God And The United States Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The struggle over the public viewing of God's law to man led to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore being ousted from office, evidence that God is being systematically excluded from public life. Today, more about the judgment of God on America. Stay with us.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, Americans take for granted that bad things happen to other nations and that we are somehow secure. Well Dave, of course, as you and I know, we aren't secure. No nation has sinned against as much light as the United States of America, and it appears as if we are headed to some very, very dark times. But you know, in the midst of this, we need to be able to keep our cool, so to speak, and remember that God is God and sovereign among the nations. That's why I preached this series of messages entitled God and the Nations. And I can't think of any time in history when we have so needed to remember that God is the one who is in heaven.

In fact, he laughs at the rebellion of men. Now, for a gift of any amount, this sermon series can be yours. Then you can play it again and again, share it with your friends. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com.

That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Request God and the Nations. Share the great truth of God's sovereignty at a time when we are tempted to look around politically and be discouraged. Now let us go to the pulpit of Moody Church where again we hear about the sovereignty of God in his judgment, in his leadership, and in his control. You'll notice what it says now in verses 12 and 13. When the Lord has finished all of his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes, for he says, by the strength of my hand I have done this and by my wisdom because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations. I plundered their treasures like a mighty one.

I subdued their kings. God says he's going to be judged. Specifically, verse 16 says, therefore the Lord God Almighty will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors.

Under his pomp, a fire will be kindled like a blazing flame. God says, I will judge Assyria for its wickedness. Now you say, well, but God used Assyria.

Yes. God says, Assyria, you're judging Israel, but you too will be judged. Rest in the fact that terrorists, not just in America, but around the world, terrorists will be judged by God in this life, somewhat indiscriminately from our standpoint, haphazardly because some may live to have long lives, but in the end, God's judgment will be meticulously balanced and we will praise God forever for the accuracy of his judgment.

Nothing goes unpunished. There's a third characteristic and that is that God's purpose is judgment. His purposes in judgment is really twofold. First of all, regarding unbelievers, very quickly, verses 18 and following, the splendor of his forests and fertile fields will be completely destroyed as when a sick man wastes away and the remaining trees of his forest will be so few that a child could write them down.

He may be talking about the Assyrian soldiers. God says, I'm going to show you my power and my ability to even destroy you. God shows to the wicked the fact that they will not repent even if he shouts from heaven. Now, let's apply this to America. Where are we here in the great United States, a nation that has been so wonderfully blessed by God? After the terrorist attack, church attendance increased. I'm told now it is lower than ever, but thankfully not here at the Moody Church. You know that our attendance has been growing during the last years and continues to grow.

And every time I'm here, I see the balcony come out further and further and further and I say, God be praised, God be praised. But across America today, what you find is a decline in church attendance. And so what we have is just a blip on the screen, the Tribune after 9-11 came out with an article that said it's okay to talk about evil now. It even suggested that maybe we lived in the end of the postmodern age where evil was not admitted into public discourse.

But somehow all that is forgotten and lost, is it not? And what we have in our society today is taking out God's laws. God is being pushed back onto the reservation.

The public square is being scrubbed clean of anything that has to do with God. God is not supposed to inform or to govern or to control what politicians might do. And that's the nation in which we live. I want you to know, regardless of what you think of Judge Moore in Alabama, whom I met yesterday, by the way, I was speaking at Promise Keepers in Atlanta, 15,000 men at Promise Keepers in Atlanta.

You want to hear something that's good about America? Think back to what God is doing in so many different areas of this great nation. But Judge Moore, who was there, was telling us, and showing us really, and I spoke to one of his attorneys, that constitutionally, if you look strictly at the Constitution, those Ten Commandments had a place there in the Supreme Court building. Those Commandments constitutionally should have belonged there. Now, we can argue whether or not this was really the cause to fight and say this or that, but I'll tell you what is happening is there are judges in America today who are no longer interpreting the Constitution and interpreting the law. They are making up the law in the United States of America. Now let me ask you, what happens when law no longer rules?

The vacuum is filled with power. Let me give you an illustration from our childhood days. Fourth grade, here's me, and I have a teacher by the name of Mrs. Watson. Mrs. Watson was a meticulous disciplinarian, a good teacher though, good, fair, but tough. She had certain rules for our playground, you know, because we used to play various games that I won't tell you about because I'm in a too good a mood right now to go into that. But the rules were you shall not hit one another, you shall not talk naughty to one another, you shall not, you shall share all of the equipment, the sports equipment, and so forth, and every once in a while she came out of the schoolhouse during recess just to check on how the kids were playing, and we played reasonably well. Very few hassles when Mrs. Watson was there with her rules. Now let's suppose we say, you know, these rules sound Christian.

In fact, Mrs. Watson, God bless her, she is an informed Christian, and we can't have those laws. And so what we need to do is to take the rules and we need to get rid of them and we need to get rid of her too. Now let me ask you a question, whose will will survive out on the playing field when the rules are no longer there and no one enforcing them? You can answer that. The school bully.

Whatever he wants will go. And I'm going to speak to you candidly. In America today, there are people who do not respect the rule of law or the rule of morality, and they are into one thing and one thing along, and that is power. And they will destroy, they will distort, they will vilify, they will do all that they possibly can to get their way without conscience, because power is taking up the place that law and morality used to have in America. And people can no longer even resolve the simplest thing without some kind of an appeal to law and to the laws of this nation, and that's a great story in itself, because America no longer is rooted in God. What did the terrorist attack prove about unbelievers?

They proved something I guess that we should have known. Dead people don't hear very well. God sends the alarm from heaven and it lasts for a few weeks and then you'd think that nothing had ever happened, and everything goes back to where it was. What's God's message to us as believers, as believers? And here I just want to read very quickly verse 20, 21, and 24. Verse 20, in that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no longer rely on him who struck them down, but they will rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob will return to the mighty God. And then very quickly verse 24, therefore this is what the Lord God Almighty says, O my people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians who beat you with a rod and lift up a club against you as did Egypt. Don't be afraid of them because they don't have the final word in your life.

Anyway, I do. Two observations in conclusion here. Number one, when it comes to such things as terrorism, when it comes to such things as a bad economy, and the economy right now is as unpredictable as a new bottle of ketchup, seems to me. When it comes to that, we shouldn't ask the question why us, but rather why not us? Seems as if God has just chosen to bless America in ways that no other country is blessed.

Other countries, huge earthquakes, tidal waves, wars, civil wars, poverty, hunger, and certainly we have that here, but we have resources the likes of which no nation on earth has ever had. But can it be that we can always just expect blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, when God says I set before you a path, and the path is one of blessing and a path of judgment and cursing, and all that we can expect from his hand is blessing? I don't think so. So the question is, are we ourselves, are we getting the message?

Are we getting the message? What about the church, Episcopalians, I believe it is, ordaining homosexuals? Everybody says they're apostate.

Oh, my friend. They were apostate long ago when they stopped giving up the uniqueness of Jesus as the only way to heaven. That's where apostasy happens.

This other is just the end result. That's just the end result of years of doctrinal erosion. So what you have today among the believing church is a lack of recognition that what God is always trying to say to us is to get back to the Word, back to holy living, back to witnessing, and I wonder if we as a church are hearing that message. Finally, isn't it wonderful that for the believer there are no permanent tragedies, but for unbelievers there's no permanent blessings.

Always remember that. If you've never trusted Christ as Savior, you may have made it in many, many different areas of your life, but there's no permanent blessing. You may have survived a terrorist attack because in the end everything is going to be sorted out, and you will have to die, and you will stand in God's presence, and remember the only ones who will be admitted into heaven are those who have the righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to their account and therefore meet God's requirements. And so there is no real permanent blessing for you today if you've never trusted Christ as Savior. In the end it will all come apart. I remember a wealthy man, a wealthy man, millions and millions of dollars before he died spoke about life, spoke about life and all of its heartaches and tragedies and spoke disparagingly of the life that he lived. I will not quote it because it's really not quotable in a public meeting.

What a way to go. But he had it all, but there was no permanent blessings. But for the Christian, there is no such thing as a permanent tragedy, no permanent tragedy.

Since we're speaking about terrorism, I'm reminded of flight 93 over Pennsylvania with Todd Beamer and his famous line, let's roll. And then we think of Lisa Beamer, a widow, and the witness that she has had for Jesus Christ and the truth of the gospel. Of course it's a tragedy to lose a father and to lose a husband. We won't even have to exaggerate that for you to know it's a great tragedy, but it is not a permanent tragedy.

God says do not fear the Assyrians, he's saying to his people, don't worry about them because I am there for you at the end of the day and I will not leave you and I will not forsake you. This really does come home to Rebecca and me right at this time. As you know our son-in-law, God bless him, a fine young man is in Baghdad in the peacekeeping core of the United States Army. But his father here in the Chicago area is struggling with cancer, greatly struggling with cancer, and we spent two hours with him this past week. And you say, here's a young man 53 years old who wants to see his grandchildren.

He has seen one grandchild but he'd like to be able to see another grandchild. Here's a young man 53 years old, it's a tragedy isn't it? But it's not a permanent tragedy, it's not a permanent tragedy. There's all of eternity out there.

There's all of eternity for God not only to explain it, whether he wants to explain it or not is his business because at the end of the day when we see him face to face, I don't know that we're going to need a whole lot of explanations. And God is with his people in a troubled economy with the possibility of terrorism, with fearful things on the news, God is with us to the end. No permanent tragedies for those who know Jesus. And it is in that that we rest.

Yes, at another time I'm going to be telling you what we should do in light of our great need here in America, that's coming up soon. But for now I just want you to rejoice in the fact that our confidence is in him who said, I will never leave thee, I will never forsake thee, and you need not fear news from a far country, the Bible says, if you fear God. So we're in his hands. Would you join me as we pray? Our Father today, we thank you from the depths of our souls that you've revealed Jesus to us. And because we know Jesus, we thank you for this promise, we need not fear the Assyrian, we need not fear the terrorist attacks, we need not fear all of the ups and downs and the questions of this nation, we need not even fear federal judges, we need not fear those who are destroying and getting their way with raw power. We pray against them but we need not fear them because we're in your hands. Grant us that kind of confidence as a church and as a people. May we leave here today knowing that we belong to you and that's really all that matters. Give us that faith, we pray. If you've never trusted Christ as Savior, right now, even while we're praying, say Jesus be my Savior.

I want to be on the right side of the great divide. Oh Father, our needs are great but so is your grace. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well this is Pastor Lutzer and I want to tell you that the message that I preached was preached some time ago.

Our son-in-law has long since been home working as a civilian here in America. His father died and so we continue to trust and we continue to believe despite all of the mysteries of life. But I come back to that key point that God is in control, nationally yes, but also among his people. Have you been blessed as a result of this message and these messages entitled God and the Nations? If you have, here's what you can do to receive those messages so you can listen to them again and again.

Go to RTWOffer.com, RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And today I want to close in prayer. We desperately needed as a country, we needed as individuals. Would you pray with me? Our Father, we want to thank you today for your grace in the midst of your wrath, in the midst of your control, we pray that we might be able to trust you even when we do not understand. And Lord, we confess that we don't know everything that is happening in America, all that is going on behind the scenes, but we rejoice that you do and in that we rest. We thank you Father that our future ultimately does not rest with Washington, our future rests with you, the living and the true God. And you say in your word that you will be exalted among the nations, you will be exalted in the earth. May it be so, O Lord. And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. There's no doubt that the tide is turning in many parts of the world. The Islamic terror threat is only a symptom of a deeper issue noted by one of our listeners who says, a few years ago, the German government published statistics on dramatic shifts in the world's population. France, Italy, Germany, England and Spain are dropping in their fertility rates, while the Muslim population in these countries is drastically increasing.

The same pattern is happening in the U.S., Canada and Greece. The net result is that Europe and America will be vastly different worlds than we know them today. They will be mostly Muslim dominated cultures. Pastor Lutzer, do you believe that there might be a worldwide confrontation, wars, persecution between Christians and Muslims? And do you believe that God might be using Muslims to judge all of these countries?

The answer is yes to both questions. Here's what I want to say. The best way to understand Islam in America is a sign that I saw during a Muslim demonstration in Dearborn, Michigan, that read, we will use the Constitution to destroy the Constitution. So the Muslims have been very clever, both in Europe and of course it's happening here in America as well, to exploit freedom to promote Islam. And you and I know that wherever Islam goes, it stifles all religious freedom. Here in Chicago, sometimes when I catch a cab and I'm talking to a Muslim driver, I've asked them, if you were to convert to Christianity, should you be put to death? And oftentimes the answer is yes. I say, well, who should put you to death?

Well, they are not sure whether it should be their family or whomever. But the point is this, that Islam does not allow any freedom. And as it increases in Europe, the freedoms that Europe has always enjoyed will be curtailed and eventually snuffed out.

Interestingly, two weeks ago, I had a very interesting conversation with a man from England who was in touch with an imam from London who said to my friend, in a few years, the Muslim flag will be flying over your British parliament buildings. So a confrontation is inevitable. Is God using Islam to judge these nations, Western Europe as well as America? I believe that the answer is yes. This is exactly what God did in the Old Testament.

He used Babylon, he used Assyria to judge his very own people. And as the days go by, our judgments will be increasing. Now there's something we can all think about for a long time. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Erwin Lutzer has concluded God and the United States, another in a six-part series on God and the Nations. Next time, Erwin Lutzer looks into the future to speak on the nations in prophecy. Thanks for listening. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.