Righteousness Exalts a Nation - Part IV
081102 Righteousness Exalts a Nation Pt 4
Dt. 30:11-20
Tim Franklin
Introduction:
- For three weeks, since the first Sunday in October I have been preaching a series entitled, Righteousness Exalts a Nation. I intend to review those today and leave you with a charge to fulfill on this Tuesday, Election Day.
- Election Day is simply a day for making a choice as to who shall lead you as your president and commander in chief.
- Choices are powerful in life. They have consequences or events that happen in sequence as a result of the choice we have made. Let me give you some understanding of the word choice from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary.
- Choice
- prefering one thing to another;
- skill in distinguishing what is preferred;
- selecting that which is worthy of being preferred.
- Choose
- To pick out
- To take for preference
- To choose for imitation or becoming like
- On Tuesday America will prefer one set of values to another.
- It will exercise its skill in distinguishing what is preferred.
- It will choose the candidate that they most want to pattern or fashion their lives and their children’s lives after.
- Dt. 30:11-20
- Moses calls the nation of Israel to make a choice, to cast a vote, to choose what they desire to pattern their lives after.
- In verse 19 he calls them choose life.
- That is what I am asking you to do on Tuesday. Choose that which will give you life, your children life and your nation life.
- The choice is simple:
- Life or death
- Prosperity or disaster
- Strength or weakness
- Longevity or short lived.
- Lets look at these. Moses gives us three reasons to choose God’s ways.
1 That You May Live
A What does it mean to live?
i To live, to have life, to remain alive, to sustain life, to live prosperously, to live forever, to be quickened, to be alive, to be restored to life or health (from The Online Bible Thayer's Greek Lexicon and Brown Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, Copyright © 1993, Woodside Bible Fellowship, Ontario, Canada. Licensed from the Institute for Creation Research.); to revive from sickness, discouragement, faintness, from death.
ii Dt. 28:1-14 is living!
iii Dt. 28:15-16 is death, curses, weakness
B Life, therefore, comes from choices that we make—when we choose God. And Dt 28 is a list of consequence or sequential events that come from the choices we have made.
i God clearly warns us in His Word what happens to a nation and a people when they choose a homosexual lifestyle. We have a candidate that has clearly stated his choice and support of that lifestyle therefore abandoning the blessing of God.
ii God clearly warns us in His Word what happens to a nation that chooses to embrace death rather than life. We have candidate that has clearly stated his position regarding favor of abortion, euthanasia etc therefore abandoning the blessing of God.
iii God clearly warns us in His Word what happens to a nation and a people when they choose to redefine marriage. Again, we have a candidate that has clearly stated his position by not standing for traditional definition of marriage as that between one man and one woman.
C God wants us to live! He wants us to choose wisely.
i We have seen in the past three messages what our founding father’s knew and what they believed about God, His Word, and how our nation would endure if we continued to choose life.
ii We have also seen that our founding father’s understood that when we left God, God would leave us to ourselves until we cried our to Him again!
iii The second reason Moses gave us to choose God.
2 That You May Love
A When we choose life. We walk in the blessing and favor of God.
i Choosing life gives us an eternal perspective.
ii On January 6th, 1980, I saw for the first time what my choices were giving me regarding eternity.
B It is His goodness that stirs our hearts to love him more. In fact, God’s word declare, That it is His goodness that leads us to repentance.
C Children—
i who are taught to love, who understand love, who receive and give love, when they are given a gift they overflow with gratitude to the giver.
ii Who are not taught love, who do not receive love nor understand love –will more than likely not show gratitude when given a gift.
iii Again, as we have seen in the past few weeks, our founding fathers understood this. That is why we see our great presidents calling days of Thanksgiving and fasting in order to return to God the love and gratitude that is due Him
D Again, notice the fullness of vs. 20—that you may love, that you may obey, that you may cling! That is sentence full of life!
i The third reason that Moses exhorted us to Choose God’s ways is…
3 That You May Dwell
A The Hebrew word yasab is used 1090 times in the OT. It means..
i To remain, to sit, to abide
ii It means to inhabit. That is why we see repeatedly in the OT when Israel disobeyed God they no longer inhabited their land.
a Lam 5:2-4 Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, And our houses to foreigners. 3 We have become orphans and waifs, Our mothers are like widows. 4 We pay for the water we drink, And our wood comes at a price. NKJV
b Prov 5:7-10 Therefore hear me now, my children, And do not depart from the words of my mouth… 9 Lest you give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel one; 10 Lest aliens be filled with your wealth, And your labors go to the house of a foreigner;(jobs move overseas) NKJV
B When people forget God they become restless, always looking for the next thrill, the next sense of excitement. The become a prophetic picture of a Christless hell where they literally have no rest and are tormented by the lack of presence of God.
C When we dwell we rest in security. When we dwell we have a sense of heritage for us, our children and our children’s children.
D And it all boils down to choice. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. Pr. 29:2
a. Noah Webster instructed students “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depend on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.” Ibid. p. 343
b. In another text, Webster said, “In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide…look to his character…It is alleged by men of loose principles or defective views of the subject that religion and morality are not necessary or important qualifications for political stations. But scriptures teach a different doctrine.” Ex. 18:21 “Choose men who rule in the fear of God, able men such as fear God, men of truth hating covetousness.”
i. A man’s voting record will show what he stands for. Senator Obama has clearly stated he supports abortion. That is not in keeping with the standards of the scripture regarding those we want to lead us as believers.
ii. Any person who does not support the traditional view of marriage is not a person we want in office. Genesis 1:27; Leb. 18:22; Matthew 19:4-6
iii. Any person supporting the gay agenda is not in keeping with the Word of God and is not a person we want leading us. Why? Because we do not want Dt. 28:15-ff to come upon us. Christian Voter Guides are there for a reason.
c. John Jay, “Providence (God), has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
d. You have a choice to make on Tuesday.
Conclusion:
- “How we vote is how we will be visited. I do know the people of this nation will be allowed by a Holy God to choose their future. We could make a choice that would be detrimental in days ahead. As the word of God says in I Samuel 8, the nation of Israel chose a king. In Samuel 8:18 the Lord warns the people that if they choose a King that is not His choice, the following would happen: "And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day." We are now determining our future. The real danger is the Lord turning His ear away from us in days ahead because we make a choice that is against His will. Kingdom people must do the will of God. We are a nation above other nations.” Chuck Pierce
- We must repent for having divisive political leanings that cause us not to represent the God of Righteousness in our choices we make. We are a nation above all nations and must always represent His Kingdom in our actions in the earth.
- Prov 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. NKJV
- Judg 21:25…everyone did what was right in his own eyes. NKJV
| 
