"In God We Trust"

Tomorrow will be the 246th year anniversary of the United States. Historically, that’s actually a long time for a nation to remain free. 246 years may seem like a long time, but did you know that 246 years is actually just 10-12 generations?

But even its brief history on the world stage, God has richly blessed the United States. For the time being, I would say that It is still the richest and most powerful nation in the world.

It also has a wonderfully rich spiritual history.

• It was founded by pious Pilgrims and Puritans.

• Two of the greatest religious revivals in history, known as the First and the Second Great Awakenings, occurred in the United States.

• Rev. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and almost all the forefathers praised Christianity and its morality.

It was the teachings of Christ that was the basis for the end of our country’s national disgrace—slavery, and it was devoted Christians who lobbied endlessly to abolish it.

• My County, ’Tis of Thee was written by a Baptist minister, Samuel Francis Smith.

• The Pledge of Allegience was written in 1892 by a Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy.

• The words “In God We Trust” are traced to the efforts of Rev. W.R. Watkinson.

God truly has shed His grace on the United States of America...and there’s a reason or it.

Illus. – When it was a young country, the Frenchman, Alexis de Toucqueville (tock-ville), visited the United States to discover what made America so great. He traveled across its vast land, looking for greatness in its harbors and rivers, its fertile fields and boundless forests. He studied its schools, its military, its Congress, its Constitution—but still he could not find the secret.

It was not until he went into its churches and heard its pulpits “aflame with righteousness” that he found the answer. When he returned to Europe, he wrote, “America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Sadly, our country has ceased to be good and is no longer great in many ways.

• It once stood for the Ten Commandments, but today the Ten Commandments are mocked, and often are illegal to even mention in a public setting.

• When the founding fathers reached a deadlock in the Constitutional Convention and simply could not agree on a crucial point, one of the members suggested that they have a prayer meeting; and right there the members of the Continental Congress knelt down and prayed for God’s wisdom. – Sadly, today prayer is illegal in our public schools.

• Violence, crime, abortion, immorality, drunkenness, pornography, governmental corruption, rampant materialism, an insatiable desire for sinful pleasure, and every imaginable sin are condoned and sadly, some are even celebrated in this great Country that was founded on Biblical Principles, less than 250 years ago.

And yet, on every American coin and paper bill is the little motto “In God We Trust.”

The motto is not what it once was… something has changed with our coins recently… as subtle as this change is, I believe that it shouts, loudly and clearly, where most of this nation stands when it comes to trust in God.

(SLIDES OF QUARTERS) (Explain)

As we live in a nation that is actively turning their back on God… How can we keep the motto that is on our money (“In God We Trust”) true in our hearts and lives??

I believe that we will find the answer to that question in Psalm 33… (Read vv. 12-22)

Principles for Freedom and Blessings...

Meat:

I see some principles in these verses that we should continue to observe if we want to survive as a free people… blessed by God.

The first principle that I want to mention is the fact that we should have…

1. A Reverence for God

Psalms 33:18 “18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him… ” (who hold Him in awe; who respect and revere Him; who see Him as the Holy One, high and lifted up)

The word “fear” in the Bible means “to tremble.” It is used in connection with 3 experiences:

(1) To tremble with the thought of being punished by a holy God for our sins.

(2) To tremble at the sight of the mighty acts of God.

(3) To tremble with joy at the knowledge that people were being saved.

Proverbs 15:16 “16 Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, Than great treasure that has trouble with it.”

Our nation desperately needs more respect and more reverence for God… and in order to have a reverence for God…

1.1 We Need To Know Who He Is

Who is this God that we say we trust in?

Is He Just The Man upstairs?

Is He The Big guy in the sky?

The Supreme Being?

God is more than all of these combined…

The Old Testament has many names for God, and each tells us something about God and His character. – He is Kadosh, or “Holy One”; He’s El Shaddai, or “Almighty One”, He’s Jehovah-Tsidkenu, or “The Lord Our Righteousness”; He’s El Roi, or “The God Who Sees”; and He’s Shaphat, or the “Judge”.

When we gather to worship the Lord, we need to know and remember that though He is our Father with whom we are on familiar terms, He is also the Holy One, the Almighty One, the Lord our Righteousness, the God who sees our hearts, He is the all righteous Judge… but above all... He is the only one worthy of our reverence… Because… He is the only God!

If reverence for God is to return to our nation, it’ll have to start with God’s people! The best place to start is when we gather to worship, but if that’s the only place we reverence God, may I suggest… that we’re just hypocrites showing off to one another.

May we reverence God everywhere—whether in church or not—…

And we reverence Him… by not taking His name in vain, by not participating in the mockery of His moral principles, by saying “NO” and not supporting entertainment that mocks God and profanes His name. And the greatest way we can reverence God is by living out what we say we believe, each and everyday.

No, we’ll never be perfect; Yes, we’ll make mistakes; there will be times when we’ll not live up to what we aspire to be. But we must be constantly focused on reverencing God by living a godly life, and coming to a place of repentance before God when we fail.

Secondly… we need to have…

2. A Dependence On The Power Of God

As I said before, God is El Shaddai, or “Almighty One”. He is Omnipotent, or “All Powerful”… And it is His Almighty Power that we should be depending on.

This fact is woven through most of our passage this morning, but is clearly seen in v.21…

Psalm 33:21 “21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name.”

God, being All Powerful, has power and authority over everything, but the Psalmist mentions a specific area here… God has Power…

2.1 Over The Nations

If we as the people of God in our country would learn to depend upon the Lord instead of worldly things, maybe verse 12 would apply to us again where the Psalmist says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord…”

Verses 13-15 reminds us that the Lord takes note of a country’s regard for him:

Psalm 33:13-15 “13 The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. 14 From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; 15 He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.”

Listen, God is watching the nations and all the inhabitants of this earth and He’s weighing them in the balance. If God is their Lord, they’ll be blessed. If not, no matter how strong they are now; they’ll face God’s judgment.

Nations and people think that the source of their power is their military might, but Look at vv. 16-17…

Psalm 33:16-17 “16 No king is saved by the multitude of an army; A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. 17 A horse is a vain hope for safety; Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength.”

I believe that we can substitute modern words for some of these ancient terms… We can read it like this…

“There is no president, prime minister, sovereign or dictator that can be saved by a big army. It’s not military strength that protects us. A tank or a weapons system is a vain thing for safety.”

That’s what this verse is saying… Please don’t misunderstand me... This doesn’t teach that we should not have a strong military; but it does mean that, a military cannot save a country from God’s destruction if it does not reverence or depend on Him.

We need to have a dependence on the power of God, over the nations… and we also need to realize that the power of God that we are depending on is…

2.2 Accessed Through Prayer

There is a great example of this in 2 Kings 19… Turn there if you would…

King Hezekiah knew that God had power over the nations, he depended on that power, and also knew that he had access to it through prayer…

God’s people faced dire circumstances. They were being held under seige by the King of Assyria, Sennacherib (Sen-ak-rib). The enemy had already seized all the major fortified cities of Judah and the Assyrians were now putting heavy pressure on Jerusalem, the capital city.

Each day, one of the Assyrian generals stood outside the city walls, yelling insults toward Hezekiah, toward God, and toward God’s people. When King Hezekiah heard what was going on, he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth as signs of both his heart rendering grief and his humility before God. Then Hezekiah went into the house of the Lord to pray… and he began his prayer by praising God: (Read vv. 15-19)

Isn’t that a marvelous picture? With the devil beating on his door, Hezekiah paused to praise the Lord and testify of His awesome power before asking Him for help.

Hezekiah sent for the prophet Isaiah, hoping that he would have a word from the Lord. He did. Its recorded in…

Isaiah 37:6-7 “6 And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”

Shortly after this, Sennacherib mysteriously received word that Babylon was in rebellion. He abandoned his siege of Jerusalem and headed his army homeward. But God wasn’t finished with him. Nobody blasphemes Almighty God and gets away with it for long.

Verse 36 of Isaiah 37 tells us that the angel of the Lord visited the camp of the Assyrians and killed 185,000. Sennacherib returned home defeated, where he was eventually murdered by his own sons… Hezekiah and the people of God won a great victory because they depended on God’s All Mighty Power.

God stays true to His promises… and one of those promises is found in

2 Chronicles 7:14 “14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

If we want to be a nation that is blessed by God, then we must have a reverence for God... depend on His Power… and…

3. Hope in His Unfailing Love

Back in our passage of Psalm 33… look at vv. 18-22

Psalm 33:18-22 “18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy, 19 To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. 20 Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. 21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name. 22 Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, Just as we hope in You.”

The Hebrew word translated “hope” in verses 18 and 22 means “to cast one’s cares on another.” That’s pretty much the same as our English word for “hope.”

But in verses 18 and 22, where the word translated “mercy” is found, it does not mean mercy as we use it in modern English or in the New Testament sense of God withholding from us the judgment we deserve.

The Hebrew word is (Hi-sed) and it means… an unfailing kind of love, kindness, or goodness; often used of God’s love that is related to faithfulness to His covenant…

The Psalmist is saying that we should cast ourselves upon the unfailing love of God. Many of our nation’s problems can be traced to a lack of hope. Poor people often turn to crime because they don’t see a way out: they’ve lost hope. Inner City young people often turn to gangs because they feel trapped in a cycle of poverty and depravity—they see no hope. Depressed people turn to drugs, alcohol, and suicide because they have feel as if they have no hope.

If they only knew of the hope and unfailing Love found in Christ!…

Psalm 43:5 “5 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted (Literally - Depressed) within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”

Jesus is speaking in Luke 4:18 “18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;”

Someone once said that… “Hope is the oxygen of the soul; its object is the Lord and His unfailing love.”

What an amazing attribute of our Heavenly Father… even when we fail Him, time and time again… He never stops loving us, His love never fails, it never leaves, it just waits there with open arms, ready to grant forgiveness and acceptance.

Closing:

I believe that God’s blessing was on this nation as it was being born, because of the faith of its founding Fathers. George Washington had a reverence for God, he depended on God’s power, and hoped in God’s unfailing love.

During the dark days of the American Revolution, when the Continental Army had experienced several setbacks, a farmer who lived near the battlefield approached Washington’s camp unheard. Suddenly his ears caught an earnest voice raised in agonizing prayer.

On coming nearer he saw it was the great General, down on his knees in the snow, his cheeks wet with tears. He was asking God for assistance and guidance. The farmer crept away and returned home.

He said to his family, “Its going to be all right. We are going to win!” “What makes you think so?” his wife asked. “Well,” said the farmer, “I heard General Washington pray out in the woods today—such fervent prayer I have never heard. And God will surely hear and answer that kind of praying.”

God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. He answered the fervent prayer of Hezekiah, He answered the fervent prayer of George Washington and He will answer the fervent prayer of those who have a reverence for Him, depend on His power, and hope in His unfailing love.

May the motto found on all our coins, “IN GOD WE TRUST” be something that we focus on and not turn our backs on… and may it be forever branded on the hearts and minds of God’s people.