But if you refuse to serve
the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods
your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the
Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve
the Lord.” Joshua 24:15(NLT)
The real estate agent was attempting to be honest,
telling the prospective buyers the disadvantages and the advantages of the
house: The disadvantages are that the stockyard is just a half-mile to the
west; North is a rubber factory; two bloks East is the sewage plant; and just
south is the paper mill.
The couple asked:
What are the advantages?
She replied: You can always tell which way the wind is
blowing.
For those of us who look at history as the unfolding of
God's plan and purpose, the winds of nations rushing toward a collision course
with disaster are unmistakable.
No nation – especially a powerful and greatly-blessed
nation as ours is, exists for its own glory, or to carry out its own plans. The greatness of our (or any) country depends
on the adherence of the people to the principles of righteousness and faith toward
God.
Years ago the U.S. Senate chaplain, Richard C. Halverson
said,
A democracy cannot exist as a
permanent form of government. It can
only exist until the voters discover that they can votethemselves money from
the Public Treasury. From that moment on
the majority always votes for candidates promising the most benefits from the
Public Treasury...with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose
fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. That dictatorship may be disguised in the
form of a multi-trillion dollar national deficit.
The average of the world's greatest
civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the
following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual
faith – From spiritual faith to great courage
From courage to liberty -
From liberty to abundance
From abundance to
selfishness – From selfishness to complacency
From complacency to
apathy – From apathy to dependence
From dependence back into
bondage."
I'm no doomsayer,
but we fit this pattern. We have travelled
far down that road from the courage and unselfishness of our Revolutionary
forefathers, to the present day with its' entitlement mentality. We, as in all generations past, face the
constant threat of judgments, both natural and spiritual.
Joshua took over the leadership of God's people when
Moses’ time expired. He led a bunch of
rag-tag slaves over Jordan to conquer Palestine. They had come out of the bondage of Egypt to
become the people of God, wealthy, powerful, and respected by every nation on
earth.
Just as it was the hand of God that formed the nation of
Israel and blessed her, so it is with the land of the free and the home of the brave. We sing God Bless America, and the chills run up and down our
spines. Some tremble out of nostalgic
sentiment; we simply wish for what used
to be. Still others use that
sentiment to manipulate a popularity to carry them into public office.
But if you tremble, and your heart is stirred in fear
and holy reverence for the God who gave the blessing of His hand upon our
nation, and Who (if He so chooses) could remove that hand and watch us fold up
like a spider stuck in the belly...well, then you tremble rightly, and with good cause.
Just as the word spoken by the God of Creation at the
beginning of time, that His Spirit would not always be patient, and that His
judgments are not lagging behind, God will not ALWAYS bless America just because He once did!
·
He will not bless a nation that says In God we trust, and then
pulls the plug on prayer.
·
He will not bless a nationthat says, Thou shalt not kill, yet
stands idly by while our so-called healing professionals every year cut the
lifeline on a million heartbeats before unborn eyes see the light of day.
·
He will not bless an America that offers Islaamic
prayers in the Senate, and refuses to hear the name of Jesus in the
classroom.
I am an American; 69 years worth, last Monday. When my country asked, I served in our most unpopular war in Southeast Asia. I pay taxes.
I love apple pie and my Mom. I
don't park in handicapped parking zones, and I answer Congressional junk-mail surveys. I recycle and don't litter if I can help
it. I vote in elections and support the
turkeys the rest of you elect.
I am not a perfect citizen...but I am an American!
And so, when I say this next sentence:
·
you mark it down as from one who despises Communism,
socialism, and the other forms of repressive power-grabbing;
·
you mark it down as coming from one who loves this
country, and the values it was founded upon;
·
you mark it down as from one whose heart breaks when I see
poverty, crime, war, and indifference destroying the spirit and hope of our
land.....
THIS COUNTRY MUST
RETURN TO GOD, OR WE FACE THE GREATEST RETRIBUTION THE HAND OF GOD HAS LAID
UPON A NATION SINCE THE DAWN OF MAN.
What must America do for God to once again bless
her? If God is going to bless America,
we will have to listen to sound advice from God’s Word. And we will have to do
more than listen – this is a time to act!
The erstwhile sage and philosopher from Brooklyn, New
York, Yogi Berra once said, when you
come to a fork in the road, take it!
You and I would probably and immediately ask, which one?
Please think with me about some symbols of dealing with
the choices that are before us, and what Christians, genuine believers who are
surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, sacrificial, unselfish,
God-honoring and faith-filled people will do when faced with the fork-in-the-road
kinds of decisions we see destroying our land today.
First there is
the symbol of the Ostrich[ii]
The old expression alludes to sticking your head in the sand. This is a way of avoiding having to see the
dangers around. An ostrich at a fork in
the road would refuse to see the choice that has to be made. For humans, Christians in particular, NOT making a choice is making
a choice to stick your head in the sand.
Second is the
symbol of the Chameleon[iii]
Chameleons change color so as to fit-in with the
background. A human who acts like a
chameleon doesn’t want anyone to know what his thoughts and real character are;
he blends-in with what will produce the least amount of conflict. A chameleon will see a fork in the road and
jump into the grass, turn green and stay real still. It’s different than the ostrich…this is
professional hiding!
Third is the
symbol of the DoDo Bird[iv]
In case you’ve never heard, the DoDo is extinct. You have to go to a museum to see its
skeleton!
It’s extinction came about (say scientists) due to the
fact that, although the bird had wings, it never flew. God made it with wings, but it refused to use
what God had given.
What would be a DoDo bird’s reaction to a fork in the
road? It would stop and sit down in the
middle of the road in front of the fork, paralyzed, refusing to make a
decision; it would get run-over by the next car. Among the human population the DoDo bird has
a lot of cousins!
And so…ostrich head-burying, chameleon hiding, DoDo
do-nothing…
And Finally,
the symbol of the Eagle[v]
Here we are on the eve of celebrating our nation’s
independence day – a country that has for its national symbol the bald eagle.
When America was still quite a young there was a lot to
decide upon as to what symbols would represent this country. The eagle was chosen over the objections of
Benjamin Franklin, who wanted the U.S. represented by the turkey. Now, there’s a big difference between turkeys
and eagles. Eagles are birds of prey,
turkeys are the guest of honor at the dinner table.
What would an eagle do at a fork in the road?
I think it would do what it was created to do – lift
off, fly over the scene, spot something that fits its eye, and get busy getting
dinner!
Getting back to Joshua and the nation of Israel, that is
what they did…
·
they stopped burying their ostrich heads in the Sinai
desert and began to follow God’s leading boldly
·
they stopped trying to blend in with the Amorites,
Amalekites, Perizites and all the other “ites” like a chamelon on steroids, and
became the peculiar stand-out treasure known as the people who served JHWH, the
one, true living God
·
they stopped being DoDo’s who never learned to use their
wings and fly
·
they started being eagles, conquerors of Canaan.
Today there are many churches that choose anything but
flying like eagles.
Like ostriches, we choose our comfortable hole in the
sand, where we can block out what’s really happening; we deny there’s a fork in
the road, and sooner or later we will just fade into the landscape, a footnote
listed in the minutes of an Annual Conference that closes the doors for good.
We choose to be chameleon churches, fitting-in with a
safe background of compromising our history and future by just trying to not
have too much controversy or anything that would force us to take a stand.
We choose the way of the DoDo if we get paralyzed by
what it might cost to fly; we don’t want to do anything to jeapordize what we
have.
Jesus told a parable one time about making decisions at
the fork in the road. It was about
servants who were given some of their Master’s goods to manage while the Lord
of the house was on an extended trip.
Some of the servants worked at investing what the Master
had given. They gained some interest and
profit to turn over to the Master when he returned. But one of the servants played the fearful
ostrich and buried all his trust in the sand.
He played the hiding chameleon, who tried to be like all the people
around him, fishing and playing golf when he should have been serving the
Master. And he ended up a paralyzed
dodo, not understanding the most basic thing about why he was created – to soar
like the Master’s eagle in training.
Rather, he was content to scratch around in the dust like a chicken in
Colonel Sander’s back yard.
Our lay delegate shared with you that some of the more
disturbing issues our denomination is continuing to fuss-over are just not
going to go away. Being an ostrich and
burying our heads so we can just deny there’s a problem doesn’t work.
Fitting-in with the crowd like a chameleon church will
just mean you’ll end up going over the cliff when the crowd moves in that
direction.
And being like the DoDo bird, refusing to fly, because
you have never flown before will make you just as extinct as the 7 churches
that were closed at Annual Conference this year.
Joshua said to his flock, what are you going to do about this fork in the road? Make up your mind…be an ostrich, chameleon,
dodo or turkey if you want; but me and my house are going to serve the Lord of
the Eagle. Who is on the Lord’s side?
Every one of us humans is going to live until the day we die. That is a fork in the road you cannot
change. So, today I would like to say to
you, as a dying man, speaking to dying people, it doesn’t matter to a dying
person which fork you take, but you’d better do something; time’s running out! People of God…act with the courage of eagles!
In the name of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit!
[v] Perched eagle: By Hillebrand, Steve (U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
