If the Foundations be Destroyed

You know, as we celebrate July 4th this weekend and this great country that God has given us, I want to call to our attention a verse from the Bible.

David said it, Psalm 11 verse 3, he said, If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? And this weekend, I believe it's important for us to remember that America as a nation was founded on some things. America's beginnings were not haphazard, they were not accidental, but rather in establishing America, deliberate people engaged in a deliberate process based on some deliberate principles, principles that represent the foundations of America, foundations that are distinctively Christian. Patrick Henry said, and I quote, It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians, not by religions, but by the gospel of Jesus Christ, end of quote. And President Calvin Coolidge said, and I quote, The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support those foundations if faith in the Bible's teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country, end of quote.

Well, David said it, if the foundations be destroyed, and as I look at America today, I see three very important foundations of our society that are being eroded away, and I want us to talk about them, and then I want us to answer the question, well, what then can the righteous do? So you say, Lon, this sounds interesting. Are you going to say something profound today? Are you going to say something cerebral today? Are you going to say something revolutionary today?

Well, no, I'm not. Actually, what I'm going to say today is very simple. Actually, what I'm going to say today is painfully obvious, but I think of the words of George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm in 1984.

He said, and I quote, We have now sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious has become the duty of all intelligent men, end of quote. So nothing profound, nothing cerebral, just something that everybody, it seems to me, ought to understand about what's happening in America. Foundation number one that I believe is being eroded away in our nation is the dignity of human life.

Genesis Chapter one, verse twenty seven says, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created man, male and female, he created them. Folks, our nation did not begin with the understanding that human life was an accident of nature. Rather, America was founded on the belief that all human life was a direct creation of God on the belief that every human being is made in the image and the likeness of God and on the belief that this gives value and worth and dignity to every human life, no matter how poor, no matter how old, no matter how physically or mentally limited that life may be. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. And what's number one? Life, exactly.

And I know that sounds familiar to all of us. Now, tragically, we allow this sacred principle of America to be violated in our country for 200 years by the scourge of slavery. But in between the years of 1861 and 1865, 600,000 Americans died in order to rid our nation of this evil, to correct this evil in our land because this is the truth we really do believe in the dignity of all human life here in America. But today, I believe that this same value, this same foundation is being threatened once again in our nation, but not by the curse of slavery, rather by the curse of legalized abortion. You may not realize it, but since 1973, when abortion was legalized in America, 10 times more American babies have died in abortion clinics than have died in all the wars America has ever fought combined. Friends, the bottom line is that the scourge of abortion represents a curse on our society today, just as sinful and just as wretched as the curse of slavery was on our society 150 years ago.

And we must understand that in opposing abortion, we are not just fighting to end a bad thing, but much more than that, we are fighting to preserve a fundamental principle of American society, the principle that every life is sacred, even unborn life. I was given an article a while back from Marie Claire magazine. Now, relax, I don't order Marie Claire magazine, I don't generally read Marie Claire magazine, but the title of the article was The Baby We Can't Ignore.

It was written by Abigail Hayworth and here's part of what she said, and I quote, she said, A morning in the Chinese province of Hunan brings an unimaginable sight. Lying in the gutter of a bustling main road is the tiny twisted body of a dead baby girl. She is naked, surrounded by only dirty pieces of hospital gauze. Nameless and unwanted, the newborn has been dumped by the roadside. She is just one of thousands of baby girls abandoned each year as a result of China's ruthless one child policy. To the Chinese authorities, abandoned girls are merely worthless trash.

They are called maggots in the rice, end of quote. And this article ends by Miss Hayworth calling on readers to rise up in outrage and write letters to China's ambassador here in Washington, D.C. demanding an end to this mistreatment of children. Now, may I say that I agree with Miss Hayworth that what we've just read about in China should outrage us. But isn't it strange that a women's magazine in America would become so incensed about the death of one baby girl in China? Yet this same magazine will never utter one peep about the system of legalized abortion in America that has resulted in the death of 40 million baby girls and baby boys since 1973.

Stephen Chapman, columnist for the Chicago Tribune said, and I quote, It is a measure of abortion's effect upon our thinking here in America that in at least one state, it is now permissible to do to a deformed, retarded infant what would be illegal if done to a cat or a dog, end of quote. Listen, friends, there are many areas where I believe the Bible leaves us as Christians free to disagree, but abortion is not one of them. The issue when it comes to abortion is not a woman's right to choose. The issue is not a woman's right to her own body. The issue is the killing of a helpless infant and violating the dignity of that infant's life.

And I believe that we as Christians and we as the church need to continue to oppose abortion in the hope that one day it will be illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia as it once was in this land unless the life of the mother is in danger. That's foundation number one. Foundation number two is the traditional nuclear family. America was founded on the principle number two of the traditional nuclear family. And what is the traditional nuclear family? Well, by this we mean one man married to one woman keeping their vows to one another and raising their children to be honorable, stable, contributing members of American society. Ronald Reagan said, and I quote, The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Today more than ever, it is essential, he says, that each of us remember that the strength of our families is vital to the strength of our nation, end of quote.

But this foundation, as many of us know, is under serious attack today. This very past week, on Friday, June 24, 2011, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed a law legalizing gay marriage in the state of New York. So New York now joins the states of Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, hello, where gay marriage is now the law of the land.

And this coming legislative session next year will bring five more of these laws up in five new states, one of which is the state of Maryland. A leader of New York's Gay Pride March was quoted as saying, and I quote, Face it, sooner or later, we're going to win this fight. Gay marriage is inevitable in America, end of quote.

Well, David asked if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? And I say one thing we can do about this foundation that's being threatened is we can vote for political candidates who openly and unashamedly support traditional family values, whether they're Republicans, whether they're Democrats, whether they're independents, whether they're animal, vegetable or mineral, doesn't make a bit of difference to me if they support the traditional nuclear family. Listen, if every Christian in every district voted together as a block for every candidate that supported the nuclear family, the legislatures of America wouldn't be passing these laws.

They couldn't be passing these laws that the state of New York just passed. Amen? All right, now, but you know, when it comes to family issues, we have to be careful as the church that we're not just against things, like we're not just against gay marriage. We have to be for some things. We have to be for those things that produce healthy, functional families. We have to be for things that encourage people to build healthy families and help them create healthy families. As the Church of Jesus Christ, we are the place that should be motivating parents. We are the place that should be training parents. And we are the place where parents should find their highest level of support and assistance as they try to build healthy families. And that's why here at McLean Bible Church, we have Kids Quest and why we have the Rock Junior and Senior High Ministry and why we have the gathering for college kids and why we have preparing for marriage class for people planning to start a family. It's why we have a men's ministry and a women's ministry and a family ministry. And it's why we have a counseling center where we work hard to keep marriages and families together. The point is, as the Church of Jesus Christ, one of the greatest ways we can help America not have its foundations destroyed is by defending and promoting the healthy nuclear family. Amen to that?

Alright. Now finally, foundation number three that I see eroding away is the foundation of Bible-centered public morality. President John Adams said, and I quote, Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. What President Adams was saying is that America was founded, number three, on the expectations that its citizens would be Bible-centered in their morality. And without this, American society simply won't work.

And yet in America today, we have a severe crisis when it comes to moral behavior, when it comes to right and wrong in our society, and when it comes to the absolute definitions of right and wrong according to the Bible. Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute on Ethics did a three-year study of 11,000 high schoolers, college students, and adults. And here's part of what he found. He found that 37% of high schoolers admit to stealing. 24% of college students say they would lie to get a job or keep a job.

47% of adults said they would accept an auto body repairman's offer to include unrelated damages in an insurance claim. 65% of high schoolers admitted to cheating, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Mr. Josephson's conclusion, and I quote, there is a hole in the moral ozone of America and it's getting bigger. We're creating a society where cheaters prosper and where you can't tell children that honesty is the best policy anymore, end of quote.

Professor Steven Carter of Yale University said, and I quote, a society that ignores the moral side of life is going to go down the tubes, end of quote. Yale University said this. Hey, how great is it to see Yale University finally catching up with the Bible?

How great is that? It's about time they caught up. God's been telling us this in the Bible for centuries, my friends. And now we've reached a place in America where the public schools have abdicated all responsibility to teach moral values. We've reached a place in America where our public institutions have become more concerned about being politically correct and morally correct.

We've reached a place in America where our politicians seem to be far more concerned about getting reelected than they are about standing up for what's right and what's wrong. The point of this is that the job of teaching and promoting and training young people in the moral values of God has now fallen almost exclusively to us as the church. We're the last bastion, friends. There's nobody else left.

It's tragic. And how do we carry out this mandate? Well, Paul told Timothy, 2 Timothy 4 verse 2, he said, Timothy, preach the Word, correct and rebuke and instruct people with great patience and careful teaching. And this means that as McLean Bible Church, the greatest service we can perform for the people of Washington, D.C. and for the people of America is for us to preach and teach and proclaim what the Bible says is right and what the Bible says is wrong, for us to do this with our children in Kid's Quest, for us to do this with our teenagers in the Rock, for us to do this with our college students in the gathering, for us to do this with our young adults in Frontline, for us to teach what the Bible says in our services and on the Internet and on the radio with no waffling, with no compromising and with no watering it down.

We can be nice, we can be kind, we can be considerate, but we need to stand firm on what the Bible says is right and wrong. Now, I was having lunch a while back with the GM of a radio station here in Washington and the reason we were having lunch is because we were trying to put Not A Sermon Just A Thought on the radio on her station and she didn't want to put it on. And so I said, well, let's go to lunch. So we went to lunch along with some sales people and whatever and she said to me over her salad, her salad, but they called it a salad, I don't know why, but anyway, it was just lettuce, but anyway, she said to me, she said, why can't you guys be more like the Mormon, she said to me. She said, why can't you just go on the radio and say nice, warm, fuzzy things? She said, Lon, why do you have to go on the radio and provoke people by saying things like people who don't believe in Jesus are all going to hell? I said, well, that's a good question.

I said, let me give you an answer. Because our goal at McLean Bible Church is not to make people feel warm and fuzzy. Our goal at McLean Bible Church is not to tell people what they want to hear that will make them feel good. Our goal is to tell them the truth about what God says in the Bible, the truth about heaven, the truth about hell, the truth about eternal life and the truth about everything else that God says in the Bible. In fact, we figured out that we just can't sit in church and tell people the truth because everybody's not coming to church, that we need to get out onto the streets of Washington, D.C. and tell people on their own turf what God has to say. And so we're really gearing up this initiative.

And I just want to give you one example. We have a team of frontliners that are getting all geared up in doing this. Last Saturday night, a week ago last night, they took 56 frontliners, young adults, out to Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle sharing Christ. You say, Lon, this is great. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? One simple reason, my friends, because God called this church to be a lighthouse for biblical truth to the city of Washington, D.C., which means that every time we open our mouth here in Washington, what needs to come out of our mouth is God's truth, God's whole truth and nothing but God's truth. So help us, God, whether that truth is popular or whether it isn't popular, whether people like it or whether they don't like it and whether they'll come to us to get it or whether we take it to them.

It doesn't matter. We need to tell people what God says is right and wrong in this town because if we don't tell them, nobody else is. Amen.

So let's summarize. There are three foundations upon which America was established, all three of which are being eroded away today and all three of which I believe the church can help with. Number one, the dignity of human life.

Number two, the traditional nuclear family. And number three, Bible-centered public morality. But in concluding today, let me say this, that in standing up for these foundations and doing everything we've talked about doing, folks, this is all very important, but we're just attacking the symptoms. We're not really attacking the real problem.

You see, what do you mean by that? Friends, I mean the real problem is the sinful hearts of the people living in America because sinful hearts build sinful societies and redeemed hearts build redeemed societies. And we can exert all the energy we want to resist the destruction of America's foundations, but unless we can change the hearts of a large number of people in America by bringing them into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, our success is going to be minimal. And this is why Paul wrote Timothy, 2 Timothy 4 verse 5, and he didn't say to him, Timothy, do the work of a political reformer. And he didn't say to him, Timothy, do the work of a moral crusader. And he didn't say to him, Timothy, do the work of a social activist. He said to him, Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. Get out there and tell people about Jesus Christ. Get out there and lead as many people as you can to Jesus Christ.

Why? Because 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if any person is in Christ, they become a new creature. They become a new person with a different heart and a person who wants to build a different kind of society than they used to want to build. Hey, 40 years ago, I was a Jewish college student who pushed dope at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and I was trying to build a certain kind of society.

Yeah, I was. I was trying to build a society where it was legal to purchase marijuana on the street corner where you could buy LSD in the drug store and where you could smoke hashish for deserted mortons. That was my kind of society that I wanted. I was trying to build a society where we disbanded the military, where we disenfranchised the establishment and where we all went and lived in communes and practiced free love. But you know, today, 40 years later, I'm still trying to build a certain kind of society in America but it's a radically different society than the one I was building 40 years ago. Today, I want to see us build a moral society, a righteous society, a just and an honorable society and what made the difference?

Was it some new law that got passed? Was it some new political movement? No, friends, what made the difference is 40 years ago, Jesus Christ came into my life and He changed me into a different person with different values and when my values changed, the kind of world I wanted to build changed. And so, what I'm saying to you is David's question, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The most strategic thing we can do as the Church of Jesus Christ, and by the way, we're the only people who can do it, is to preach the gospel to help people become new creatures in Christ who will want to preserve the godly foundations upon which this country were built instead of wanting to tear them down and destroy them. And this is why our mission statement is what it is here at this church. Our mission statement is not to vote political candidates into office. Our mission statement is not to lead the charge against legalized abortion or against gay marriage or against relativism in the public school system. Our mission statement, say it with me, is to make an impact, come on, on secular Washington with the message of Jesus Christ because we know if you change people's hearts, you will change the values that they want to build their society on and that's real change.

That's not attacking the symptoms, that's going for the problem itself. And so, this is what we invite you to become a part of. This is where all of our resources are focused and this is where we want you to dedicate your life and become a partner with us in going after the city of Washington, D.C., not the symptoms but going after the root of the problem by bringing people to Christ in this city.

Hey, if we change this city for the Lord Jesus Christ, the reverberations will be felt not just around America but around the world, my friends. So we invite you to engage and come with us. This is what we're all about and we want you to be part of it. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thanks for talking to us today about our nation and we want to pray for our nation that you would show mercy and compassion and forgiveness to our nation. We also want to pray, dear Father, that you would sweep this nation once again with the power of the Holy Spirit, that we would see a true turning back to God, a revival break out in our land like in the old days of the Great Awakening. Father, we pray that the Spirit of God would be pleased to do that for America and that we as McLean Bible Church could play even a tiny part in all of that happening.

But God, whether revival is in your plan or not, it doesn't matter. We need to stand firm as a lighthouse for biblical truth. So give us the courage to do that here in our nation's capital. Lord Jesus, help us to produce those people throughout this city for the glory of Christ. We commit ourselves to You and we commit our nation to You. In Jesus' name we pray. And what do God's people say? Amen. Amen.