Bring Back the Glory

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Adrienne Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you’ll hear that in today’s message. Now, let’s join Adrienne Rogers.

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A nation can lose its glory. A family can lose its glory. A church may lose its glory. And you as a Christian may lose your glory. And sometimes a Christian born in the fires of revival find himself or herself living in the smoke. And we need to get the glory of God back in our lives. Now the book of Judges… is the story of how Israel gained and then lost the glory that was hers, and yet it’s the story of God bringing back the glory to a land. It’s the story of revival after failure. I think of the glorious history of the nation Israel. Under the leadership of God, the Jews had broken the tormenting and gnawing pains and chains of slavery. and had come out of Egypt into the land that flowed with milk and honey. And God gave them that land. Look in verses 1 and 2. Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked of the Lord, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first to fight against them. And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand. Judah shall go up. means praise. It was the dominant tribe. And God says praise is going to lead you into this land. And I have given you this land and God gave them the land. It was a land, a glorious land. It flowed with milk and honey, grapes and pomegranates and figs, hills and valleys. It was the gift of God to them. God gave them Himself. They had a Lord. God gave them the Ten Commandments. They had a law. And God gave them Canaan. They had a land. But they denied the Lord. They defied the law. They defiled the land. And God sent judgment upon them. Now there’s a striking parallel between what happened to Israel so long ago and what has happened and is happening to America today. Because just as God gave Israel a land so long ago, many of us have in our hearts the idea that God gave us this land. No nation, we’ve said it before, ever had such a Christian beginning and birth as America. And I believe that the American dream was placed into the bosom of the founding fathers by God Himself. And God gave to us a Lord, a law, and a land. And we’re doing the same thing that Israel did so long ago. And as the glory departed from Israel, The glory that belongs to America is now receding over the horizon, and we need today, and oh pray God will have it, a moral and spiritual awakening. And that’s what this series is all about. You see, they say that in family fortunes there are three stages. The first generation generates. The second generation speculates. The third generation dissipates. And the family fortune is gone. That’s the way it is with nations also. One generation generates. Another generation speculates. A third generation… then simply degenerates and dissipates and the nation is gone. Now, God gave Israel a wonderful and glorious beginning. So I want you to put down point number one, generation. Days of glorious conquest and from victory unto victory. The armies of Israel under Joshua marched and And walls fell, kings were subdued, land was taken. And so it was with America. Our nation went from victory unto victory. No nation, I say, ever had such a beginning as the United States of America. You remember that Virginian, Patrick Henry? Patrick Henry was the one who in the Virginia Assembly gave a speech, the wonderful speech that was the spark that united the Revolution. This is what he said. He was talking about slavery. And in 1775, Patrick Henry said, “‘Is life so dear?’ or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. Forbid it, almighty God. And then he said, I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. That was the spark of the Revolution. The Revolutionary War was won, and we too came from chains and tyranny to be a freeborn people. And the first president of the United States, we called him the father of our country, George Washington, took his oath of office by putting his hand on the Holy Bible. And after George Washington took his oath of office with his hand on the Holy Bible, he kissed the Bible. I wonder what the ACLU would say about that. Oh, by the way, do you know the first thing he did, his first official act? Do you know what the first official act of the first president was? He took the entire Congress, the Senate and the House, to church, every one of them, for two hours. They went to church and worship. That was the first official act of government. And then George Washington in his inaugural address said it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplication to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect that His benediction, God’s benediction, may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States. And then the Father of our country said, No people can be bound to acknowledge and endure the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. Plain English, God brought us thus far. I mean, he said, you cannot fail to see the hand of God in America. So, point number one, just put down days of glorious conquest. That is generation. That’s the first step. In a fortune, generation. Now, here’s the second thing I want you to write down. Days of gradual compromise. That’s speculation. Look, if you will, now in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. And the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochem and said… I made you to go up out of Egypt. That is, I gave you liberty and have brought you into the land. I gave you victory, which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land, but ye shall throw down their altars. But ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Why have you done this? God said, I gave you everything. I brought you out of Egypt. I went with you to give you victory. I said, don’t make any league with the people who live in this land. And yet you disobeyed me. And with a voice of stern inquiry, God says, why have you done this? Well, let me tell you why they did it. God Himself answers the question in the book of Judges. Look, if you will, in Judges chapter 2, verse 7. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua. who had seen the great works of the Lord that He did for Israel.” Now just to underscore that, that’s key. As long as they saw God working, they’d seen the great works, they served God. Joshua, the days of Joshua, and then Joshua’s descendancy, they served the Lord. But now look in verse 10, And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers. That is, Joshua and his descendancy died. They were gathered to their fathers. That’s a euphemism for going to heaven. And now look, And there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. A new generation. One generation generates. Another generation speculates. There’s another generation of Americans living today. Not the generation that suffered, fought, bled, and died for this country. Not the generation that believed the Word of God, but a new generation. Here’s a key verse to understand the book of Judges. It’s Judges chapter 17 and verse 6. Put it in your margin, and this is what it says. In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. May I submit to you that is exactly what is happening in America today. There’s a generation today that is speculating. They have no fixed standard of right and of wrong. They do not understand the moral foundations of this nation, and every man is doing that which is right in his own eyes.” Not that they were doing what was wrong, they were doing what was right in their own eyes. But you know the Bible says, “…is the way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” This thing has come down to our educational system, where the boys and girls are put through courses called, Values Clarification. BILLY AND SUSIE AND MARY AND JOHNNY AND JIMMY AND THE OTHERS ARE PUT IN A CLASSROOM. AND THEY’RE ASKED A MORAL SITUATION, OR GIVEN A MORAL SITUATION, AND SAID, NOW, JIMMY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO IN THIS CLASS IF YOU KNEW THAT BILLY HAD TO MAKE A PASSING GRADE IN ORDER TO GET A SCHOLARSHIP IN ORDER TO GO TO COLLEGE, AND BILLY CHEATED? AND YOU KNEW THAT BILLY WAS CHEATING. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? THINK IT THROUGH. And so he writes out his answer. And then they say, now, remember, remember, Jimmy, there are no right or wrong answers. You do that which is right in your own eyes. You say, is that happening? Friend, we have gone through a revolution in less than 30 years in America. And I want to prove it statistically right now. In 1960, in 1960 the Gallup organization took a poll And they found out that 65% of Americans believed that the Bible was literally the Word of God.

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65%.

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That’s 1960. That’s not that long ago. In 1992, they took the same poll and they found out that rather than 65% of Americans believing, now 32% believe that the Bible is the Word of God. just 32%. That same group said, there are no moral absolutes. George Barna, he found out that 67% of Americans say there’s no absolute truth. That is, truth for you may not be truth for me. What’s true for me may not be true for you. Well, you say, yes, that’s the world, but what about the church? We have the church. Now let me tell you something that will frighten you. George Barnett took the poll with evangelical Christians. I’m talking about the Sunday morning churchgoers. And he found out that 52%, more than half of those who attend church in evangelical Bible-believing churches said there is no absolute truth. No absolute truth. Every man did that which is right in his own eyes. Now God said, I’m going to judge you because I said not to make any league with the Canaanites. They did make league with the Canaanites. Go back to chapter 1. And look, if you will, in verse 19. And the Lord was with Judah, and He drave out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” Now God said, I’ll drive out all the inhabitants. It wasn’t God’s failure, it was their failure. But they said to those people who lived in the valley, we’re not going to fight you. You’re too strong for us. And so rather than fighting them, they accommodated themselves to them because they said, we will never be able to remove you So therefore, we’re going to have to do something. We’re going to have to make some sort of league, some sort of peace with you. Write down the Canaanites that they feared by that verse. The Canaanites that they feared, those who are in chariots of iron, those that we can’t do anything about. What are the Canaanites that we fear in this land today? Drugs. You know what we’re saying today? Hey, we’ve lost the war. We can’t do anything about the drug culture. And so, Joycelyn Elders has said, then we need to decriminalize drugs. That’s just lifting your hands and saying, I surrender. They’ve got chariots of iron. We cannot do anything about it. She said, if we decriminalize it, then we can control it. That’s like putting out a fire with gasoline. The same U.S. Surgeon General said, and I want you to listen to this quotation, it’s clear that the sexual orientation of parents has nothing to do with the sexual orientation or outlook of their children. I want to tell you that is sheer stupidity. She goes on to say, many children in this country are born unwanted, and I feel that if gay or lesbian couples feel that they want children enough to adopt, well, then they’re probably just as capable of being good parents as heterosexual parents who choose to adopt. Now, if that came off the wall somewhere, you’d say, well, so what? But this is a presidential appointee in the United States of America. What they’re saying is, look, we’ve got problems. We can’t do anything about it, so let’s just accommodate ourselves to these problems. It is the same U.S. Surgeon General who tells a little 13-year-old girl to put a condom in her purse before she goes out on a date. I’m embarrassed to even have to speak about things like this in public. But somebody has to sound the alarm. What does that say to a child? What does that say about the expectations to a child when a United States governmental official says, this is what you ought to do? Do you know the excuse? Well, they say, we can’t do anything about it. There’s no way that we can stop it, so let’s accommodate ourselves to it. What they’re doing is building ambulances and putting them at the bottom of the cliff. What we need to be doing is building fences at the top of the cliff and holding up a standard for boys and girls and teaching them that we do have higher expectations. And what does that say about America’s kids? What does it say about the young people? It says that we’ve lost the war. Now we’re just trying to somehow accommodate ourselves to these Canaanites in chariots of iron. Kids ought to know that God’s plan is one man for one woman in a monogamous marriage until death do them part. That’s God’s plan. They ought to tell a little 13-year-old girl that when you get married, you ought to be marrying a virgin, and you ought to be a virgin when you get married. You ought to be pure. Where are the people who are saying this? There arose a generation that knew not Joshua. People are doing that which is right in their own eyes. Telling little kids, NOW THESE PROPHYLACTICS ARE GOING TO KEEP THEM SAFE. WON’T BE LONG SOMEBODY’S GOING TO BRING A LAWSUIT AGAINST THE SCHOOLS THAT GAVE THEM OUT AND SAID, YOU SAID I’D BE SAFE AND I WASN’T SAFE. BECAUSE THERE’S A FAILURE RIGHT THERE. CONDOMS WILL FAIL AND CHARACTER WILL NOT FAIL. WE NEED TO BE TEACHING CHARACTER. But there were the Canaanites that they feared. And then, look at this, they’re the Canaanites they favored. Look, if you will, in verse 28, And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out. Now there were some Canaanites they said, we can’t whip them. There were other Canaanites they said, we can make servants out of them. The word tribute means slave labor. They said, we can use these Canaanites, why drive them out? They will be useful for us, we will make them our servants. And so we have certain Canaanites that we believe are really beneficial to us, that they can serve us. Oh yes, they may be wicked, they may be immoral, but we can make use of them. Can you think of one? I can think of one that’s infecting this area and has legalized gambling. They say, well, what we can do, we can legalize that. We can put it to tribute. Think of what we will gain through legalized gambling. You need to think about what we can lose. Let me tell you the difference between gambling and regular business. Regular business is win-win. I make a product, I sell it to you, I get the profit, you get the product, I win and you win. Gambling is win-lose. That’s what it’s all based on. Nobody can win in gambling unless somebody else loses. The papers ballyhoo one man who wins millions, why don’t they ballyhoo millions who lost everything? It’s so stupid. And when they get a state lottery, then the government has to boost the lottery, because it is the government that’s getting the proceeds from the lottery. And so they have to encourage the citizens to participate in gambling. Do you know what a pimp does? He stands on a street corner and encourages a man to consort with a prostitute, and he takes the profit from their vices. We’re trying to get the United States government to do something very similar, or the state government, or the local government, to encourage its citizens to participate in a vice so that we as the government can somehow get the profit. Friend, these things come back to haunt us. You say, well, you know, by liquor and by gambling and We get certain resources. I pity you. I pity you if you’re so low that you would traffic in human misery for economic gain. But we think that somehow we can take these Canaanites and we can put them to forced labor, to tribute. There are certain Canaanites that we fear, chariots of iron. So we just give in to them. There are certain Canaanites that we favor. So we’ll say, hey, we’ll put them to work for us. We’ll just make virtues out of vices. And then there are Canaanites that they fellowshiped. Look, if you will, here in chapter 1, verse 32. But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out. Actually, they just moved in. They said, these Canaanites are really not bad neighbors. And they began to fellowship with them. They lived among them. And as you begin to read, you’re going to find out that they learned their religions. They learned their nefarious practices. They learned their morals. They were keeping company with Canaanites. The Bible says that friendship with the world is enmity with God. The Bible says, love not the world, be not conformed to this world, or you’ll be condemned with this world. The great problem IS THAT WE’RE KEEPING COMPANY WITH CANAANITES. THE AVERAGE CHRISTIAN THINKS THAT HE CAN HANDLE THAT QUITE WELL. I MEAN, HE’S REALLY NOT ALL THAT CONCERNED ABOUT THESE CANAANITES. I WAS REMINDED ABOUT THIS STORY THE OTHER DAY ABOUT A MAN NAMED LARRY WATERS. LARRY LIVED OUT IN CHICAGO, NO, EXCUSE ME, LOS ANGELES. He lived about six or seven miles from the airport out there. He lived in a little subdivision, had little row houses. They were all just about the same, same facade in the front, same little backyard in the back, fenced around. Every Saturday, this boy, 33 years old, every Saturday afternoon he’d get a six-pack, go out and sit in his lawn chair and drink that six-pack every Saturday afternoon. After a while he got bored with it and decided he would do something different. So he decided he would get some balloons and tie them to his lawn chair. So he could float up about 100 feet over his neighbor’s backyards while he’s floating along drinking this six-pack. This is a true story. So he went down and bought him some weather balloons. He bought 45 weather balloons and had them filled with helium and got them home by some contrivance and tied them all to his lawn chair. He had his friends to hold it down. Then Larry went into the house. He got his six-pack and made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And he has this scheme. He’s got a BB gun. So if he goes too high or when he gets ready to come down, he’s going to begin to shoot out those balloons and come back down. I mean, this is a wonderful scheme he’s got. He gets his six-pack. He gets his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He gets in his lawn chair and he tells his friends to let go. And they let go and he shot up, not 100 feet, but 11,000 feet. Straight up. He can’t shoot out a balloon, he’s holding on for dear life. And before he knows it, he doesn’t want to shoot anything, he can’t let go, he’s frozen, immobilized. 11,000 feet he’s up there. A continental pilot in a DC-10, true story, sees him and radios to the tower, there’s a guy up here in a lawn chair. Can you imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if you look out on the right hand side you’ll see a man, there he is. They didn’t know what to do. I mean he’s over the airport, they’re having to reroute the traffic. They send up helicopters, they can’t get him down. Larry Waters stayed up there at 11,000 feet for four hours. And finally the helium began to ooze out of those balloons. and he settled back to the earth. When he got back down, there was a crowd there, ambulances and police and everybody else. And a reporter with a boom microphone stuck that microphone in his face, said, I want to ask you a question. Were you scared? It was a foolish question. His eyes were big as saucers. He said, yep. That’s all he could say, yep. He said, are you going to do it again? He said, nope. That was it. Oh, friend, when I heard that story, I thought, you know, that’s so much like us. We say, you know, I’m just going 100 feet. I’m just going to kind of do something my neighbors are not doing. It’s going to elevate me just a little bit. I’m just going to skim over this neighborhood. I remember what an old preacher told me a long time ago about sin, and I want you kids to listen to it. Sin will take you further than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay. It will cost you more than you want to pay. Here’s a man with his little BB gun saying, you know, I can just handle this thing. We have so many in America like that. So many who say, well, you know, just a little whirl in us here. I just keep company with Canaanites. They were the Canaanites that they fellowshiped. That’s what’s happening in America today. God said, I told you to drive them out. Look in verse 2, chapter 2, verse 2. And you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land, but shall throw down their altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Canaanites, you fear. Canaanites, you favor. Canaanites, you fellowship. God says, come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and I will receive you. Now, what do we say? The first generation generates. That’s glorious conquest. The second generation speculates. That’s gradual compromise. And then the third generation speculates. dissipates. That’s grim consequences. Look in chapter 2, verses 3 and 4 now. God says, Wherefore, you want to know what’s wrong in America? Just put a circle around that word, wherefore. Wherefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their God shall be a snare unto you. Now America has thorns in its side and snares around its feet. And why? Why? And it came to pass that when the angel of the Lord spoke these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept. Why? Because the protection of the Almighty had gone from them. And that’s what’s happened to America. God has led us. God has guided us. God has guarded us. God has gladdened us. No nation has ever had the victories that America’s had, economically, militarily, socially, as this nation has had. But now today, we’ve lost the respect of other nations. We have ambivalence in our foreign policy. How can we help other people with their problems? We can’t even solve our own at home. And the scream of the great American eagle has become the twitter of a frightened sparrow. Not only militarily, we’re losing the battle culturally here at home. We’re in a war, but not a war of bullets and bombs, but of ideas. Teenagers in growing numbers are experimenting with bisexuality. They say it’s going to be the coming thing among young people. In the past 30 years that we were talking about, our divorce rate has quadrupled, teen suicides have doubled, and violent crime has increased 500%. God says, thorns and snares will be yours. Our streets are filled with violence and rage, and the poverty rate is rising year by year. What’s happened in America? We’ve taken the Bible and Ten Commandments out of the schools. There arose a generation that knew not Joshua. If that’s wrong, why has it been suddenly wrong? What has been the difference from the nation that we once knew? You know what they said when they put the Ten Commandments on the walls of some schools and then took them down? They said that may be harmful to some child reading them. We as Americans are so smart that we don’t have room for God. We’re losing the war culturally. We’re just even losing the war against nature. Floods. Fires.

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Earthquakes.

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Tornadoes. Do you know what’s wrong in America? God has just taken away His protection. He’s just taken away His protection. We have sung this song, Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light. Protect us by thy might. Great God our King. But, the Bible says, there was no king in Israel. And every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And God says, alright, why have you done this? No longer will you have my protection. These things will be thorns in your side. They’ll be snares unto you. And that’s where we are today, folks. One generation generates. Another generation speculates. A third generation dissipates. And it’s over. You say, Pastor Rogers, is there any hope? Yes, thank God. Chapter 2, verse 16. I love this verse because it begins with the word, nevertheless. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. Thank God for that. God raised up judges. The word judge means to save or to deliver. God sent them saviors. God sent them deliverers. God sent them a way out. Sometimes they would take the way and sometimes they would not. But it’s never too late with God. God had much rather forgive than He had to judge. God still loves this country. And God still loves you. And God still has a way for your home and your family. Nevertheless, it’s still in the Word of God. I have a plaque that just has this word on it. Nevertheless. Nevertheless. I love just that one word. Nevertheless, we must disabuse ourselves of the idea that there’s no hope because as long as there is God, there is hope. Abraham Lincoln was dead set against slavery. Thank God for Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln went to the slave market one time, and he saw a young black girl, a beautiful girl, being auctioned. She had been used and abused, and there were lecherous people who were bidding on her to use her for only God knows what. Abraham Lincoln began to bid on this black girl. One man would bid this, he would raise the bid. Another bid, he would raise the bid. Another bid, He outbid them all. She looked at him with suspicion, her eyes burning with fear and hatred, wondering what this man had in his mind. Finally the gavel fell and the auctioneer said, she’s yours, you bought her. Abraham Lincoln paid the price and this girl said to him, now what are you going to do with me? He said, I’m going to set you free. She said, what? set you free. She said, free for what? He said, free. She said, free to say what I want to say?

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He said, yes.

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She said, free to do what I want to do?

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He said, yes.

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She said, free to be what I want to be? He said, yes. She said, free to to go where I want to go? He said, yes. A big smile came across her face and she said, then I’m going with you. I’m going with you. That’s what we need to say to Jesus. Lord, you’re the one who set us free. You’re the one who set us free. Lord, why would we follow anyone else? When you’re the one who gave us moral freedom, spiritual freedom, eternal freedom, political freedom, it comes from Jesus, and I’m calling this congregation, as I call myself, to say anew and afresh, Lord Jesus, we’re going with you. No one paid a greater price than you paid for us. One generation generates. Another generation speculates. Another generation dissipates and it’s all over. But it needn’t be. Nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless, God raised up deliverers. I want Him to do it again, don’t you? Father, seal the message to our hearts. In Jesus’ wonderful name, amen.

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