One of the great benefits of the annual observance of Memorial Day is that it calls the citizens of our country to consider the past. One of the most alarming developments of the last 40 years in our country has been the appalling abandonment of the teaching of the history of our country to those who stand the most to gain from that study. Part of the importance of Memorial Day is its reminder that we do not live in a vacuum. We are not where we are and we are not what we are by some kind of cosmic accident. That which has happened in the past is not separated from what our situation is now. There is a definite link between the past and the present. The gobbledygook of much of public education during the past 40 years has reduced the study of history to a kind of mush. You call it social studies. You mix in large doses of some amorphous thing called multiculturalism and then you sprinkle it with denials of any kind of absolutes in society and what you get is the moral and political relativism that seems to dominate the thinking of so many. Attempts to recall the contributions of our nation's founders, people like George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison, are dismissed as pandering to the pilfering of this continent by white Europeans. Of course, the ultimate target of such attacks is not the white Europeans themselves, but the God they worshipped, and the heritage of the Protestant Reformation that formed the backbone of this nation's enduring institutions. There was a reason why this nation prospered in the face of every conceivable obstacle. It was the blessing of God on a people who understood that the Bible itself furnished the foundation for a morally upright people without which, as President John Adams said, the Constitutional Republic that they had labored to bring into existence could not long endure. Since that generation of our founding fathers, and I think just as a side note, we would certainly be right in saying that God and His providence brought together in that generation a collection of men and minds the like of which has not been seen since. But since that generation of our founding fathers, not all of whom were Christians in the biblical sense of the word, but since that generation the devil has been engaged in a long campaign to obliterate the foundation they laid and to place our nation instead on what is called a secular, religiously neutral platform. Philosophers and political scientists with an axe to grind have admonished us repeatedly in recent years that this, after all, is not a Christian nation, and that the Founding Fathers never intended it to be designated as such. And to help carry their argument, they have perverted the teaching of American history to the point that most school children are now made to feel ashamed that they were ever born in the United States at all. But the words of our text this evening continue to echo down the corridors of time And they remind us that the blessing of God is essential to the welfare of any nation. When God sets His mark on a nation, that nation does have about it a manifest destiny, if you will, to harbor the preaching of the gospel and to provide an environment in which righteousness is the standard of society. When the poison of apostasy infiltrates a country, as it has infiltrated ours, then that standard suffers steady erosion. Wickedness gains equal footing with decency and the whole nation is on the road to disaster. The warning of God's word in Psalm 9 and verse 17 must not be ignored. There in that verse we read the famous words, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. How has our nation survived nearly 228 years now? Why was it not swallowed up in the totalitarian scourge of the 1930s and 40s or the communist waves of the 1940s and 50s? We were reminded yesterday, in remarks by President Bush at the dedication of the National World War II Memorial, that from the standpoint of history, we look back on World War II and we know how it all ended. But that during the time when it was going on, the outcome of the war, especially in its early phases, was in very great doubt. And it appeared for a time that the Axis powers did have the upper hand and that they would prevail. Why was that not the case? It is because of the awareness Again, mentioned yesterday in that dedication ceremony of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, that this nation is true to its national motto. This nation trusts in God, the true God, who is revealed in the Scriptures of truth, and not, as one of the apostates said yesterday, whatever God you pray to. The history of this country should be a blueprint, you would think, for every other people in every other part of the world. The words of our text this evening provide the key for every people in the world to what we rightly call national success. The God this nation has served from the days when the pilgrims traveled across the North Atlantic. And again, we often forget that they did not know the outcome of their venture when they set out upon it. But the God that they served when they set out from all that they knew to establish on the rocky coast as it turned out of New England a struggling outpost. The God that they knew, the God that they served, the God they worshipped on the Mayflower, and when they arrived in the New World, is the God of the Bible. The rest of the world bears one epitaph after another to civilizations that followed some other God. Alexander the Great, the civilization of ancient Greece, one of the golden ages, I suppose you would say, in the history of the world. But the greatness of Alexander the Great collapsed on his death at the age of 33 into competing kingdoms and opened the way for the domination eventually of Roman imperialism. Think of the glories of the ancient Egyptian civilization, transcending centuries, but those glories have long since dissolved into the sands that surround the pyramids. Egypt today is just a shadow of that glory. When the successors of the great King Solomon forgot the source of his prosperity, what happened? they brought the kingdoms of Israel and Judah into the depths of degradation and ultimately to collapse. When a nation turns its back on God, it secures for itself the sentence of doom. On this Memorial Day, it is well for us to ponder the direction in which our nation is headed and to pray that there may yet be a gracious intervention of God in revival. For the direction in which our nation is headed is not a feature of some political campaign. It is a feature of an abandonment of God. Now this text sets before us this evening three clear truths. First, every nation has a God. Can I say that again? Every nation has a God. This text demands just such a conclusion. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. That suggests that there are nations whose God is not the Lord. But it does not suggest that there are nations who have no God. Every nation has a God. Even nations that boast themselves in their secularism And even nations that boast themselves in their atheism have gods. Sometimes they may not be certain as to the identity of their particular god. The Athenians of Paul's day, you may remember, tried to cover all their bases. They had all these altars erected to all these gods, just in case they had overlooked one. They erected an altar to the unknown God. And Paul noted that. And it turned out, as Paul said to them, that the unknown God to whom they had erected that altar was the God they should have been serving exclusively. He said to them, you need to take all these other altars away. You need to worship the God that you call the unknown God. The people of God in Old Testament times were guilty of some of the grossest forms of apostasy and idolatry. They professed to have the Lord as their God, but as the prophets pointed out, the reality was quite different. If you look at Hosea chapter 2. Hosea chapter 2. And verse 11, the Lord said, I will also cause all her mirth to cease, that is, the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts, And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me. And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Balaam, a false god." wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord." Israel in those days had a God, and it was not the Lord. It was Balaam. And what was the Lord's message through the prophet? I am going to bring Israel to account for having Balaam as its God. But sometimes the God of a nation does not have an identity in that sense. Sometimes nations make gods out of other things. And I suggest to you, our nation is guilty of making gods out of other things. Sometimes a nation makes a god out of its own prosperity. It becomes obsessed with its economy, with its economic conditions, instead of with doing that which is right before the God of Heaven. It becomes obsessed with prosperity. Sometimes a nation makes a god out of its territorial ambitions or its supposed superiority. If the Axis powers during the Second World War had had their way, the world would have been plunged under the domination of their visions of their own superiority of master races. Sometimes nations make gods out of entertainment, recreation, pleasure. But let us not miss the truth that whatever the case, each nation has a God. Each nation is serving some God. Now, the question is, who should that God be? Whom should the nation serve? And our text answers that question here. It should be the Lord. It should be Jehovah, the God of the covenant, the God who is manifested in the person of Christ in the New Testament. Christ who said, before Abraham was, I am. The character of Jehovah as a faithful God, as a mighty and powerful God, as an omnipresent God is revealed clearly throughout the Scriptures, but very pointedly in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 7. And let us just look at that passage for just a moment. Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse 6. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth." What's being emphasized there is the Lord's sovereignty. The Lord chose you! That is, Jehovah is in control. The nation that is wise will acknowledge that all of their affairs are under the control of the sovereign God of all the universe. Notice he went on in verse 7 to say, "...the Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people." That is, here the character of Jehovah as the God of love and the God of mercy comes into play. The God of grace. It wasn't because you were something, that the Lord set His love upon you, but as we read in verse 8, but because the Lord loved you. That is, there was no other reason for Him setting His love upon you than that He loved you. And because He would keep the oath which He had sworn unto your fathers, that the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Verse 8 emphasizes the fidelity of God. He keeps His Word. He keeps His oath that He had made to previous generations. Here is the God that each nation should serve. The God Jehovah. And we have to ask the question this evening, in the light of our text, on this Memorial Day, is Jehovah the God? that our nation is serving. Well, it seems that such is not the case, at least if you look at many of the circumstances that surround us today. In fact, it seems that our nation has forgotten the basis on which it was established. That is certainly true in the judicial branch of our national government. It has forgotten the basis on which it was established, certainly true in the judicial branch of the state of Massachusetts. It's certainly true there, in the very place to which the pilgrims came. What a historical irony that in the very place to which the pilgrims came, yea indeed the very place in which they first landed on the tip of Cape Cod at Provincetown, that that place is now A den of sodomy that rivals San Francisco. Not in the size, certainly, but in the character and depth of it. When we were in New England years ago, we met people that we knew when we were touring Boston, and we told them we were planning to go out on Cape Cod, and they urged us very strongly not to go to Provincetown. Not to go to the tip of the Cape. where there is a memorial to the pilgrims and their landing there. It seems that there has been a forgetting of the basis on which our nation was established. It seems that our nation has forgotten the God to whom all the founding fathers paid tribute. Whereas it was true a hundred years ago that the sermons of preachers of the gospel were often published in local newspapers. Nowadays, religion in the press is usually limited to a few cursory remarks about some Eastern religious leader. Well, it's hardly surprising. It was the experience of Israel. In Old Testament times, if you look at Psalm 106, a survey of the history of God's people, Psalm 106, and look at verse 9, He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up. So He led them through the depths as through the wilderness. And He saved them from the hand of Him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies. There was not one of them left. Why, you would think if you had witnessed that, if that had been your experience, if you had passed through the Red Sea as on dry land and you had seen all the enemies covered up, you would think you would never forget that. Or the One who had brought it to pass. We read in verse 12, that on that occasion they believed His words. They sang His praise. Yes, on the seashore there. But what do we read in verse 13? They soon forgot His works. They waited not for His counsel. but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert, and He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul." I say to you, is this not a description of the experience of our nation? Is it not? Our nation was the recipient of untold blessings of God. It was just just had occasion recently to be watching a dramatization of the bitterness and the depths of the winter that the Continental Army spent at Valley Forge. The winter of 1777 and 1778. And a lot of times the whole experience is romanticized and People think of the snow and how nice it looks and all of that, but that was the low point. And in fact, there were serious thoughts given to whether or not the Continental Army under General Washington should surrender, should seek terms from the British. And in those days, the War for independence as it came to be called. Hung by a thread. We know how it came out. But if you had lived in those days, if you particularly were part of that army, you would have had to wonder what was going to happen. But what happened? God blessed the stand that they made for liberty. And so they had occasion to rejoice in these blessings of God. But over time, though God blessed them again and again, over time they forgot God. Or they substituted for Him other gods. And there is the great danger the text envisions. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Every nation has a God. What of those nations who forsake the true God and substitute another God. Well, that brings us to the second thing that we find from our text, and that is that the nation's God dictates its policies. Here is the link between the choice of a God to serve and the outcome of that choice. When a nation has the Lord for its God, then its policy decisions are going to be governed according to the wise standards of His law. Now that is not to say the nation will be a theocracy. That's always the red herring that's thrown out in these days. Oh, these Christians, they just want the nation to be a theocracy. It's not to say that the nation will be governed by a totalitarian regime, but it is to say that the nation has a foundation in the upright laws of God, and when the nation has observed that foundation, it has prospered. They are laws that do not contradict the plainly revealed Word and will of God. What do we find? Not only in the United States, but sadly all across the Western world in our time. There's been so much talk in this year about our alliances with those with whom we fought the Second World War. But if you look across those nations that were allied with us, What do you find? You find in each case the clear result of abandoning the Word of God and choosing policies that are dictated by false gods. And the tragedy of it is, it has happened largely in the last 75 years. The fruits of the Protestant Reformation have been under attack since the days of the Reformation, but in the last 75 years the attacks have been finding their mark, and the fruits of the Reformation have been rotting in the assault. And you have no farther to look for an example than Holland, the Netherlands. As recently as 40 years ago, When I was a boy and our family visited the Netherlands in the spring of 1960, actually 44 years ago now, as recently as that time, Holland was a model of Protestant prosperity. But what do we find there now? The land that gave us the Senate of Dort, that stood firm for the truth of Reformation theology, that land is now the center of euthanasia in Europe. If you want to kill yourself, and you can't find somebody to help you do it in your own country, you go to Holland. Euthanasia has been legalized. Of course, they said it would only be for those who were terminal, but that's long been jettisoned. Now there are people in Holland who do not suffer from any terminal illness and they just want to end it all and want some doctor to help them do it. Holland has become a haven for drug use. The city of Amsterdam, which was once a model city in the world, is now a den of iniquity. It's a haven for drug use, abortion, sodomy, everything that is wicked and vile. That in a land that even 50 years ago, 60 years ago, in the wake of the Second World War, in a land that was a model of industry. It was striking, and I still remember to this day, visiting the port city in the Netherlands called Rotterdam, a city that had been completely destroyed during Allied bombing raids in the Second World War. But in 1960, just 15 years after the war ended, it had been rebuilt. And that was a testimony to the virtue and industry of the Dutch people, to their Protestant ethic. has been lost because the nation that chooses a false god will find its policy decisions influenced by that choice. What about England? The land of Spurgeon. I often think of England. In late 19th century London, Spurgeon preached every week to thousands of people. sometimes as many as 10,000 at one time. What do you find in England now? A completely pagan society. In fact, in England now, the latest figures that I heard indicate that less, or fewer than, however you say it, 2% of the people, all the people, Less than 2% attend any religious institution of any description. It's no wonder that England is a land of darkness. It's no wonder that there is vileness on every hand. If you think American cities are wicked, and they certainly have their share, you would be appalled to walk down the streets of London and see the things that you see there right out in plain view or to watch their television program. The humanism of our time, the worship of man, that's the God that's been set up and that's the result of the policies nations have chosen in allegiance to the gods they have chosen to serve. And the third thing that we find in our text is that the nation's policies bring divine consequences. There are results to the choices made by a nation. Those who follow the Lord know the blessing of God. If you turn to Psalm 144 and verse 15, it is set out very, very plainly for us. Psalm 144 and verse 15. Happy is that people that is in such a case, yea, happy. is that people whose God is the Lord. That's the meaning of this blessedness. It is happiness. It is contentment. It is delight. It is rejoicing. The people who have the Lord as their God, they are happy. That blessing was underlined by Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 33. Deuteronomy 33. Farewell, as it were, to the people of Israel. Deuteronomy 33 and verse 29. Happy art thou, O Israel. Who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency? And thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places." It was to be the blessing of God because the Lord was their God. They were happy and they would prosper even in war. They are enemies. would be forced to submit to them. So when the nation follows Jehovah, when the Lord is the nation's God, then there is great blessing. But you know the text also leaves the unmistakable conclusion that the failure to do that leads to disaster. If the nation whose God is the Lord is blessed, what of the nation whose God is not the Lord? The nations that forgot God in the past have been turned into hell. A study of the history of civilization is a study in nations that have come and gone. They flex their power for a time, but they are long since gone. Mention the name Caesar Augustus nowadays. And you might get people who connect him with the story of the birth of Jesus in Luke chapter 2. But Caesar Augustus was in many ways the greatest ruler, humanly speaking, that there has ever been in all of human history. He had a political genius, a military genius, a social genius that he put to work in organizing the imperial structure of Rome, and he ruled over a vast area, and in his days there was peace in the earth. But Caesar Augustus is long since dead. More than 2,000 years have passed since he died. And the civilization that he helped to create long since crumbled into dust. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 3. Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 20. Surely as a wife treacherously departed from her husband So have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD. A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel, for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God." I can't help but think that is a word for our country. But you know there is a great word there in the verse that follows it. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of mountains. That is where the false gods were thought to reside. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. And that I tell you on this Memorial Day is the hope for this nation. This nation has a glorious heritage. This nation has been the source of greater blessing to the world than any other nation in all of history. From this nation Missionaries have gone forth to all the corners of the globe with the gospel. The missionary movement began in England in the 19th century, but England never had the financial power, the financial wherewithal, or the sheer numbers of people that could be put into the field. But this nation, under the blessing of God, had those resources and has used them. And God has blessed this nation's testimony. Oh, that this nation would in these days come back to its glorious heritage. As long as judgment has not gone out, there is cause for us to pray that God would yet revive His work. We believe that God has raised up our denomination in this land for such a time as this. God is raising up men, preachers of the old-fashioned gospel, the way of the cross. He is providing the wherewithal, the men, to train them and prepare them to go into the field. Oh, there is time yet. for our nation to learn again the secret of national success. That the great victory that was won in the Second World War, now memorialized so fittingly in that memorial in Washington, would not become, as it were, a postscript to the rest of history. That the nation that won such a triumph found itself unable to consolidate the victory and ended up losing everything. Let us pray that in our day God would revive our nation and bring it back to this blessing of which we read in our text. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.