The covenantal promises of God warn men of corporate unholiness in nations and churches.  A study into the ways God’s prophets served entire nations with Divine lawsuits against conditions of national rebellion.  These suits can remind America of the standards God personally uses to assess and chasten the nations who depart from the highways of holiness.   

The following message is a presentation of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where we're proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life. More information about the NCFIC is available at www.ncfic.org. Thank you, Mark, and thank all of you for coming out here and getting here this early. This is the crucial issue of our moment, of our time. And you parents who have children and grandchildren, this is something that you need to be thinking about, praying about, and teaching your children about often.

Don't be afraid of it. Don't be shy to talk about it. I want to give you some tools that you can use today to understand this issue, because we are always under the very loving and merciful scrutiny of God Almighty on this, individually and as families, as churches, and even corporately as a nation. And so let's look into this today. Let me begin, let me get us to unite our hearts together in prayer.

Our Father in Heaven, we desire to fear you the way that you deserve to be, respected and reverenced. We want to be a people who take your word seriously because we know it's a holy word, it's an authoritative word, and so we come to you in humility today telling you and confessing to you that we have many sins that we don't even know how to recognize because we're ignorant of Scripture, we're ignorant of your character, we're ignorant of your holiness, and we want that to change. And so by the power of the Holy Spirit, I ask you to help me present a message that's your message that's all through Scripture. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray that you could change and mold our hearts and humble our hearts, that we could respond properly as we should. Lord, we do know this much.

We know that you have to oppose the proud, but you give grace to the humble. So make us humble people today, I pray, as we look at your word, look at your heart, look at your will, look at your justice, and look at your holiness. In Jesus' mighty name we pray, amen. You know, there's a famous Christian leader who just came out a couple of weeks ago with an announcement that he will be holding prayer meetings on the steps of every state capital in the coming year, 2016. And his message as he had made this announcement is that our nation is in really big trouble.

And he's right about that. He said the land needs healing. And we've got to simply turn to God on this because this is a problem that only God can fix. Now the strategy, he seems to be going behind this is to be rallying Christians to pray today's common confession to God. You know, the confession that we seem to hold as Americans.

That there's very little that we can do to halt the moral decline, that God is the one who has to do it, that he's the only one who can do it. But a point I want to make today is that if we hold this attitude in the wrong way and conclude that there's nothing at all that we can do, we're making a big mistake. Passivity in the face of moral threats is not a holy response to the trouble that we're in. Are we in trouble? Yes, we're in trouble.

We're in big trouble. But we should not gather passively and wait for God to do something maybe in an election year to fix things through the civil magistrate as though a messianic state can hopefully fix the problem. Okay? So let's look for a minute at what we can learn from the people of Nineveh. Here's a quote from Calvin.

He said, the Ninevites felicitated themselves. This means they congratulated themselves. He goes on to say they gained the plaudits of the whole world on account of their power, and they were top nation. They were huge, they were impressive, They were extraordinarily powerful, they were prosperous. And yet all this was of no moment, says Calvin, because their wickedness and iniquity had ascended into heaven.

And so when I gather with the speakers, you know, and we prayed for you all, we pray for your children, we pray for the messages of this conference, and we pray to bring down heaven. One thing that we realize is that there's a very strong one-way message that's going to heaven from our country that our sins and our iniquities are arising to God. They're ascending into heaven. Calvin goes on to say, when therefore we are reproved, and he's trying to make this, come on in folks there's some seats up front here, and there's some some more over on this side. He says we ought ourselves, when therefore we are reproved, There is no reason that we should turn our eyes here and there towards men.

We ought instantly to present ourselves to the scrutiny of God. And this is the right way to do it. When we're in trouble, can we recognize when we're in trouble? Our forefathers could do it and we're so sensitive to this in the colonies, the Puritans, the pilgrims who came over, the separatists who came over. If there was a drought, they would immediately submit themselves to the scrutiny of God and to one another and to the accountability to one another.

The men would get together. Is there any sin in our camp? Is there any sin in our families? Brother, have you, that treaty you made with the Indians, have you done anything to wrong them or to violate the terms of your treaty? We can't be covenant breakers.

And they realized any sin in the camp could bring down a response of God that would be what they called a monetary judgment, admonishing them to turn, admonishing them to wake up, to submit themselves to the scrutiny of God. And so, Calvin goes on to say, we ought ourselves to take in hand that voluntary examination which God requires. Okay, aggressively we take it in hand. That voluntary examination, Those men did that. How's our discipline in being able to do that as a people, as fathers, as a country, as churches?

Can we do that and just say, okay, what does the Bible say about sin? Are we guilty in any way? Or are we continually always felicitating ourselves? I've had pastors tell me, oh come on, God's not gonna judge America, we're America. We're the land of the free and the home of the brave.

We're God's country. He's not gonna... What are you talking about? As though we get a pass on the doctrines and the policies and the justice of God. We don't.

You don't individually, your families don't, our churches don't. I've had to tell many people who've decided to wander away from the commands that they know. I said, look, not only are you going to ruin your life, not only are you committing treason to God, not only are you making yourself an enemy of God, you're bringing the wrath of God down on me and my family which makes you an enemy of my wife and my children for what you're doing. There are consequences to what you do in sin. You're making yourself my enemy.

I don't want to be at war with God. I don't want to be in a country where the wrath of God is going to land on my wife than on my children. You need to stop and repent. So here's what Calvin is saying. We ought ourselves to take in hand that voluntary examination which God requires and He does.

We've got to examine yourselves, see if you're in the faith. By so doing we shall not feed our vices by foolishly deceiving ourselves as hypocrites do, who ever look around them to the right hand and to the left and never raise their thoughts to heaven. They never raise their thoughts to heaven to say, God What are we doing? What are we doing? Are you pleased with us?

Or are you displeased with us? Well the Ninevites did something. This is in the time of Jonah and the Ninevites rose up and they did something. The king, Jonah 3 8, he issued a proclamation, let all men, let men, let men call on God. And he was talking about everyone and he was even referring to the animals in their kingdom.

Every being needed to be in an attitude of humility. Let men call on God earnestly. How many Christians in this country even know how to pray earnestly? How many can watch for an hour in prayer with God? How many can watch for five minutes earnestly in prayer with God?

Let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. So the men of Nineveh, the women of Nineveh, the children of Nineveh were already doing something with their hands. That was their reputation before God. They had violence in their hands. They had sin.

Their hands were dirty with deeds. In Jonah 3 10, the Scripture tells us this, when God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. He had already judged them and declared, here's the punishment. You'll be thrown down. You'll be wiped out.

But look what happened. This is the good news, the terrifying, the awesome, wonderful good news of the covenant of God. God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them and he did not do it. Okay, praise God. Okay, for those of you who don't know me, I'm about to give you a horribly pessimistic message, okay?

But you need to receive it in faith with joy and trust that our God is merciful. The people who know me and have known me my Christian life know me as a very optimistic man and I am because I trust God and I believe God, and I know this about God and his covenant. If we turn to him, yes, he, God can frown at us, but he can also smile at us. His countenance can beam on us with approval. And dads, I hope you're learning to do that with your children.

To praise them, to delight in them, to appreciate them. You represent God to them and they learn about God from you. Yes, you can be displeased with them when they do things that are displeasing to God, but love them. Let your countenance shine upon them. And God does this.

We learned from Scott Brown this week as he did his entire study of scripture that God uses one standard for all nations. There is one and it includes, yes, cursings but it also includes blessings And it also includes God can relent from a calamity that he may need to bring on us for reasons of justice if we turn, if we do what we are required to do in this circumstance, which is repent. We also learned a really interesting quote from Joel Beekie about another Brown, John Brown, the Puritan, who points out that yes, God does frown on us. And he prayed that he would esteem and value the frowns of God more than the frowns of men, and esteem and value the smiles of God more than the smiles of men. God frowns and he also smiles.

He punishes but he also forgives. He can bring terminal punishment and then that's it. Then we're gone. And that's what I'm concerned about for my country today. God is an impartial judge.

We don't get a pass. His own people don't get a pass. The Jews, the chosen people, never got a pass from sin. Ezekiel 20 verse 16, they despised my judgments. God says about his own people that he loves.

They walked not in my statutes but polluted my sabbaths, for their heart went after their idols. There were many. Brothers and sisters, we have idols in our hearts and in our homes that we need to come to terms with. Verse 17 says, Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness. Now, which means he didn't immediately, as he was tempted to many times to just make an end of them and start over.

But he did kill all the adults over time. And then it goes on in verse 18 that said, but I said unto their children in the wilderness, walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols, because here's what happens. God has a law that we're to follow. He has rules. The Jews were not following them, but they were following other ethical standards of other rival gods and the idols in their parents' hearts.

And so the children of that first generation were warned, don't you walk in those paths of your fathers. Or the statutes of your fathers. Or the laws that your fathers make. Neither observe their judgments. That means their justice and their judgments in the way that they sort out right and wrong.

You can't do that, nor Defile yourselves with their idols. And then he says in Ezekiel 20 19, the very next verse, I am the Lord. Walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and do them and do them. You know why the Lord chose Abraham? Because he would teach his household, his children and his household after him, to do justice and judgment.

And we're children of Abraham, and we need to continue walking in that. The reason God chose Abraham, Genesis chapter 18, was because he was a head of a household who would do this, teach his family justice and judgment, so that he may bring on Abraham all the things that he had promised about him. And by the way, any of you who want to get the notes from this, you can by writing to me at WesternConservatory.com. I don't want you to have to be distracted by frantically taking notes. I'm happy to give you these verses and these references that you can take to your communities and to your families.

God scrutinizes and lists the specific deeds and attitudes of all nations Jew and Gentile and he responds according to his covenant promises. He's very consistent. Jew and Gentile, even before actually the law of Moses came, God was doing this, binding everyone to his holy law. Tyre and Sidon were judged. Gaza was judged for kidnapping, the sin of kidnapping.

Babylon was judged for financial plunder. And Sodom was judged for four specific heinous sins, and God gets really specific when judgment has to fall. So what were those sins? Let's look at them quickly. Not usually the ones that we tend to think about when someone brings up the name Sodom, but these are specific heinous sins.

Ezekiel 16 49, behold this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. Isn't it good when the scripture just lays it out? Behold, here's the sin, here's the guilt. She and her daughters had arrogance. That's a sin.

How are we doing in that area? Abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Another translation said, these are the sins of your sister Sodom. Pride, fullness of bread, which means abundance. Abundance of idleness, affluence, an abundance of idleness, indifference to the poor and needy.

They were not serving their nation, were they? Except in driving it downward, they were enemies of God, pulling it downward, pulling it into the path of judgment which did come on them. And so here is very specific scrutiny on the sins of a nation and we have the scriptural record. Behold! Here's the sin of your sister Sodom.

Hey, you guys are like everyone else who's ever lived. Sodom is our sister too. And we can fall into these very same sins. Now, some would argue that Mr. Botkin, we are up to our necks in these sins.

And they would be right. How would God define the greatest sins of the United States of America at this moment in history? I want to say first of all how would Christians do it because that's what that's what faces us right now. How Are we at putting ourselves voluntarily into the examination which God requires? Can we specifically say with God and confess?

In fact, that's what the word means in the Greek, to confess, to say the same thing as God says. Homo Lugeo, we call sin what it is. Can we even do that? How would Christians evaluate the sins and the holiness or the unholiness of the United States of America? I came to Christ Right as America was preparing for their 200th anniversary of independence in 1975, and here, let me just show you a verse that was extraordinarily popular right at that time, and tell you what I remember about it.

Second Chronicles 7, 13 was not the verse, but it precedes it, let's just read it, 13. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, okay, that's a monetary judgment. Or if I send pestilence among my people, if it's a fatal pestilence, that's a pretty terminal judgment. Comma, verse 14. And my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land." So I remember in 1976, in many celebrations about the 200th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, people were saying, oh, America's too young to die.

Some guys were trying to outdo themselves with predictions. Oh, America only has four years to live. America only has three years to live. But when this verse was brought up, the Christians were saying, yeah, right, right, okay. What we have to do, all those wicked people out there have got to repent of their sins.

But we're God's people, we're forgiven, we're fine, we're okay. It's all those pornographers and the homosexuals and the abortionists and all those other people. And they're the ones who've got to repent. Proud Christians are not good at humbling themselves but blaming others. And one problem we've got today is that when we read the scripture, when Americans read the scripture, Is our hermeneutic one of obedience?

Do we see in Scripture, these authoritative words, these are for us to obey. And I run into so many Christians and they don't even see the Bible as an authoritative word for them to obey. This is for my wife Victoria who's with me this morning. I have worked hard with our children as we taught them to read, as she taught them to read, and to study their Bibles and have the disciplines to do it every day and read it. Read this word and look for something to obey today.

Keep reading it until you see something that you can obey. And that was a pattern that they had. We have to learn to obey. The Bible is not just something to give us a little therapeutic buzz and good feeling whenever we need to or want to, and that's how too many Christians are reading the authoritative holy word of God. And they can't do that.

That is, what do you think the Lord thinks about that? It leads to this kind of pride and arrogance to say, when you see a command and an appeal, that's for other people, that's not for us. Yeah, I don't have to obey that. This is a huge problem in America. Now, 10 lessons I'm gonna run through very quickly here with you all about the holiness of nations.

Lesson one is God's people can fall into denial about God's justice and judgment and not even understand it, not even see it. And This is why pastors have told me, look, come on. Come on. God's not going to judge America. Maybe Uganda.

Maybe Lebanon. Maybe Syria for what they're doing. But America, come on, we're the Christian land. In about 600 B.C., the Lord said in vexation in Jeremiah 8, verse 7, I'll just read this, Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times, the turtle in the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the judgment of God. And Americans don't know the judgment of God.

They don't know the justice of God. They don't know how God thinks. They don't know how God sees right and wrong. They don't know how to evaluate what's going on around them. Jeremiah 5-3 says, O Lord, thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved.

And so a monetary judgment may come. Thou hast stricken them in love. The Lord chastens those that he loves and disciplines those that he loves, doesn't he? I mean, we know that. But if we're not looking, and we're not obeying, and if we're not careful, if we're not heeding the voice of the Lord, this will be true.

Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved. Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return. Therefore I said, surely these are poor.

They are foolish. They know not the way of the Lord nor the judgment of their God." This is the Word of God in Jeremiah chapter 5. So Christians are not supposed to be ignorant about the judgment because what's our job? Our job is to disciple the nation so that they can see these things, so that we can go like the Prophet Jonah and say, you all are sinning. You know what's right and wrong, Romans chapter 1, but you're not obeying.

You're not obeying the Lord. We are to teach them to observe everything whatsoever Christ commanded. We're supposed to know the judgment of God. We're supposed to see other nations tremble in the fear of a holy law and then receive the grace and mercy of God. You know, and they won't ever receive that mercy until they tremble before a just and holy law of God.

That's why we need to preach the law and teach the law as the school master that will lead them to Christ. And you know what? That's what led our children to Christ. They could see that they had sin and Sin patterns and sin habits and a sin nature and they needed a Savior Lesson number two judgment begins with God's chosen people. Okay, that's another truth that Americans are very uncomfortable with God warns us first and he has warned us He's clearly warned his people Old Testament and New Testament First Corinthians 10 we won't go over it today but God's very clear with the Corinthians and with us and with us.

I will kill you if you imitate some of the sins of my people, the Jews. Those things were written for your instruction. I killed them. Will you learn from this? These are examples that were written for you.

I might kill 23, 000 of you in one day if you act immorally. These are warnings to Christians. God never violates principles of justice that he wrote, he designed, he created, along with the world. He keeps order in jurisprudence always, exactly according to his covenant. So we can't, we're not ignorant about this.

We have the scripture. We see how the judge of the universe deals with every person, every family, every church. Revelation chapters 2 and 3. We know how God deals with churches and we know how God deals with nations from the scripture. 1 Peter 4.17, how many Christians in your community know this verse?

It is time for the judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? We proud Christians are so quick to blame the laws for national outrages that are happening, instead of looking to ourselves first because God looks to us first, because why? Because we're the leaders. You know, we're disciple makers whether we know it or not or want to be or not.

And most Christians don't want to be. They don't want that responsibility. The one thing we tell the young people in our church, you're disciple makers. You're discipling your friends either in a direction toward holiness to God or away from that. In everything you do, every conversation you have, every word you speak, you're making disciples.

Where are you leading men? Where are we leading nations? The Lord's warnings are clear. Yes, things are going to be really bad. Look at this.

Things are going to be really bad for those who are not in the faith. And God will laugh when their calamity comes on them, he says in Proverbs 1. It's going to be really hard on them, but it's hard on us first. And this is how the Lord has designed the universe. We will get punishment.

We will get harm, and this is a word the Lord uses himself. He will harm us, and he's warned us, and he will visit us with evil. First. We get it first. Do we understand that?

Saints, we're filled with righteous indignation when we hear about a 10 Commandments shrine or monument or plaque that's taken down out of a public place? But what place do those commandments have in our own private homes? To our children, are they commandments, are they suggestions, are they simply a religious ornament? We think, okay, we're Christians, we have the bumper stickers, the coffee mugs, the wrist bracelets, and the plaques. We're good.

Are we teaching our children by our words and examples to love God's authority and justice? To love what He loves and to hate what He hates? Are we teaching our children to hate coveting? To hate lying? To hate idolatry?

To hate dishonor of parents? God really hates these things. These are not suggestions in the 10 Commandments. Christians also say they're disgusted about the militant LGBT attack on marriage. But are our examples as Christian married couples attacking marriage in ways that are even more violent than that?

Even more disrespectful than that? Even more disrespectfully than militant sodomites do? So what's more destructive to marriage and what do our children see close up in our homes? How much American media do we have that's assaulting marriage all the time? How many movies about adultery?

How much real adultery? How much discord? God hates discord in the home. How much lack of love from husbands who are commanded to love their wives in a sacrificial way? Do our children see that?

Or are we destroying marriage in our own homes before the eyes of our children? How much lack of respect from wives? What are we teaching by our lives? Christians murmur about Hollywood, the music industry, destroying the innocence of our children, but then these exist because we fund them with our own money. We carelessly and lavishly sponsor these industries.

We give our children little or no guidance on interacting with this dominating culture and we ourselves allow it into our homes, we allow it onto our children's devices. How many of you parents know exactly what is on your children's listening devices? Do you talk to them about that? Do you know what they're listening to? Do you know what the affections of their souls?

Many of our children learn that sin is something we have license to play with in our homes, because we have such a careless attitude toward it. You know, it's hard to run into young people sometimes. Oh you're Mr. Bodkin. Yeah I don't like your teaching.

You criticize some of my favorite stuff. You criticize my Disney movies that I love. And, you know, and my children hear more of that than I do, because it's a little bit more candid with them. Well, do you know what your children are listening to, what they're cherishing in their hearts? You know this ballad, this satanic ballad anthem from the recent Disney movie Frozen.

It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free. Are your children singing that in the shower? I expect the lost to sing it in the cars next to me at the red light, which they do. It's one of the most popular songs in America and has been since that movie came out.

It's a satanic anthem to rebellion, and our children love it. Do your children love it? Do you know what they cherish in their hearts and want more rebellion and want more reinforcement for what they do? Did you hear those words? It's time to see what I can do to test the limits and break through.

I mean, this is Satan's sermon to Eve, almost word for word. No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free. I'm free from God's authority. That old man says I shouldn't, I'm gonna die if I eat this. Come on, Eve.

It's time for you to test the limits and break through. Are you gonna let him tell you right from wrong? How about you decide and set your own ethical standard? If We are doing this in our country. What does God think about this?

This is the principle of sin that we celebrate. Is it happening in your homes? We say we hate abortion until we need one to make an embarrassment, an embarrassing problem go away. In some cities, Christians are paying for half the abortions. I heard about an abortion clinic just the other day.

They would go out of business if it wasn't for the girls from the Christian college who come every Thursday. We speak in disgust about the decadence of our culture, but what about the decadence of our hearts and the deepest unconfessed affections? And so what does holiness look like on our devices, on our laptops, on our laptop viewing history? Do we believe God sees the sin in Washington and Madison Avenue in Hollywood but he doesn't see the sin in our own homes or our own hearts. The Puritans learned to look in and see and categorize and scrutinize and label it and confess it, and then turn from it.

We gasped with the idea that some people wouldn't value children. But how much do we value our own children? Enough to discipline them biblically? Enough to really know what's going on inside their souls and what the true temptations are? The kind of company they keep?

Is it good company? Is it bad company? Are they being corrupted enough to train them up in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, in the fear and the service of the Lord? Do they know how to serve God? Do they know how to respect him?

Do they know how to reverence him from your own example? Do we love our children enough to train them to master sin by repentance? Do we love them enough to show them how to be pleasing to the Lord? And if we don't discipline them and disciple them, we desire their death just as much as the mommies who kill their children down at the clinic. Proverbs 19, 18 says, discipline your son while there's hope and do not desire his death.

People who don't discipline their children, they're desiring the death of their children, sayeth the scripture. We learned from Paul Washer this week a message he said to dads, many of you are not teaching your children. You might be homeschool dads, but you're simply married really to a homeschool mommy. You're not teaching your sons. You're not educating your children.

You're letting your wife, the homeschool mommy, buy them an adventure suit and a plastic sword, and they are not going to be men. They are soft, and they don't know how to fight real fights. Here's a point from Kevin Swanson. He's reminded us in his book in apostate that many of the West's most devastating enemies of Christianity came out of strong Christian homes because they were not parented in a biblical way. Let's go on.

God's people are warned first. New Testament and Old Testament. Look at this warning, Deuteronomy 30 17, but if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. So if Christ walked through our houses, how would he see? Where is our heart?

The hearts of our family, the hearts of our wife, the hearts of our children. If he listened in on every conversation, where would he think we fell? On the righteousness or wickedness scale, holiness or unholiness? How would he rate the holiness of our camp? Does he seek corruption and filthiness?

Praise God for Nehemiah, who could confess sin. He said, we have acted corruptly toward you. We and our fathers and our grandfathers. And he stated the sins. And the New Testament warns us not to have two standards, the one we judge all those wicked people by, And then a different standard in our own homes.

That exasperates our children when they see that. And it angers the Lord our God. Revelation 2 16, therefore repent. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ Himself speaks to the churches. Or else I am coming to you quickly and will make war against them with a sword of my mouth.

The Lord can do this to our churches, to our families, and to our nation. Every one of the churches in Revelation are gone. Why? Because the Lord had to deal with them because they were beginning to act corruptly and they would not repent. I wish I could tell you the story of Armenia.

One of the first Christian nations in the world lasted almost 1900 years. And what's poignant about it, it was destroyed 100 years ago this year by the sword, by the sword of Islam. And it's chilling because there's photographic evidence of what they do. Following the Mohammedan ways, following the example set in the Hadith by Mohammed. You round up the men, you kill them, you take all their stuff, you take their women, you rape them, you rape them to death.

Those who survive, you kill by genocide. And there's photographic evidence of how this system has worked. And why did the Lord do this to this Christian people? Well, there's stories about the ways that they drifted and compromised. Psalm 94, verse 10.

Compromised. Psalm 94 verse 10, he who chastens the nations will he not rebuke even he who teaches man knowledge he does review This is so serious and your children need to know this. The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are a mere breath. Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord. When we're chastened, it's for our good.

We should welcome it. And whom you teach out of your law. Look at this one. Are you teaching your children out of God's law faithfully? Do they know it?

Ignorance of the law is no excuse when you're a Christian. You've got the word. You've got it in your own language. Proverbs 28 9, he who turns his ear away from listening to the law, even his prayer is an abomination, which is why I'm concerned about these prayer meetings that may be happening on Capitol steps all over America. Are they only making God more angry because we are a people who've turned our ears away from listening to the law?

For 150 years, the pulpits of America have not been honoring the holy law of God and teaching it. Instead, we've been teaching and embracing and passing on these little fun little formulas about how we can get out of and not having to obey the law of God or disciple the nations. Oh his kingdom yeah and his in Christ's kingdom yes of course everyone has to obey his law But that's not here yet. That's just one excuse. Oh, we're under grace, we're not under law.

Don't talk about the law. The Old Testament no longer applies. It's not binding. Just those letters in red in the New Testament. There are authoritative Christian teachers in America who teach these heresies.

What happens if we don't listen to the chastening? It says in Leviticus 26, God still will continue to love us and chasten us, but he'll ratchet up the punishment seven times more, then seven times more, then seven times more, five times until the judgment is terminal. Lesson number three, God hates lip service. Nations can walk right straight into apostasy, but they can turn away from it and they can serve God actively in holy fear and holy reverence. But this means merely, not merely words, but deeds.

God hates lip service. Worshipping him with our lips and not with our hearts. Our hearts are really far from him. Deuteronomy 5 28. The Lord heard the voice of your words.

Moses talking to the people of Israel about the covenant. He said, the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, I've heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you, and they have done well and what they've spoken because they said, okay yes Moses, okay, as long as we don't have to look at the Lord or get too close, you do it but we'll do what he says. And they spoke well when they said that. Look at this next verse. Okay, those were the words of their lips.

Verse 29, oh that they had such a heart in them. This is the Lord God Almighty, the Holy One speaking. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep my commandments always. See how these go together? Fear and keeping of the commandments.

We're expected to do this. Offer the Lord an attitude of reverence and then keep what? His commandments, which are where? In the law, that it may be well with them and their sons forever. Not words, but reverence and service.

Not just words, but fear and obedience. The Christians of the 17th century, like we mentioned before, the Puritans, they really took in hand that voluntary examination which God requires. They listed their own sins carefully. They did something. They turned from those specific sins once they understood that they were guilty of them.

How well could we do? Here's John Owen, an Englishman, 1666, and this is a period of history where both in England and in America, Christians knew how to do this. Now, we were a little bit more serious about it in the colonies. We were more desperate. John Owen says, look at the warnings God hath given us of making us base and dishonorable.

So he knows from Scripture and the law of God. He knows from Isaiah. This is a judgment that comes on people. Our nation is becoming base and dishonorable, and it was. And you know, and the English have not repented sufficiently to this day.

They are a base and dishonorable, un-Christian people now, because they have not repented. Owen goes on to say, look at our atheism and profaneness. Look how specific he's being about the sins. Atheism, profaneness, blood and murder, adultery, uncleanness and pride. When these sins are predominant in a nation that makes profession of the knowledge of God, God himself saith, and we may say that nation is ruined.

Can we say that with him? Do we understand that from scripture? Isaiah 60 12 For the nation and the kingdom which will not serve you will perish and the nations will be utterly ruined. Key word here is serve. How do we serve?

What are the actions that we take to serve so that we're not utterly ruined, so that we don't perish? Lesson number four, God requires all nations to be holy or he must cast them out of the earth. This is simply a truth of scripture that we need to, I was talking to some young people about three weeks ago, and they said, Mr. Botkin, I just don't think Christians understand this at all, that God judges nations. I don't know if anyone's even told American Christians that.

You need to be really careful when you teach this because so many don't even understand this basic truth that God judges nations. And when judgment falls, either blessing or cursing, God always follows due process, okay? Now here, let me explain to you what this due process looks like real quick. God is not arbitrary, he's not capricious, he doesn't hurl lightning bolts, he's not a monarch who just says off with his head if somebody crosses him. He doesn't do this on a whim.

What he does in his procedure is to indict and arraign his people on a charge of treason. If your daughter is singing the satanic anthem in the shower, she's committing treason against God. It's rebellion. He indicts and arraigns his people on a charge of treason very carefully. In the cases God brings before the universe, and where else can he bring them?

He calls the mountains and the sea as witnesses against us. He dedicates a wayward nation to just destruction, promised destruction, casting them out of the world because they are morally offensive and a threat to the faith. They're a threat to the earth. They're a threat to other nations. They're a threat to other people.

That's why he casts them out. That's why he brings them to an end. And God does not neglect doing justice as we neglect doing justice. He's doing justice all the time. He always follows due process.

We won't look today in Micah 6, but it's a really good example of a lawsuit that God brings, and if I use that word, please don't be misled by that. It's not like the lawsuits that the Muslims bring because we're not giving them their welfare money quickly enough. Or that the Sodomites bring just because they want to further destroy marriage. It's a true pleading of justice before a court of law that the Lord himself has set up. The Lord has a case against his people.

It's a lawsuit. And in cases not requiring complete destruction, the suit is laid out in stages to test and correct and reform, compelling the nation to either do justice or receive justice. He compels us to do that, to either do justice ourselves or receive the justice of Him. And it may be terminal, it may be terminal. Leviticus 26, and we can't look at that again today either, but if you look in there and you see those five stages of judgment, study those and see the Lord is gentle with his people who were wayward at the beginning and then it ratchets up.

He visits us to punish us seven times more for our sin because he loves us. When he has a case against us, Jeremiah 2 21, Yet I planted you a choice vine, a completely faithful seed, and when the Lord planted this country, that's how it was planted, a completely faithful seed. How then have you turned yourself before me into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine? We Americans have mutated ourselves into something ugly and monstrous and offensive to God. It's very different from the America that existed even a hundred years ago.

So how God evaluates the spiritual conditions of nations. So back to our thesis here, let's look at the mechanism that he uses, the criteria that he uses to evaluate. There are quite a number of them, but today I'm only going to touch on these two, fear and service. They're the top two. Fear.

He looks for fear. Reverence. And he looks for the service that we're doing. Fear me and keep my commandments. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep my commandments always.

If we are right before a holy God, we reverence a holy God enough to serve Him by honoring His holy law and applying it to bring godly and holy order to the earth. That's how we serve Him. That's how individuals serve Him. This is the Great Commission. We teach all nations to observe and obey all his commandments because we fear and reverence our Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We reverence them. We see the authority of Jesus Christ. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. He's given us this job to serve him by teaching this law to all nations, all nations. Lesson number five, God requires all nations to stand before their God as holy.

Jew and Gentile nations, North American nations, South American nations, and before their neighbors as holy, identifying themselves as holy defenders of a holy law. I mean this is how we serve God. Nations serve God as governing forces in history by establishing God's justice all the way through the society, top to bottom, bottom to top, in every courtroom, in every legislative chamber, in every executive chamber, the justice of God has to be established. God's justice is the primary governing force in history because God intervenes every day to scrutinize and deliver justice and give justice. Blessings or cursings.

America had so many blessings at the beginning. Today we don't. If you read Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26, you can count the chastisements and the curses that are on this country. It's a good exercise to do with your children. Deuteronomy 4 verse 5, here is the duty of nations.

See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me. This is Moses speaking to his people after the giving of the law. That you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say..." See, all the nations around Israel would say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. Verse 7, "...for what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

You know when the King of Sodom, this pagan nation before the coming of the law, prayed to God and said every single person in our country has got to bow before this God. They knew who they were bowing before, verse 8. Or what great nation is that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I'm setting before you today. You know, interestingly in our church, and this is true in your church too, you have young people who are walking in the way of the godless, sitting in the seat of the scornful, and you have some other young people who are really pursuing holiness. How do we encourage the pursuit of holiness among all our young people?

It's hard. You know, one thing that has really helped our young people in our church who are pursuing holiness to the best of their ability is to talk about these statutes and judgments that the Lord has given by asking the question, you know, what's lawful? What's lawful? That war in Iraq, Was that lawful? In Afghanistan, was that lawful?

Asking about issues that are coming up in these presidential debates. What sayeth the word of God? How do we chase that down in Scripture and find the answer? The holiness of God is revealed in His law, and it's just so practical. Psalm 1, how blessed is the man who standeth not in the counsel of the ungodly.

You know, Kevin Swanson's Gen 2 research is showing that a lot of our children are doing that. Standing in the counsel of the ungodly. But the godly, the law of the Lord is their delight. They delight in the law of God. Verse 9, only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen.

They do not depart from your heart all the days of your life, but make them known to your sons and grandson. We continue to teach this to our children. That's what we're supposed to do. Deuteronomy issues clear warnings on national survival. To the wayward and to the morally careless God says this further in Deuteronomy in chapter 28.

It shall come to pass that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you." How can this be in the Bible? It's because the holiness of God cannot be dishonored. That's why. Proverbs 21 verse 15 says, The exercise of justice is joy for the righteous, but is terror to the workers of iniquity. This is why God can rejoice over a nation to destroy them because he's doing justice.

He's not mean, he's just. He's not cruel, he's just. And to get an unrighteous nation out of the world so they don't corrupt others is a very loving thing that he does for us. You know, and if we deserve it as Americans, and by the way, many of you who have not traveled around the world have no idea how much our country is hated by others. And that's one of the judgments of God in Deuteronomy 28.

We will be hated by other nations. And we are hated by other nations for our pride, our arrogance, and many other attitudes that we've made public. Look at this verse again. He who turns his ear from listening to the law, even his prayer is an abomination. We can make God so angry when we turn away from the law and make excuses in our churches and in our families why we don't need to follow it.

Verse 6, I mean, lesson number 6, Our reverence for God is directly demonstrated by our attitude for the law. This may be the most important lesson here. Our reverence for God is directly demonstrated by our attitude toward the law. And if we violate the law, we're in trouble of our own making. Isaiah 5 24, they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One, the word of the Holy One of Israel.

We're spitting on His Holiness. We're spitting in the face of God and on the person of God when we despise his law. Jeremiah 2 verse 17 talks about, this is the warning, this describes the people who turn away. They bring trouble on themselves, I won't read through that whole thing. Chapter 17 verse 10 in Jeremiah says, I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

We bring it on ourselves when we turn our backs on the Lord or throw his word behind our backs to hide it. And so unholiness is one of the painful rewards of lawlessness. Proverbs 13 verse 13 says, The one who despises the word will be in debt to it, but the one who fears the commandment will be rewarded. Okay, again the covenant. If you fear the commandment, you'll be rewarded.

If you despise the word, you'll be in debt to every single command that you violated or ignored. And all of us will be. All of us will be. Our children will be, which is why we've got to read the law of God to them. Lesson seven, traitors are so deceived by sin they don't realize that they are facing a terminal wrath.

Nehemiah 9 says that one thing that they did, they killed the prophets and they threw God's Word behind their backs. I'm going to speed through these very quickly. Again, you can write to me for my notes at western conservatory dot org and I'll be happy to send these to you. America is today arrogantly unresponsive to more than 50 monetary judgments. And you can find these in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26.

We are arrogantly unresponsive. There is not contrition. The Lord is chastening us for our good. He's sending us warnings and signals which presently trouble our culture, our people and our families, and we're not responding. I'm concerned if I could show you, if I had the ability to show you the attitude of the Lord toward this country, Many of your dads would gather your children and your wives right now, even before I finish.

You'd put them in the car and you'd say, honey, plot a course to Mexico or Canada, whichever's closest, because we've got to get out of the way of God's wrath. We can see what the future of America will be like if there is no contrition and no repentance, and there is no contrition in a broad scale, broadly. America is blind to her condition of lawlessness and we're guilty of ingratitude. We're guilty. Now, I can stay afterward and talk to you all because you're going to say, well, Mr.

Botkin, what do you do? Are you driving to Canada this afternoon? No, I'm not. We're trying to disciple, help, train, inspire people to repent and to be grateful to God so that the Lord may visit our country with blessing. Now it may not happen, but we're living and we're trying to teach families where we are in Tennessee to thrive and be blessed by God.

Here's the here's a portion of Scripture that describes the condition of our country right now. It begins by an appeal to us to call upon me. God says call upon me in the day of trouble I shall rescue you and you will honor me. This is what I want for our country. I want to be rescued and I want Christians to honor him and to begin honoring God and his holy law.

The next verse says this though, but to the wicked God says and that's to our country and we have to admit it, we are wicked, we're corrupt. God says what right have you to tell of my statutes and take my covenant in your mouth? To even call yourselves Christians? For you hate discipline, you cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you're pleased with him and you associate with adulterers.

Many Christians do this in America every day, on their phones, binge watching, Netflix. You let your mouth loose and evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son. Our tongues are corrupt.

Verse 21, these things you have done and I kept silent. You thought I was just like you. I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. He's bringing a lawsuit against us. Now consider this you who forget God.

For I will tear you in pieces, there will be none to deliver. But he who offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, and to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God. This is my prayer for this country. But how do we do this? Okay, Mr.

Botkin, how do we order our way aright? We need to be grateful. We need to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. America must order her way of right with holy gratitude, lesson number nine. Here's a quote from John Jay.

He was very grateful for the foundation that we inherited as a country from England. Understanding and appreciating God's justice. I'd like to go into this a lot, but I won't, but he just said, hey, we've got providence. God has given us general liberty and independence because of their understanding of the law. Here's a quote from one of the contemporaries.

Blackstone said, no enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God. How many jurists and politicians have you ever heard say that in our generation? This is courage. This is a picture of courage that we don't have. We are so guilty of ingratitude and lawlessness and cowardice in this country and pride that we don't have to think this way anymore.

You know, we've got smart scientific magistrates in the civil government. We've got a scientific secular government which is better than a biblical government. We don't need this anymore. This is how Americans are thinking. The laws have to conform to the law of God.

Here's another statement. No human laws are of any validity of contrary to God's revealed law. Do we have the courage to say this? This honors God, if we can begin to say this. Our fathers knew this and understood this.

They would say things like in the colonies, in their documents, we all agree that the Scriptures hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men and duties which they are to form to God and to man. They all agreed on that. Where do we stand on this? Where do our presidential candidates, I don't think there's a single one who understands this principle. We all agree that the Scriptures hold for the perfect rule for the direction of government to be ordered by the rules which Scripture holds forth.

This is how to honor God. And it's never legalism but teach the commands of Christ to the nations. Lesson 10, America will not escape the just wrath of a holy God without a proper appreciation for the holiness of God's law. This is where we need to stop today. But we won't escape.

I mean, you look at scripture and we have to face reality. We're in trouble. We deserve the justice of God. Let me just say in closing the final thing. How do we order our way aright?

We have to understand and learn and study, appreciate, memorize, meditate on the law of God like David did. David, if you can just sit down for the next few weeks and read through and study Psalm 119, you'll begin to develop an appreciation for the holiness of God and God's law. How blessed are those whose way is blameless. He understood there's a way of the wicked and a way of the righteous. And he was desperate to walk in the way of the blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

Does your family walk in the law of the Lord? So you can disciple your neighbors and those in your church, The civil magistrates in your county. Verse two, how blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all the heart. You'll read this Psalm and you can begin to see how David did this. They also do know in righteousness, they walk in his ways.

You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently. How many Americans would pray this with David? That we should keep them diligently? Who studies in order to find them out and to keep them diligently? Oh that my ways may be established to keep your statutes elsewhere.

Here he says, my eyes shed streams of water because they do not keep your law. Have we ever shed a tear for that? And for our country, and for our magistrates, our arrogant political candidates who want to be more pragmatic and scientific and secular because that's the way you do it now. That's the way you run a country now. That's why we're in trouble, isn't it?

Oh, then my ways may be established to keep your statutes. Here's a pathway back for us. So I will leave that with you. We have to close now at this point. Read Psalm 119.

Read the other Psalms of David. Pray the Psalms. Pray the imprecatory Psalms against the wicked. We are in trouble. And if we don't begin to do things like the King of Nineveh and call others to repentance, there is no way we will escape.

There's no way we will escape a very harsh judgment of God. We were in New Zealand when the planes hit the Twin Towers, and we heard reports that America was beginning to fall to their knees to repent, and I watched the news as carefully as I could for the next few hours and days. But that attitude and that language lasted only about 48 hours. Some of you will remember that. And then The mood changed.

And there was not contrition. There was not ongoing contrition. What will it take? Well, the Lord knows what it'll take. Leviticus 26 will tell us.

And Sometimes not even the most stern judgments that the Lord brings on a people will get them to turn, and he has to terminate them and wipe them off the face of the earth in love. And he will do that to the United States of America if we don't repent. Let's pray. Repent. Let's pray.

Our Father in Heaven, we have to confess that it's even so hard for us to know how to repent properly, to repent biblically. Yeah, we can be sorry for all the stuff that's going on around us that we don't like and we know you don't like, but how do we repent? How do we establish our ways to keep your statutes diligently? How do we give thanks to you with uprightness of heart as we learn your righteous judgments? And so Lord we pray today please do not forsake us utterly.

Please be gentle with us and patient with us and I pray that we could begin to turn at least our families back. I pray for the grace and wisdom for the parents in this room to be able to gather their children and teach their children what it looks like to repent of sin, personal sin, and how to pray for the sins of our country that are angering, infuriating you, our most holy and righteous Heavenly Father. We need so much help with this. We pray that you can help us. We pray that you would sustain us.

We would pray that we don't make you angry with our prayers because Lord we want to turn our ear back now to listening to your law and studying it, looking at it, listening to your law, studying it more deeply, applying it and so honoring you. Lord rescue us so that we can honor you. Lord, I pray you would rescue us so that we can honor you. Lord, please rescue us so that we can honor you. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray these things.

Amen. Let me give you all really quickly just a quick slide if you want to. Question that comes up, Mr. Botkin, what are you doing about all this? We're hoping to launch early in the new year a website that will help people learn to sort out a lot of these things.

This is a beta site, a site we're trying to build. If you would go to neverbeslaves.com, if you wanted to sign up for updates, just to be notified about the progress of this project, when it will arrive, how to use it. Just enter your email address and we will keep you posted on that. But thank you, there are things we can do. Our family is here in the States.

We're planning to serve as long as we can, as well as we can, teaching and calling the country to repentance to the best of our ability. And we would love to be in touch with all of you to figure out how we can begin to do this better together. Thank you. You can keep up to date on what is new, as well as find articles, videos, audio sermons, and much more at no charge. The N.C.F.I.C.

Exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture for both church and family life.