the basic message # E179
Galatians 4:9
But now that you know God- or rather are known by God- how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?
Americans seem to be equipped with a hair-trigger when it comes to responding to any issue they don’t understand. Snap judgments seem to be the norm in the United States, and the recent fury over removing the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance further emphasizes the point.
For the record, let’s take a moment and look at the timeline of major changes to the Pledge. A Presbyterian pastor preached a sermon in 1952 suggesting that the Pledge should include the words “under God”. That’s right, prior to that era, the Pledge didn’t include “God”. The pastor attempted to get a national movement started to change the Pledge, yet by his own admission, “nothing happened”. In 1953 a congressman filed a bill trying to get “under God” implemented, but according the reports, “action on the bill was slow”. It would seem that America wasn’t overly interested in changing the pledge, so how did it happen? By all indications, it wasn’t until that same pastor preached the sermon a second time that anything began to really materialize. Oh, by the way, that congregation included a visitor by the name of Dwight Eisenhower, who happened to be President at the time. By coincidence, Eisenhower was a staunch Presbyterian, so the pastor’s idea now had the right audience.
I won’t belabor this story any longer, but can you begin to see that our nation operated with a Pledge of Allegiance without mentioning God for 150 years, yet Americans panicked last month when the Federal Appeals Court ruled the phrase unconstitutional? Once again, we’re living in a nation that continues to turn its back on God, yet we want to beat the drum and wave the flag about the Pledge of Allegiance. Here’s something to consider- how often have any of you recited the Pledge in the past 5 years? If I can recall correctly, I’ve said it about 3 times, hardly enough to get God’s attention.
What really matters to God? Is it the posting of the 10 Commandments on courtroom walls? Is it allowing “official” prayer time in schools? Is it including his name on our currency? Quite frankly, when I consider that the bulk of American currency is used for purposes that hinder the Kingdom of God, I would imagine that he is repulsed by the gesture.
Galatians 3:24-25
So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
The passage above obviously doesn’t refer to American law; but we can still draw parallels to the Law of God and the law of America. If we truly are a nation “under God”, then reciting it is redundant. Today I suggest to you that we are a nation that has strayed from God, and chanting “under God, under God, under God” won’t impress God one iota. As long as Christians continue to have abortions, as long a Christians endorse wars that they don’t fully understand and as long as Christians have no compassion for the downtrodden in our society, retaining the words, “under God” doesn’t mean jack.