A Covenant With God!
Jeremiah 29:13
The Constitution of the United States is a magnificent document and no other nation in history
has such a document.
The Constitution is an outgrowth of the Declaration of Independence.
Listen to these words: "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."
And these concluding words: "And for the support of this Declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,
our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." (July 4, 1776.)
Fifty six great Americans signed it, and most of them paid with their lives and their fortunes.
This great document is written in beautiful, prosaic English.
It has such clarity that it can be understood by a child, and yet has such judicial logic
that lawyers and courts still examine it for its legal brilliance.
The Declaration of Independence revolutionized the world.
- It promised the greatest good.
- It influenced the greatest number of people.
- It provided the greatest quality of life.
- It gave birth to the greatest nation in history.
Our founding fathers believed in basic Christian truths, and they included their Christian beliefs
in the Declaration of Independence.
- They believed in a Creator.
- They believed God created them in His own image.
- They believed in absolute truth, which they called inalienable rights or self-evident truths.
More than 150 years before our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence,
a group of people came to the United States looking for religious freedom.
They came on the Mayflower, and the day before they disembarked from the Mayflower,
they spent the day in fasting and prayer.
Then, they signed the Mayflower Compact: "In the name of God Almighty, we whose names
are underwritten ...having undertaken for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith
... a voyage to plant the first colony in Northern Virginia (they were in Massachusetts);
do by these present, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another,
covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick ..." (November, 1620).
When you read the Mayflower Compact, you learn why these pilgrims, would leave their homes
in the Old World to come to a land that would be called the United States of America.
These pilgrims left civilized Europe for an uncivilized country.
- They gave up comfortable homes and the protection of their governments.
- They sacrificed everything for religious freedom.
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower were driven by their Christian beliefs.
- They searched for a place where they could freely practice their Christianity.
- They wanted a place where their Christianity could be shared with others.
- They did not want a nation where the state controlled their church.
They left England where the English Parliament controlled the Church of England.
That church was unresponsive to its people.
The Church of England did not allow for people to worship the Lord in the freedom of their conscience.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the most important statement
of the Constitution because it guarantees the most important freedom of all -- the freedom of a person's soul.
Religious freedom is basic to all other freedoms.
The First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,
or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances."
The First Amendment provides two very special guarantees to every individual within the United States.
These inalienable rights are guaranteed to us all.
These inalienable rights are guaranteed to us because we are made in the image of our Creator.
- Congress cannot establish or promote any religion or state church.
- Congress cannot prohibit any religion or church or its mode of worship.
In recent times, the government (the courts and the Congress) have gone far beyond the intent
of the framers of the First Amendment.
They have been purging America of any influence of Christianity.
They are shaping America into a secular, socialistic nation.
The First Amendment guarantees that the government will not establish a state church,
nor will it prohibit the free exercise of a religion.
It is also implied that government shall not be hostile to religion.
There is no mention in the Constitution of the separation of church and state.
This is a total myth.
There is certainly nothing in the Constitution which justifies governmental hostility against the church.
Christians were the first who pioneered America, and they came here seeking freedom
for their Christian worship.
The writers of the Declaration of Independence were influenced by their Christian beliefs
and their belief in a Creator in that document.
Christians wrote our Constitution with a Biblical view of law.
They believed that law came from God as self-evident truths and inalienable rights.
Christianity has been the largest body of people of faith in the United States since the founding
of this nation, but this is changing today.
We are rapidly becoming a pagan nation.
Our American forefathers made a covenant with God in the Mayflower Compact.
In the founding of this nation, our forefathers made other covenants with God.
such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and other contracts.
They agreed to honor Him, and in return, they expected God to bless them and their endeavors.
In a covenant, each side makes a promise to the other.
Each commits himself to the other.
These covenants with Jehovah were made by our founders.
They believed all people received their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from God.
America has relied on this covenant relationship with God over the years:
- America prayed and fasted in times of war and national emergency.
- America has claim to be one nation under God in its slogans.
- America has "In God We Trust" on its coins.
- America inaugurates its presidents with a hand on the Bible and the elected president pledges,
"So help me God".
Today, America is doing so many things to break its covenant with God.
We are dangerously close to turning our backs on God.
So many actions are being taken today which violates of our covenant with God.
Just catch the latest news.
Just yesterday (6/28/02) a California judge declared that the words, "under God,"
in our Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitional.
Soon atheistic people will be wanting to remove "In God We Trust" from our coins.
Here are some freedoms that have already been taken from us:
- The reading of Scripture in public schools
- Prayer is prohibited in public schools.
- Manger scenes and other religious displays in public places are prohibited.
- The posting of the Ten Commandments is prohibited in public schools.
The teaching of creationism in public schools is prohibited although evolution is permitted.
(Arkansas Supreme Court);
- The taking of unborn life is permitted. (Roe v. Wade, 1973);
- Partial birth abortions (infanticide) are now legal.
- Homosexuality is allowed in the military. ("Don't Ask- Don't Tell").
Stay tuned!
The attack on Christianity continues!
What freedom will be next?
Our nation has abdicated its covenant relationship with God.
Our nation has turned its back on God in many other ways.
There are social decisions and cultural decisions, which have led our nation away from covenant with God:
America is turning away from Christian family values.
Our nation has welcomed filthy speech in the media, state approved gambling, and the distribution
of X-rated movies, X-rated videos and publications.
- America is turning away from a Christian influence in our national holidays.
- America is promoting expressions of secularism, New Age rituals, and is allowing demonic
and satanic expressions in public and private life.
- America is turning away from recognition of God as Creator, and embracing
atheistic evolution as scientific fact.
- America is turning away from recognizing the influence of Christianity in our heritage,
and is rewriting history to exclude any reference to God in our past.
Throughout the Bible, God made a covenant relationship with His people.
When His people obeyed God and kept their covenant relationship to Him, God protected and blessed them.
But when God's people violated the covenant, God punished His people for that violation.
God made a covenant with Adam.
After God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, God gave him a promise, "Be fruitful and multiply
and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it." (Genesis 1:28)
This covenant had a condition for Adam and Eve to have God's blessings.
They were to abstain from eating from the tree in the center of the garden.
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it, for in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die." (Gen. 2:17)
Adam ate the fruit with Eve, and God drove them out of the garden.
Then Adam had to work by the sweat of his brow to live.
Eve would give birth in travail and pain.
They died physically and spiritually.
"As by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed
upon all men." (Romans 5:12)
- God judges those who make a covenant with Him and break it.
- God made a covenant with Abraham.
- God chose Abraham as the father of His chosen people.
Here is the covenant God made with Abraham: "I will establish my covenant between Me
and thee (Abraham) and thy seed after thee in thy generation." (Genesis 17:7)
God promised to bless Abraham.
God promised to give him protection from his enemies. (Gen. 12:2-3)
This covenant had conditions.
If Abraham and the Jews who followed him did not fulfill their part of the conditions, God promised
that the curses of the covenant would be upon them.
"But if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all
His commandments and His statutes ... all these curses, (judgments) shall come upon thee
and overtake thee." (Deut. 28:15)
America is breaking the covenant our forefathers made with God.
America is living by a standard of relative morality.
People who do not know what is right are following their animal nature.
People who do not believe in absolute truth and absolute morality will fornicate, steal, and murder
to indulge their sinful, selfish pleasures.
Absolute truth and absolute morality are the basis of the Declaration of Independence.
These are self-evident truths and inalienable rights.
Amos would say to America, "Prepare to meet thy God." (Amos 4:12).
America must return to God.
Christians, we must return to God.
- We must take a stand for God again sin and unbelief.
We must live right and think right.
- We must recognize that God has blessed America.
- We must defend the rights of every American to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
- We must repent of our sin and rebellion.
- We must forsake our sinful and selfish pleasures.
- We must pray for revival.
- We must pray and plead for God to forgive us and send revival.
I believe that America must have revival.
I believe that it is repent or perish.
America can have revival!
Revival must start with you and me!
And then it will spread like wildfire all over our land.
It only takes a spark!
God help me to be that spark!
God help you to be that spark!
God has promised: "Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me
with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)
Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White
