INDEPENDENCE DAY
DR. JIM DIXON
PSALM 33:12
JULY 5, 1992
Thomas Payne was born in England in the year 1737. He was reared in poverty. When he was a young man, he fell in love. He was married. Tragically, his wife died suddenly of a very serious illness. He was devastated. Years passed, and he fell in love again, and he was married again. But this time the marriage just didn’t seem to work and Thomas Payne was divorced and devastated again. Life didn’t seem so good. But then one day in the city of London, Thomas Payne met Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Franklin invited Thomas Payne to come over to the American colonies to live there. This Thomas Payne did in 1774. He became the spark that ignited the War of Independence, the spark that ignited the Colonial Americans in the Revolutionary War. He wrote the pamphlet called Common Sense, which articulated so clearly the grievances of Colonial America.
George Washington made the pamphlets of Thomas Payne, required reading for all of his troops at Valley Forge. Of course, ultimately when the War of Independence was over, when the Revolutionary War was concluded and when this nation was born, Thomas Payne became a kind of hero and patriot in the eyes of the people. But in the ensuing years, Thomas Payne grew bored living in a nation at peace. So in the year 1791, he made his way to England where he wrote that famous pamphlet called The Rights of Men. He was banished from England. He made his way to France in 1792. There in France, he was welcomed and he became a citizen. He was honored. He began to participate in the French Revolution, which was already well underway, but somehow he alienated the wrong people. Thomas Payne was placed in the Bastille and he was marked for death. Through some strange mistake, they mislabeled his prison cell and he was not executed. During the 10 months that he was in prison, he wrote a book called The Age of Reason. That book influenced many people in the world and caused Thomas Payne a great deal of suffering. That book was called the Atheist Bible.
Thomas Payne, at that time at least, was not really an atheist. In fact, in the book The Age of Reason, as he began the book, he said, “I believe in one God and in one God only, and I hope for happiness in the life to come.” But as people read that book, they soon understood that Thomas Payne didn’t really have any regard for God. He viewed God as very distant and having nothing to do with mankind. He believed that mankind needed to be its own savior, and he believed that human societies should not be governed by the laws of God, but by human reason. Thomas Payne considered himself to be a child of the Enlightenment, and he was really one of the founders of secular humanism, or what is called secular humanism in the world today.
The writings of Thomas Payne greatly influenced people all over the world and also in early America. His writing greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson and greatly influenced Benjamin Franklin. His writings greatly influenced John Adams, and it was Thomas Jefferson who in 1802 invited Thomas Payne to come back to the United States. In 1806 it was John Adams, who had been the second president of the United States, who remarked that there was no man in the world in the past 30 years who had more influenced the affairs of the world than Thomas Payne.
Thomas Payne died in 1809, and he regretted that he had ever written The Age of Reason. Indeed, on his death bed as he was dying he said, and I quote, “I would give worlds if I had them, that The Age of Reason had not been published. Oh God, what have I done to suffer so much? But then there is no God. Yet, if there should be a God, what will become of me hereafter. Stay with me for God’s sake. Send me a child even to stay with me, for it is hell to be alone. If ever the devil had an agent, I have been that one.”
I think, generally speaking, we tend to assume that this nation was conceived in light and corrupted by subsequent generations. I think generally we assume that the United States of America was born in purity and corrupted by decades of decadence. We tend to assume that most of our founders, almost all of our founders, were believing Christians. Yet in reality, that is not so. Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian. Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian. John Adams was not a Christian.
Now, Christianity has tried to sweep these people into the broader scope of the kingdom because they were great men and they accomplished great things. But you see, by their own testimonies, they did not really believe in Jesus Christ. They held many views that are similar to what today is called secular humanism. I think what God wants us to understand is this: that when our nation was born, darkness and light was already mixed. This nation was not born in absolute purity. When our nation was born, darkness and light was already mixed and the forces of Christ and antichrist were already engaged in a great struggle. One of the great things about this nation, one of the great things about the United States of America, is that as our founders so structured it, we are free to enter into that struggle. This is a country where each and every one of us have freedom to enter into this struggle between light and darkness, between Christ and Antichrist. If you’re a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have been commanded to engage yourself in this struggle to serve Christ, to serve the light.
If it seems to you that darkness is winning in our nation, I think God would have us to understand that part of the reason for that is the silence of His people. You see, one of the great flaws of contemporary evangelicalism is the sheer selfishness of it all. So many evangelicals just say, “Well, Jesus died for me. Jesus rose for me. Jesus lives for me. Jesus is coming again for me. In the meantime, I just hope Jesus blesses me.” That’s a very shallow understanding of the true gospel. If you really believe in Jesus Christ, if you believe in Him as Lord of life, if you believe in Him as Son of God, if you’ve embraced Him as Savior, then you’ve been called into ministry, you’ve been called into service, you’ve been saved for a purpose. The will of God is that you’d be salt on the earth, light in the world. God wants you to enter into this great struggle internally that you would seek to become more and more like Christ and externally that you would seek to make this country a better place.
You see, if you look at this nation and you are concerned because the sanctity of human life seems to be devalued; if you look at our country and you are concerned because gross sexual behavior is now being called natural; if you look at this nation and you are appalled because promiscuity seems to be accepted and even encouraged by contemporary culture; if you look at our country and you are concerned because our inner cities seem to be just riddled with poverty and hate; if you look at our country and you are concerned because pornography has become a multi-billion dollar business, and you know that more pornography is produced here than anywhere else in the world; if you look at our country and you’re concerned because of the incomprehensible problem with drugs; if you look at our country and you’re concerned because of the materialism that is so rampant in the middle and upper classes and the poverty of spirit that is there; if you look at our country and you are concerned because you see that God and even a simple prayer is somehow being ruled out of bounds in public education; if you look at our country and you see that there are millions of people from all classes, from every socioeconomic group that just feel unloved here in America, millions of people who are hurting and suffering and millions of people who are struggling to find out what life is about and who long for eternal life; if you look at our nation and you see all of this and you do nothing, though you call yourself Christian, you are not salt and you are not light and you have acquiesced to the darkness and you are not part of the solution but part of the problem.
You see, God has called His people into action. If you say, “Well, you know, my faith, it’s a very personal thing and I just want to keep it to myself.” That’s a luxury God wants you to know you can’t afford and His kingdom can’t afford. The kingdom of Jesus Christ was purchased on a cross. Through two millennia, millions of Christians have given their lives that you might hear the gospel today. This is a commission given to us that we might now go forth in the world inviting men and women everywhere to believe in Jesus Christ, to receive Him as Lord and Savior, and seeking to make this world and this country a better place.
On this 4th of July, I know that God would call His people to be doers of the word and not hearers only. I know that He would call us into ministry, into service, into action. If you accept this call, this commission, and you want to go forth in the world as an ambassador for Christ, empowered by the Spirit, seeking to make at least your little corner of the world a better place, then God would have you to understand just a couple of things. He would have all of us to understand this: first of all, we must practice what we preach. If we’re going to go forth into this country and seek to serve Jesus Christ, we must be men and women who practice what we preach. We must be genuine.
I want to tell you a little story from history, a little story from American history. It’s a story that is little known and I’m pretty certain will remain little known. It’s a story about a man whose name is Robert Gibbon Johnson. Robert Gibbon Johnson, in the year 1820, 44 years after the birth of our nation, stood on the steps of the Salem County Courthouse in New Jersey. He stunned a great crowd of people. He stunned them by eating a tomato in front of them. Now, you might think, “Well, it’s a little strange. Why would that stun so many people that he would eat a tomato?” But you need to understand that in 1820, 44 years after the birth of our nation, at that time, no one in America had ever eaten a tomato. Now, tomatoes were in America and they were considered ornamental fruit. They were called love apples, but they were considered to be extremely poisonous. It was believed that if anyone ate a tomato, they would die. But you see, Spanish missionaries had taken tomatoes down to South America and people down there began to eat them. This man, Robert Gibbon Johnson, had been to South America and he had tried tomatoes and he liked them.
So he stood on the steps of the Salem County Courthouse in 1820, and he told the people they could eat tomatoes. They were amazed. Then he took a tomato and ate it, and they stood there waiting for him to die, and he didn’t die. That changed something about this country. I mean, that really changed something about this country. Everybody began to eat tomatoes, so that today the United States of America produces more tomatoes than any other nation on Earth, nine million tons of tomatoes annually. Think about it. I mean, if we didn’t have the tomato in this world, I mean, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy pizza, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy spaghetti, and hamburgers wouldn’t seem quite so juicy or salads so good.
Now you might think, “Well, you know, what does all this have to do with anything?” But you’ve got to admit, it’s kind of a cute story. But really, if Robert Gibbon Johnson in 1820 had stood on those steps and he’d just given a lecture on tomatoes, but not eaten a tomato—if he didn’t practice what he preached, if he didn’t do what he was asking them to do—it wouldn’t have impacted anybody. If he had just given them a lecture on tomatoes, nobody would’ve started eating tomatoes. He changed them because he did the very thing that he was asking them to do.
God wants us to understand as He sends us forth in this world with something to share, far more valuable than tomatoes. God wants us to understand that we must live as we would hope others would live. I mean, if we want people to affirm Judeo-Christian values, then they need to see that we live by Judeo-Christian values. If we want people to honor the Word of God, people need to see that we honor the Word of God and we submit to it. If we want them to affirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ and fall in love with Him, then they need to see that Christ is supreme in our life and we love Him. Our ministry needs to be genuine if we would go forth.
There’s a second thing, a final thing that I think God would have us to understand this morning if we would accept this commission to go forth as salt and light and enter into this great struggle. It’s a message that concerns love. If we would go forth, we must not only go forth as genuine people who practice what they preach, but we must be in love with God and in love with people. Everything we say and do must be bathed in love. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples; if you love.” The power of the Holy Spirit will never be fully upon us unless we love.
Now, Barb and I and the kids just came back from vacation and we just returned from Hawaii. We have a little jet lag. I’m sure you feel really bad for us. When we were in Hawaii, we stayed at the home of some friends. It’s in Princeville on the island of Kauai near Hanalei Bay. One day we walked to a grocery store there in Princeville. It’s a little grocery store where you can spend three times as much as you would normally spend for anything. When we were there, our daughter Heather and a friend of hers who went with her, went into the grocery store and they got a couple of ice cream bars. They went outside the grocery store and they sat on the wall and they ate their ice cream bar as they were sitting on the wall. They just were talking to each other having a good time. When Barb and I came out of the grocery store, they saw us and they quit talking and started to leave and they left the wrappers there on the wall (which they shouldn’t have done) instead of throwing the wrappers in the trash.
Well, a woman who worked in the grocery store saw this and she became very angry and she ran up to them and she just started shouting at them. She started using really abusive language and she started using really gross words and it seemed very much extreme, and she just chastised them and she reamed them. Heather and her friend were very contrite, and they said, “We’re sorry. We know we made a mistake and we did it inadvertently, unintentionally. We’ll try not to do it again.” But this woman was just really enraged. Well, I saw this and I went up to the woman and introduced myself as Heather’s father, and she became very angry with me that I could have a daughter like this.
She began to kind of kind of chew me out and reamed me. I started out pretty good. I mean, when I started out talking to her, I told her that the girls hadn’t meant to do it and that they usually do put their trash in the trash can. But they had done it inadvertently, absent-mindedly, and I’m sure that they would do better in the future. I told her I appreciated her concern for the environment and concern about pollution. And she just began to use the same foul language with me. She used the S word and the F word and all that and asked me where I was from. I said, “Colorado.” She began to just blast Colorado. Somewhere in there, I just kind of lost it. I said, “You know, there’s all kinds of pollution in the world and one kind is the kind of stuff that’s coming out of your mouth.” Then I told her that if she cared about people half as much as she cared about the environment, maybe she would’ve treated my daughter a little better. She went ballistic. She went ballistic. She wound up just stomping away telling me that Hawaii was going to leave the United States of America.
Now I realized when it was all done that it hadn’t gone too well. As Barb and I were walking home and the girls were kind of walking on their own, I felt really bad because I knew I really hadn’t done any good. I think part of the reason I felt so bad was because I knew my heart hadn’t been right. You see, when I went up to that woman, I didn’t really love her. I mean, I didn’t even really care about her. I was so mad at her for the way she had treated my daughter. Even though I started out kind of diplomatically, still in my heart, I didn’t feel any concern for her. I really didn’t. She was obviously a very hurting woman, but I didn’t love her or care about her. I just wanted to, you know, tell her off. Even though maybe my words were okay in the beginning, people see more than words. I mean, they tend to see your heart and what you’re really feeling. I felt, you know, I was convicted myself afterwards that I hadn’t had love for her.
Who knows what the Holy Spirit might have been able to do if she could see in my eyes and on my face that I cared about her, that I really cared. Who knows what the Holy Spirit might have been able to do through me, and I might have been able to introduce her to the Lord. God wants us to understand if there’s not love, there’s not ministry. There’s so many things in this world that can make us angry. So many people in this world can make us angry. It’s a fallen world. But see, God’s word to us is that unless we love, His power is never going to be released in ministry. “If you speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, you are a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If you have prophetic powers, you understand all knowledge and all mysteries, you have all faith so as to remove mountains, but you have not love, you’re nothing. If you give away everything that you have and deliver your body to be burned but have not love you, accomplish nothing.”
So God sends us forth, representatives of the kingdom of His Son, seeking to make the nation we live in a better place. He sends us forth as salt and light. He wants us to be genuine and He wants us to be loving. “If My people,” the Bible says, “who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked way, I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.” “Blessed is the nation,” the Bible says, “whose God is the Lord.”
If you love this nation, if you care about it, be doers of the word. Realize that you’ve been saved for a purpose. You’ve been called into ministry. This church, Cherry Hills Community Church, is simply meant to be a respite, a place where active believers can come and find a little rest, find a little encouragement, receive some instruction and exhortation, and then go forth in power. The ministry is yours. You live on the cutting edge of the gospel where the Kingdom of Christ meets the kingdoms of this world. You represent Christ. He calls us to be faithful. Let’s close with a word of prayer.