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to the book of Galatians. Galatians
chapter number five. And I want to read just one verse
this morning. And I have never been a one verse
preacher. I'm not a great speaker and talker.
So I like to have a lot of context and a lot of scripture to kind
of help me along the way. But for some reason it seems
lately I've preached several times from just one verse. And
I want to preach from just one verse this morning. And you hear
all the time from this pulpit how important that context is. And it's important in every passage
that you deal with. But specifically here in the
book of Galatians, because of the subject matter that Paul
was dealing with, context is so important. So I'll mention
a little bit of context regarding this verse. I didn't even mention
it earlier in the service, but of course, you know, this week
we celebrate our national independence. And I love just reflecting, that's
one of the purposes of holidays. It's not always just a day off
and a day to get together with family, and I love those aspects
of them. But one of the purposes is to reflect over what they
represent. The nation of Israel had a lot of set-aside days,
holidays that they would observe, and they meant something to them.
And in our nation, we have been blessed with a holiday on July
the 4th that really means something to us. And I'm thankful for it. And a part of it we should take
and reflect. That's some of what I'll do this
morning that's gonna be really different from how I normally
preach. Some of you probably know I've been teaching for the
last several years in our Sunday school class on Baptist history.
And it's become a big part of my studies. And it's really,
really intrigued me. And I certainly don't know near
as much about it as a lot of people who have studied it in
depth. But history is a very, very important thing. I like
history. I'm not one of those people that just enjoy reading.
And I have to make myself read and study sometimes. And it's
such a tough balance, too, because you're only given so much time
in this life. and you're trying to divide that
time and you don't want to take away from your study the Word
of God. But I have been blessed for that to be a big part of
my studies in the last several years. And a lot of history,
I think, in our nation that we are unaware of. I say we, a majority
of our nation and a majority of Christians are unaware of
some of the history that's in our nation. So honestly, a lot
of my message this morning, I want to reflect on some of the history. I hope I'll give you something
to think about this week as we do celebrate our independence.
But of course being America is great, but being a Christian
is greater. So I hope maybe we can make some comparisons to
that in our text. So Galatians chapter 5, look
with me in verse number 1. Here's what Paul says. as he
begins to close this letter he said, stand fast therefore in
the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. You can probably
guess that the word I'm interested in is the word liberty and this
passage will probably be preached a lot in a lot of churches throughout
our country today and a lot of times when we think of liberty
we do think about the national liberty that we have in America
But of course Paul is talking about spiritual liberty, liberty
in Christ. So really all I want to preach
on this morning is living in liberty. I'm thankful for the
social liberty that I live in. We have been so blessed. But
I'm more thankful for the spiritual liberty that we live in if we're
saved. And I hope you'll reflect as well on your own life. And
you may be here and you've never experienced spiritual liberty.
And I'm telling you, the Lord wants to set you free. He wants
to deliver you. So that'll be our thought this
morning. Let's pray together before we're seated. Lord, I
thank you for the opportunity that we have to be in church
today. And thank you for how that you've blessed us. And I'm
thankful for this week that's coming up and thankful for our
nation. I'm thankful for what we'll celebrate on Thursday,
and I'm so thankful to be an American. I know a lot of times
we use the word proud, and I'm not sure there's anything wrong
with that, but I feel this morning more thankful to be an American
than I am proud. You've been so blessed. Consider
this thought of liberty, and I pray that you'd help us to
examine our lives and where we stand spiritually. There's probably
a few people this morning that are here They live in a free
country, but as far as their life and their soul is concerned,
they've never been set free. And today would be a great day
for them to experience that liberty that you've provided for us through
the cross and through salvation. Lord, just have your way in the
service. We love you. In Jesus' name we
pray, amen. Thank you for standing. You can
be seated this morning. Now as I mentioned, I'll give
you just a little bit of context because I don't want to say too
much about this verse without giving you the context of this
letter. And if you've studied the Bible
much, you've probably done a little bit of study here in the book
of Galatians. There are a lot of issues that we're dealing
with right now in our church culture that are dealt with here
in this book. Really, the same problem that
Paul was dealing with with these churches is the same problem
that we still deal with in different situations in different areas
of our Christian life. This letter was written, some
of the letters you'll notice are written specifically to us
particular church. This letter was written to several
churches in this area of Galatia. And this is a strong letter.
I don't know that I would say this letter is as strong as the
first epistle that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. That
was probably Paul's strongest letter in the Bible. So I don't
know that this letter is quite as strong as that, but this letter
would probably take second place on the passion that Paul had
as he wrote this letter. He was really upset because these
believers in Galatia had been led away by what we'll refer
to a lot of times as Judaizers. People who were trying to get
them to go back under the old Jewish traditions and Jewish
customs and a lot of things that you'll see the Pharisees were
involved in at the time of Christ. They were trying to get themselves
back under that bondage. And it was really just the works
of the flesh. I may mention this again at the
end of the message, but the works of the flesh are in two different
parts. There's bad works and there's good works. And both
of them can be a problem in your life. A lot of the times when
we think about bondage, spiritually speaking, and in regards to our
flesh and our old man, we think about bad works. And many of
us, before we were saved, we were under the bondage of some
sort of sin in our life. And we were set free from that.
Really, a lot of what Paul was dealing with in this text was
not bondage to bad works, but bondage to good works. And on
the surface, you think, how in the world could you be in bondage
to good works? But it's the self-pride and the
self-righteousness of these Judaizers that were to having confidence
in their love. The Christians in the world at
this time were no longer Jews. And of course, God had blessed
the nation of Israel. And it was through the nation
of Israel that salvation had come through the birth of Christ.
And they were God's chosen people. But a lot of those Jews are having
a hard time letting go. In fact, one of the strongest
parts of this letter that was written to these churches is
when Paul talks about his disagreement with Peter. And you'll find that
recorded in Acts chapter number 15. And there was a strong disagreement
between James and Peter in Jerusalem and the apostle Paul because
of the way that Peter was catering to these people who were what
we call again Judaizers. And there was some contention
that took place. So that's really the setting
of this book. And when you're talking about liberty and you're
talking about bondage, that's the two words that's used in
our verse here, chapter five and verse one. He talks about
to stand fast in liberty and not to be entangled with bondage.
And those words are two opposites. To be free is to not be in bondage. To be in bondage is not to be
free. I think we understand that very simply. So this is kind
of his closing remarks. of setting things straight with
these Judaizers and some of the foolishness that was going on
and telling them don't get entangled again with those old works, whether
it's sin that the Lord's brought you from or whether it's trying
to make yourself sell those words. One of the things I hate about
the usage of this letter in the day that we live is that it's
used to try to justify a lot of loose living. There are a
lot of people who don't want to live a holy life and they'll
run to the book of Galatians and they'll say, we'll see Paul
saying that we've been set free from having to live right. It
doesn't mean that we've been set free from holiness. We have
been commanded to follow holiness. That's not what Paul's talking
about. He's talking about self-righteousness and having confidence in the
works of our flesh. Let me maybe frame it this way.
before I talk about some of the history of our nation, but really
what Paul was dealing with in some sense was nationalism. These
were Jews who were basing all of their spiritual foundation
in who they were and whose family they had been born in. Again,
that was the problem with the Pharisees. And they couldn't
let go of this nationalism of, we are the nation of Israel,
even though They were not a free nation at this time. They were
under the bondage of the Roman Empire, but they couldn't let
go. It was a more spiritual sense
than a social sense, as we've seen today. But this was really
nationalism, that we're a Jew, and we're going to still demand
that you have to be circumcised to be a Christian, and we're
going to try to impose all of these Jewish customs. That to me, I've already said
it, I think it goes without saying, but I'm thankful for the nation
that we live in. I'm so thankful. We have seen
a very distinct change in our nation in the last several years.
We've always had an element of sin in our nation because our
nation has never been to a place where everyone was saved. So
there's always been problems with our nation. You can't look
back at our history very major problems that we've
had socially, but we have been blessed with a nation who has,
generally speaking, been founded on the principles of the Word
of God. We've been blessed to be considered a Christian nation.
There was a lot of debate about that when Barack Obama was our
president, and he mentioned overseas that our nation was no longer
a Christian nation, and a lot of people got upset about that.
But honestly, it's the truth. I don't know that we could still
consider ourselves a Christian nation when we see some of the
things that are going on in politics and the things that are going
on in our world. But we have been blessed. I want to share
with you just a little bit. I'll try not to spend too long
on this but I want to share with you maybe a little bit of the
history of our nation as regards to Christianity. Another statement
that's been made by a lot of writers is that we're not just
a Christian nation but America is also a Baptist nation. And
I think that could mean Baptist at one point or the other, but
because of the foundation of our country, because of the way
that it was established, I don't think that would be a necessarily
wrong statement to say that our nation was at one time a Baptist
nation. You're probably aware, at least
to a certain degree, of secular history and how our nation was
formed. Christopher Columbus sailing
and exploring our continent. And then, really, when you think
about the birth of a Christian nation, I believe that the birth
of our nation really starts with the Reformation. If you know
anything about the Reformation, it took place in the early 1500s.
And the one theme of Christians throughout history since the
cross has been persecution. When you look in the book of
Acts, in the book of Acts it was persecution over and over
again. Paul was beaten and they were thrown in prison and a lot
of persecution they faced and a lot of them were martyred.
All of the disciples of Jesus, with the exception of John the
beloved, it seems, were martyred for the cause of Christ. So persecution
has been a theme of Christianity. In about the 1st century, the
Catholic church was established. When you look at the history
from the cross to where we are now, Catholicism was the dominant
religion of our world. I mean, Satan knew what he was
doing. We don't have time to get into the history of Catholicism,
but Satan knew what he was doing in the Roman Catholic Church,
and there have been millions of people who have been deceived
because of the Catholic Church. It's so adaptable. When you study
the history of any country, You'll find that the Catholic Church
would adapt themselves to their society so that they could get
a stronghold of religion and many of those people would accept
them and they would be deceived. It happened even in our very
own country. Catholicism has played a big
role in our nation. But the Reformation was when
what's considered the Protestants began to pull out. We know Martin
Luther was the one who really was the catalyst of the Reformation
in his 95 Theses. He was a Catholic who decided
to take a stand. Man, Martin Luther had a lot
of problems and a lot of things that we would disagree with,
but I'm thankful for the stand that he took against the Catholic
Church. Now, I will say this, and you've
probably heard this said enough that you haven't memorized, but
as Baptists, we're not Protestant in the fact that we came from
the Reformation. Our history goes all the way
back to the cross and all the way back to the book of Acts.
I believe that. And even though it's hard to trace because of
the persecution that took place in the church, I believe there's
evidence that we can take all the way back to the book of Acts
of our history. But there were a lot of good
things, I guess you would say, that came from the Reformation.
You have men like Martin Luther, who the Lutheran church is named
after, John Calvin, who was also a great leader of the Reformation.
But the Reformation is no longer interested in the deception and
some of the blatant lies that had been taught from the Catholic
church. You'll also find England's history. If you've studied any
British history, it's really interesting how England was involved
in the Reformation. King Henry VIII was the one that
was in leadership at that time. And he really just took advantage.
It's a really interesting story. I won't go into all the details.
But he wanted to get a divorce and the Catholic Church wouldn't
let him divorce his wife. He tried to appeal to the Catholic
Church. so he just took advantage of the whole Reformation thing
and mysteriously God at this perfect time showed him a vision
that he was to be the new leader of religion in place of the Pope
and he decides to establish what was known as the Church of England
and just I mean I read an article one time of somebody praising
him and his leadership and I thought how in the world you can't see
that this guy just wanted to divorce his wife so he starts
this entire state church in Britain. That's exactly what happened.
And it was very, if you know anything about the Church of
England, when you read an Anglican, that's somebody, that's a part
of the Church of England. What we now know is the denomination
of Episcopalian. That's what was Anglican and
became Episcopalian here. in America, so those are all
tied into the Church of England. But Henry VIII establishes this
new church in England, and it became a dominant church of England
that was established, began to persecute the Christians that
were in England. Now, I'm trying my best not to bore you, but
that is really the beginning of the birth of our nation. because
what happened was those people that were experiencing persecution
in England, you can read books like the Fox's Book of Martyrs,
you can read of the people who were burned at the stake and
people who were persecuted because of their involvement in Christianity
or their involvement of the translation of the word of God. We know in
1611 was when the translation of the English Bible was authorized
and I'm thankful for that because of the... the role it plays in
our life, but there was a lot of persecution that was taking
place. And those people left England, we know in 1620 was
when the Pilgrims left, and they originally had went to Holland
and they traveled from England to America, what they called
Plymouth Rock, there in the Cape Cod Harbor. They traveled to
America and they were looking for religious liberty. One of
the things you'll notice about the beginning of our country
is there were two groups of people that opposed the Church of England.
One would be called pilgrims. That's the ones that sailed over
on the Mayflower. They were considered separatists,
meaning that they had separated themselves from the Church of
England. They said the Church of England
is no longer salvageable. We're completely separating ourselves.
Not long after, the Puritans were the main religious leaders
in our country for quite some time. Puritans were people who
had opposed the Church of England. But their philosophy was that
they were going to purify, that it was still salvageable. So
they didn't completely separate, but they have a different way
of thinking from the Church of England. But I'm telling you,
no matter what, and you can study all of this for yourself, no
matter what society tries to teach us, our nation was founded
on people who were seeking religious liberty. People who wanted a
place to be able to worship God according to their conscience.
Now, I understand there was a project that you probably remember hearing
about. It was called the 1619 Project. And they tried to twist
the narrative of our nation that in the colony of Virginia, our
nation began with slavery and that's always been a part of
our nation. And I'm not going to lie, slavery
was a terrible part of the history of our nation. Slavery was a
terrible part of the history of the world, and slavery is
a terrible part of the history of any nation that you want to
study. It was a terrible thing. But they'll try to twist the
narrative that our nation, and there were places, places like
Virginia where tobacco was being grown, and there were a lot of
people that were coming to Virginia just to make money. I'll give
you that, I understand that. But I'm telling you, our nation
was birthed out of New England, and New England was birthed from
people who were seeking religious liberty to be able to worship
the Lord. 1620, you have the pilgrims about a preacher from
England. And he led this group to what's
now Boston. And they began to establish a
colony there. And they came. They were Puritans,
and there would be a lot of things that we disagreed on. But they
came to this country looking for a place that they could worship
God without the oppression of the Church of England. One of
the interesting things about men like John Winthrop is they
had the idea that they were going to create a nation that was a
perfect marriage between religion and politics.
They really thought, when you look at the, especially in Boston,
do you know this? A lot of people don't know this,
but in Boston, there was not complete religious liberty in
the state of Massachusetts until about the 1840s, before there
was complete religious liberty. There was a stronghold in that
area. And you'll read after Puritan writers, a lot of them, again,
were good men. They did some great things. But
they had this idea that they were going to establish a nation
that was perfectly married with politics and religion. And they
started what was called the Congregational Church. And in New England, and
then also throughout a majority of the 13 original colonies,
the Congregational Church was usually the established church
in civil government. And John Winthrop referred to
America, or at least the colony there of Boston, it was going
to be a light on a hill. It was going to be a new Israel. It was going to be an example
to the world of how you can have a perfect politics and religion
mixed together. Well, there were people who came
and the Baptists were one of those that began to hollow out
the flaws of that. You had Baptist men. One of the
first ones that you'll read about if you study history was a man
by the name of Roger Williams. And there's a little shadow that's
cast over his life because he didn't stay Baptist. He was Baptist
for a while and then he got off into some really crazy doctrines
at the end of his life. But he came to Boston just a
year later. I think it was 1630 when Winthrop
and those people came from England. And then Roger Williams came
to Boston in 1631. And all of a sudden he begins
to preach Baptist principles. And you understand that the reason
we have the name Baptist is not that we gave it to ourselves.
But it was a name that was given because we stood against the
infant baptism of almost all world religions. You'll read the word Anabaptist
throughout history, and not everybody that was Anabaptist would believe
like us. And really, we're just Bible
believers. That's what I want to be. I think that's what this
church wants to be. And to us, it don't mean much
because there's been so many Baptists in our nation. But the
reason it became a denomination is because it was a big deal
to stand against the infant baptism in the 1600s. It was a big deal
when people said, I'm not baptizing my baby. So the word Anabaptist
means re-baptizer. So they started throwing off
on those people who believed in believers baptism by calling
Anabaptist or Baptist re-baptizers. And, of course, it's not re-baptism
because an only legitimate baptism is a salve, somebody who's been
saved, who's a believer. So, you know, you could get off
into all those studies. But it's really interesting.
There were Baptists, not just Baptists, but there were other people who
made their way. But they begin to experience
persecution, even from these Puritans. that had thought they
were going to make this perfect church-state relationship, they
began to persecute these Baptists. You'll read stories, there was
a man by the name of John Clark who came shortly after Roger
Williams. Roger Williams, when he preached
here in Massachusetts, he was banished, and believe it or not,
he didn't show up to the day that he was supposed to be shipped
back across the ocean. He ended up going to Rhode Island,
which was just considered wasteland to those people that were in
Massachusetts, and he established the colony of Providence, Rhode
Island. One of the really interesting
things about Rhode Island, there's so much Baptist history there,
but it was one of the first places of religious liberty. John Clark,
he was a doctor. He was a great, great Baptist
preacher. Very, very respectable man. But he left England as well. He was a physician. He comes
to Massachusetts. There's a big controversy that
was taking place over, Antinomianism and Calvinism, things a lot of
people don't know about Rhode Island. But Rhode Island, it
was the first place, the first Baptist church that was ever
established in America was in Rhode Island. If you wanted to
go to the first synagogue that was ever in America, you would
have to go to Rhode Island. If you wanted to go to the first
Catholic church that was ever in America, you'd have to go
to Rhode Island. What God did in Rhode Island,
it was really the first place in history that had religious
liberty. And these people who were traveling
to Boston and then realizing the persecution that was taking
place there would go over to Rhode Island and that's where
There was finally a place where people could practice worship
to the liberty of their conscience. So it's just interesting how
all of that began to develop here in our nation. And you'll
read stories about men like Obadiah Holmes. You're probably familiar
with that if you've studied any Baptist history. He was actually
beaten. He was fined first for coming
in. He was from Rehoboth, Massachusetts,
but he came into Boston to visit another church member, a fellow
Baptist. of a fellow brother in Christ,
and he was fined, him and two other men were fined for being
there, and he refused to pay the fine to the point that they
took him to the Boston Square, which would have been right across
the house, what they called the whipping post, right across from
house from John Wilson, who was the congregational preacher in
Boston, and they beat him with 30 lashes for not paying the
fine that he had been given for practicing religion that was
against their law. A lot of that took place right
here in America. And a lot of the colonies, eventually even
in Virginia, there was a lot of persecution that took place.
And it was honestly, in the beginning, I don't think sometimes we realize
how fragile the beginning of our nation was. Now I say that,
but I believe it was God's providence. I believe it was God's hand that
protected us and kept us together. But there could have been things
go different ways that would have never, if it would have
happened, it would have never resulted in the nation that we
know today as the United States of America. I'm trying not to
bore you. I won't go into all the details,
but you can work your way up. You go from people coming here,
and again, it wasn't exclusively. There were people who came in
here with bad intentions. There were people that came to
America that just wanted to make money and wanted to take advantage
of the success. I understand that. But I'm telling
you, most of the people that came to our country were people
who were seeking religious liberty. That's what our nation was founded
upon. One of the things you'll notice about our nation, it's
a nation of documents. When those pilgrims landed there
in Plymouth Rock, They, before they even got off of the ship,
they put together what was known as the Mayflower Compact. One
of the first documents that a society established Jesus Christ as being
their king. Him being their leader. You had
the Rhode Island Charter that was also big document of religious
liberty. There was so many documents and
primarily you'll find the Word of God was at play in all of
those situations. You go on in our history, you
have the Great Awakening, everything that took place and the Great
Awakening took place in the 1740s. You had men like George Whitefield
who wasn't even a Baptist, he was an Anglican preacher. But
they wouldn't let him preach in England because of his message
and his style of preaching. So in England he had started
to preach in fields and he would have thousands of people that
would gather in a field to hear him preach. Then he came to America
and he began preaching in fields in America. One of the quotes
of George Whitefield you've probably heard is he was quoted in saying
that all of his chickens had become ducks. because he wasn't
a Baptist, but everybody that was getting saved under his preaching
was becoming Baptist. And he had a huge impact to him. He was an Anglican. Jonathan
Edwards was a Congregationalist. He never was a Baptist, but man,
he was a great preacher. We know him for the message centers
in the hands of an angry God. He was an incredible preacher.
And God did a work in our nation. I'm telling you, when you look
at the timeline of our nation, There is no way that circumstances
and coincidences could have put everything together. In that
great awakening, there were people saved, people like Shubal Stearns. If you've studied Baptist history,
particularly in the South, Shubal Stearns made his way down to
the central part of our state, what's called Sandy Creek, and
there was a revival that took place. He started a church there,
and North Carolina was just a frontier. and there was a revival that
began to sweep through that area. His church went from just a handful
of believers to over a thousand people attending his church.
It was amazing what God did. There were controversies that
took place. If you read any about just secular
history, you'll find in our own state history, there was what
was called the War of the Regulators that took place just prior to
the Revolutionary War. That war was in that area, that
little battle was in that area when Governor Tryon marched a
lot of the military up to fight that battle. But it began to
scatter and one of the interesting things, there's some really interesting
history even on our very own church. If you know the history
of our church, our church was established in 1796. And what
happened when all of that conflict was going on, everything that
was kind of leading up to the Revolutionary War, there was
a group of believers who came across the mountain over toward
what's now Johnson City, Tennessee. And then the Lord began to work
in revival over in that area. And from there, there were associations.
The Holston Association began, and it covered our whole area.
And then they began to split off, and our area in the Southern
Baptist, at least, is what's known as the French Broad Association.
And our church was established just from revivals. It's so far
back, it's hard to find a lot of history, but there's enough
history to know that much. And it's amazing how God just
began to work in the great awakening. It's almost as if God knew that
there was fixing to be some rough times in our nation. It's almost
as if he knew there was some monumental things going to happen
and revival sweeps across our land and people are getting saved.
Even in the founding of our nation. When you look at the time leading
up to what we'll celebrate this Thursday on the 4th of July and
our independence as a nation, a lot of our founding fathers
were not Christians. Some of them were Christians.
Very few, very few of them were Baptists. Very few of them we
would see it all eye-to-eye on doctrinally. But God used our
founding fathers in our nation. God used their wisdom and discernment
in establishing a nation. There's some really interesting
things in regards to the Baptists. You'll read about men like Isaac
Bacchus. Isaac Bacchus was saved in the
Great Awakening. And whenever the, or not the
Constitution, but whenever Continental Congress had gotten together
and they had begun to discuss what they were going to do about
about the oppression of Britain, and one of the things you'll
have to notice about the Revolutionary War, I know sometimes there's
a big debate on should it have been fought, should Christians
fight, but really the Revolutionary War was more of a defense than
a rebellion, because this was our land, this was England, The
ones that were fighting against us, they had not come and risked
their life and shed their blood to build this land. So it really
was, you know, and I know there's a lot of opinions on that, but
it was really a defense of our own land that God had given us. And there was a lot of talk that
was going on. But you had men like Isaac Backus
who was a great Baptist preacher in our country. And when the
convention, not the convention, but the Congress, Continental
Congress was taking place, he and two other Baptist preachers
went to Congress and they said, listen, while we're giving our
grievances to Britain, we want to give our grievance for some
freedom in this country. Because Baptists were still being
oppressed. The people that were with Shubal Stearns, a lot of
that revival had went into Virginia. And there was a lot of persecution
that was taking place in Virginia just prior to the Revolutionary
War. And you'll notice a lot of our founding fathers came
from the colony of Virginia. And Baptists started to voice
their opinion. And Isaac Bacchus took a group
up there to the Congress and said, listen, if we're going
to fight this war, we want to know that we're going to have
freedom that you have when we're fighting. There were men, John
Adams. I respect John Adams in so many ways. He was an incredible
lawyer. But John Adams hated the Baptists. He told them that
the stars would fall before the Baptist preacher by the name
of John Leland. And when the Constitution was
being drafted, John Leland was a preacher from Virginia. He
was very, very instrumental. In fact, he probably could have
won He probably could have won James Madison's seat at the Constitutional
Convention, but he talked to James Madison. He said, if you
will make sure that in the Constitution there's religious liberty for
Baptists, then I'll endorse you as a candidate for that seat
in the Constitutional Convention. That's why when I say America
is a Baptist nation, you have men like Thomas Jefferson, who
he really probably wasn't a Christian, probably wasn't saved. But there
are stories of him going to Baptist churches and sitting in on the
business meetings. And when he had his part in forming
our nation, he decided it should be structured like the meetings
of those churches. And I'm telling you, at the time
of our birth as a nation, God was doing so many things. And
again, God was using people that weren't Christians, men like
Thomas Jefferson and James Madsen and Patrick Henry. A lot of those
men may not have even been saved, but they had a recognition of
God and they had a recognition for the Word of God. And woven
all into our history of our nation, you'll find the Word of God and
the principles of the Word of God, the Bill of Rights. Do you
understand that without the Baptists, there probably wouldn't have
been a Bill of Rights? But they said, men like James
Leland said, John Leland, he said, there's no religious liberty
for people in this constitution. That's when the Bill of Rights
was added. The Bill of Rights was added
primarily to the work of the Baptists that were in Virginia,
of saying, we need to make sure if we're gonna support this,
that there's religious liberty. And I'm telling you, you can
argue about everything that happened, but you can't argue with this,
that when our nation was birthed, it was birthed on the principle
of religious liberty. It was birth in the principle
for the first time ever, there was a place where you could come
and you could worship God and how your conscience led you and
what you thought. Now, of course, we haven't been
a perfect nation. I mean, I already mentioned the Civil War that
took place in the 1800s, a horrible mark on our nation that we were
so divided. A lot could be said about that.
We've not been a perfect nation, but we've been a nation that
God has used for religious liberty. Here's what I'm gonna say, and
I'm gonna try to preach a little bit of Bible before I close,
all right? Here's what I'm gonna say, though.
One of the questions I have is, why did God let America be established?
Now, sometimes if we're not careful, I think we've done this as Baptists.
We've had the John Winthrop mentality that I mentioned earlier, that
our nation is gonna tell people what they should believe. Now,
I'm all for having a Christian nation. But you understand that
we're people, and people are flawed at their best. And there's
not a perfect... We're probably never going to
see what we have seen in our nation again. Our nation's changing.
It's very, very divided. If you study some of the religious
atmosphere of the Civil War, there are a lot of similarities
going on even in our churches that was going on in the time
leading up to the Civil War. We're a nation that's become
very divided. I don't think, I mean, we have,
you know, now we have Google Maps, so I don't think there's
anywhere left that's not been explored. I don't think we have
anywhere else to go unless maybe this global warming will hurry
up and melt somewhere we can go live on. But I think we're
out of luck when it comes to that. We're not going to be like
the pilgrims. We're not going to have a place that we can sail
to and we can find religious liberty again. It's very possible
we're going to see things change in our nation to the point that
we will face persecution again. It's very possible, as quickly
as things have changed recently, it's very possible we'll get
to a place, I think we're at a place where there's no longer,
we're no longer a Christian nation. We may get to a place where we
no longer have religious liberty in our nation. Things are changing
very quickly. But here's one of the things
I think, I think the mistakes we make sometimes is all, sometimes
we're not careful, and I want you to understand what I'm saying.
I think I maybe mentioned this several weeks ago or so, but
I don't want to be misunderstood, but sometimes we just put too
much hope in our nation. Sometimes we think this is our
heaven, and it is great. America's great. I believe God's
hand. I'm not saying God's hand wasn't
in our country. You ask, well, why was it? Let me say this before
we get in our text. That's bad when you've been preaching
for 30 minutes and say that before we get our text. But let me say
this. I think there's no way it could
have been coincidence. When you look at how it's laid
out, you have the 15th century, in the 1400s, the printing press
was developed. In the 16th century is when the
Reformation takes place. In the 17th century is when the
pilgrims come to America. in the 18th century is the Revolutionary
War where America is born. To me, it's no coincidence that
all of that took place so closely together. You want me to tell
you why I believe God established America? I don't think, I really
don't, don't get your feelings hurt, but I'm not sure that God
established America so we could have just a little piece of heaven
here before we go to heaven. And I'm thankful for that part
of it. I tell you why I believe God established America was for
his word to be proclaimed. And I think that's the reason
we'll probably see our demise is because we've taken our focus
off of His Word. But you had to have the printed
press to have the Bible. to have it printed. You had to
have the Reformation. You had to have a country where
it was, if there wouldn't have been a free place for the Bible
to be proclaimed. When you study right after the
Revolutionary War in the early 1800s was when you had men like
Adoniram Judson who dedicated their life to go to Burma and
go to the mission field. There was a wave in New England
of revival that called missionaries across the world. And in the
early 1800s, you had the gospel just, I mean, no coincidence,
just as soon as our nation was born, you had the second great
awakening and you had the gospel being taken to places that had
never heard it. They'd never heard the message.
That's amazing to me. Places who were heathen. Places
like Indium where William Carey went. Places where they were
practicing all of this. And the gospel had never been
there. And from this country, God established missionaries.
that would take and translate copies of the word of God into
the languages of those people and they would give their life,
they would sacrifice, they would sacrifice everything they had
to take the gospel and it was all because of America. I believe
that's the reason America exists. It's not for us, and I'm thankful
for it. Again, I'm not trying to offend you on Independence
Week. It's not for us to sit around and be proud to be an
American. I'm proud, I'm thankful for that. But it's not for us
to sit around and just enjoy our freedom. I believe God established
this country so the word of God could be proclaimed throughout
the world before he comes back to get us. And I don't think
that's very long from now, when he comes back to get us. So what
about this idea of liberty? And I'm closing. It's 12 to 10,
I'm supposed to be done by now. He says, stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. I want you
to notice three things real quickly. I thought about the founder of
our liberty. Sometimes I think that we get
so focused on our national liberty that we forget about our spiritual
liberty. We forget about the fact that God did not, He didn't
come to this world to give us a nation that we could be free,
and I'm thankful for our nation, but He came to this world to
give us spiritual liberty. He came to set us free from sin. The founder of our liberty, I'm
thankful for our founding fathers, but the founding of our liberty
is in one person and that's Jesus Christ. He said to stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. He's
the one that has given us true liberty. And it doesn't matter
what, here's the thing, I don't feel too depressed because it
doesn't matter what happens to our country. Our country can
outlaw reading the Bible. Our country can outlaw going
to church. They can take away our social liberty, but I tell
you one thing they can't do, they can't take away our spiritual
liberty this morning. because our liberty is not in
my government. Our liberty is not in the president. Our liberty
is not in our local area. Our liberty is in Christ Jesus.
He's the founder of our liberty, and who he sets free is free
indeed. I'm thankful for the freedom
we have in our liberty. I think about the founding of
our liberty, but also the forsaking of our liberty. I feel like I
spent way too much time historically and haven't left very much for
this verse, but I do want you to notice this one part. He says,
But there's a danger when we have liberty of forsaking it.
And I don't mean that we can get lost again, because once
we're saved we're eternally secure. But we've seen it even in our
own country. You think about, I guess most people are just
ignorant of history. so ignorant that they can't see
it playing out over and over again. But you look at our country
and you think, why are we forsaking our liberty? It's exactly what
we're doing, I believe. I believe exactly what we're
doing is we're turning our back on the freedom that God has given
us. But when you have liberty, there's a tendency to forsake
it. And he's telling them, when it comes to your spiritual liberty,
remember your founder is Christ, but don't forsake your spiritual
liberty. Let me give you this last one and I'm closing. This
is really the whole point. Maybe all the history we talked
about will help emphasize this point. But I want you to notice
he mentions the fight for our liberty. This verse starts with
two words. He said, stand fast. The picture I get from those
two words is him saying, that was one of the things he said.
He said, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Why haven't
you stayed in the truth that you've known? Why have you been
so easily deceived? And basically Paul's admonition
to them is, when you have liberty, stay in it. Stand fast. Fight for it. Here's my question
to you as I close. Are you fighting for yours? At
least every man should feel this way. I would be so quick to fight
for my family. When you think about it, I'm
telling you, it's crazy how weak our nation looks. And it hurts
our pride a little bit. I can't believe that we've let
our country look this weak in front of the world. But it's
scary how quick things could change. And sometimes I think
about it again. I don't want to be doom and gloom.
But sometimes I think about it. What if we get invaded? And I
think about how quick I'd be ready to fight. I would be ready
to fight to defend my home and defend my family and to defend
what we have in America. I think every man in here would
say amen to that. Every man and some of you have
fought. Some of you have given a large part of your life to
dedicate toward our defense and I'm thankful for that. Why are
we so quick though to fight for national liberty and we don't
fight for our spiritual liberty? Some of us this morning, we have
submitted ourselves into the bondage of things that God has
set us free from. Whether it's sin or whether it's
self-righteousness, whatever it is, we dealt with it in this
text. It can be either or. But why aren't we fighting for
our spiritual liberty? Why aren't we fighting for the
freedom that God has given? Why is it we'll just give up,
we'll give ourselves to any old sin, any old temptation, any
old thing that appeals to our flesh, we'll just stick ourselves
right back under the bondage and the condemnation of the sin?
That's not what we need to do this morning. We need to fight
just as hard as we would fight for our national liberty. We
need to fight. One of the reasons many of us are here is because
of our nation. And we need to make up our mind that I'm gonna
stand fast. in the liberty that Christ has
given us. I'm thankful for our nation, and I hope that you'll
think about it. I hope this week that as we celebrate, you'll
think about the history of our nation. I hope maybe I mentioned
some things that'll cause you to study. We've been blessed.
You can jump online, and you can type in some of those names
I mentioned. There's a lot of information on them. Study it
yourself. I'm thankful for the heritage we have. I want to hold
on to, and here's the thing. Do you know where we have lost?
I think this is true. That where we have lost our liberty
and our nation has not been socially, it's been spiritually. We've
lost our social freedom because of our spiritual decline. Because
our churches are dead. And we're not on fire for God
anymore. And that's when you see the evil
around us begin to rise up. That's when you see all this
wickedness take place. When the church is not where
she's supposed to be, that's when all these things start to
change. I believe it all goes back to the way we respond to
our spiritual liberty. Have we fought for our spiritual
liberty? Let's stand together. Ms. Regina, you make your way
up.
Living in Liberty
| Sermon ID | 630241533451618 |
| Duration | 44:58 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Genesis 5:1 |
| Language | English |
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