If We Can Keep It (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

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Tonight, we’re gonna be looking at and getting our hearts ready for tomorrow.
And stealing from history, the title of the message tonight is if we can keep it.
You and I listen up, everybody. You and I live in a constitutional republic.
Do you know that? Or have you forgotten that?
There is a word that is permeating the narrative today, and that is the word democracy.
In fact, I don’t mean to step on anybody’s toes, but this is a fact.
You will never hear certain political persuasions ever mention the word constitutional republic.
Did you know that in this nation right now, we are a people that are so divided, and I’m grateful for the division, that there are those who say we are a democracy.
And you hear that all the time. Democracy. Democracy.
Because they believe that we have now come to the point of a level of ignorance that we believe that.
When in reality, our founding fathers fought to preserve us from a democracy.
Does this surprise you? We are a constitutional republic unlike any other attempt for man to be governed in all of human history.
And democracy is something that is either led by mob rule or by majority rule, and you’re gonna hear some of the reasons why our founding fathers had to be inspired by God to come up with ideas that every state would have the exact same power, no matter its population.
You know, New York was greatly populated back then, and it was the big bully, so to speak, of the colonies.
Virginia was extremely wealthy. Massachusetts, very productive and the seat of liberty.
But New York had the population.
And if we voted based on population, California and New York would determine the elections every time.
But there’s a reason why, and never done before, there’s a reason why our nation operates as it does, and when Ben Franklin was stepping out out of the gathering of the constitutional convention and people were asking, What kind of government do we have?
And Franklin gave those famous words, A republic, if you can keep it.
So listen, on the screen, I’ll read to you.
You can follow along, but I’ll read it all, and that is Deuteronomy 30, verse 15.
Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 15, there the Bible says, Behold, I have set before you God is speaking, by the way, to the people.
Behold, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.
In that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land.
Verse 17. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away and worship other gods, idols, things that bring us meaning, pleasure, and identity, and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish.
You shall not prolong your days in the land.
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and cursings.
Therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. That’s God’s will.
That you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the strength of your days, and that you may dwell in the land.
And all God’s people said? Amen. That’s the word of the Lord.
It was on Saturday, July 28, 17, 87 that Benjamin Franklin declared, in this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth and scarce be able to distinguish it when presented to us?
How has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly appealing or applying to the father of lights to illuminate our understandings.
In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.
Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.
All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence.
Isn’t that awesome? In our favor. He goes on. I have lived, sir, a long time.
And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, That God governs in the affairs of men.
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
Benjamin Franklin. He lifted that from what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10 verse 29.
When they’re there, the scripture says, what is the price of 2 sparrows?
1 copper coin, but not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your father knowing it.
Ben Franklin. The 1 who is often cited as being a deist, or 1 who didn’t know God.
Remarkable. Our founding fathers knew the God of history, and that the God of history was the God of the future.
Everything they did that brings us to tomorrow was about moving forward into the future.
Without England, without the mother country, we were gonna be a country born in a governance that had never been on the earth before.
Is a grand experiment, and it still is a grand experiment if you can keep it.
The Bible says Oh, not the Bible, sorry. The declaration of independence says.
In Congress on July 4th, 1776, When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 1 people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature, nature’s God, entitled them.
A descent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
In other words, we’re gonna break from England.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Those are some of the greatest words you’ll ever read.
Those are some of the greatest things you’ll ever listen, it’s those words that cause this nation to be the envy of the nations of the world.
Quite remarkable. In Psalm 33 verse 12, the Bible says, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
Notice this, it’s generic. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
America, tonight, if we were to choose to have the Lord as our God, we would become a blessed nation.
America is in great peril tonight because we’ve given up on God.
You haven’t, but the bulk of our nation has. But God moves powerfully in a remnant.
He always has. He loves when the numbers are few, is when he shows up with the greatest of power.
So for that, I’m filled with hope.
But that verse goes on to say that, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people who he has chosen as his own inheritance.
The Lord looks from heaven and he sees all the sons of men, all of humanity.
From the place of his dwelling, he looks on all the inhabitants of the earth, any nation.
Put your eyes to the screen if you would for this.
Those words that you just heard, that wasn’t written by Tom Hanks or by somebody else.
Those were words verbatim from our founding documents.
The things that you’ll hear tonight, and I hope with some of the other things that we’ll be showing you this evening, these are things that were not crafted by a Hollywood writer.
These are verbatim taken from our national archive, from our great American experience, and you can’t talk about America without talking about God.
Israel can do that.
What other nation can do that outside of Israel in America? No other nation.
No other nation in all of history. So number 1, friends, tonight, it’s this.
If you can keep it, and I guess I would add, will you keep it?
Some of you younger ones here tonight, will you keep it?
This generation, my generation, we have fought to keep it.
There are older or senior fellows and ladies in here tonight, they laid down their lives.
They went to war in Vietnam, and I don’t know if there’s any I can’t imagine if there’s a World War 2 veteran in the house.
I’d like to know that tonight.
But these men, imagine this, now reaching the age probably close to a 100, Were boys, teenagers who stormed the beach in Normandy or Omaha or Utah to invade Europe to set Europe free?
Why would an American do this? Why would we go and fight for some people we didn’t even know?
Because the cause was greater.
Liberty was greater, because God built it within us to be a free people.
And without God, tyranny reigns, and without God, government goes astray.
And without God, our government has gone astray, and we’re wandering, as you read the night, groping as it were in the dark.
And so we look number 1 at this. For the sake of our heritage, will you keep it?
The young ones under your age, the young ones, will you keep it?
As long as you’re drawing breath, will you follow Christ and will you keep this republic?
We do not have the luxury of bowing out or not being involved or not voting.
We must pray. We must vote. We must get involved. It’s the very republic, a constitutional republic.
The republic is built on the constitution. And then you wanna ask where did the constitution come from?
And you’ll wiggle and move and dig and dive and unearth until you get all the way back to John Locke, for example.
But our founding fathers were great fans of some of the great leaders of the Grecian empire or the Roman empire and the senate and all of that, but they saw what lacked.
This is the first time America, the nation you’re sitting in tonight, is the first time it ever entered into the minds of man that We The People would be the ones who would lead the nation, and those that we would elect it would serve our demands.
Did you know that? How convoluted have we become?
People run for office and they get into power, and they seek to do their own thing, so that they might become rich?
How is it that people get elected to office with a very meager income and 10 years later they’re multimillionaires?
Tell me how does that happen. Greed. Greed, corruption, evil.
How is it allowed?
Because we’ve gotten our eyes off of God, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
For our heritage, we must remember that in Psalm 120 verse 7, the Bible says, for I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
For some of you who are historians and you didn’t know that was in the Bible, you’re thinking, Abraham Lincoln said that.
Well, you’re right. Abraham Lincoln did, but he was quoting the bible.
If you ever get a chance, and maybe we’ll get a chance to do it again sometime where we take our American heritage tour in this church, from this church to our nation’s most precious spots.
We’ll go to the Lincoln Memorial and you’ll read Lincoln’s second inaugural address and the Gettysburg address.
It flanks both sides of Lincoln as he sits there, and you can read it. And I challenge you.
In fact, if you’re watching right now in the D. C.
Area, if you’re near Maryland or Virginia or Pennsylvania, you ought to go to Lincoln Memorial and count how many times either scripture is referenced or God is referenced by Abraham Lincoln, and it’s in granite.
And yet there’s people today that claim to be leading the way for you and I in our heritage.
And they’ve never read those words.
How is it that people get into places of power and they’ve never read the constitution?
I don’t understand.
I wanna read this quote from David McCullough, the author of so many great books, but David McCullough says, No 1 has ever lived in the past.
No 1 walked around in history saying, Isn’t this amazing as we walk around in history?
History is made in the present, and often by those who had no idea that they were eyewitness to what would become historic.
Isn’t that true? Listen, you didn’t know that you were making history by living through COVID and surviving the stupidity of our leaders, and the danger that they placed us in?
I don’t know about you, but never again. Never again. No way.
Man, we look back at those days and we’re embarrassed that we were so foolish.
Ben Franklin in 17/73 says, there never was a good war or a bad peace.
What a great statement that is. But sometimes, war is thrust upon us.
Nations come and go by war.
We didn’t want war with the British empire. The greatest military power on earth.
England ruled the world. London was considered the capital of the world in 17/76. Did you know that?
They had 1, 000, 000 people living in London. And King George ruled the world.
The sun never set on the British empire. It was that huge and that great.
We wrote to parliament. We begged them.
We asked for them to hold an audience for us, the colonies who the British empire just kept pulling from us and pulling from us by taxes here and taxes there, and then liberties.
By the way, listen, it’s gonna sound like yesterday’s news, but they began to wanna limit the ownership of guns and ammunition.
And the colonies began to say, please listen to us.
And they wouldn’t listen. And so when somebody came along by the name of Sam Adams, he stirred the pot.
And in his heart, listening to his pastor and his church, saw that liberty and freedom was a construct of God almighty.
And he began to speak out about it.
In fact, John Adams said, poor Sam, He was born a rebel.
But Thomas Jefferson said, Samuel Adams is the only 1 who understood liberty right.
That’s where we learned it from. Listen to Wow, it’s gonna be hard.
For those of you who are young, where are our youth? Raise your hands, the young ones.
Can you guys just stand up? Look, everybody. This is who we’re fighting for. Right there.
Yep.
So, you can be seated, because I want you to have a good shot at the screens.
You you are going to see what a real president looks like in a moment.
You’re going to see what was normal in American history.
You’re going to see why America was so desired.
Put your eyes to the screens.
Wow. Right? Ronald Reagan.
President Ronald Reagan from California. Can you believe that? From California. Wow.
Listen to the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.
We were once taught this in schools. We had to know this.
Fourscore and 7 years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation is conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. We cannot consecrate.
We cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to direct.
The world will little know, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never be forgotten that what they did here, it is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.
That’s what we need today. And that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln. For whatever it’s worth, I have my own little quote that I wanna give you.
By the way, the graphics people put my big fat name up there.
I didn’t the founding of our republic was anchored upon the understanding that its only basis for success would be that the people would be governed by men who were governed by God.
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. I stole that from John Adams.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. That’s what Adams wrote.
Number 2, if you can keep it or will you keep it for the sake of our liberty?
Benjamin Franklin said, a nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved.
It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.
The number 1 issue that this nation should be studying from the youngest ages up, listen, It’s American history.
You say, woah. It should be Bible. Uh, you didn’t hear me right.
American history is to declare and to reveal the God of the bible who was and is our history.
There’s no way around it. There’s no way around.
Our children today have, their education has been scrubbed of all that is of God and all that is honoring.
The declaration of independence says, we hold these truths to be self evident.
I love what that it’s Thomas Jefferson, he was so refined. He was brilliant.
He says, just like a Virginian, we hold these truths to be self evident.
Do you know what that means? It means any and every idiot knows that this is true.
That’s what he is saying. What is that, Tom? That all men are created equal.
That they’re endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That means nobody can take them from you.
The First and Second Amendment are the First and Second Amendments for reasons.
They made them the First and Second Amendments, because they all agreed no matter what we decide, people will speak what they wanna say, and they’ll defend their person and their property and their family, no matter what we rule.
So those are gonna be the ones and the twos of this amendment, and their rights.
And he goes on to say that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Remarkable. Awesome.
Upon signing the declaration of independence, Samuel Adams said, we have this day restored the sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient.
He reigns in heaven. And from the rising to the setting sun, may his kingdom come.
Samuel Adams. Some of you are having a hard time, Sam Adams. You mean the guy that drank?
The beer guy? The guy that made beer? That was his dad. That was Sam’s dad.
So this is the Sam the son. This is Sam the patriot. This is Sam the founding father.
But listen to the words of Frederick Douglass, a black man, in which he urged African American men to join what was increasingly a war to make real what Lincoln’s proclamation had promised complete, freedom.
When first, the rebel cannon shattered the walls of Fort Sumter and drove away its starving garrison, I predicted that the war then and there inaugurated would not be fought out entirely by white men.
Better to die as free men than to live as slaves, Frederick Frederick Douglass proclaimed, and I love that.
What a great statement that is. Number 3, if we can keep it, will you keep it, is this.
For the sake of our posterity, our descendants.
Not our descendants, those that will come from us, our posterity. Those who we leave behind.
When we’re gone, if Jesus doesn’t come back, what are we leaving them?
I wanna speak to the older generation, my generation right now.
I love you all, but I have 0 tolerance for the man or the woman who says, I don’t get involved anymore.
I’ve lived my life. I’ve owned my homes. I’ve had my cars. I’ve sailed my boats, and you know what?
I’m just gonna kick back in a rocking chair and just wait to meet my maker.
Is there not a posterity to defend?
Are there not those in the future that you care about?
The reason why we fight now is because we want our children to live in peace.
Why do we speak up now and risk what? Reputation like we have 1?
Reagan made it perfectly clear.
We don’t want to go to war, but if war comes to us, we must fight.
You don’t lay down. And this nation was birthed in that very thing.
Posterity. What are we leaving our children and our grandchildren?
Like most of our children and grandchildren, they have things like iPhones.
They have things like baseball practice or volleyball practice.
They have things like going to a movie or whatever they do.
They have the freedoms to do whatever they want to do.
Listen, they’re too young to maybe understand that the reason why they have those things is because they’re free.
Not free in the way of expense, free by way of blood.
That men and women died that we might live as free people.
We are here tonight and we have the luxury to have dinner before service and to go out after service tonight, out into the courtyard and on campus and have a wonderful time together as a church family?
How has that happened? Because there are those who have laid down their lives in advance of us, that we might be able to live free.
John Adams told the French parliament and King Louis, he said, I study all of these things about diplomacy and about war and about treaties, so that my sons and daughters can learn music and learn engineering, and that they can experience the world.
John Adams said, our constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people.
It is holy and adequate for the government of any other. That’s prophetic. That’s powerful.
You guys okay? Yes. Adams also said, when he was second, the second president of the United States, but a constitution of government once changed from freedom can never be restored.
Liberty once lost is lost forever. That’s a scary thought.
Put your eyes to the screen again, if you would.
Many Many of you have heard that before.
That’s John Adams when he was really young. No. I’m kidding. Those are the words of John Adams.
Our grandson said those words. That was, by the way, he wasn’t reading that.
He memorized that, and so his mom caught him 1 day with that on video, and so that was great.
And so he was reciting that.
That’s what homeschool winds up doing for you is, uh, is knowing such things, But we thought it would be great to go from John Adams’ face there at Independence Hall in Pennsylvania, and then go into the great words of John Adams.
What a prophetic statement. He’s writing to Abigail, his wife, who is considered a founding father. Did you know that?
Abigail Adams. He said, I predict that this nation’s gonna celebrate its freedom from coast to coast, from 1 end of the continent to the other.
How do you know that? Think about it. The west hadn’t even been discovered.
By the way, at the exact same time that was happening, guess what was happening here in California?
Not Oregon, Not Washington. Not Utah. Not New Mexico.
At the exact same time, our nation was being founded, Father Sarah was preaching the gospel up and down the state of California and planting mission stations.
No other state no other state has mission stations that are still standing to this day.
I think the first 1 was built in 17/71 or 17/72.
2 miracles happened on both sides of this continent.
Little did John Adams know that God was bringing together a nation for his glory.
Thomas Jefferson said, if we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.
Wow. Winston Churchill said, and this has often been repeated, uh, and attributed to others, but it is certainly 1 that Winston Churchill said, and it is this, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Number 4, we’re almost done, and that is for the sake of our independence, will you keep it?
In Acts 10:34, the Bible says, Then Peter opened his mouth and said, ‘In truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.
Independence. That means it comes from God.
Samuel Rutherford preached and said that all men are created equal and not valued because of any bloodline or status or influence or of any aristocracy.
The the rule of kings broke when America was born.
In every nation on the earth, it was the kings, it was the dynasties, and it was the subjects all around the world until July 4th, 17, 76.
A miracle happened.
As president John Adams said, the general principles on which the fathers, that would be the pilgrims, achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.
I will avow that I then believe and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.
John Adams. That’s amazing.
We were told some years ago, several presidencies ago Yeah.
2 presidents ago. That America, that there is no Christian history of America.
That this nation was not founded upon the word of God, the Bible, or Christianity.
When that President made that statement, he proved himself to be unfit for the presidency because he didn’t know what a 5th grader once was taught.
And I close with this.
If you can keep it, will you keep it?
For the sake of our freedom. Eyes to the screen.
Powerful words.
As he was saying that, and again, as that verbatim is written for our nation to learn, While he was saying that, I was thinking about those who would love to hear such things in North Korea.
They’d love to hear such things in Cuba or Venezuela or Saudi Arabia.
These are transcendent things. They’re not American things. You understand that?
These are things that the human heart longs for, because they’ve and the passion for them have been put in your heart by God.
Truth will ultimately, George Washington said, prevail.
Where there are pains, to bring it to light.
Final video to the screen.
Let’s all stand.
What is the movement today in a particular political party?
I’m not fans of either 1, but there’s a particular party that you might be registered to that is seeking currently to overthrow, to undo the electoral college.
Did you know that? They hate it. They hate it. They want it done.
And the only way to do that in tandem is to repopulate the states with voters that are indebted to them.
They know exactly what they’re doing, but they have a problem, and that problem is the constitution, which is why you have not been seen much of a defense of the constitution over these last, say, 10 years.
It’s planned.
What our founding founding fathers gave us, it’s in the way of democracy.
You see? You see why you’re hearing that word all the time?
Get rid of the Constitution, pack the courts with more numbers of people we appoint, so everything comes out our way, and we can do finally a way with this pesky constitution.
It’s gonna happen. If we sit silent and if we do not vote for that, yes, that person running for mayor, running for governor, running for president, that can’t walk on water still, When are we gonna learn that Jesus Christ will never be on the ballot?
He’s not running for office. But God has stationed people.
He says, I bring kings to power, and I take kings out.
He also said, choose today who you will serve, and you will make a decision.
Liberty or tyranny, it’s at our fingertips. I end with this.
Samuel Adams, from this speech, the entire convention was changed in attitude and in spirit, and a government was born shortly after this declaration.
By the way, it was impromptu. He stood up and said these words.
Let us awaken then and invent a different spirit, a spirit that shall inspire the people with confidence in themselves and in us, a spirit that will encourage them to persevere in this glorious struggle, until their rights and liberties shall be established on Iraq.
We have proclaimed to the world our determination to die free men rather than to live as slaves.
We have appealed to heaven for the justice of our cause. And in heaven, we have placed our trust.
Numerous have been the manifestations of God’s providence in sustaining us.
In the gloomy period of adversity, We have had our cloud by day in our pillar of fire by night.
We have been reduced to distress, and the arm of omnipotence has raised us up.
Let us still rely in humble confidence on him who is mighty to save.
Good tidings will soon arrive.
We shall never be abandoned by heaven, while we act worthy of its aid and protection.
And all God’s people said, Amen.