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing in their mouths, therefore, it shall be night to you without vision and darkness to you without divination.
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The sun shall go down on the prophets and the day shall be black over them.
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The seers shall be disgraced and the diviners put to shame.
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They shall all cover their lips for there is no answer from God.
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But as for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord and with justice and might to declare to Jacob the transgression and to Israel his sin.
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Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
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Its heads give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets practice divination for money, yet they lead on the Lord and say, is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.
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Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruin.
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And the mountain of the house, a wooded height.
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Father God, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you that your word is as relevant today as it was when it was written.
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And we, though not trying to pull and implant too much into the text in regard to our own situation, can see the parallels of how.
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When a nation turns away from you, the resultant judgment which befalls that nation.
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Father, we pray for mercy this morning.
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I pray first and foremost for mercy upon myself that you would keep me from error, keep me in health to preach the word, strengthen me to say what needs to be said.
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And again, Lord, keep me from saying anything that would be in contrary or in counter distinction with your word.
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And I pray for the heart of the people.
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Oh, God, open their hearts.
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And I pray that this message would go forth from this place, be used of you and would, Lord, be the impetus for you granting repentance in the hearts of men.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.
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We always talk about how America had a real strong and godly foundation, how it had a real pure beginning.
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Well, no nation has ever had a more pure beginning than the nation of Israel.
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It was literally founded by God and given a law by God to govern it.
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Yet even with the powerful and pure beginning that Israel had, corruption still found a foothold among the people.
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We see this from the very earliest stages of Israel's life.
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There was corruption, and the sad thing is, as we read through the Old Testament text about the nation of Israel, what we see is that the people were usually either ignorant or indifferent to the corruption.
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And this was the corruption that Micah was called to speak out against in the first two chapters of Micah.
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There is a mixture of prophecy regarding the judgment of God and the mercy of God, most of which is focused on the destruction that Israel could look forward to if they did not repent.
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Then in the third chapter, as I said a few moments ago, Micah begins to pick out certain folks and he begins telling them individually they're false.
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And as I said, we're going to look at three groups today.
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If you're taking notes, I'll give you them again quickly.
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Corrupt politicians, compromising pastors, complacent citizens.
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Yes, I did a lot of work to make sure they all started with C.
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That's going to be our outline this morning.
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Let's look at the first one, corrupt politicians, Micah, chapter three, verse one.
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And I said here, you heads of Israel, I'm sorry, Jacob, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know justice? You see, that is a powerful and descriptive statement.
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It is a question from Micah to the leadership.
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And when he says you heads of Jacob and you rulers of the house of Israel, that's he's speaking to the political leadership.
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And he said, shouldn't you know justice? That is, of course, a rhetorical question because they not only knew what justice was, they had justice written for them in the word of God.
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They had justice codified in Scripture.
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And the rulers of the people were supposed to be the ones who emphasized the justice of the word of God.
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Justice was a key concept in the law of Moses and corrupting or perverting justice was considered the height of that which was forbidden.
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Deuteronomy 16 and verse 19 says, You shall not pervert justice.
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You shall not show partiality.
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You shall not accept a bribe for a bride blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of righteousness.
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That is the job of leadership is that they are supposed to seek after justice and they're not supposed to be perverted with bribes and the seeking of self, but rather the seeking of the common good.
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And Micah uses the most harsh language, some of the most harsh language that we could read in Scripture.
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He compares what they're doing with cannibalism.
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Look at verse two, he says, You who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from their bones, who eat the flesh of my people.
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Not a beautiful picture he's painting, something that most of us would probably turn our stomachs.
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But this is a picture Micah's painting.
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He's saying this is what you do when you bring corruption and perversion into God's people and God's nation is it is tantamount to ripping the flesh from off their skin and eating it.
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It's tantamount to cannibalism.
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This is metaphoric language, but it's descriptive.
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Nonetheless, by denying justice and fairness, the political powerful were destroying the lives of those whom they had been set in power over.
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They were literally robbing them of their flesh and bones.
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Sadly, corruption is not a thing of the past.
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I think most of you would agree with that.
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In fact, you talk about political corruption today.
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It's become almost a punch line.
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It's almost old hat, it's funny, it's what happens every day as an expected part of doing business in the public arena.
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We hear about corruption and it doesn't surprise us.
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And beloved, that should sadden us.
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All I have to say, in fact, I did this last night.
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Nathan is a history major, a political science major.
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I try to avoid saying that, just kidding, but he's studying history of politics and I just sent him a text message last night.
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I said, hey, off the top of your head, name me just a couple political scandals that you can just off the top of your head.
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And he sent me a list.
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Now, granted, he did look a couple of them up because he pulled some from way back.
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But the thing is, if I just name a few things, if I said the word Watergate, I don't have to say anything else.
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As you know, that that word, that very word, and what was Watergate? But what was it? It was the name of a hotel, right? The name Watergate, though, has become synonymous with scandal.
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And now everything that happens gets attached to that.
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We call it white or we call it a trooper gate or we call it this gate or that gate or whatever.
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Any scandal gets the word gate put on the end.
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Why? Because the whole idea of scandal in our nation has been attached to that one thing.
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And we remember that one thing.
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It's because it's so synonymous in our nation with scandal.
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And then there are things like Whitewater and Iran-Contra.
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These words, they bring to light in our mind that scandal is not something that is foreign.
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Political corruption is something that is so natural.
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We aren't even surprised by it anymore.
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There are people who are caught in personal corruption.
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The last few years, marital infidelity must have gone out the window as a requirement for leadership in our nation, because it just doesn't seem like anybody cares anymore about how a man behaves towards his wife.
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Beloved, if the Scripture tells us that the leader of the church ought to be faithful to his wife, should not the leaders of our nation have the same requirement? Even the presidency of the United States has not been immune from the personal indiscretion of marital infidelity.
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And what have we seen as a result? A nation of fatherless families, divorce rampant, and more people are not getting married now than are.
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The statistic just recently came out that in the 20 year old, the 18 to 35 or 18 to 25, that that marrying range that people usually get married, that there's less people being married now than ever before.
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Why? Because marriage is seen and it's even being proclaimed as a dead institution.
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Why? Because from the top down, it's been thrown away.
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From the top down, it's been said it's not worthy of sanctity.
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And then it's trampled upon by those who would redefine it.
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But the inclusion of perversion, as we've seen in places like New York, California, it only takes a minute on any search engine like Google or Yahoo, just type in the word political scandal and you will pull up countless examples of corruption.
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We know this is going on in our land.
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Many have said that an honest person cannot make it in politics in the 21st century.
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And whether that be true or not, this is how many people think that our system works.
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It runs on the back of political corruption.
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Voting, sadly, has no longer been about it's no longer about finding the righteous candidate.
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What is voting now? Finding the less bad.
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It's not about finding the righteous statesman.
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It's about finding who is the lesser of two evils.
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Public policy is now being shaped not by those who can do the best job, but by those who create the most political, the most powerful political machine.
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So I ask the question and I'm going to ask a couple of questions today for you to meditate upon.
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First, I want to remind you, God called out Israel for the corruption of their politicians.
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And he called out this land, which was called by his name, Israel.
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He called them out for the politics and the corruption in their leadership.
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And I ask you this question.
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What should God do with us? With a system of government where a true statesman and true statesmen have been pushed aside, rendered obsolete and replaced with those who are expected to tell lies, who are expected to make false promises, who are expected to live impure lives and who are expected to make terrible decisions that affect the multitudes.
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What should God do indeed with such a land? So we see the first reason for Israel's coming judgment was that it was infested with corrupt politicians.
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But also on this, we see the second thing.
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Israel was also infested with compromising preachers.
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Look at verse five.
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Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets.
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Now, stop right there.
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Who is he speaking to? He's speaking to those people who are supposed to be proclaiming the word of the Lord, the prophets.
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That's their job.
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People always think of prophets as people who spoke the future.
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Prophecy was rarely a foretelling.
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Prophecy was almost always what we call foretelling or proclaiming the word of the Lord to the people of God about their condition.
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And if you read through Isaiah, Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets, you'll read they're preaching to the people about their current condition and what's going to happen as a result.
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However, in this time.
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It says, thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray.
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Who are these prophets? These are the prophets who are not preaching the right word of God.
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These are the prophets who are preaching for themselves.
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Because it goes on to say who cry peace when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing in their mouths.
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Now, let me let me let me make sure that we understand what he's saying.
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These are the prophets.
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Who are coercing goods and services from the people, and when they got those things, when their bellies were full.
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They would say everything's groovy.
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But when people did not give them what they wanted, when people did not pay them.
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They would declare judgment on them.
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Beloved, don't we know of today and see in our nation today, pulpit after pulpit after pulpit where the people are using the name of God to fill their coffers and they're using the name of God to fill their wallets and fill their stomachs.
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And when someone doesn't want to give, what do they say? Oh, if you hold back your tithe, God's going to see to it that you don't get what you need.
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You see, it's the same old stick.
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It's the same snake oil being sold.
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It's just a different package.
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This health and wealth movement is the same as what we see here.
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When they have something to eat, they say peace.
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And when they don't get what they want, they declare judgment.
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And we see that all the time today.
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Send money to the ministry and you'll be blessed.
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It's the same thing.
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Many of the preachers today who claim to be fishing for souls are actually fishing for material wealth, fame, prestige, money, power and authority are all a part of the modern religious movement.
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They have millions of dollars wrapped up in their homes, their cars, their jet airplanes that their prayer partners could only afford in their dreams.
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They accept ten dollars sent in by the destitute single mother and they put it in their coffer of millions of dollars, knowing that she could desperately use that money to put shoes on her child's feet.
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But she's sowing a seed because that hundred dollars or that ten dollars is going to come a thousand dollars, because that's what the pastor on television promised me.
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And they spend much more on designer fashions and succulent meals for themselves.
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And really is deserved.
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Those years ago, there was a song by Ray Stevens, Ray Stevens, that good old country theologian, you know, Ray Stevens was awesome.
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He still is.
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He's still alive, isn't he? OK, I'm just making sure you don't want to speak to him in the past tense if he's still with us.
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Ray Stevens sung a song, it was called Would Jesus Wear a Rolex? And you know what? It may not be the most it ain't a hymn.
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We wouldn't sing it in church, but it's got some theology in it because he asked the question, he says, Would Jesus wear a Rolex on his television show? Would he come to the earth to have a second home in Palm Springs and try to hide his net worth? Is that the way Jesus would behave? And like I said, it's just a song, but it's a song that bears a lot of truth.
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These men who stand and say, I'm here instead of Jesus, I'm here in the place to proclaim the name of Jesus.
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Now, give me all your money.
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And you know what's so sad is they produced doctrines to support their mayhem.
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The health and wealth doctrine is the most.
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It is not the gospel.
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It is not the truth.
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It is not biblical.
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And it is destroying the church.
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We see it all over us.
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Second Peter, chapter two.
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Write this down if you're taking notes, because this passage is a prophetic passage.
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Second Peter, chapter two, verse one.
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It says, but false prophets who arose among the people, just as just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even desire, denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
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And many will follow their sensuality.
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And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.
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Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.
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Just hear that again in their greed.
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They will exploit you with false words.
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Beloved, the greatest revivals in our world right now are not going on in America.
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Did you know that the greatest revivals that we see going on are in places like China? Oh, they don't know about Christianity in China, but only the greatest revivals in the world are going on in China and in Africa, because that's where the people don't have anything.
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And that's where people are bringing them the gospel, and they're not seeking material wealth, they're seeking after Christ, the gospel in America has become believe in Jesus, he'll make your life better, he'll make you have the best parking space, the best business suit, the best watch, the best car.
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And as such, we wonder why the gospel, the American gospel has become so impotent.
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Verse six says, Therefore, it shall be night to you without vision and darkness to you without divination.
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The sun shall go down on the prophets and the day shall be black over them.
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The seers shall be disgraced.
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The diviners put to shame.
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They shall cover their lips for there's no answer from God.
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Ultimately, what this is saying is that utter shame and disgrace is all these prophets had to look forward to.
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These people who proclaim that they are preaching the gospel, they're preaching the truth.
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Their lives are going to bring nothing but disgrace in the end.
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But I like what he says in verse eight, because Micah looks at himself and you know, when he does this, some people might think he's being somewhat egotistical because he says in verse eight.
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But as for me, I am filled with power.
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And some people might say, well, wait a minute, brother, you talking bad about all these other pastors.
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Why don't you look in the mirror? You ain't perfect.
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Look what he says.
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He says, verse eight.
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But as for me, I'm filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord and with justice and might to declare to Israel his transgression or to Jacob, his transgression into Israel, his sin.
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What what what contrasts Micah's ministry from the ministry of the false prophets? He's preaching about their sin.
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Read again.
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But as for me, I'm filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, with justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.
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Beloved, know this.
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The prophets who preach peace, peace, peace.
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And do not proclaim judgment upon sin are the false prophets.
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Those that's the way you can tell a false prophet if everything he's telling you is groovy and gloriful.
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If he will not tell you the truth, if he will not proclaim to you sin and the dangers of sin, these pastors on one pastor on television.
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Well, I don't like to talk about sin.
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It makes people feel bad.
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Well, he compared Micah, compares himself to them and said, what's the difference? I'm declaring the people their sin.
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That's the difference.
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He is declaring to the political and to the religious elite their sin.
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And as I said, a surefire sign of a false prophet is the man who tells you everything is great.
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You just need to think good thoughts and have a positive attitude.
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A self-help guru is not a minister of God.
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He's Tony Robbins in a pulpit.
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God's prophets consistently preach the truth about sin, justice, righteousness and the holiness of God.
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And the one who compromises the message of the destructive power of sin is no true prophet of God.
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Now, let's look at number three as our time is running from us.
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We've looked at corrupt politicians.
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We've looked at compromising creatures.
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The final is complacent citizens.
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And this one's you'll have to see.
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In the text here, what I'm saying in verse nine, hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and the rules of the house of Israel.
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He's still talking about the leaders.
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Now, he's talking about the rulers who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
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It's had give judgment for a bribe.
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He's talking about them and their corruption.
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It's priests teach for a price.
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He's talking about the pastors and the way they preach and they teach for a price.
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It's prophets practice divination for money.
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Yet they lean on the Lord and say, is not the Lord in the midst of us? Know that no disaster shall overcome us.
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Note that.
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There's corruption among the politicians, there's corruption among the preachers, there's corruption among the priests and the prophets.
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Yet they all say, hey, God's with us and we're going to be all right.
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Beloved, when there's corruption from the top down, why would you claim the blessing of God? But that's what they're doing.
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They're saying, hey, God is in the midst of us.
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And the people go, OK, the people buy into their life.
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The people do not question it.
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Instead, they believe it.
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They believe nothing bad will happen to us because God is with us.
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But the problem was God's blessing had been removed and his judgment was on the way.
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Which is why it says in verse 12, therefore, because of you, because of who? Because of the leadership and because of the religious and political leadership, he says Zion will be plowed as a field.
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Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins and the mountain.
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The house, a wooded height, this is the danger.
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Of many in our country today, many people believe that because we had a godly beginning.
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And because we have a godly history.
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That we will always have God's blessing.
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But beloved, listen to this again, Israel had a godly beginning, Israel had a godly history, but complacency abounded among her people and they were about to feel the consequence.
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Right now, we live in a nation where it seems there is no righteousness in leadership, only corruption.
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There is no holiness in the pulpit, only compromise.
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And there is no striving for godliness among the citizens, only complacency.
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How then can we truthfully say.
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God bless.
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America blessings begin with repentance.
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The obvious question, then.
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So where do we go from here? Do we give up? Do we throw in the towel? Do we say the adversary is too great and there's nothing that can be done? No, we don't.
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We stand up and we stand up for truth.
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When it comes to our politicians, we do our best to be educated about the issues.
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We have our voices heard through the voting process.
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We cannot stop all the corruption in politics, but we can pray to God that he bring a revival in our leadership and we seek and vote for those people whose hearts are governed by God.
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Secondly, we stand for truth against the spreading of false features.
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I think this as a church, this is our number one priority.
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This is our number one priority.
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I believe that people must be warned against false teachers.
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Many of them are so pervasive that it is hard to know who is genuine and who is not.
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And the easiest way for us as a church to stand against falsehood is to be always checking ourselves to make sure that we are standing in the right, that we are seeking to be a biblically functioning church, that we are seeking to preach the word.
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And when we get out of line, we correct ourselves.
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Iron sharpens iron.
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So as one man sharpens the other.
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And your job is for me and my job is for you.
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The elders correct me when I am in error because I am not a perfect man.
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And that is their job.
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And we correct one another as iron sharpens iron.
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So does one man sharpen another light always exposes darkness.
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And we pray our ministry is a light in the community, that our ministry is a light in the world.
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And that's what we can do.
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We stand as a church for truth.
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We stand as a community for truth.
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We stand on the word of God and we pray for his mercy on our land, because if he mercies us, we will repent and he will bless us.
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Ultimately, I don't think anyone could honestly look at our nation and not see the rampant corruption in the political and religious arena and the great complacency which has infected our people.
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But beloved, I want to end by saying, don't lose hope.
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No nation is ever beyond the grace of God.
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You look into the Old Testament, there was a story of a man named Jonah and Jonah was said, go to Nineveh and preach.
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Yet in 40 days you will be destroyed.
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Now, we know what happened with Jonah.
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He didn't want to go to the first submarine ride.
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God got him back.
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But what is the underlying part of the story that we often miss? One of the most corrupt, evil, backward, idolatrous nations in the world at that time was Nineveh, capital of Assyria.
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A godless pagan nation was brought to repentance by the preaching of one prophet.
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Beloved, God's mercy and his grace is powerful and his ability to bring repentance to an obstinate nation is not fettered.
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Thus, we pray for God to bring that to our nation.
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For apart from God, there will be no revival.
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But with God, all things are possible.
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So let's pray.
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Father, we thank you.
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We thank you that we do have liberty in this nation to still proclaim the truth of the gospel.
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We thank you that you have held up that liberty for us.
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But we pray, oh God, that that liberty would not make us complacent, that we would stand for truth, that we would stand for the scriptures, that we would stand against error.
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And God, we pray your mercy on our land.
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We pray that you would grace us with your presence and that you would bring revival, help us to not trust in the political system.
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But Lord God, still to pray for it, for we know your word commands us to honor those who are set in authority over us.
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And we pray for godly leadership.
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We pray that men and women will see how we have rejected you and will repent and follow after you.
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I pray for our church.
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I pray that we would be a ministry of the gospel in this community and a light to the world.
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Keep us, oh Lord, in your hand and let us not depart.
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We thank you, oh God, for your mercy upon us.
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In Jesus name we pray, amen.