On July 4th we will celebrate with pride and thanksgiving the day our country began some 220 years ago. When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, here is how they began.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
In our country's founding document our forefathers stated clearly their belief in God and based this document on the fact that there is a Creator who gives every human the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have come a long way since then when as a nation it is now considered illegal for a public school teacher to even hint to his students that there might actually be a God at all.
The constitution that is supposed to guarantee the freedom of religion has been turned on its head to make it produce freedom from religion.
As we celebrate our country's independence this fourth of July we might consider what has happened to our country's general attitude toward God.
Four parables, among the last that Jesus gave, have a common theme sounding in the background. An owner who leaves his house vacant, an absentee landlord who puts his servant in charge, a bridegroom who arrives so late the guests become drowsy and fall asleep, a master who distributes talents among his servants and takes off - all these circle around the theme of the missing God.
What happens while the manager is gone? What happens when we humans forget about the landlord, when we forget about God, when we forget that God is coming back to see how we behaved while He was away? What happens when we think God is away, missing and therefore irrelevant?
History is very clear about this. One of our great historians says, "There is no significant example in history before our time of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion." Charles Colson asks the question, "Can man be good without God?" In every age, the answer has been, no. Without a restraining influence on their nature, men will destroy themselves. The renowned Russian novelist Dostoevsky said, "If there is no God, anything is permitted." T.S. Eliot wrote, "If you will not have God, then you should pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the well known Russian historian, said that he often heard the same lament from those who had survived the Bolshevik power grab in 1917. They said the reason Russia had been plunged into political, economic and spiritual darkness was that "we have forgotten God." Solzhenitsyn went on to say that after 50 years of researching the history of the revolution, he said that he was unable to find a better explanation for the problems that befell Russia.
There are consequences when a people or a nation forgets about God.
History is littered with the remains of those fallen nations that have forgotten God. For thousands of years the Bible has been telling us what history has proven to us if we have only had ears to listen, what happens when a nation of people forget about God.
"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good." Ps. 14:1.
Paul speaks of those who "know about God but who do not honor Him or even thank Him... So God let the people go their own way. They did what they wanted to do, and their filthy thoughts made them do shameful things with their own bodies... these people refused to even think about God... That's why they do all sorts of evil things." Romans 1
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." Ps. 33:12
"The wicked return to the grave, and all the nations that forget God." Ps. 9:17
What happens when people begin thinking of God as absent, then distant, a memory, dead? There is a failure to exercise responsibility to a God to whom we not longer feel accountable. There are the wicked behaviors becoming more and more prevalent in society today. Society goes into decay and finally destroys itself. These are the certain consequences of forgetting the Almighty but missing landlord.
Forty years ago schools had to contend with students who smoked, chewed gum or played hooky. Now our schools contend with dope, shootings, venereal disease and aids. Teachers and administrators blame it on the breakdown in the family. Is it possible that the problem is that we have forgotten God? Did our students do so much worse when we allowed prayer in the classroom?
Our politicians are wringing their hands about violence, murder rates, rates of illegitimate pregnancy which is now 33% and rising, about rates of divorce, drug and alcohol abuse... They blame it on money and environment and schools etc. Could all of this be simply because we are forgetting God?
Billy Graham recently spoke to an audience in Washington DC and urged the nation's top politicians to stop the nation's "descent into new depths of crime, oppression, sexual immorality and evil... We have confused liberty with license - and we are paying the awful price. We are a society poised on the brink of destruction." Is this because we have forgotten God?
A society that wishes for morality among its citizens and that desires to survive cannot dispense with God or with the recognition that we are responsible to a Creator God. That's what Noah told his peers. They didn't listen. That's what Jeremiah told the people of Israel. They didn't listen. That's what Jesus told the Jews. Many of them didn't listen. There is hope for our country. There is hope for our future. But as a nation we must wake up and listen.
Christians must boldly stand for those principles that God will bless and which He says will make a nation strong. We must speak and teach and preach. We must recruit. We must let our lights shine. We are the salt that keeps our world from totally rotting.
And we all must listen to the God who created us and to Whom we are accountable and Who will one day judge us all.
This Independence Day let us remember the truth on which our nation was founded. There is a God and we must not forget Him.