A Nation Under God? A

Welcome to Grace to You.

I'm Phil Johnson, and today we're preempting our regular programming to bring you a brand-new, timely sermon from John MacArthur. This year has been a year like no other in recent memory, marked by an unprecedented health crisis, societal lockdowns, and in the United States, also punctuated by widespread, brazen, often violent unrest launched in May and continues to this day. And when you factor into those troubling realities the response of some of our government leaders, the problems seem only worse. The year 2020 has exposed the character of the United States in particular.

The picture is grim, even scary. I think we're all disturbed by what the past months have revealed about our nation's moral condition. So it was really no surprise when a week and a half ago, John MacArthur stepped into the pulpit to bring the stabilizing truth of God's Word to bear on America's unraveling social fabric. What John had to say applies not just to the United States, but to any community or country that wants to experience true blessing. So wherever you're hearing this broadcast, we pray that you will be challenged by the sobering message that John calls a nation under God. And you can put a question mark at the end of that title because that is what John did.

So with today's special message on grace to you, here's John MacArthur. There is now in the flag salute of our nation a statement, one nation under God, that was added to the flag salute in 1954. The question is, is this a nation under God? We know that's what the founding fathers intended, and not just any God, but the God of Scripture. Nations are obligated to worship the true God. Did you hear what I just said? They're obligated to worship the true God, and there are dire circumstances that will come upon them if they fail to do that.

I want to show you that. On the 10th of June in the year 1900 at the age of 84, the Bishop of Liverpool, J.C. Ryle, went to heaven. He was called the man of granite with the heart of a child. During his long years of leadership in the Church of England, he was relentlessly faithful to the Bible, to the Word of God. He had been intensely loved and intensely hated because of his fidelity to biblical truth. He was even called the lion for the truth. His legacy still lives globally. His influence is still around because of his writings, and my guess is that most of you have read something by J.C. Ryle. The scope of his influence is vast, but one of the things that particularly interested Ryle was the relationship between the church and the state. He recognized the foundational truth that all people and all nations are called to worship the true God.

That is not an option. That is a divine command. I don't think people understand that, but I want to help you to understand it. Let me begin by establishing some foundational truth. Number one, man was created by God in the image of God for the glory of God. Every person is given as a part of being human the divine image and the knowledge of God's nature and God's law so that the law of God is written in every heart, and the truth about God resides in every heart so that the Bible says if they do not come to God, they are without excuse. Now we know the instinct to worship is strong in every soul. Everybody worships.

God has designed a human soul to worship Him. The fallenness of humanity causes human beings to turn from worshiping the true God to worshiping just about anything and everything else. Mankind rejects the true law of God, and so the apostle Paul says, there is none who seeks for God.

There is no fear of God before their eyes, and every mouth is stopped. That is without an excuse, and all the world guilty and accountable to the one true God, Romans 3. So man is created by God in the image of God for the glory of God and commanded to worship the true God. Secondly, all people are to worship only the true God. Mankind worships, we get that, but His fallenness directs Him away from the true God to false gods. As Jesus said in John 4, 22, to the Samaritan woman, you know not what you worship. J.C. Ryle, dealing with this very issue, said this, any worship is more pleasing to the natural heart than worshiping God in the way our Lord Jesus describes it as worshiping in spirit and truth.

The natural heart goes in the opposite direction of God. That is why the Scripture constantly commands everyone back from that deviation to worship the true God. God said, there's no God besides Me. There is no God besides Me. That is, there are no other gods. Scripture says back in Deuteronomy 32, it's repeated in 1 Corinthians 10, that all the gods of the nations are demons.

They are satanic counterfeits, demonic delusions. There's only one God. All the rest are some form of demon worship. The first commandment is this, you shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not worship any other god, for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Exodus 34, you shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Worship the true God and you will be blessed. Worship any other god and you fall under a curse. You say, well doesn't that apply only to Israel?

No, not at all. There is a prophet that everyone knows about. At least they know about one part of his life, and that was when he was swallowed by a great fish. But there's something much more important in the big scheme of things in looking at Jonah, third chapter of Jonah. He goes to Nineveh. Nineveh, by the way, is modern Mosul in Iraq, at least in that same location. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, chapter 3. Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.

Nineveh was exceedingly great city, a three days walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk, and he cried out and said, yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Then the people of Nineveh believed in God, and they called a fast, and they put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. And when the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. He issued a proclamation, and it said in Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing.

Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth, and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we will not perish. When God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them, and He didn't do it.

That's not personal salvation. That's a nation turning to the true God, acknowledging that there is one true God, and it saved that nation from immediate destruction. Unfortunately, the next generation and the next deviated from that, went back to the natural bent of their sinful hearts. And around 627 B.C., that great city of Nineveh was wiped off the face of the earth by the judgment of God. They worshiped Ishtar. They were pagans.

They were non-Jews. The expectation to worship the true God was not just for Israel, it was for every nation, and God pronounced doom on a pagan nation that did not worship Him. The Lord Jesus Christ, repeating Deuteronomy 6 5, said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. There's only one God, only one true God. All humanity is commanded to worship that one true God, and the fundamental reason, the fundamental plan of God, as far as nations are concerned, is to bless the nations that acknowledge Him as the true God. We're not talking about personal salvation.

We're talking about a national recognition of who is the true God. The third thing to say is this, failure to worship God, and to worship any other God brings judgment. It certainly brings judgment on individuals, but it also brings judgment on nations. That judgment becomes inevitable because when you turn from the one true God, you therefore turn from His law.

When you turn from His law, reverence is gone, morality is gone, fear is gone, virtue is gone, and God is gone. That's the cycle of the history of nations, Acts 14. God has allowed all the nations to go their own way.

It's the way of destruction. That's what Paul's talking about in Romans 1. They knew God, they glorified Him not as God, and the wrath of God was unleashed on them.

God gave them over to lusts and impurity, gave them over to unlawful degrading passions, women with women and men with men, gave them over to a depraved mind, and they heartily approved behaviors that they knew led them to judgment. There's only one God. He demands that everyone worship Him, individuals for individual salvation, nations recognizing Him for a national temporal blessing.

Where am I going with this? Pretty simple. When any government separates from God and His law in Scripture, and from His people and His church, it invites judgment on a personal scale and a national scale. It's unavoidable because God is immutable.

He doesn't change. When government thinks its only responsibility is for physical, material, social, temporal needs, and ignores the spiritual reality of the true God and people's spiritual needs, when a nation becomes indifferent to the true God and His Word and His law, it makes a grave mistake which, if not reversed, will lead that nation to its own destruction. The notion of a secular state is a lie. Government is ordained by God. In Ryle's lifetime, he called his nation, England, to biblical law, biblical Christianity. And he said it should be recognized nationally, and the Scripture should be promoted for the good of society. Now the Reformers were right in seeing three uses for the law of God. Use one was to show the sinner what holiness was like so the sinner could see how far short he falls, be convicted and repent personally and receive the salvation that God offers through Christ. So the first use of the law is to awaken the sinner to his sin and judgment. The second use of the law is then to become the standard for believers' behavior as they walk in sanctification and holiness. But the third use of the law, said the Reformers, and they were right, is to restrain sin in society. And God's law does restrain sin. And government is to be its enforcer. Romans 13, 1, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.

Lovers are not a cause for fear, for good behavior, but for evil. For government is a minister of God to you for good, but if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it doesn't bear the sword for nothing. For government is a minister of God, an avenger who brings evil on the one who does evil.

Wrath comes on the one who does evil, and the executor of that wrath in the government are those that carry the weapons and deadly force. So God's law, first of all, is designed to show sinners how far short we fall of God's holy standard and how desperately we need a Redeemer and a Savior. Secondly, to provide a standard of behavior for us to live sanctified lives.

But thirdly, God gave law to restrain sin in a society, and as long as this society follows biblical law, there will be restraint on sin. Ryle wrote this in his day, the government of England would allow all its subjects to serve God or Baal to go to heaven or to go to hell, just as they please. The state would take no cognizance of spiritual matters and would look on with epicurean indifference and unconcern. That is a deadly thing for a society to face. Ryle also said this, in what manner God would punish England if English government casts off all connections with Him, I cannot tell. Whether He would punish us by some sudden blow such as defeat in war and the occupation of our territory by a foreign power, whether He would waste us away gradually and slowly by loss of commercial prosperity, whether He would break us to pieces by letting fools rule over us and allowing parliament to obey them, whether He would ruin us by sending a dearth of wise statesmen. But one thing I am sure, the state that sows the seed of national neglect of God will sooner or later reap a harvest of national disaster and national ruin, and England has reaped that harvest.

So has Scotland and Ireland. The law of God has a personal purpose to convict the sinner, lead him to salvation. It has a sanctifying purpose as the regulation for the living of a sanctified life, but it also has a national purpose to restrain sin.

So what are we saying? There is no God except the God of the Bible. There is no true morality but the morality of the Bible. There is no true worship but the worship of the true and living God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no personal blessing apart from Him.

There is no national blessing apart from honoring Him, and there is no way to Him except through Jesus Christ. All irreligious, immoral, indifferent governments will self-destruct, and that self-destruction is only apparently a self-destruction. It's really a divine judgment. Godless complacency or open rebellion against God ends up with the same result. A society that turns from God will be open to all false religions, welcoming the doctrines of demons. A society that turns from God will be open to all moralities and all immoralities, all perverse freedoms, all sexual preferences, all ideas and opinions, all lies, all deception, all sins, all iniquities. A nation that turns from God will lose control of absolutely everything.

Chaos will begin to take over, and it will lead to anarchy, and anarchy usually leads to a police state or a dictatorship. Removing the worship of the true God is a disaster to a nation. First Timothy 2, 1 and 2, Paul said, first of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men for kings, rulers, all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is Paul saying, God desires people to live a quiet and tranquil life.

That's not salvation language. That is simply societal peace, well-being, the enjoyment of common grace. But for that to happen, we have to pray for the leaders who are in authority. Pray that they will submit to God.

First that they would be saved, they would submit to God. When God and Christ and Scripture are dishonored in a nation, there will be violence, there will be noise, transgressions, and shame. There will not be a tranquil, peaceful life in all godliness and dignity. Joshua 24, 20, if you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you. There's no question that God has done good to this nation, but He will consume this nation.

If it stays on the path it's on. Removing the worship of the true God, removing the authority of His Word, the voice of the church, the moral education of children and youth, removing the gospel because it's too offensive is the path to national destruction. God chose Israel and laid out these same realities to Israel, and Israel was disobedient and it destroyed Israel and they had a covenant promise from God. Their destruction was not final because God promises to save them in the future. No other nation has such a promise of restoration and national salvation in the future.

If God didn't spare Israel historically, He's not going to spare people who are not part of His covenant. Listen to how broad the Bible says worship of the true God is. Psalm 33, 8, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the nations of the world revere Him. Psalm 117, 1, praise the Lord all you nations and extol Him, all you peoples.

Now that has to come from leadership. So Psalm 72, 11 says, let all kings bow down before Him and all nations serve Him. All kings, all nations.

God is to be worshiped by all nations. All leaders or judgment will fall. Turn for a moment to Joshua chapter 10. You remember that when Moses went to be with the Lord, the mantle of leadership was turned over to Joshua. And Joshua took the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, which had been promised, of course, to Abraham long before. But when Joshua entered into the land, I want you to see what he did. Go to the end of chapter 10, verse 40.

Well, verse 38. Joshua and all Israel with him returned to Deir, and they fought against it. He captured it and its king and all its cities, and they struck them with the edge of the sword and utterly destroyed every person who was in it. He left no survivor, just as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Deir and its king, as he had also done to Libnah and its king. First thing Joshua does is go into the land of paganism, and he is the executioner of the Lord's wrath.

Verse 40 then, thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country, and the Negev in the south, and the low land, and the slopes, and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded. This seems very disturbing to many people who read this in the Old Testament. But none of those kings died under that judgment, who weren't going to die under judgment another way, had God not done this.

God is the one who destroys both soul and body in hell. He used Joshua as his executioner. Go over to chapter 11, verse 17. Further, from Mount Halak that rises toward Seir, even as far as Bal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon at the foot of Mount Hermon, that's way in the north, he captured all their kings and struck them down and put them to death. Joshua waged war a long time with all these kings.

There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel. Their hearts were so hard, verse 20, it was the Lord then who sealed the hardness of their heart to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Just glance at chapter 12. Here are the kings defeated and slain.

All of chapter 12 lists them. Thirty-one kings, the end of chapter 12. That is shocking to many people, that God is an executioner of pagan kings who have not acknowledged Him. God is the same God today. It's not to say He is not compassionate and merciful.

He is, and the Old Testament is clear on that. But for those who reject Him and His offer of forgiveness and salvation, He is the inevitable judge. This puts a huge burden on leadership in a country. I know there are a lot of people who are pursuing political power. That's a dangerous thing to pursue, dangerous, because God has requirements for those in power, because nations are basically formed by those who lead them. And by what they demand and what they tolerate, a nation will be defined. So what does God require? Let's go back to Psalm 2, verse 10, "'Now therefore, O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth.'" If you're in a position of power, whether you're a king or a judge, governor, president, vice president, congressman, senator, mayor, whatever, "'Take warning, worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! Reject the Son of God, and you will anger God, and His wrath will fall on you.'" Thanks for being here for Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm Bill Johnson. We preempted our regular schedule to bring you a message that John preached just over a week ago. He calls it A Nation Under God, with a question mark at the end of that title. Now, to help answer questions you may have about the issues John considered today, we want to give you a free copy of a classic book by John called The Vanishing Conscience. This book has really been predictive of our nation's moral decline.

More than that, it considers the biblical prescription for correcting the course and the steps each of us needs to take to put off sin and receive God's blessing. Ask for this book, The Vanishing Conscience, and it's free while supplies last. We'll also send you a free CD of today's message. Request your free book and the CD today. Call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org to request John's book called The Vanishing Conscience. Again, we want to put a free copy of this book in your hands while supplies last.

The Vanishing Conscience will help you take sin seriously and will arm you in your battle against sins of all kinds. Again, for your free book, call now 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And remember, along with your free book, we will include a free copy of the timely message you heard part of today. John preached it just a few days ago.

It's called A Nation Under God. Again, head to gty.org or call 800-55-GRACE. And thanks for praying that God will use today's radio broadcast to equip and encourage His people. We would also appreciate knowing how the Lord uses this message in your life.

So drop a note when you can to letters at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be here tomorrow when John completes this brand new message called A Nation Under God. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.