Sermon Tone Analysis

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Following their return from Babylon, the people of Israel are facong a new crisis.
With no city walls, marauding bands of outlaws threatened them.
With no central government, there was little leadership and little means of enforcing laws.
With no temple, religious life ebbed low.
Apathy, indifference and cynicism grew until the people began to lose sight of who they were as God’s people.
They began to be careless how they lived out being God’s people.
Unrighteousness is ruling the culture.
God, through the Prophet Isaiah, speaks to a people who are separated from God by sin.
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
(Isaiah 59:2, NIV84).
The people have complained that God had lost the ability to hear and to save them.
The prophet Isaiah answered with a resounding “No, that’s not true.
The problem is not with God, but with you.”
He then proceeds to list a litany of sins the nation of Israel is guilty of.
I cannot read vv.
3-8 without concluding, /“This sounds strangely like the culture of our own day.”/
With a sarcastic tone, we learn from v. 9 that their light is really darkness!
They have separated themselves from God who now appears hidden.
As we engage our culture and look at it honestly, we must sense that something has happened – and is even now happening – in our society.
We are no longer merely seeing the beginning signs of cultural trouble, but rather the indicators of advanced moral and spiritual decay.
Even as demographers, pollsters, and statisticians tell us how many Amricans believe in God, and how many claim belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are witnessing the inception of a post-Christian mentality here in America.
This is why our texts tonight are so critical for us to understand.
!
I. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF A NATION
#. the first word in Proverb 14:34 is Righteousness
#.
Solomon, who was well-versed in the principles of government, gives us the essential of power behind government in this verse
#. it is righteousness
#.
Solomon understood that the thing which exalted a nation was the righteousness of its inhabitants
#. the history of the United States reflects this truth
#. why is our nation so special?
#. what attributes or characteristics raised us to the pinnacle of world power and influence among the nations?
#. has God blessed us because of our geographical location
#. has God blessed us because of the great beauty of the land?
#. has God blessed us because of the fruitfulness of our pastures and orchids and our natural resources?
#. or did God perhaps just reach into a hat and pull our name out from among all the other nations?
#.
God does not exalt a nation because of its breadth, its beauty or its bounty
#.
God exalts nations on account of the righteousness of its inhabitants
#. righteousness is a word you won’t hear used much these days outside of conservative, bible-believing churches
#. you don’t hear our politicians speak about righteousness these days
#. you certainly won’t hear the news media say anything about it
#.
but it’s one of the most important words in God’s vocabulary
#. the word has three implications to it ...
!! A. IT IMPLIES SOVEREIGNTY
#. if there is such a thing as righteousness, then someone sovereign must determine what it is
#.
human cultures have varied ideas of what righteousness is
#.
we could never agree on a benchmark as to what behavior is or is not righteous
#.
God, however, is an authority on righteousness
* /"For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?"/ (Psalm 71:19, NASB95)
* /"The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations."/
(Psalm 98:2, NASB95)
#.
God’s righteousness establishes Him as sovereign over the nations – including ours
#. a wise nation acknowledges that sovereignty
!! B. IT IMPLIES A STANDARD
* ILLUS.
John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned his fellow countrymen stating, /"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . .
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."/
#. let’s be honest, we are living in a culture that is slowly, but surely, denying that there should be any standard for individual behavior except for one’s own personal set of values
#. truth has become relative
#. we are constantly told these days – by supposedly learned men – that a maturing pluralistic society must cast off the restraints of our Judeo-Christian heritage
* ILLUS.
If the ACLU has their way, every single vestige of the Christian faith will be eliminated from the public square.
#. tolerance and inclusivism are the new standards for judging a culture – every individual's beliefs, values, lifestyle and truth claims are equally valid
#. the problem is that if we accept the emerging post-modern philosophy of our culture, we must abandon our belief in God’s standard of righteousness
* /"Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth."/
(Psalm 119:142, NASB95)
!! C. IT IMPLIES A STRAIGHTNESS
* "In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight."/
(Proverbs 3:6, NASB95)
* /"Folly is joy to him who lacks sense, But a man of understanding walks straight."/
(Proverbs 15:21, NASB95)
#. it is one thing to admit that there is a standard, it is quite another to make that standard your own
#.
walking straight, that is, living righteously, is a decision you’ve got to make – no one can make it for you
* ILLUS.
John MacArthur tells the story about a preacher who quit the ministry after 20 years and became a funeral director.
When asked why he changed, he said: "I spent 3 years trying to straighten out John and John's still an alcoholic, then I spent 6 months trying to straighten out Susan's marriage and she still filed for divorce, then I spent 2 1/2 years trying to straighten out Bob's drug problem and he's still an addict.
Now at the funeral home when I straighten them out – they stay straight!"
#. friends, I can tell you what it means to live a straight life, but you’ve got to decide you want to live it
#. the word righteousness in Proverbs 14:34 refers to a personal righteousness and a personal morality
* ILLUS.
Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary stated, /"The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. . .
All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."/
#. righteousness – Godly righteousness – is the most important political expedience in a nation’s success
!
II.
THE REWARD OF A NATION
#. who can doubt that America has been exalted among the nations?
#. more than any other nation Americans have know a relative peace and prosperity unequaled in other countries
!! A. GOD EXALTS NATIONS AND PEOPLES OUT OF HIS SOVEREIGN WILL
#. the Scriptures seem very clear that nations rise and fall by the providential hand of God
#. the Book of Ezekiel contains an interesting prophecy about the nation of Egypt and its future history
* /"‘For thus says the Lord God, “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered.
“I will turn the fortunes of Egypt and make them return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin, and there they will be a lowly kingdom.
“It will be the lowest of the kingdoms, and it will never again lift itself up above the nations.
And I will make them so small that they will not rule over the nations.
“And it will never again be the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing to mind the iniquity of their having turned to Egypt.
Then they will know that I am the Lord God.”/ (Ezekiel 29:13-17, NASB95)
#. that prophecy has literally come true
#.
Egypt was the geopolitical and military superpower of its day
#.
today, the country barely rises above the status of a ‘third-world’ nation
#. it is indeed the lowest of the kingdoms, and it will never again lift itself up above the nations
#.
God uses nations and peoples as instruments to implement His cosmic plan in accomplishing His divine will for this world and bringing history to the finish He has chosen for it
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