[0:00] Take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter 13. We're going to read the entire chapter. Romans 13, 1.
[0:12] Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
[0:35] For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and he will commend you.
[0:48] For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
[1:03] Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment, but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes.
[1:15] For the authorities are God's servants who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue.
[1:26] If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another. For he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.
[1:40] The commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, and whatever other commandment there may be are summed up in this one rule.
[1:51] Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, understanding the present time.
[2:04] The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over. The day is almost here.
[2:16] So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
[2:33] Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Let's hear the preaching of God's word.
[2:48] I invite you to turn over to Proverbs chapter 14. On this weekend of our nation celebrating another birthday, if my math was correct, it's something like 241 candles, children.
[3:06] It seems that we would do well to listen to the king of nations who rules over all the nations of the world, presently around 200 of them.
[3:17] And he has a word for the nations, indeed a word for our nation. And if we're wise, we'll listen and heed. It's a timeless truth, a proverb that is over 3,000 years old, but is just as true today as it was the day that Solomon penned it by inspiration of God.
[3:41] Proverbs 14 and verse 34. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.
[3:56] Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. Now the verse is short. It's not hard to understand, but let's begin by looking at some of the key words in the verse.
[4:11] The first line reads, righteousness exalts a nation. Righteousness. That's a big word, kids. What does it mean? Can you see a smaller word in that big word?
[4:25] A five-letter word? It's the word right, isn't it? The word righteousness means being right and doing right instead of what is wrong.
[4:39] We could call it rightness. That's what righteousness is. But right according to whose standards? Who defines what's right and wrong?
[4:49] We read in the book of Judges of a time when people did what was right in their own eyes. Rightness. So they defined rightness for themselves.
[5:02] And that's the way our postmodern world defines rightness as well. They're so progressive. They finally caught up with 3,400 years ago when people did what was right in their own eyes.
[5:17] Being true to yourself. That's what's right for you. Be true to your thoughts, your desires, your will. That's what's right for you.
[5:29] Well, this is not righteousness. It's rather the deconstruction of the very thing of righteousness. righteousness. Because it claims there is no absolute standard of rightness and wrongness.
[5:44] It's just whatever you make it. No, but true righteousness, such as Proverbs 14, 34 speaks of, is defined by God. The maker, the lawgiver, the king, the judge of all the nations.
[5:59] He defines righteousness. He himself is righteous, isn't he? He's always right. He never does wrong. And he has defined righteousness for us in his righteous laws that he's given to us.
[6:13] He spells out for us what righteousness will look like in our lives. For example, Ephesians 6, 1.
[6:25] Some of you children know this. It's got your name on it, doesn't it? Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
[6:37] This is right. This is what righteousness is. It's children obeying their parents. It's to obey the righteous laws that God has given us.
[6:51] So righteousness, that's the first word in our verse. It's doing what's right in God's eyes as expressed in his righteous laws. Let's go to the next word.
[7:03] Righteousness exalts a nation. Righteousness here is said to have an effect. This verse is showing us the effect that righteousness has upon a nation.
[7:18] It has a powerful influence on a nation. And the word used is exalts. It exalts it. It lifts it up. It takes it higher.
[7:30] It gives it honor and glory and praise. It makes it better. It improves it. And when people do what is right in God's eyes, it has a powerful, a positive effect upon the nation.
[7:44] It lifts it. Now, look at the second line of the proverb, and it reads quite differently. It is a proverb of contrast. It compares two different things that have two opposite effects upon a nation.
[8:00] Two opposite things that have two opposite effects. Whereas righteousness exalts a nation, we're told sin, on the other hand, is a disgrace to any people.
[8:15] So what is sin? Well, the Bible's definition in 1 John 3 and verse 4 is that everyone who sins breaks the law. That's the definition of sin.
[8:26] It's the opposite of righteousness, isn't it? It's the breaking of God's righteous commandments. It's doing what he forbids. So when God says, don't, we do.
[8:37] And when he says do, we don't. That's sin. And sin, just like its opposite righteousness, has an effect upon the nation.
[8:52] Whereas righteousness exalts a nation, it's said that sin is a disgrace to any people. It's a reproach. It's an embarrassment. It's a shame.
[9:02] It's a downright scandal to any people. Instead of lifting up the nation, it lowers the nation into shame and worsens it.
[9:14] So both righteousness and sin have inescapable effects upon a nation. Now, these are two contrasting truths.
[9:24] And they are God's moral laws of the universe. They're just as true and operative as God's physical laws. This is the way the king of nations rules over the nations.
[9:38] In such a way that righteousness lifts the nation and sin brings the nation down to shame. Now, you can ignore God's laws.
[9:50] You can pretend like they aren't there. But sooner or later, you bump into the hard and fast reality of God's laws. That's true of his law of gravity, isn't it? You can jump off the barn and you can claim all the way down that there is no such thing as the law of gravity operative in the world.
[10:08] But you will meet the truth when you hit the ground. And nations can ignore this law of God that righteousness exalts a nation and that sin is a disgrace to any people.
[10:21] And they can deny it until they're blue in the face, but they will hit reality. They will hit ground zero and they will find that it is just as true as the law of gravity.
[10:37] Righteousness does exalt a nation and sin is a disgrace to any people. Now, we turn first to the history of the nation of Israel. Now, the history of the nation of Israel clearly portrays the truth of our text.
[10:55] Now, out of all the nations of the world, God chose one nation, Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he entered into a covenant with them at Mount Sinai.
[11:08] Having redeemed them out of Egypt, he brought them to the mountain and he entered into a covenant with them. They were to be his peculiar people, his nation, and he was to be their God and king.
[11:22] And that's the only theocracy ever to exist in the world and in all history. The only nation that has ever had this special relationship to God.
[11:34] It was the nation of Israel. Now, built into that covenant relationship were blessings and cursings. And you can read about it in Leviticus 26 and 27 and Deuteronomy 26, 27, and 28.
[11:51] Blessings if the nation continued to walk in the righteous laws of God. And if they did, everything would be blessed. Curses if they turn their back on the righteous laws of God and then everything would go bad for the nation.
[12:10] And that's, as I said, is found at the end of the Pentateuch, at the end of Deuteronomy. And the whole rest of the Old Testament and right on into the New Testament follows the checkered history of this nation of Israel.
[12:26] And what we find can be boiled down into these words. Righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a disgrace to any people. When the nation walked with God in obedience to his righteous laws, they prospered.
[12:42] Internationally, they were the head and the nations were the tail. Militarily, their enemies fled before them because the Lord was fighting for them and gave them victory after victory. They enjoyed peace and safety within the promised land, living without fear, with each man sitting under his own fig tree.
[13:01] An image of peace and rest. Economically, their gardens and fields and businesses prospered. Their flocks and herds multiply. Religiously, they enjoyed God's presence, which is the crown jewel of blessing, to have God dwelling in their midst, smiling upon them with his favor.
[13:20] Righteousness, indeed, did exalt the nation of Israel. But when Israel turned away from God and rejected his laws, they found it also true that sin is a disgrace to any people.
[13:35] God shut off the rain and the soil did not yield its crops. He sent disease and drought. And he sent armies against them so that they were defeated and ran before their enemies.
[13:47] Marauding parties stripped their fields and left their cities in ruins. And they became the tail and other nations the head who ruled over them and oppressed them.
[14:01] And as for family life, miscarrying wombs decreased the number of their children rather than the blessing falling upon the family life. And wild animals killed the children, reducing their numbers.
[14:14] And nations made the children slaves and took them off into foreign lands. And such starving hunger was experienced that the Israelites even ate their own flesh and blood during the siege.
[14:30] Indeed, sin is a disgrace to any people. It left the nation embarrassed. A laughingstock, a reproach in the mouths of the nations around them, a byword.
[14:44] It was sin that brought the nation down. Such is sin's effects upon a nation. And that shouldn't surprise us. Sin is a disgrace to any person, isn't it?
[14:58] Sin brings down, it tears down, it ruins persons who sin and leads to everlasting destruction and shame.
[15:12] And what is true of the individual is true of the nation of individuals. Sin is a reproach to any group of people, to any nations.
[15:25] Now we need to be careful not to make a common mistake here. And that mistake would be to make God's covenant with the nation of Israel as a template for all nations.
[15:36] Just to take Leviticus 26 and 27 and Deuteronomy, the covenant God made with Israel there in Deuteronomy 26 through 28, and to make it a template and just carte blanche put it upon all nations and say, this is the way God deals with all nations.
[15:53] No, he doesn't. That was one nation that was his special people in covenant with him. He, their God, they, his people in a way that's never been true of any other nation in the world.
[16:06] So we need to be careful not to do that. But that being said, we dare not make the other air and fall in the ditch on the other side of the road and say that these things were only for Israel and therefore nothing even remotely like it happens to the rest of the nations and much less our nation.
[16:25] And we can say that because Proverbs 14, 34 applies broader than to the one nation of Israel.
[16:37] I want you to see that. Notice what our text says and what it does not say. It doesn't say righteousness exalts the nation as if speaking of the particular nation of Israel.
[16:50] It doesn't say that, does it? It's rather a general proverb. Righteousness exalts a nation. And the last line really emphasizes it.
[17:01] It does not say sin is a disgrace to the people of Israel. It says sin is a disgrace to any people. So Leviticus and Deuteronomy records a unique covenant God made with the one nation of Israel of old, that nation alone.
[17:17] But Proverbs 14, 34, our text speaks to any and all nations, ours included. So let's personalize each line for our nation, shall we?
[17:30] This is the nation that we live in. Let's take this truth and see what it's saying about our land. Well, the first thing it says is that righteousness today has a positive effect upon our nation.
[17:43] It exalts and lifts it up. Well, how so? Well, just consider what happens when when people obey God's right laws, when they do what's right instead of wrong.
[17:58] Well, which law should we go to? Well, let's just take the summary of all God's laws, the Ten Commandments, and just look at a few of the Ten Commandments. When employers in our country follow God's, the Creator's instruction manual for workers, that says a man was not ever designed to work seven days without rest, but rather God, when designing him, made him to need one day of rest for every six days of work.
[18:28] When an employer follows that rightness, that right way of living, the company thrives. The workers thrive.
[18:39] In the long run, the workers are refreshed, they're restored, they are made better. The nation, the economy of the nation is improved.
[18:57] When you have people, children, who honor father and mother and learn early on to submit to the authority that God has placed over them, that translates into other authorities in their lives.
[19:14] Learning as a student under a teacher, working as an employee under an employer, living as a citizen under the laws of the land, they have learned to submit to authorities that God has established, as we read in Romans 13.
[19:29] And that's good for the land, isn't it? Good for the nation. When you have people who don't murder, I mean, these are really obvious. It shouldn't stretch your imagination.
[19:39] When you have people who don't murder, but protect life as precious, and it makes communities safer places to raise a family. It blesses the whole nation.
[19:56] When people don't commit adultery and remain faithful to their spouse, it strengthens the stable family structure which is so beneficial and essential to the health of any nation.
[20:13] You see how the nation is blessed by the righteousness of not committing adultery. People and businessmen who do not steal make life better for everyone by not shoplifting, by not cheating on taxes or insurance claims and suing for millions in ridiculous lawsuits.
[20:33] Workers who don't steal time from employers. You see how it's all a boon for the economy of the nation. It's not a drain on the system. It's rather a healthy, exalting thing.
[20:46] People who always tell the truth, refuse to give false testimony about another in a court of law. It's good for the justice system of any nation. People who are content with what they have and don't covet what others have.
[21:00] Make better neighbors, better spouses, better workers, better citizens. And that's good for the nation. Now, I want you believers to be encouraged by this this morning.
[21:11] You need to know that your righteousness is a blessing to this people. It is lifting it up. It is bringing honor rather than shame.
[21:24] Now, we lament and rightly so how low our nation has stooped been fallen. But think just what it would be without the righteous within it.
[21:37] Those millions of citizens who know their God through faith in Jesus Christ, who not only have his righteous record put on their account in heaven, but have his righteous laws put into their heart and the spirit of God to give them a desire and a power to walk in those righteous ways, to make them careful to keep his laws, making them more and more like the righteous one, Jesus himself.
[22:08] You know, to have a people that are like Jesus elevates a nation. And brothers and sisters, your righteousness has an elevating effect upon this nation.
[22:20] How much darker it would be in this land without you shining as the light of the world? We lament the moral decay we are seeing at every hand. But how much more rotten would television be and radio and the media and the society, the moral consciousness of the nation without you, the salt of the earth, being rubbed into the decaying mess?
[22:47] You are having a beneficial effect upon the rot and decay your own presence and moral influence in your family, in your neighborhood, in your classroom, your workplace, your town, your state, your nation.
[23:06] Think how many more millions of babies in the womb would be killed in our land were it not for the righteous speaking up for the unborn. The righteous giving their money to buy ultrasound machines so mothers, pregnant mothers, can see their children and have a desire for life.
[23:27] Yes, and by your prayers, your prayers fighting against the spiritual enemies that are behind sin. You know, if this nation only knew what it owed to the powerful prayers of the righteous, they would make us national heroes rather than the butt of their jokes.
[23:46] The prayers of the righteous. what is being accomplished in our land because of the prayers of God's people, the righteous. You know, he was willing to spare that rotten city of Sodom for just ten righteous people?
[24:04] As Abraham pleaded with God? God is sparing this nation of many judgments.
[24:16] judgments. No doubt because of the prayers of God's people. I'm not saying all of them. We are experiencing judgment. But the prayers of God's people are God in the midst of wrath, remember mercy.
[24:32] Who knows where we would be without the prayers of the righteous. We saw this principle of the righteous being a blessing to the group around them, the world around them, in Acts chapter 27, when God's righteous servant Paul was on a ship heading for Rome and the huge storm that came upon the ship.
[24:55] An angel appeared to Paul saying, God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you. You see, whether they knew it or not, the other 275 passengers on board that day were elevated.
[25:07] They were lifted up from sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean. They were lifted up. Why? Because of the presence of a righteous man on board, God had given all who traveled with him safety, safe passage to Rome.
[25:22] And who knows, the blessing that is, the blessings coming to your children, righteous mom, righteous dad, blessings coming to your family because of your righteousness, and God is hearing your prayers, and blessings are spilling over to your family, to your community, to the nation.
[25:43] righteousness exalts a nation. Well, in the same way, the last half of this verse is operating in our nation today.
[25:56] Sin is having a powerful effect upon us. It is having a negative downward drag and disgraceful effect because sin is a disgrace to any people. And that is true of any form of government.
[26:11] Whether it's a dictatorship, a democracy, communism, a monarchy, oligarchy, at the birth of any new nation, it carries within it the seeds of its own destruction because the seeds of destruction are sin, indwelling sin in the hearts of the people that eats away at the health of the nation.
[26:35] sin. Now, it's not difficult to see how breaking God's righteous laws pull a nation down in disgrace. We could go right back through those Ten Commandments and we could say, well, when a nation has children who are not honoring father and mother, they're not honoring and learning submission to the first authority in their lives, well, then they're not going to have submission to the other authorities in society and it's going to drag the nation down into rebellion where every man does what's right in his own eyes, where people brush aside the command you shall not murder.
[27:14] The murder rate in Chicago is a disgrace to the city, isn't it? A national disgrace. It brings disgrace upon a nation. Adultery and every other kind of sexual immorality directly contributes to the breakdown of families, which in turn multiplies scores of other problems for those children, for society, both economic and moral and criminal, physical health, the stealing that goes on in businesses.
[27:46] Well, it's not good for the nation, is it? It's a disgrace and it pulls it down and lying under oath in court of law distorts our justice system. It leads to a society where truth is fallen in the streets and we don't even know who's telling the truth anymore among our land, among our leaders of the land.
[28:07] We could go on and on, but just watch the news for a week if you want to know what we mean, what the Bible means when it says sin is a disgrace to any people. It pulls down. It's what we're living, we're seeing it.
[28:21] And sadly, there's so much bad news because there's so much sin. sin is costing our nation dearly, not just financially, but in many other ways.
[28:33] When you consider the question, what's wrong with our nation? In any area that you look at, you'll find sin at the bottom, and that caused Charles Bridges to conclude, what an enemy to his country is an ungodly man, because his ungodliness, his unrighteousness, his sin is contributing to the disgrace of the nation.
[28:55] So our greatest problem as a nation is not poor education, it's not a sagging economy, it's not better trade agreements, it's not the need for more social programs. I mean, you take all that you heard during the campaign for this last presidential election from all the candidates.
[29:15] Wouldn't it be refreshing to have a candidate stand up and say our greatest need is Christ? our greatest problem is sin. It's not that we need more jobs.
[29:29] I'm told that there are 5,000 jobs, manufacturing jobs, awaiting workers, just in Kosciusko County alone. Plenty of opportunity.
[29:42] The problem isn't a lack of jobs. You know what the problem is? It's a moral problem. With some, it's laziness. It's students never getting off their backside and going to work, but living off the dole, living off of mom and dad.
[29:58] That's sin. That's just plain sin. And it's a disgrace to the nation. It's affecting our economy. Others are unfaithful workers. A loss of biblical work ethic.
[30:10] God told us how to work. And we said no to his righteous law. And are we surprised when it brings trouble to our economy? When our men were sharing testimonies about their workplace, many times, over and over, they said, it's hard to find somebody that will just show up every day and just do what they're supposed to do.
[30:31] That's a moral problem, not an economic problem. It leads to economic problems, but at the heart, it's a moral problem. You see, that's ever been the case.
[30:44] Sin is the disgrace. Sin is what pulls men down, and history has proven that. Great nations and empires, the Greek, the Roman Empire, they fell from moral decay within.
[30:59] You've seen trees, huge trees, standing in your community, and you think, wow, what a strong tree. And then one morning after a storm, you see it's down, and you realize why it's down.
[31:13] It wasn't as strong as it appeared to be. Outwardly, it looks healthy, but ants were eating the insides of it, and the storm simply had enough pressure to show you that it was decayed on the inside.
[31:30] And that's the way nations have gone. They've risen on the stage of history, and they've become decayed within, and sin has spoiled good starts, and has led to the disgrace of the nation.
[31:51] We look stronger as a nation than we really are, and there are now many signs of weakness, surface cracks appearing, giving evidence of greater problems within, problems too big for man to fix, problems that God's word says is this, that it's a lack of righteousness, it's the presence of sin.
[32:14] Well, this being true, it's in the best interest of any nation for its people and its leaders to encourage righteousness and to discourage sin wherever they can.
[32:28] Isn't that true? Every politician, every citizen in our country should be seeking every opportunity to encourage righteousness since it exalts a nation and to discourage sin since it pulls the nation into disgrace.
[32:43] And our nation once did that, but it is now viewed as wrong and not right for government to be involved in encouraging true religion, which always elevates the people.
[32:58] Amen. we have those today who are fighting against the righteous and against their old fashioned righteousness, even though righteousness exalts a nation.
[33:18] And that's often been the way the nations deal with the righteous. We need to have a sense of perspective, okay? We're getting dissed by our present media and many who get the microphones shoved in their face.
[33:36] They are speaking against the righteous and our old fashioned righteousness. They're not treating us like most of the righteous have been treated down through history, if we would get our perspective right.
[33:51] They could treat us much worse. In the middle of the 1500s, John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, sent Bibles and preachers into his homeland of France.
[34:02] And a wonderful revival took place in France. Many were converted to Jesus Christ, thousands upon thousands.
[34:12] And this Calvinistic Protestant movement grew rapidly. They were called Huguenots, the French Huguenots. They grew rapidly at their height. They were at one and a half million people there in Roman Catholic France.
[34:28] They came under great persecution from the king and the army. On St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, something like 100,000 Huguenots were just slaughtered in cold blood.
[34:41] And then there were alternating periods of persecution and then toleration that continued for the next hundred years. Then in 1685, religious toleration ended.
[34:53] The Huguenots were driven into hiding. They met in woods for worship. They were threatened with death if they did not convert to Roman Catholicism. And eventually hundreds of thousands of them were forced to flee their homeland of France.
[35:06] Now as all this persecution was happening, the finance minister noticed something was happening to the economy. And he went to the king and he warned the king about it, that such persecution of the Huguenots was destroying the economy of the nation.
[35:22] But he continued in his rage against the Huguenots. And in driving them out, the French nation was left impoverished. For in driving out the Huguenots, they had chased out their best workers, their skilled craftsmen, their honest businessmen, their best neighbors who went around doing good, their most faithful citizens.
[35:48] And historians do believe that that contributed largely to the rapid decline in France at the end of the 17th century as they went from being the richest and most powerful nation in Europe to barely able to defend themselves against their enemies.
[36:04] France drove out the righteous who by their righteousness were exalting the nation. And so the king's sin impoverished the nation and led to its disgrace.
[36:19] So what are the righteous to do in such a climate when the foundations are being destroyed? Well, let's realize we're not the first citizens of God's kingdom to find ourselves in such circumstances.
[36:34] The answer is we're to do what we can where we are to lift up the nation. We're to seek the welfare of this nation.
[36:44] When the Israelites, due to their sin, came under the curse of God and were driven into Babylon in captivity there, they were barely there.
[36:56] And some of the false prophets were saying, don't worry, you're going to go back to you're going to go back to Jerusalem. You're going to go back to your homeland very soon, any day now. And the Lord sent a message through Jeremiah, the prophet, don't listen to those lying prophets.
[37:12] You're going to be there for a long time in Babylon, 70 years to be exact. So go ahead and plant your gardens and eat what they produce.
[37:28] Build houses, settle down, marry, have children, and seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
[37:39] You're going to be in that city for a long time. So settle in it and seek to elevate it. Pray for it because if it prospers, you prosper.
[37:50] And in many ways, that's our position, isn't it, as Christians in the world today. We're headed to a better place. Our homeland is not here. We have a heavenly city, a city built not with human hands.
[38:05] And we're looking forward for a savior from there. That's the place where our citizenship is. But while we're here, we're to seek the prosperity of the nation in which we live because if it prospers, we prosper.
[38:17] But we can do that in several ways. Number one, live a righteous life. What can we do? What what can the righteous pursue righteousness?
[38:31] Careful obedience to God's will revealed in his righteous laws. The two most important that the summary of which is love God with all your heart and love your neighbor is yourself.
[38:48] Righteousness exalts a nation. Are many things adding to the sin of the nation? Then brothers and sisters, let's add to the righteousness of the nation.
[38:59] Are many pulling our nation down to disgrace by their sin? Then let's work harder to lift up our nation by our righteousness, our righteousness.
[39:10] Go on hungering and thirsting for righteousness, unashamedly, consistently living a righteous life by the power of the spirit. Be one of the best citizens in your town.
[39:22] Be one of the best students in your class. Be one of the best workers at your workplace. One of the best neighbors in your neighborhood. Second, what can we do?
[39:35] We can pray for the nation. Isn't that what what God told the Israelites there in Babylon? Pray for the welfare of the nation. It's one way we can lift up our nation.
[39:47] We can lift it up to the throne of grace. Do you know that it's the righteous that have the ear of God in heaven? It's you.
[39:59] You're the righteous. You have the ear of the one who sits on the throne that rules this nation and everyone in it. And the all the nations you have his ear, you have his attention.
[40:13] And when you pray, he listens. And the prayer of a righteous man is what powerful and effective, not because of our righteousness, but because of Jesus righteousness.
[40:27] We have access to this throne and he hears us. And the prayer of the righteous lays hold of a righteous king who is powerful and effective.
[40:38] And that's why the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. So let's use it for our nation. Pray for the nation. First Timothy.
[40:50] Two. I urge them, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
[41:07] For this is good and pleases God our Savior. You are not praying selfishly when you pray, God, give us leaders and give us a moral fabric in our land that would lead to peaceful and quiet lives.
[41:25] Not if you want to use that peace and quiet in order to live godly, holy lives. That's the way we're supposed to pray.
[41:36] That's what pleases God our Savior. Pray for our president, our judges, our congressmen, our governors. They will rule us in true wisdom and true righteousness in a way that will lift the nation rather than bring it down to shame.
[41:53] And then third, give the gospel. The gospel is the good news. Is it sin that pulls down a nation to disgrace? We have the remedy for sin in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[42:07] The good news that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sinners sunk in sin and disgrace to save them from their sins.
[42:17] And he saved many of us here. That's how we became righteous. It's through the work of Jesus Christ. Putting his righteousness to our account, dying for our sins and then putting his spirit in our hearts to make us follow his righteous laws.
[42:35] And because salvation is earned is earned by his works and not our works, we can go to any man, woman, boy, girl in our nation and say, I have good news for you.
[42:48] The son of God has lived and died in the place of sinners. And if you will right now renounce your sin and throw all the weight of your trust on Jesus Christ and in nothing of your own, he will save you.
[43:01] He will save you now. You see, believers, when you give the gospel and pray for the conversions of the lost and you see them brought to Jesus Christ to be saved by him, it's not it not only enriches them forever, it enriches the nation for every conversion takes a person from contributing to the sin and disgrace of the nation to contributing to the righteousness and elevation of the nation.
[43:31] That's the life changing power of the nation. It has brought nations back from the brink of disaster. The gospel. Read about the great revival in England under Wesley and Whitefield and the others in that great evangelical revival.
[43:50] The nation was drunk. The nation was foul. The nation was filled with criminals. It was on its last leg and God sent the gospel in power and saved England from destruction.
[44:09] Give the gospel. Pray for conversions. Because the grace of God in the gospel will teach a man to say no to ungodliness and immorality and will teach what will the grace of God in the gospel will teach a man to say no to to unrighteousness and to live self-controlled upright righteous lives in this present evil age.
[44:39] So go and spread righteousness in the land by leading people to the righteous one Jesus Christ who bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness by his stripes.
[44:55] We are healed. I've entitled this message the Christian Patriot. Because the most patriotic thing you can do is probably not to fly the red white and blue you may want to do that but it's this to live a righteous life that will exalt your nation to pray to God who can bless our nation by turning us away from our sin and then to give the gospel of Christ which can save our nation and the individuals in it.
[45:36] Let's pray. Our Lord as citizens of heaven and most all of us citizens of the United States of America we we want to approach your throne as the king of the nations and acknowledge that it's you have who have placed us in this land and we give you thanks for that.
[46:04] We thank you that you have given our nation so much good in the way of natural resources a place of prosperity and plenty where crops grow and rain falls and we thank you for every earthly blessing.
[46:24] We thank you for a good start. We thank you for solid laws that had righteousness at the base of them. We thank you for the the amount of truth the light from heaven that you've given to this land and we thank you Lord for so many Christians that live in our land so many righteous people who are still living a righteous life in an unrighteous world who are still praying to you and giving out the gospel.
[46:55] Thank you Lord. But we also confess Lord that is a nation we have we've taken your gifts and we said we don't want you the giver just give us the stuff and we want to be our own gods and we've we've rejected you in many hands and so we pray have mercy upon us and in your judgment have mercy spare us Lord.
[47:21] If we are the light of the world make our light to shine brighter. Take out all that's dark in our lives that we might shine with the light of Jesus Christ.
[47:33] You've made us the salt of the earth Lord we confess in many ways we've lost our saltiness come and restore that saltiness that holiness that righteousness in us that would elevate our nation that is so pleasing in your sight.
[47:53] And come and strengthen us to boldly and compassionately give the gospel to our fellow citizens. The greatest need if they're outside of Christ is to.
[48:07] To have what we have the forgiveness of sins the new heart the Holy Spirit within. So help us we are weak but you are strong.
[48:19] We're blessed so we we thank you. We ask you to continue to bless us to the end that Jesus Christ would be praise for his works in our hearts and in our land.
[48:33] Amen.