250 years ago, our Founding Fathers declared that 13 colonies were free and clear of tyranny of Great Britain. And on that day, July of the 4th, 1776, the United States of America was born. 250 years, it's a long time. It is.
Matter of fact, you realize this, that the Constitution of the United States of America is the oldest working Constitution in all the world. That's amazing, because when you think about it, that tells us of the brilliance of our Founding Fathers and of the founding documents of this nation. I mean, we're only 250 years old. I say it's a long time, but actually in terms of the world, it's a short time.
But if our Founding Documents, if our Constitution is the oldest working Constitution in the world, I think it says something about our Founding Fathers and our Founding Documents. I love our country. And I am thankful to God that I was born in America. You know, I've traveled enough inside the borders of America and outside the borders of America to realize that we have been blessed in remarkable ways.
We are blessed. We enjoy freedoms and blessings that millions around the world can only dream about. You know, we're hosting the World Cup right now and all across America. And you have probably seen the reels, the videos, you've probably seen it in the news.
I mean, all these people have come from all over the world and they are like, America is thinking awesome. I mean, this is amazing. And they're talking about buckies. They're talking about grocery stores that are filled with food.
They're talking about, you know, the beaches, the streets, the parks, and they're saying, America is awesome. And it is. And we've got a lot of amenities, but we're blessed in greater ways than all of the material blessings we have. We exercise God-given freedoms.
Think about it. We're here today. Now, one of us is thinking that someone from the government is going to burst through the doors, arrest all of us, haul us off, foot us in jail, confiscate our property. We're going to lose our job because we're worshipping the Lord publicly.
We've got our own Bibles. We're proclaiming the Word of God. We're sharing the gospel and we get to do it freely. We exercise God-given freedoms.
We celebrate. But we need to remember just who it is that we celebrate. It is a who, not what? You see, if we're not careful, we can begin celebrating America when what we need to be celebrating is God who is sovereign over America.
If we're not careful, we can begin celebrating the gifts of freedom, then celebrating the giver of those gifts. You see, we need to know this that today, whether it's this morning or even tonight, when we gather, we're not gathering primarily, even on a day that we call God and country day to celebrate America, but to celebrate the God who is sovereign over this nation. You know, the flag it inspires respect. The cross inspires our worship.
The Constitution deserves our appreciation, but Jesus deserves our allegiance. Our citizenship in America is a blessing, but our citizenship in heaven is our greatest identity. The Apostle Paul writing to those of Philippians 3 verse 20, he says that our citizenship, King James says conversation, but it's citizenship. Our citizenship is in heaven from whence we look for the return of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So today, I don't want to ask this question, is America great? Because I realize that if I ask the question, is America great, that very quickly we could get all kind of answers across the political spectrum. There'd be some people say, hey, is America great? Oh, absolutely America is great.
And yet on another far end of the spectrum, it'd be like, well, actually we got to make America great again. As if she's not great, but we can make her great again. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you would hear someone say this, when has America ever been great? It's really not the question to struggle with today or even to wrestle with.
Here's a better question than we want to wrestle with. What makes a nation truly blessed? What makes a nation truly blessed? And the Psalmist in Psalm 33 tells us that a nation whose God is Jehovah is blessed.
I want to appreciate this morning a message entitled, A Nation's Greatest Needed. If you have your Bible's Wren Psalm 33, Psalm 33, if you would stand with your honor, the reading of God's Word, we're going to pick up in verse 12 and read down to verse number 22. The Psalmist writes, it says, blesses the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he have chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord look at from heaven and beholdeth all the sons of men from the place of his habitation.
He looked at the bone all of the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioned at their hearts a lot. He considered all their works. There is no king saved by the multitude of a host and a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.
A horse, a war horse is a vain thing for safety. Neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold the eye of the Lord is the bone them that fear him and the bone them that hope in his mercy to deliver them to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waited for the Lord.
He is our help and he is our shield for our heart shall rejoicing him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in the fathers we come to you today where we pray and say thank you, Lord, for the good gifts of your blessings. What the gracious blessings that have been upon our nation, Lord, we thank you for our rights, we thank you for our freedom, Lord, that you've given and Lord a government that seeks to protect those where we thank you for our founding fathers and their wisdom. Lord, we now pray that you would help us today and even our leaders, Lord, to not lose sight of you and who you are, Lord, to not lose sight of this principle that any nation who puts their trust in you and seeks you and humbles themselves before you will be blessed with your peace, Lord, in your presence and your provision.
Lord, beyond that I pray today that we as a church, Lord, may we as a South Union seek to be a conduit of your blessing to our nation. Lord, by being a people who pray for our nation, Lord, who pray for our leaders, by being people who live holy lives who seek to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and Lord, who want to raise a generation to love Jesus, Lord, help us to do that. God, I pray today. May you save souls today.
God, I pray that you would start a revival, Lord, Lord in our nation and in our church, Lord, not pray God, started in our hearts today. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. He may be seated this morning.
Psalm 33 is really an awesome Psalm. You ought to take some time to read all of it, beginning in verse 1, all the way down to verse 22. The Psalmist writes and he celebrates God in his power of creation and then he celebrates the fact that God is sovereign over the world and then he celebrates also that God is faithful to his people. And then you get right to the middle of the psalm and you come across the verse that we started with.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And he goes on and says, talks about his inheritance and his chosen people and I want to make sure that you understand this right off the bat, that verse 12 is a very important verse and half of it is a principle and all of it is a reality for Israel. What I mean by that is America is not Israel and America is not replaced Israel and America is not taken over the redemptive plan of God in this world, not. However, the first part of that verse though is a time was principle and it applies to any nation.
Exactly what Psalm 33 says. Blessed is the nation, any nation, a nation whose God is Jehovah. The principle is simply this that whenever a people acknowledge God's authority, they experience his blessing and whenever they reject him, they begin to move away from the blessing hand of God. That principle applies to every nation and it certainly applies to America.
I want to share three things with you this morning. Number one, a nation is blessed when it honors God. Verse 12, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. You know you read that word blessing, you know the person who comes into your mind?
It's material blessing, it's financial blessing. We think about money, we think about success, we think about prosperity, we think about comfort. But in scripture, the blessing speaks of God's favor. It's about his presence, it's about his power, it's about his peace, it's about his provision over a nation.
The greatest blessing that any nation can possess is not found in its treasury. Spown in its relationship with God and by that I'm talking about how a nation of people relate with God. God never measures greatness the way people do. You know how we measure greatness?
You know how our government officials measure greatness? Things like GDP. Gotta get that GDP up. Man, when you got GDP going 3% for percent, the economy is roaring.
Hey, we're making America great again. We measure greatness in GDP. You know how God measures greatness in godliness. We measure greatness in military strength and power.
We say things like this. We're Americans, right? So man, we got the greatest military in the world. There's no one who can stand against our military.
Man, we got the best equipment, we got the best soldiers, we got the most power. We got stuff that people never even dreamed about having, right? We talk about our technology, we measure greatness in military strength. God measures greatness in moral character.
We measure greatness in prosperity and how we're doing in the standard of living. God measures greatness in obedience. Proverbs 1434 says that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is reproach to any people. Solomon wrote that.
He said sins are reproach to any people. Not just that we're reproach to Israel. Any people, any country, any nation. And righteousness will exalt not just the nation of Israel, but any country, any nation.
You think about America. And I would tell you that America's are from perfect. It is. We've had our sins and we have our failures.
And I would say this, probably for all of us, if we could go back in time and say, I want to rewrite some chapters in America's history, I want them to play out differently, that we would all probably say, yeah, but we got some things that we write differently in terms of our history. But I will tell you this, though, we should not underestimate the role that God's word had upon shaping our nation and our founding. In 1620, there was a small group of pilgrims who came over on what was known as the Mayflower. This is the group that came and landed and set up shop in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
And as they were nearing the coast, they got together and said, look, we got to have some governing documents. And they put together this thing known as the Mayflower Compact. And here's what it says. It says, we have come.
This is not the direct quote. I'll give you the quote in a second. We've come. All right.
And we're establishing these documents. Here's the quote for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Now that's a group of people who were coming here for religious freedom and they're governing documents freely speak of God's glory and the Christian faith. You think about all of our early college institutions and when we talk about them, we're talking about people that we still know today, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, every one of those universities where established primarily seminaries and the training of God's men to preach the Word of God.
2019, the girls and I were up in New York City and we drove up there and we were driving back and it's like, you know, when are we ever going to be this way again over on the East coast and how far is Philadelphia? My goodness, I've never been to Philadelphia either. So we took a trip to Philadelphia. The founding, right?
This is where our nation was founded. We went to Independence Hall and right outside of Independence Hall is this little building in the glass encasement. You know what's in it? The Liberty Bell.
Think about the Liberty Bell as the first thing comes to your mind. The crack. That's what we think about. The Liberty Bell and the crack.
But you know why it's actually called the Liberty Bell? Because it has Leviticus chapter 25 and verse number 10 inscribed around it proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. Those words come straight from scripture. Those are founding fathers.
Listen, were they all identical in their beliefs? No. Some of them held deep beliefs are like, you know, in terms of evangelical beliefs and some are more mainline Protestants kind of beliefs and listen, you had Maryland and you had Roman Catholic beliefs, but you had a group of fathers, a founding fathers who understood something very profound and foundational when it comes to society. And that is this principle that a free society depends on moral character and public values.
President John Adams, our second president said this about our Constitution. He said our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other. Now when he said religious, can I tell you this?
He did not mean. See, today when we say religion, it's kind of negative. But when John Adams said the word religious, he wasn't saying like, hey, you got pagan religions and you got Christian religion and you got Islam or Buddhism or all these isms. When he said religious, he meant Christian.
That's what he was referencing. He's saying the Constitution is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other. My point is simply this is that we can understand that we look back on the history of our nation perhaps even where we are today and we say, hey, our nation is not perfect, but we need to understand, I mean, how much the word of God played in the founding and the shaping of our nation. When he said that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
He was saying the government creates morality. He was saying that government cannot survive if morality disappears. Not the government that they were instituting. A government for the people, by the people, other people, this idea of man that you are going to be self-governed.
You're going to vote. You're going to install people to be a leader over you. What he's saying is this is that the people go immoral, the government will go immoral. You cannot be self-governed, ultimately, if you don't have a moral people.
You see, you can pass all the laws that you want and laws can restrain behavior, but only God can transform hearts. That was true in 1776, that's still true today. God's the only one who can transform our hearts. You can't legislate a revival.
You can't vote to righteousness into existence. Only the gospel changes hearts. You know what? Change hearts, change homes, and changed homes, change churches, and change churches, and change communities, and change communities, transform and change nations.
That's a little Dr. Tony Evans, King to Magenda. I don't know if you remember when we went through King to Man and he talked through and said, he said this word, he said, if you want to change a nation, you've got to change a community, to change the community, you've got to change the church, change the church, you've got to change the home, and to change the home, you've got to change the individual. And just simply saying this, it works from the individual to the nation.
The gospel changes individuals, changes homes and families, changes churches that build communities, that build nations. See, God's looking. Verse 13 says, the Lord looked from heaven and he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation, he looks upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
Now watch this, he says, and he fashions their hearts alike. And he considers all their works. The NLT says, he made their hearts. So he understands everything.
He said, you know what God is doing? He's looking at our hearts. He looks at the heart of a nation. He looks at the hearts of churches.
He looks at the hearts of homes. And he looks into the hearts of individuals. And I tell you that when it comes to nations, he's not impressed with monuments that are built and have things that are inscribed upon him. He's not fooled by our slogans and he's not deceived by our ceremonies.
God looks deeper. He's looking into our hearts. He's looking into your heart. When you think about this, it's easy for us as Americans to stand for the national anthem.
You see that flag come by, man, you stand to your feet, you put your hand over your heart, you've melted out. It's harder to kneel to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's easy to say God bless America. It gets sung in every major league baseball stadium in the seventh inning stretch by people who don't even believe in God.
It's easy to say God bless America. It's harder to say God, change me. But if revival is going to begin in America, it won't begin in the White House. It'll begin in God's house.
What's America's greatest need today? Someone say, well, I mean America's greatest need is a balanced budget, man. We got a 30 plus, somewhat trillion dollar deficit, man. We got to begin with a balanced budget or we need secured borders or we need better schools or we need lower taxes or we need less crime and all of those are good talking points and perhaps all of those are things that we actually truly need in our government.
And good government matters. But America's greatest need is not primarily political. It's spiritual. The greatest threat to America is not an enemy from across the ocean.
The greatest threat to America is forgetting the God who blessed America. Throughout the Old Testament, Israel is repeatedly, they experience the cycle where God bless us, them, they prosper, they grow comfortable, they forget God. And then they suffer the consequences of their own rebellion. That same pattern is repeated throughout history, not just with Israel but with other nations too.
But less things can become dangerous if it leads to pride instead of gratitude. And here's my warning for all of us. Let's not ever assume that because God blessed America in the past that we can neglect Him in the present. Ah, you know, God, He took care of us.
God blessed us. God's just going to always bless us. And so we really don't have to submit to Him in the present. Every nation faces the temptation to trust in its own strength rather than in the God who gave it its strength.
You see, a nation is broken when it trusts itself. Think of our 16 and 17. The psalmist says, there is no king saved by the multitude of a host. That's an army.
There is no king saved by the multitude of a host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. A war horse is a vain thing for safety and neither shall a war horse deliver anybody his great strength. You know, in the day of the psalmist when he was riding this, I want you to think about what he's saying.
He said, hey, every king measured his security by three things. Number one, how many soldiers did he have? How big was his army? How many times did David tell Joab?
Count him up. Took a sense of splice. David, how many men do I have in the army? How many men are serving in my army?
Because probably somewhere in his mind there was a number that if I see this number, I'm good. But if I'm below that number, I'm lacking in security. Kings measured their security by how big their army was, by how many horses they had and how many chariots were filled in the army. You see, military strength meant survival.
If your army was larger than your enemy's army, then you'd let better at night. You ever felt that way in America? We ever said things like this, man, because our military is on watch. We just sleep better at night.
Isn't there that sense when we think when we got the best military with the best equipment, with the best technology that no one can defeat our military? Therefore, we feel secure. And yet God's word says that a king is not saved by a great army. And that doesn't mean that God was condemning armies.
David had an army. Joshua had an army. He and I put guards up on top of the wall. National defense is not something that we should say God's against.
I think God's for it. I think God has created government. Hey, you need to make sure you're protecting your people. But I will say this that the psalmist is reminding us that the ultimate source of security is never the army.
But in God. When God removes his hand, it doesn't matter how large or how powerful you think your army is, your nation is going down. There is no army that can save you. When you think about our nation today, we don't have war horses.
But we have our own modern version. Things that we put our confidence in as a nation, things that our government puts confidence in, things like our economy. If you're going to wage war, you've got to have an economy. It's got to be rolling.
It's got to be going. It's got to be growing. We put our confidence in our economic situation. We put our confidence in our military.
We put our confidence in our technology. Our military technology, that stuff. We're like, man, we didn't even know it existed. Just a few months ago when they went in and took out Maduro, there was some weapon that was used to be like, what was that, man?
We didn't even know it existed. And it makes you think, man, we got so much stuff, man. We are undefeatable. Think about our intelligence agencies, the CIA, the DNI.
Oh, man. Think about our political parties, who we put our faith in, Republican, Democrat. Think about our stock markets and whether they're rolling or not. None of those things are evil.
But there's a danger when we begin to trust in other things than God. Even if you say, hey, those things are actually gifts from God. Those are blessings from God. Hey, there's a danger when we trust the gift more than the giver.
One of the oldest temptations in human history is self-reliance. We quietly began saying things like this, man, look at what we built. Look at what we have accomplished. Man, look at how strong we are.
How many presidents have stood behind a lecture and said, nothing can stop America when she puts her mind to it. There's nothing that America cannot do if she just puts her will to it. Since we watched the series, House of David, can we watch that? I tell you, sometimes I watch on TV and I don't promote it.
You got to watch out today. Exciting, action-packed. It's good. When you think about it with Saul, if you watch the show, you see this play out.
If you read the Bible, you know how it plays out too. Saul started out real humble, so meek. When Samuel came to anoint Saul, you know where he was, he was hiding. Like I go find that dude.
I'm here to anoint him as the king. This guy is hiding. But after being on the throne for 30 years and this is where House of David picks up, you want to find out after 30 years, that dude is full of himself. He's like, this is my kingdom.
This is me, right? And now he's doing things he shouldn't be doing. He's sacrificing, but he shouldn't be sacrificing. Samuel shows up and says, what?
He better to obey than sacrifice, but because you did what you did, the kingdom has been torn from you. And there's this thing in the movie where the show where Saul comes and he tries to coerce Samuel, he's going to anoint me again. He tries to force him to do it. And Samuel just simply looks at Saul and says, but Saul, God didn't depart from you.
You departed from God. I can't tell you that Saul became real self-reliant. He cost him. Two years ago I was preaching through the Daniel series and we talked about Onebok and Ezra.
When he steps out on the rooftop of his palace, he looks out across Babylon and says, look at Babylon. Look at what all I have done. God turned him into a wild beast, right? He lost his mind, went out into the fields and ate like a donkey in the fields.
Why? God humbled him. What did Nebuchadnezzar think? I did it.
I did it all. Nebuchadnezzar became self-reliant. And God said, listen, let me just show you who you're really reliant upon. War horses.
Can I tell you this? America's got some war horses. Don't put your trust in a war horse. The word of God says that war horse will not save you in the day of battle.
See, there's a fine line between gratitude and pride. Gratitude says, man, look at what God has done. Process, look at what I've done. One gives God the glory and the other steals the glory of God.
And see, we need to be honest this morning. There are a few nations in history. Matter of fact, I think I could say this. There is actually no nation in history.
There's been more blessed than America. I mean, we have abundant resources from sea to shining sea. Man, we got oil gas. Man, we just found out we got lithium deposits.
Man, we got natural resources just running out of our ears. Okay, when I showed up here, one of the trivia questions that Terry Lee gave me was named one county in all of the state of Texas that doesn't have oil. There's more county. I guess what more county's got now.
Oil, right? I'm telling you, we're blessed. We've got remarkable innovation. We have the best companies in the world.
We've got Microsoft, Intel, Marvel. Man, you go down the list. I mean, of all these amazing companies, Apple. We've got the best of the best.
Man, we're blessed. Millions upon millions want to come to these shores. You know why? Okay, man, that needs a blast.
I want to end. I want opportunities. God has been extraordinarily gracious to us. But here's the question.
When we get blessed, what do we do? When God blesses, do we become more dependent upon God? Or when God blesses, do we become less dependent upon God? You see, throughout history, prosperity has often produced complacency and success has produced pride and comfort has produced forgiveness.
It's exactly what Moses told the nation of Israel. They're about to cross over into the promised land and he's giving them the law all over again. That's what Deuteronomy means, the re-giving of the law. He's not going in.
He's not going in. He disrupt the rock. He disobeyed God. He says to the people because they're going to go and he says, you're about to go over.
You're going to cross this river. You're going to land and you're going to acquire cities that you didn't build. You're going to get vineyards you didn't plant. You're going to get orchards you didn't plant.
You're going to get barnacles. You're going to get a land that flows with milk and honey. And then he said, and when you have eaten in a fool and when your houses are built, when your flocks increase, you be careful. Let's you forget Jehovah.
You know what happened? They forgot him. You know when they didn't forget him? When they were in slavery?
When they were down there in Egypt? They didn't forget God. They were grown and after God. God came to Moses.
Oh my people. When did they forget God? When they got blessed. Sometimes blessings become a greater spiritual danger than hardship because hardship drives us to our knees and blessings sometimes comfort makes us want to stand up on our own.
One of the most remarkable proclamation ever issued by the American President came during the darkest days of the Civil War and 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared a day of fasting and prayer. When you listen to what he says, I want you to keep the mindset because when I'm up here preaching today, some of the mindset even Christians is, you know, the nation's talking about preaching and talking about national stuff shouldn't happen. the church and the nation's the nation, listen to the president speaking to the nation in 1863. How does he see the nation?
How does he view the nation? In 1863 he calls for a day of fasting and prayer. And here's what he said, we speak in the United States. We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven, but we have forgotten God.
He's talking to people who once knew God. He sees the nation as being a nation that followed God as a nation that once honored God as a nation that was founded upon biblical principles. He says we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven, but we have forgotten God. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace.
That's saving grace. He's talking to a nation. He's a man. We've been so successful that we have forgotten that we got to be saved from our sins.
We need God's redeeming grace. And then he says, we've been so successful that we have forgotten that we need God's for his deserving grace, that we don't get to stay where we are just because we think we deserve it. We need it because of God's grace. Now think about this.
In the middle of a war, Abraham Lincoln didn't blame the enemy. He didn't look down to the south and say, you know, those rebels, those people who have divided the country, those people who are fighting against the United States, we are where we are as a nation because of them. He didn't look to politics. He looked to the spiritual situation of America.
He looked inwardly. He recognized that the deepest problem of America in 1863 wasn't a political problem. It was a spiritual problem. And he was saying, we need to return to God.
You see, it's true today. It's easy for us today to point to Washington and say, what, drain the swamp. Drain the swamp, man. Just give it to all of them.
I got to get rid of the deep state. I got to get rid of all the corruption. I got to train the swamp. Our deepest problem is not political.
Our deepest problem in America is spiritual. Sometimes as Christians, we spend all of our time criticizing the darkness of culture. That's easy to do. Blame somebody else.
Blame somebody. I'll blame the darkness. But here's the thing. You know what darkness does?
What darkness does. God never once told the world to act like the church. But he told the church, shine the light. Jesus says, so let your light shine before me and that they may see your good works and glorified your heavenly Father.
Paul said, shine like stars in a wicked and perverse generation. That's what we're to do. We're to shine. We look at our country.
Listen, I've done this. We look at our country. We say, hey, man, this nation has changed. It has.
But the better question to ask is not, has this nation changed? The better question to ask is this. Has the church changed? Are we praying today like previous generations prayed?
Do we hunger for God's Word? Do we thirst for His righteousness? Are we sharing the gospel? Are we making disciples?
Are we raising our children to love Christ? Or have we, like Abraham Lincoln said, intoxicated by unbroken success, forgotten the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace. During the dark days of the American Revolution, the Continental Army had suffered repeated defeats. And this is the winner they would win it up in Valley Forge.
And I mean, you had men who were starving. They were hungry. They had a lack of food, improper shoes. The winter at Valley Fortunately broke the army.
But how many of you have seen the iconic picture of General George Washington down on one knee in solitary prayer? He was a man who understood something. We're going to win this. If this fight for truth and justice and liberty and freedom is going to keep moving on, it ain't going to happen because of us.
We don't have the strength. We don't have the resources. We don't have the means. It's going to happen because God.
God came through. That Continental Army wasn't self-sufficient. That Continental Army was dependent upon God. You see, history reminds us that our forefathers understood something important.
But there are moments when people recognize that they need help beyond themselves. And the posture of dependence is healthier than the illusion of self-sufficiency. We're not self-sufficient. We are dependent.
Someone asked you this question. Not what War Horse might our nation be leaning into. What's your War Horse? What is it in your life that you're trusting?
You see, while Psalm 33 certainly speaks on a national level, it's also intensely personal. And there's a lot of people who have got our War Horse. Sometimes the War Horse is the money in the bank. It's the retirement account.
It's the job. It's the career. It's the medicine. It's the doctors.
It's the politician. It's the political party. Maybe the War Horse is their own goodness. What's your War Horse?
Listen, you've got to answer that honestly. But what is it that one thing that you secretly believe is going to carry you through your deepest, toughest, darkest times? What is it that one thing, man, that you lean into that you rely upon? What's your War Horse?
But know this. It cannot save you. That's what the Psalmist said. Ain't no War Horse saving nobody in the day of trouble.
It will not work. Only God can save. Do you think back over your life and you're going to remember times perhaps if you're old enough, you'll look back and say, man, there were times when the paycheck was too short and there's no way it could cover it, but somehow God came through. There were times when the family gathered together with the doctor and he didn't know what to say and we didn't know what to do, but God came through.
God's been good. Has he not? You look back and say, man, God came through, God came through for me. I was dependent on God and God showed up.
And I just want you to know this. Let's not change ourselves and depend on some War Horse. The same God who's always seen us through, the same God who will see us through. God hasn't changed.
So verses 16 and 17 tell us where not to place our confidence. But the last verse to tell us, this is where your hope is. He says in verse 18 and 19, he says, behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope and his mercy, to deliver their soul from death and keep them alive and famine. I'm telling you, those may be two of the most comforting verses in all the book of Psalms.
His eye is on you. He's watching, right? The eye of the Lord is on them that fear him. You know, Kings may overlook you.
This is what Psalmist was saying. We might say, well, President's would overlook us. You know, governments might overlook us. Disappoint us the culture may reject us, but here's the truth.
But the eye of the Lord is on us. After talking about Kings and armies and war horses and human strength, the Psalmist comes down and says, let me tell you what God has to say. Let me show you where real security is found. It's not found in bigger armies.
It's not found in stronger economies. It's found in the watchful eye of an almighty God. You see, God sees his people. His eye is upon us.
The eye of the Lord is on his people. You ever thought, does God see me? Oh, yes, he does. A hundred percent God sees you.
He sees every burden you've carried. He sees you every time you've kneeled down in prayer. He sees every tear that you've ever cried, every active obedience that you thought maybe someone else would have blod you for, but you didn't get the applause. God saw it.
God knows. Nothing escapes his attention. Our security has never depended upon whether Washington DC sees us. Our confidence is in the fact that heaven sees us.
Nobody says, though, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him. That's interesting. He doesn't say the eye of the Lord is on those who occasionally think about God. Are those who attend church from time to time or even check the box every week.
And he says, no, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him. And that word fear doesn't mean to be afraid of, to be scared. It means to have an all a reverence. That brings us to a place of honor and obedience.
So we treasure God above everything else. The fear of the Lord is recognizing that God is God, and I'm not. See, America has some great needs, but America doesn't need more people who simply believe in God. America needs people who fear the Lord.
Note here in verse 18, 19, and 20, all of these actions that God does. He watches, he beholds, he looks, he delivers, he preserves, he helps, he shields. And this is an interesting thing is that nowhere in God's word does God ever say, save yourself. God never says do it yourself.
Only God can save. So what he calls us to do, he doesn't call us to save ourselves. He calls us, trust me, trust in God. You know, David wrote many of the Psalms.
I don't know. He might have wrote Psalm 33. I'm not sure. But I can imagine him writing this, looking back on his life.
Again, if you've watched a little show, the House of David, you know, David shows up and Goliath, he's been coming out, you know, challenging every day, every day. David gets there just at this time when Olga Lyle comes out and everyone's fearing, right? Saul's got his armor, right? Here's this army of people, but none of them say, hey, I'll take up the challenge.
I'll go. David's just a shepherd boy. And the first thing he does, he hears Goliath defy the God of Israel. And he says, I'll do it.
I'll go. And you know, in my mind, as I read the scriptures, it seems like it takes a little while before David finally gets out there, but in the show, we go have a pretty quick. Saul puts his armor on it. If that's what you want to do, here's your armor.
But then he shakes it off, right? Because he knows it doesn't work. He goes out to the creek and he picks up his five stones. I don't know, man.
Everyone has their way of seeing the story in their mind. I tell you, I don't, you got to watch the show because when David steps out to the battlefield, because they're separated far apart and they got these, you know, offenses they're standing behind. David steps out from behind his fence and Goliath is out there in the middle in the valley. And man, when he steps out, that dude takes off running.
He pulls that slingshot out. He's in a full-on sprint. Like, I'm coming to you, buddy. Goliath is like, who are you?
You come, you think I'm a dog? You come at me with a stick? He said, you come at me. I will kill you and feed you to the birds in the air.
David said, no. No, this day, the Lord will deliver you into my hands. You know, he says, the Lord will conquer you and I will kill you and I will cough your head. And I will feed the carcasses of your armies to the birds in the air so that everyone knows that the God of Israel is true and living for Goliath.
This battle belongs to the Lord. Who was David dependent upon? Who was David trusting? God.
Who saved David? God, he wasn't because David had some superior weapon. And a dog of slingshot. And he wasn't because he had good aim.
He was because he had good God. God was with him. The battle was won because David knew the Lord. And so the Psalmist says here in verse 18, our hope is in God's steadfast love.
And the King James says the mercy of God. This is the word keset. This is one of the richest words in all the Old Testament describes God's covenant love. Our hope is in the steadfast love of God that he never changes.
And our confidence, look at verse 20. He says, our soul waits for the Lord. Think about it. We're not waiting on Congress.
We're not waiting on the Senate. We're not waiting on the Supreme Court. We're not waiting on the White House. Who are we waiting on?
The Lord. And waiting isn't passive. Waiting is confident expectation. It's believing that God is at work even when you can't see it.
I just want to encourage you today. Because I think about people who are, I'm not grandpa yet. Randy just became a grandpa. Here's a little Tim over here.
Tim's like a grandpa now. Oh, courtesy to grandpa. You know what? You know what?
Maybe young grandparents. Think of maybe older grandparents too. My God. What are we leaving to our grandkids?
How about our nation? What? Are we leaving to our kids, to our grandkids, to our great grandkids? And I just want to encourage you.
God hasn't surrendered to strong. Jesus Christ is still the King. The gospel is still powerful. The Holy Spirit still changes lives.
The Bible is still true. And the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ. Our hope, our confidence is in God. This song closes with one final prayer verses 21 and 22.
I don't want you to get this. It's not a prayer for military victory. It's not a prayer for economic prosperity. It's not a prayer for political success.
But it's a prayer that every believer should pray. The Psalmist said, for our heart rejoices in him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let the mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in thee. You see, these final verses remind us that our greatest joy is not found in our nation.
I get it, man. We're celebrating 250 years. Put a smile on our face. It's not our greatest joy though.
Our greatest joy is found in our Savior. I want you to know here where the Psalm ends. It doesn't end talking about nations. All throughout the Psalm, ready to talk about nations and people and inhabitants.
But when he gets to the end of the Psalm, it's not talking about nations. It's talking about God. And that's where every discussion of our own country ought to end. It ought to end with us talking about God.
America's greatest need is the same today as it was in 1776, as it was during the Civil War or World War II or the Great Depression or after 9-11. Our greatest need is God. Our greatest need is to know God, not merely a belief that God exists, but that the hearts of our people would fear him, that our homes would honor him, that our churches would obey him. The Christians would live for him, and that people who do not know him would come to know him as Savior and Lord.
Here's the bottom line of the message. A nation's greatest need is for her people to humbly trust and obey God. Do you realize this that one day America's going to be gone? It will.
Every earthly nation will be gone. And history tells us that every great empire eventually passes away. You can just go down the list. There was Egypt, and there was Assyria, and then there was Babylon, and then there was Greece, and then Middle Persia, and Greece, and then Rome, where they are today?
They're all gone. We've been here for 250 years, but someday we'll be gone. I'm not being pessimistic. I'm just telling you what history tells us.
Every great nation eventually vanishes. But there is a king who will never leave office, and there is a kingdom that will never be challenged. There is a king, and his name is Jesus. Isaiah said that of the increase of his government and of the peace there will be no end.
Daniel said, here was the son of man who was receiving a kingdom from God. John, the revelator, saw him as the king of kings, and the Lord of lords. I won't say that's where our hope rests. It's in Jesus.
Today is God in country day, but I don't want you to think about God in countries. How much you think more personally today? God in me. Hey, God in me.
If today were your last day on earth, you ready to meet God? Being an American won't save you. Being a good person won't save you. Going to church will not save you.
Being a member of South Union Baptist Church will not save you. Only Jesus saves. The Bible says that every one of us has sinned. Come short of the glory of God.
And there is nothing, and I mean there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. But the God in his richness and in his grace and in his love sent his son Jesus Christ into this world who took on a human nature, went to the cross of Calvary, fulfilled the law, took all of our sin upon himself, died in our place, was buried and raised again. And if you will put your faith and your trust in him and call on his name, God will save you. The greatest freedom that anyone can experience is not political freedom.
Hey, political freedom might be precious, but freedom from sin, that's eternal. That's what it's about. So this morning, God may be speaking to you and perhaps you've never put your faith, you've never put your trust in Jesus, but today can be that day. Today is the day that you could experience true freedom.
Freedom from sin, freedom from guilt, freedom from condemnation. I'm just asking you to come. Come to Jesus. Come to the one who could say, call on his name.
But maybe today you are a believer. God has convicted you. And maybe you've become more passionate about politics than about prayer. Maybe you've become more concerned about the condition of the nation than you have about the condition of your own heart.
So today this altar is open to you. You're invited to come to kneel, to pray. God send a revival. But just know this, if God's going to send a revival to all of America, it's going to happen in some churches.
And inside those churches, it's going to happen in some homes. And inside those homes, it's going to happen in some people. So here's our prayer. God send a revival.
And let it start in me. This altar is open to you today. Let's humbly pray and ask for God. And I just bring his blessing of all of America, but to bring up the refreshing reigns of revival.
If you need to be saved, you come today. This altar is open to you. If you need to simply come and you're seeking revival, then you come. Let's stand for the reign he's coming.
We're going to have a hymn of invitation. As we sing today, this God's Holy Spirit moves in your heart. You respond to him.