In this episode, we dive deep into the shifting dynamics of secularism and spirituality in a modern context. Addressing the nation’s increasing detachment from religious practices, we explore how societal changes reflect on our personal values and national identity. Through scriptural perspectives and historical precedents, this episode challenges listeners to reconsider how we engage with faith during pivotal moments on the world stage.
SPEAKER 01 :
The President of the United States has declared tomorrow a National Day of Prayer. It’s been a long time since the President has done that. He’s asked us all to remember our troops, our sons and daughters who are in the area of the Persian Gulf at this time when their lives are in danger. I’m not sure, frankly, that we understand altogether how important that is and how much that means. Our nation has become more and more secular. It is getting to the place to where, for example, that there was a period of time when you could have prayer in school. There could be a little time at the beginning of the day in the homeroom or in the classroom where everyone stopped and the children bowed their heads and had a little prayer. Well, they had to stop that because of the constitutional provision for separation of church and state. Well, some people said, well, we won’t have a prayer. What we’ll have is a moment of silence. And I gather they’re not even allowed to have a moment of silence because that might be considered prayer in school. Somehow the constitutional provision for the separation of church and state has become abused beyond belief. We as a people have been, it seems to me, have become absolutely determined to to secularize our country. Freedom of religion is okay and wonderful and to be espoused in this country as long as it has absolutely nothing to do with our government. We can, for example, put a manger scene at Christmas time on the courthouse lawn, but only if there is some secular, some people would call it pagan representation of Christmas, right alongside of it so that it is not seen as endorsing one particular religion or another. We have in the meanwhile become more and more violent here at home as far more people are losing their lives day in and day out in our own streets through crime than will lose their lives on both sides in the war in Iraq unless somebody decides to start using nuclear weapons. We have allowed ourselves to turn into an absolute moral cesspool oftentimes in the name of freedom of speech. so that you can print anything, publish anything, show anything, and community standards of decency have to be fought tooth and nail all the way to the Supreme Court every time you want to stop anything that looks like it might become a threat to our society, to our morals, and to our character. We have abused the Bill of Rights, which was intended to provide for freedom of speech, and that’s a wonderful thing. We have abused it to the point to allow the dissemination of filth beyond description. So consequently, when we have a president who stands up and says to us, let’s call tomorrow a day of prayer, it is very important and it means a great deal to our people and to our society. As a people, we stand in the crossroads with all this that has taken place. And so the president has come along and says, finally, at this point of national danger, that we should take God into account, that we should acknowledge the fact that God is there, and we should take him and bring him into our confidence that we should take our problem before him, that we should pray about this war in which we find ourselves. But it does raise some questions. How do we pray about this war? How should we pray about this war? What do we pray for? Someone asked me not that many days ago how I felt about the war. And I found within myself rather a mixed bag of feelings about the war. And then I went on beyond it to say, okay, fine, you asked me how I feel about the war. Now the next question is how should I feel about the war? And someone went a step beyond and said, well, how does God feel about the war? And as we enter into a day of prayer tomorrow, can we pray for victory? Does God take sides in a war? That last question, in fact, was in a letter we read at prayer breakfast yesterday morning. And at first blush, the answer would seem to be no. Of course, God wouldn’t take sides in a war. I mean, he got his children over here fighting against his children over there. There’s no way possible it would seem that God would ever take sides in in a war. But I don’t think we should be so quick to arrive at a judgment like that. If you’ll take your Bible and turn back to Psalm 18, I want us to see if we can come to grips with some concepts, some principles, some things that underlie all this, so that as we join our president tomorrow in a day of prayer, that we will understand some things and perhaps pray a little differently than we otherwise might. The 18th Psalm, David says, I will love you, O Lord, My strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I trust. My buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. All these things, by the way, are references to war. They are things that have to do with defenses of rocks and fortresses and strength and bucklers and high towers. These are the things you use in defending a city against a siege. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised and so shall I be saved from my enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me. The floods of ungodly men made me afraid. This psalm was prompted by an assault, it would seem, by men who had surrounded him, by enemies who had come upon him. He says, The sorrows of hell compassed me about. The snares of death were before me. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried to my God, and he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even to his ears. Here is a man who finds himself threatened by enemies. He is obviously threatened physically. He is threatened by physical violence. It is a dangerous time, a time when his city is in danger of being taken, and he cries out to God. He calls a time of prayer, if you will. Will God take sides now in this war? Will God protect him from his enemies? Will God concern himself with the things that are about to happen in his city? He says, then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken because he was furious. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, fire out of his mouth devours, coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down and darkness was under his feet. He rode upon a caravan, did fly. He did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place. His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick Clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him, his thick clouds passed. Then there were hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord thundered in the heavens, and the highest gave his voice. Hailstones, coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows and scattered them. He shot out lightnings and discomforted them. You know, this is war, folks. This is something of war that I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of. He cried out to God, and God came rolling in there. He didn’t come in just merely with cruise missiles and aircraft and bombs. This is the Lord God coming in. I mean, the earth shakes under their feet. Lightning bolts come rolling out of the sky. Great hailstones come falling on them and coals of fire out of heaven. That is war. Then the channels of the waters were seen. The foundations of the world were discovered at your rebuke. O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils. Later in chapter 18, verse 27, he says, For you will save the afflicted people. There is something in God, and it’s something that we find in ourselves. It seems to be built into our nature, and we find it in the Bible as well, that God does care about the underdog. God does tend to want to get on the underdog’s side. He does care for the afflicted people. He says, you’ll save the afflicted people. You’re going to bring down high looks. You will light my candle. The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For by you I have run through a troop. Here’s a whole troop of people, a whole gang of people. He says, I was able to run straight through it. As for God, his way is perfect. I’m sorry, by my God, I leaped over a wall. For God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him. For who is God, save the Lord, or who is a rock, save our God? It is God that girded me with my strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like hinds feet and sets me upon high places. And notice verse 34. He teaches my hands to war so that a bow of steel is broken by my arms. Now, on the one hand, you could have started out in this psalm to make an argument that, well, we don’t need to fight. When our city is besieged, we can close the gates and we can call upon God, and God will come down and with lightning bolts and hail and coals of fire, he will destroy our enemies. But then all of a sudden, into this comes verse 34 where it says, he teaches my hands to war. And the Hebrew word basically means battle or combat. He teaches my hands to combat so that a bow of steel is broken by my arm. In other words, God actually would take sides in the sense of teaching one how to war, how to do it correctly, and also giving the strength to fight with. You have also given me the shield of salvation. Your right hand has held me up. Your gentleness has made me great. Notice the combination. The power is given to make me strong, and your gentleness has made me great. You can look around yourself at people in this world who fight wars, about people who are willing to kill, about people who are willing to gas people and engage in mass destruction of populations. There is a cruelness, a brutality, a horror to war among many peoples. On the other hand, there are peoples who also have power who do not want to harm civilian populations, who do not target civilians, who do their best to avoid causing collateral damage. There is, among some people, even people who are strong, gentleness. There is a strength and a power that God gives to make war. And he says, your gentleness has made me great. You have enlarged my steps under me and my feet did not slip. I have pursued my enemies. I have overtaken them. I didn’t turn back again until they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise. They have fallen under my feet. How did all this happen? Because you taught me to war. For you have girded me with strength in the battle. Who did? God did. You have subdued under me those that rose up against me. Who did? God did. Does God ever take sides in a war? Well, I wouldn’t want to necessarily try to take my war or this war or any other war and justify it by this passage of Scripture. But yes, God does take sides in war. Plainly, he does. You have also given me the necks of my enemies that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried. There was no one to save them, even to the Lord. He didn’t answer them. Then did I beat them small as the dust of the wind. I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets. You have delivered me from the strivings of the people. You have made me the head of the heathen, a people whom I have not known will serve me. Who did all these things? God did them. Who actually did the physical work? David did. Whose side was God on? David’s side. That is plain. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me. Strangers are going to submit themselves to me. But remember, There is a marked difference. between a warrior on the one hand and a man who is merely violent on the other. And this contrast that David draws in here about saying all this strength, and you taught my hands to war so that I can break a band of steel with my hands. But your gentleness has made me great. David was a man of war, but he was not merely a violent man. Therefore will I give thanks to you, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises to your name. Great deliverance gives he to his king and shows mercy to his anointed, to David and to his seed forevermore. But now, I can see a person who would say, well, I understand that. You know, this was a situation where it was a defensive war. People had attacked him. He cried out for help from God. God made him strong. He defeated his enemies. He whipped them thoroughly. and God gave him the power to do this. But now, does God approve of a war like this one that’s going on over there now, which is not exactly, from our American perspective, a defensive war? I asked myself that question early on in this thing. What are we doing over there? Well, turn back to Genesis, the 14th chapter. Once again, I’m not trying to draw things out to justify any particular war or any time in any place. What I’m talking about now are underlying biblical principles that might be useful to us when we stop to think about how we might pray about this war and about the people who are involved in this war. Chapter 14 of Genesis. It came to pass in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Ariok, king of Alassar, Keterleomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Nation, that these made war with Bera, the king of Sodom, Bersha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Adma, and the number of other kings. Now what happens here, and of course what you should know right off the bat is that the Amraphel king of Shinar, Shinar is in Mesopotamia, or what is now called Iraq. These kings, the Elamites of Shinar and so forth, were basically city kingdoms from what is today Iran and Iraq. These had somehow made their way clean across. In fact, the way into this area to make war is around to the north and then down into the area from the north. But for some reason, they had come down and assaulted Sodom and Gomorrah. One might wonder, why does anyone care whether they assaulted Sodom and Gomorrah? Because look after all, look what kind of towns these were. Well, they went out and they fought the battle. But later on in this chapter, It says that they, in verse 10, the veil of Sidon was full of slime pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain. They took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their victuals, they just robbed, plundered, raped, and killed, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abraham’s brother’s son, who stayed in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. They just came in, plundered the area, took the city, raped and pillaged, and left. There came one that had escaped and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre, the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner. And these were confederate with Abraham. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants born in his own house. Think about it. He armed his trained servants. Trained for what? one would suspect, based upon what’s going to take place shortly, that they were trained to fight. And he precisely armed them. He armed his trained servants, and he went to see those who were born in his own house, 318. That’s not a very big army, quite small. In fact, I am quite certain they were a considerably smaller force than those kings that had made the raid down into Sodom and Gomorrah. He divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night and smote them and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. He brought back all the goods. He brought back his brother Lot and his goods and the women and the people. Now this is fascinating to me because here is a war that has nothing to do with Abraham beyond the simple fact that they kidnapped his brother Lot and his household and his family. That’s the only thing that has anything to do with him at all. It is not a defensive war. It is a punishing war, a war to rescue, and a war to liberate, isn’t it? It is a war to free captives and to recover property. That’s what the whole war is all about, liberty and property. And the king of Sodom went out to meet Abraham after his return from the slaughter of Keterleomer, so I rather gather there was bloodshed in this war. It was not merely a fright. From the slaughter of Keterlelmer and the kings that were with him at the valley of Shabba, which is the king’s dale. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. He was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be the Most High God who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him tithes of everything. Whatever it was he had brought back. What it was lots, what belonged to Sodom, what belonged to Gomorrah, what belonged to anybody. He gave one-tenth of every bit. He just carved it out and gave it to Melchizedek. But notice what Melchizedek had said. Blessed be the Most High God who took sides in this war. It was not a defensive war. These men were essentially evil men. They had come down here on a raid. Their whole sole purpose was to take plunder and to take prey away, which they had promptly done. God allowed his servant Abraham and blessed him and gave him the power, and Abraham went out and slaughtered him and brought back the spoil. So when I ask the question, does God ever, ever take sides in war, the answer is, sure, of course. Here is a case where he did so. It was a war to defend the weak. It was a war to restore property. It was a war to liberate captives. And it was a war to punish aggression. I can hear some of those kings who survived and went running back to their home in Iraq saying or muttering things about Abraham’s war of aggression. Because after all, isn’t what Abraham did to them when he ambushed them on the way home, wasn’t that naked aggression? Yes, I suppose it was. Was it justified? It would seem so, wouldn’t it? For indeed he was blessed at this point and gave tithes of everything. And then when all was said and done, he returned all the remainder of the goods. He said, the king of Sodom said to Abraham, give me the persons and you keep all of the property. Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up my hand to the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abraham rich, save only that which the young men have eaten and the portion of the men that went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. Let them take their portion. Now, you know, none of this is to say that our wars are just, because I would have to conclude that many of the wars that we have fought in the past are a long way from just. But a war that is to defend the weak, a war that is to restore property, a war that is to liberate captives, a war that is to punish aggression is not necessarily unjust. Have you ever wondered why it is that it’s always the United States and Great Britain and sometimes France who wind up in these situations? To be sure, a great deal of what Britain got herself involved in in years gone by were those things that had to do with the building of empire. But the British, while they are competent fighting men, while if I were to go into battle, I would feel very comfortable with a British battalion or regiment or what have you on my flank. I would never worry about them. They are among the world’s great fighting men. The British are not a warrior people. Was it Napoleon who referred to them or another Frenchman who said that the British are a nation of shopkeepers? It’s true. They are a nation of merchants. And the whole idea behind spreading the British Empire all over the world was not conquest or power. It was commerce. Oh, I suppose you could say there’s power involved in commerce. But the fact of the matter is that where the British were, they by and large improved a lot of the people where they went. Oh, they exploited them to be sure. But at the same time, they improved their own lot. When the Romans conquered a city, there was no freedom for a city that was conquered. When the British went over and took over a country and the Union Jack went up the flagpole for the first time in a new country, everyone in the country had the right of freedom of speech and everyone had the right of habeas corpus. You could not be imprisoned without a charge. and you could have legal representation and someone could force them to bring you to it before a judge for evidence to be considered in your case. You could not just put them away and hold them as long as you pleased. Not when the Union Jack went up. Not when the king’s governor took the place. There was a time when one half of all the ships at sea in the entire world were British. There was a time when there would be 200,000 people at a time at sea going to and from some part of the British Empire to govern it. There were places where the people who were on station in places like Uganda and Kenya had to be given an extra six months for their leave to go back to England because they had to walk 800 miles to get to civilization from where they were. They ran up the Union Jack. They governed small colonies without soldiers in many cases with hardly any military force at all because they believed that God had sent them there to do it. It’s incredible. I would say that over the years, We have abused the power that we have. But we seem also to have inherited a sense of responsibility for opposing aggression. I don’t know where we got it. I suppose we may have inherited it from the British. It also is possible we inherited it from Abraham because it seems to go a long way back that we take part with the underdog, that we do not like to see people oppressed, that naked aggression of one nation against another causes us to feel that we must do something about it. It was the way the Japanese were stomping through Asia that caused the United States to stiffen their resistance against the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor. And it was that stiffening of our resistance, that refusal to just let them do whatever they pleased in the Orient and say that’s none of our business, that wound up causing them to come to Pearl Harbor on December the 7th and to sink the Arizona with so many of our men aboard and to destroy much of our fleet and plunged us into World War II. It was because we as a people, for wrong reasons… but also for many right reasons, did not want to stand put and keep silent and keep our mouth shut while this type of thing happened. It was probably a well-meaning Jimmy Carter and his preaching about human rights that got us into the situation we’re in right now. Because it was during that time that many of the things began to come unravel in Iran. And that whole string of problems is so interconnected like a can of worms in the Middle East that you push down one thing, you’re going to affect things throughout the entire region. It was because we meant well. It’s because we did not want to see people abused. It was because we wanted to see people everywhere have the right of habeas corpus. We wanted to see everyone have rights of freedom. We didn’t want to see anybody imprisoned without just cause. It’s because of our concern about the underdog and about human rights. And then every once in a while it seems we have to put our lives and our fortunes where our mouth is, And that seems to be where we are right now. It seems to me to be singularly important that it is the United States and the Great Britain that have steadfastly refused to submit to and have resisted tyrants in the world. World War II is one of the most incredible stories ever told by man. And it is incredible all the more when you understand how we were bombed in the Pacific at Pearl Harbor. But all we ever did out there for the first part of the war was do a holding action while we put all of our efforts into Europe because of what Hitler had done to the continent of Europe. And I look at this and I know that there are times we are embarrassed at what we have done. I know that there are times when we have blundered at it. I know there are times when we have caused harm to people. But with the aberrations, we have, generally speaking, been on the right side of many of the great moral issues of the world. And I wonder… I really wonder what the world would be like if we had remained isolationist through it all. If we had refused to take any chances, if we had refused to risk American lives, if we had refused to put our fortunes, our money, our defense establishment, our soldiers, our sailors, our Marines, and now our men and women on the line, I wonder indeed what the world would be like. Here is a people who are willing to risk their lives to defeat a murderer of women and children and a man already proven guilty of genocide. Here are soldiers and sailors and Marines who are laying their lives on the line because the President of the United States asked them to. And thank God he is a man who for tomorrow called a national day of prayer because he does acknowledge the fact that there is a God in heaven who is concerned about these things. There are times when I am still very proud to be an American We don’t get much leadership from politicians and statesmen these days, so I feel that when we do get it, let us make the most of it. But we aren’t through with our questions. When we know that God is displeased with this nation for its corruption, how do we pray for it? You know, I had this experience the night the war broke out. I felt sick. I felt weak. I had said that morning that I expected it that night, but saying that you expect it and then seeing it take place on television in front of your eyes is a very different thing. And I went away to a place to pray, and my prayer was short because I almost didn’t know what to say. Other people have told me they’ve had almost exactly the same experience. They just said, God, I don’t know what to ask for. I just pray that you’ll look upon it and be with our boys and to protect our people and just the most general type of prayer. One of the reasons I think sometimes that we have difficulty is because of some of the confusion of saying, well, you know, is it right for us to pray for victory in a war? Is it right for us to feel this way? And here we are as a people who we know what kind of people we are and we know what we have done as a people. How can we pray? for this people. Now I want you to turn back, if you would, to Samuel, 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 12. Here’s a situation following the request of these people that God would give them a king. They didn’t want God’s direct rule through his judge anymore. They wanted a king, like all the nations round about them. And they come to Samuel and In verse 19 of chapter 12, 1 Samuel 12, verse 19. All the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord your God that we die not. For we have added unto all our sins this evil to ask for a king. They finally, after Samuel had told them what they had done, after he had exposed all of it before them, after he had given them God’s word, they said, oh my goodness, pray for us. Because we are a sinful people, and we know we’re a sinful people, and we’ve added on top of all of our sins that we’ve asked for a king. And Samuel said to the people, Fear not. You have done all this wickedness, but don’t turn aside from following the Lord, but serve him with all your heart. And turn you not aside, for then you’ll go after vain things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are vain. For the Lord will not forsake his people. You know, with all of the sins, with all of the wickedness, with all the things that we look at in prophecy and we know that we deserve, here is a prophet of God, a man like Samuel, a man whose name is legend, who stands before these people and says, the Lord will not forget his people for his great namesake, for it has pleased the Lord to make you his people. Moreover, as for me, God forbids that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you. But I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord, serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things he has done for you. Now, there are some things I think for us to think about here. First of all, he says, God forbid that I should sin against the Eternals. in ceasing to pray for you. And here’s a people who are a sinful people, who have just been convicted by God of a grievous sin. Frankly, one of the worst things they ever did in all of their history. And that was to reject the leadership of God and to demand a human king instead. He says, okay, I’m not going to stop praying for you. But there is something else we need to understand. The book of Isaiah says, The prophet Isaiah has some really interesting things for us to think about in this regard. The book begins with an incredible indictment of Judah and Jerusalem and of Israel in particular. In chapter 1, verse 2, he says, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, the ass his master’s crib. But Israel? Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t even think about it. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord. They provoke the Holy One of Israel to anger. They’ve gone completely away backward. Then he says, why would you be stricken anymore? Why would you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick. The whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither bound up nor mollified with ointment. And he goes on with this litany of sin and corruption, and he says, your whole country now is being taken one step at a time, because you see what was happening. Preparatory, I mean, Isaiah began to prophesy before it happened. It was a time of incredible moral decay. It was a time of abandonment of God. It was a time of the removal of God from public life. Oh, sure, there were people here and there who worshiped God. There were people who served God. There were people who believed in God. There were people who trusted God. But the leadership and the nation had begun systematically to eradicate God from life. The nation had become incredibly corrupt. Every man was neighing after his brother’s wife. Ezekiel cries out, you know, make a chain where the land is full of bloody crimes. Another prophet says, blood runs from one crime and touches the blood running from another crime. There’s wall-to-wall blood among your people. And the prophets again and again are condemning the people. And now the judgment has already begun. God has taken sides in this war. He has taken sides with the Assyrian of all people, who began by coming down through the north and taking Samaria captive. He then came on down and took Lachish and some of the other extended cities of Judah, and finally he came down and besieged Jerusalem. And right here is a lesson. It’s a profound lesson, one I think that needs to be understood. First of all, we need to understand that there is no point in time where you and I cannot pray for this people. There is no point in time where we cannot as a people begin to turn back toward God. There isn’t a situation where we can’t tear our garments and say, Oh Lord God, forgive us and begin to straighten out our lives and have God repent and not do what he thought to do toward us. For indeed, Jonah went into Nineveh, walking through the city, saying, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. He had God’s word on it. It had a firm prophecy on it. And he went up on a hillside to watch the cities fall. But the king heard the prophecy, and he called a fast. And they clothed them all in sackcloth, and they all fasted and didn’t even let the cattle eat. And they all prayed and asked God’s forgiveness, and God heard them and said, Look at this. Look at this. And so God’s word… which is infallible, failed. Because the prophecy was always conditional. As are these prophecies of Isaiah that talk about the moral corruption, the decay, and what is going to happen. And the war has already started. The siege has already begun. They are rolling down out of the north and taking city after city. And Jerusalem, he says, is left like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. It’s like a little cabin, a little cottage there. And around it, there’s nothing else there, just this one building standing in the middle of it all. He says, that’s Jerusalem. And there came an army headed by a man named Sennacherib. Chapter 36 of Isaiah interrupts the prophecy with a little history. It’s a history I think everyone would do well to understand. It came to pass in the 14th year of Hezekiah that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the defense cities of Judah and took them. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great army. And so he surrounded the city and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool and he called them down there. And so here come the ambassadors out under a flag of truce and they’re all going to stand there and they’re going to negotiate this thing. Now, I won’t take the time to read all the way through this prophecy. You can always do that when you get home. But here is a general of an army that has conquered everything he has come up against. They have defeated Kalna. They have been all through the Middle Eastern world. They have defeated nation after nation after nation after nation. And he comes up and he stands before these people. He’s speaking Hebrew and he’s speaking loud so the people standing around the wall nearby can hear what he has to say. He said, well, now I think the time has come for all you people to just cash it in. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll give me 2,000 men, I’ll give you the horses to put them on and we’ll get out here and we’ll do battle. It was a humiliating challenge. He was saying, you people are so weak. You people are so far downstream. You can’t even, I’ll bet, give me 2,000 men and I’ll give you the horses. You don’t even have to have the horses. And we’ll get out here and we’ll fight. They basically didn’t answer him. But in the process of all that he said, he made a serious mistake. He said, now don’t let Hezekiah convince you that you ought to trust in this Yahweh, or whatever his name is, your God. I mean, after all, you know, isn’t this the God that Hezekiah tore down all of his altars? He didn’t really understand what it was that Hezekiah had done. But he said, I want you to understand something. The gods of Carchemish didn’t help them. The gods of Calnah didn’t help them. I mean, all these cities have gods. And we conquered all these cities. And I don’t want you to make that fool Hezekiah make you think that Yahweh is going to save you either. Your God is no better than their gods. And he made an enormous mistake. He challenged God. And these men came back. Eliakim, verse 22. Shebna, the scribe. Joab. came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent. I mean, blasphemy. They tore their garments. And it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it, 37 verse 1, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim that was over the household and Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth into Isaiah, the son of Amos. They didn’t know what to do, so they went to the prophet. And this is the prophet, by the way. that was giving them that first chapter that was laying out all their corruption and all of the filth and all the moral decay of the country. This is the prophet who had told them they were going to go into captivity. This is the prophet who told them that they would come out of captivity after some time. They went to him. Thus saith Hezekiah, this is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy, for the children are come to the birth and there isn’t any strength to deliver them. It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the Lord your God has heard. Wherefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. There was nothing left except Jerusalem. And all they were was like the remnant on an end of a bolt of cloth. You know, it’s just lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. So the servants of Hezekiah came to Isaiah, and Isaiah said to them, Thus shall you say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which you have heard whereof the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast 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. And it happened. It happened just that way. They tried again and again with Hezekiah. They sent him a letter saying, all these gods delivered their nations. That’s not going to happen. You’re not going to get off this time. Chapter 37, verse 14, Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And he went up to the house of the Lord and he spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel that dwell between the Caribbean, you are God, even you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, and you have made the heaven and the earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which has sent to reproach the living God. Listen to what he said. Of a truth, Lord, these kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations in their countries. They really have done it. They have cast their gods into the fire because they weren’t gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Now, therefore, O Lord, our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, are the God, you only are God, even you only. Then Isaiah, the son of Amos, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, this is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him. And this is fascinating, the way it’s worded even. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you and laughed you to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. This is not the man of war that’s laughing at you. The daughters, the virgins are laughing at you. Who have you reproached and blasphemed against? Whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. By your servants, you have reproached Yahweh. And as I said, that’s where he made his biggest mistake. God does take sides in a war. And what is even more startling, he changes sides. Because, in fact, when the Assyrian came down, he made the statement, he said, the Lord sent me down here to punish you people. I don’t know if he knew what he was talking about, but as it happened, he was right. That’s why he was there. But he made the mistake of overplaying his hand. There is such a thing. in this world as people becoming so evil that they incur the wrath of God. There is such a thing in this world as people who have reproached the living God and have incurred his anger. There is also such a thing as God’s anger turning away from a people because they seek him and because they oppose someone who opposes him. I don’t know if it hit you at all, but it certainly hit me when this madman, when this thief, this murderer, this genocidal maniac said, we’re going to win because it’s a battle of God against the devil. He has essentially declared our God is the devil. He has challenged that. Our president, I don’t think he fully understands all that has happened. But I do think he believes in God. I do think he is sincere in calling tomorrow a day of prayer when all of us will beseech God about this. And I think we have some things we can ask for. I think we have some things we can pray for that might reach out in areas that even he has never comprehended. You see, our problem in our country is not and really never has been the military. It’s the people. We have met the enemy, and he is us, as the old saying goes. We have no confidence when we go to battle because we know we don’t deserve to win. We have no confidence because we know we are corrupt. It’s difficult for us to acknowledge God in public life because we know God cannot approve of the way we’re running our country, the way we’re running our lives, the way we’re running our schools, the way we’re running our media, the way we’re running everything we do. We have no confidence before him. It’s reflected in Congress, it’s reflected in the journalistic mirror, media, I’m sorry, and it’s reflected in the mirror when we go to shave in the morning. We are prepared to flee when no man pursues because we don’t have confidence that we are right. And even when we are in the right, we feel guilty. There’s a lot of reason, ample reason, to fight Saddam Hussein as much as any war we have ever fought in our history. But we are sure that we’re doing it for all the wrong reasons, and so people go stomping around the seats chanting, no blood for oil, no blood for oil, like a bunch of idiots, as though we would really, truly shed thousands of American lives for no other reason than to keep the price of oil down. I don’t believe that, and I don’t think our president does either. You know, there’s going to come a time when prayer will not help. There is this little passage over in Jeremiah, the 14th chapter, that always I find somewhat depressing. Jeremiah 14, verse 10, he says, Thus saith the Lord to this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them. He will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins. Then said the Lord to me, Pray not for this people for their good. I don’t want you coming before me. In fact, there are three times in Jeremiah. This is the third of them. There are three times in here. So I gather that Jeremiah has persisted in praying for them because three times God tells him, don’t pray for these people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry. When they offer burnt offering and oblation, I will not accept them. I will consume them by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence. There is a time when God won’t hear those prayers anymore. But there’s one thing you and I ought to know. That is not for us to decide. God forbid that we should sin against the eternal in ceasing to pray for us, that is, for our people. There is this other passage that I want to conclude with today. It is a time of the building of the temple, a time of Solomon’s closest ties to God. In 2 Chronicles 7, verse 12, The Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice, the temple that Solomon had dedicated to God. If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. God says elsewhere, I take no delight in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his transgression and live. I think one of the reasons why people make mistakes when they study prophecy, thinking that, well, there is this divine timetable and it’s all locked in, you know, it’s all been programmed in, the computer has been locked, and it’s going to happen, and we’re going to happen on time, and there’s a certain date, and when that date happens, the trumpets are going to sound, and God is going to return to this earth. They fail to understand that in the middle of all this, and while all this conversation of prophecy and all these forecasts of doom are all based on reasons, They are all based on prophecies that have to do with the things people do. And if you lock it up as to a certain period of time and it can’t be any other time, then you are saying there will come a time, or that God saw way back when that there was going to have to be a time when you couldn’t do this anymore. Well, maybe there is. But at least we have now got one little opening that has been handed to us. And maybe God will let us as a people turn back to him. Maybe God will give us a chance. Unfortunately, when you spend a lot of time with the prophets, you do tend to become cynical. You really do. Jonah got that way. Ezekiel got that way. Jeremiah surely got that way. And I have no doubt Isaiah did. And yet through it all, God tried to help them to understand. Pray for them as long as you can, because 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. I intend to join my president tomorrow in prayer to pray for these people that God will help us to see, that God will help us to return, that God will help us to defeat evil where we find it, that God will help us to restore freedom to some small part of this earth, that God will grant victory over the forces of evil, and that he will turn his wrath away from us as a people because we have begun to turn our lives back to him.
