Sunday, July 2, 2000   

For a little while today I want to take America's pulse, I want to see if we have a fever, I want to see if we are healthy or sick.

I. THE PULSE OF GOVERNMENT (Proverbs 13:34-"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.")

      A. The U.S. is a reproached nation today because it no longer stands for what is right.

           1. In Ohio the state motto has been declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.

                a. What does this offensive motto say? "With God all things are possible." Friend if that motto can be struck down anything can happen in this country.

                b. Personally, I don't believe the federal government has any business telling Ohio what it's state motto can or cannot be.

           2. In 1851, Daniel Webster reaffirmed the need and role of God in government when he said, "Let the religious element in man's nature be neglected, let him be influenced by no higher motives than low self-interest, and subjected to no stronger restraint than the limits of civil authority, and he becomes the creature of selfish passion or blind fanaticism."

           "On the other hand, the cultivation of religious sentiment represses licentiousness ... inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric."

           3. Charles Malik, at one-time Ambassador to the United Nations from Lebanon said, "The good (in the U.S.) would never have come into being without the blessing and the power of Jesus Christ ... I know how embarrassing this matter is to politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and cynics: but, whatever these honored men think, the irrefutable truth is that the soul of America is at its best and highest, Christian."

      B. We have leadership in Washington, D.C. that is corrupt and ungodly.

           1. Recently the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Conference on Women pushed for legalized prostitution. Several third world countries stood against the once moral and mighty U.S. and said no to the Clinton plan for worldwide-legalized prostitution.

           2. In the White House we have the most immoral President this nation has ever had, he has been impeached, yet he is still in office making fun of and destroying the morals of America.

                a. Leadership does effect us all. Everything, dear friend, rises and falls on leadership.

                b. Isaiah 9:16, "For the leaders of this people causes them to err; and they that are lead of them are destroyed."

                c. A leader is a person who directs the course, who leads the way of others by persuasion, influence, and by example.

II. THE PULSE OF MORALS

      A. Last week Vermont sanctioned homosexual union. How sad the majority of people in Vermont are against sodomy (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13)

           1. The big three, G.M., Chrysler, and Ford now give medical benefits to same sex partners.

           2. Homosexuality is being pushed by the media, by the President, by the Vice President and others. The acceptance of sodomy in America means that we are little better than Sodom.

      B. One of the greatest moral atrocities in our nation is abortion over 38,000,000 babies have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade.

           1. Recently Nebraska outlawed partial birth abortion. The Supreme Court of this once great nation has struck down Nebraska's law. Another infringement on states rights.

           2. Abortion stops a heartbeat.

      C. AT&T is now the top provider of pornography in the U.S. AT&T now carries the Hot Network, a pay preview network that shows porno films.

           1. Police vice squads report that 77 percent of the child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls imitated what they saw in pornographic material.

           2. Pornography fans the flames of the sins of the flesh. (Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:3,11).

      D. Daniel Webster, "Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principles nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits."

           1. Noah Webster, "The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."

           2. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, it is wholly inadequate for the government of any other (John Adams).

      E. New American meanings for old words.

           1. God calls it "drunkenness." -We call it "alcoholism" - A social disease.

           2. God calls it "sodomy." -We call it "homosexuality, gay rights, an alternate lifestyle."

           3. God calls it "perversion." We call its "pornography- adult entertainment."

           4. God calls it "cheating." -We call it "abnormal social developments."

      F. How great is America?

           1. Alex De Tocqueville said, "America is great because America is if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be good; and great."

III. THE PULSE OF EDUCATION (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

      A. We are to teach our children the Bible. All of America's early schools were Bible schools, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.

           1. Harvard's "Rules and Precepts" of 1646 included the following:

           "Everyone shall consider the main end of life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. "Seeing the Lord giveth wisdom, everyone shall seriously by prayer in secret seek wisdom of Him."

"Everyone shall exercise himself in reading the scriptures twice a day..."

           2. Last week the Supreme Court ruled that prayer at high school football games is prohibited.

                a. "The U.S. Supreme Court last week confirmed that American public schools are secular to the core." (World 8)

                b. In 1962 prayer was outlawed in school. Do you know what the prayer that was ruled as unconstitutional by our Supreme Court? It has 22 words:

                "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon you and ask that you bless us, our parents, our teachers, and our country. Amen."

That's the so-called unconstitutional prayer?

                c. 1963 the Bible was kicked out of school and in 1980 The Ten Commandments were ordered to be removed from all Kentucky schoolrooms.

      B. Many years ago the reformer Martin Luther said, "I am much afraid that schools will prove to be great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scripture, engraving them in the hearts of the youth. I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt."

IV. OUR ONLY HOPE IS TURNING TO GOD

      A. The saved need to get right with God (II Chronicles 7:14).

      B. The lost need the Gospel (Romans 1:16; I Corinthians 15:1-4).

CONCLUSION: If America does not turn to God is doomed to suffer the fate of other godless nations and empires. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." (Proverbs 9:17).