OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE
DR. JIM DIXON
DANIEL 5
JULY 4, 1993
Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry said, “We cannot stress enough that this great nation is founded not on religionists, not by religionists, but by Christians. It was founded not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.” It was President Woodrow Wilson who said “America was born a Christian nation.” Now, there’s a lot of people today who would debate those statements, but nobody can deny that America has a great Christian heritage. That heritage has shaped our nation’s thought and action. This morning I would like us to examine three prominent beliefs in America that are based on our Christian heritage. The first has to do with work.
Historically, America has believed in hard work. That work ethic came from our Christian heritage. Now, I know most of you have heard of the Puritans. The pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were Puritans. It was the Puritans who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans also founded colonies in Rhode Island and Virginia. The Puritans established Harvard and Yale. The Puritan movement began in England in the 1500s. These were men and women who were seeking to purify the Church of England, but they grew weary. In fact, many of the Puritans decided that it was an impossible task to purify the Church of England. They were tired of being salt in a garbage can. So they became part of the separatist movement. They pulled out of the Church of England. Many of them came over here to the United States of America. Now, the Puritans have been misjudged in past generations. When prohibition took place here in America and the Temperance Movement, many said that that was an outgrowth of early Puritanism, but that is not historically accurate because, you see, the Puritans would not have advocated prohibition, and they only believed in temperance in the sense of moderation. The Puritans were not nearly so conservative as some historians have painted them, but they did believe in the authority of Holy Scripture, and they did believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.
They brought to this nation a strong work ethic. The Puritans believed that work was intrinsically good. The Puritans did not view work as a means to an end, as many people view work today. But they viewed work as a kind of end in and of itself. They understood biblically that we have a working God, and they understood that God created a working people and God said till the earth and subdue it, and they viewed work as part of their stewardship unto God. They viewed work as an opportunity to serve God, an opportunity to serve people.
Now, something happened in this country, particularly in the 1960s when there was a kind of sociopolitical revolution, an ideological revolution, anti-establishment movement, a counterculture movement in the 1960s in America. A lot of people, particularly a lot of young people, just bailed out. They bailed out. In the 1970s, they came back. They came back to work, and they joined the establishment. But the establishment was never the same, would never be the same. They had a whole different view of work. They viewed work not as an end in and of itself, but work as a means to an end. They decided that they were going to get what they could while they could. So they viewed work primarily as a means to attain materialistic goals, hedonistic desires, and even ascensionistic pursuits. Work became a kind of necessary evil, something that you didn’t necessarily want to do but you had to do in order to attain the things you wanted.
Now, that view of work was not unknown in prior centuries, and I think for all of us we’d have to say there’s times we feel like work is a sort of necessary evil. Certainly, we don’t want to work without compensation. I mean, I think all of us want to work for pay. But the reality is that the Puritans believed that work was virtuous in and of itself, and they brought great dignity to their work. They believed that the dignity of men and women was bound up in the activity of work, and they viewed their work as to the Lord.
Time Magazine has recently printed a cover story on the loss of the work ethic in America. Chuck Colson has recently written a book called Why America Doesn’t Work. In that book, and also in Time Magazine, it was suggested that in the last 20 to 30 years, America has produced shoddy products that have failed in world markets. It’s been said that America has seen increased corruption in both business and government. It’s been said that millions of people now in America are in prison or on welfare, and children are graduating without the basic skills to find jobs. All of this reflects a decline in the Puritan work ethic upon which this nation was founded. I think all of us have experienced questionable workmanship in trying to get things done or trying to get things repaired.
I know when our house was being built, Barb and I were so excited. This was, I guess about eight years ago. Every day when the house was being built, we would go over there and see what they had done new. Of course, they were building all kinds of homes in our neighborhood, but we knew which home we’d bought, and that’s the one we wanted to see. I remember the day they poured our basement and we went over there and we were stunned when we looked down into the basement and we saw what looked like gopher tunnels running underneath the cement that they had just poured. It turns out that the pipe that had been put down under the basement, the pipe work wasn’t completely done and it hadn’t been buried. The cement people came and they said, “Well, you know, this is our day to pour cement” and so they just did it anyway, poured it right over the pipe.
Of course, we went to the foreman and the foreman, said, “Well, we’ll have to jackhammer the whole thing up and report it.” We said, “Well, surely the workers knew that.” He said they did know that, but they knew they contractually were supposed to pour cement that day. They knew they’d get paid for it. Even whether the job was good or not, they’d get paid for it. Then, when they had to jack hammer it out, they’d get paid again. When they pour it, they get paid again.
Now, I can tell you, the Puritans would not have viewed that as acceptable. You know, yesterday we got a phone call from an insurance company. You know how so many people are trying to do business over the phone these days. We had a phone call. Barb answered the phone, a phone call from somebody wanting to sell us new car insurance. Barb said, “Well, you know, we’re happy with the car insurance we have, and thanks but no thanks. They said, “Well, now wait a minute. A couple of months ago we called and talked to your husband and he said that he was very interested in this and he wanted us to call back and give him a quote.” Well, Barb just knew that wasn’t true and hung up. Then she came and asked me and it wasn’t true. I mean, they hadn’t talked to me at all, hadn’t asked me anything about insurance, and I’d never given them any permission like that. But you see people lie. I mean, they’ll just lie to you.
What kind of a work ethic does that reflect? How are they viewing work? They’re viewing work simply as a means to an end, and the end is money. They’ll do almost anything to get to that end. That is absolutely diametrically opposed to the Puritan Protestant work ethic upon which this nation was founded, where there was dignity in work, and you viewed your work as under the Lord. If your work was honorable work, whatever it was, you viewed your boss as God. You are working first and foremost for Him. That’s the kind of people God is looking for today in this country or any country, people who will work as unto Him.
Now, there’s a second belief that our Christian heritage has brought to our country, and that is a belief in a transcendent God. When we look at our nation’s history, and we see that men and women have not only believed in the dignity of work and its intrinsic value, but they have believed in a transcendent God. This has come from our Christian heritage. A transcendent God means a God who is filled with glory, a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, a God who inspires a holy fear. That’s the kind of faith that the early Christians brought to this nation.
You’ve all heard of the Quakers. Of course, William Penn in 1682 founded the Pennsylvania colony, and that was a Quaker colony. William Penn was a Quaker. William Penn was not the first Quaker. George Fox was the first Quaker. He founded the Society of Friends. George Fox didn’t call himself a Quaker, he didn’t call his followers Quakers. It was others who called them Quakers. In fact, the first time that anyone was called a Quaker was in a English courtroom where George Fox was brought to court because the Quakers were being persecuted by the Church of England. In the midst of that deliberation in that courtroom, George Fox said to the English judge, he said, “You need to tremble before the inspired Word of God.” The judge laughed and called him a Quaker because he believed in trembling before God and the name stuck. They all began to be called Quakers because they trembled before God.
We could afford to be a nation with a little more trembling. We could afford to be a nation where there was a little more quaking before God. This belief in a transcendent God, who inspired holy fear, was not unique to the Quakers. This view of God was advocated by the Puritans and the Huguenots and the Catholics that settled in Maryland. The belief that God is transcendent. Of course today, many people view God as kind of unnecessary. If work is a necessary evil, God is kind of an unnecessary good, kind of nice, but not very necessary.
Anthropologists and paleontologists tell us that we no longer need God to explain the existence of men. Cosmologists and astronomers tell us we no longer need God to explain the stars and galactic systems. The psychologists tell us that belief in God is not necessary for emotional and mental health. Sociologists tell us that the worship of God is not necessary for the creation of the great society. Of course, today moralists tell us that we don’t need God to tell us what is right and what is wrong. We can figure that out for ourself. So we live in a nation where most people feel like God just isn’t necessary, isn’t necessary, and how we need again to understand the power and awesomeness of God.
You know, I think perhaps the greatest tragedy of the time in which we live is that the glory has departed. Seems to me, you know, some of you I’m sure have read 1 Samuel, chapter 4 and you remember how Eli, the prophet of God, dropped dead when he heard the news that the armies of Israel had been defeated by the Philippines and he had lost his two sons. The Ark of the Covenant had been taken, seized by the Philippines, and the Ark of the Covenant was no longer in Israel at that very moment. Eli’s daughter-in-law had just given birth. When the news came to her, she died as well, but not before she named her child. She named her son Ichabod, which means “the glory has departed.” The reason she named him Ichabod and the reason she thought the glory had departed and the reason Israel thought the glory had departed was because the Ark of the Covenant had been seized by the Philistines, and the Ark of the Covenant was no longer in Israel. You see, for the Jews, the Ark of the Covenant represented the very presence of God, the Shekinah glory, the awesome power of God which attended the ark. It was a time of sadness in Israel. The glory had departed.
Sometimes, I must confess, it feels like the glory has departed a little bit here in America and more tragically even in the church. Even in the church of Jesus Christ. I mean, you know, many of you believe in Jesus Christ. That’s why you’re here today. You love Christ as Lord and Savior. There was a point in your life when you invited Him to come and live within you. You invited Jesus to be your Savior and Lord and you love Him and you’re aware of His love for you, and you’re aware of His mercy and you’re aware of His grace. All of that is wonderful. But if you had really worshiped God, you need also to be aware of the fact that God is holy. God is utterly just, and He is omnipotent. And one day He will judge the world. I mean, Jesus Christ wants to be more than a friend to us, but He would also have us understand He is Son of God and all judgment is given to Him. When we come to God and we come and worship, there needs to be an awe and a reverence, as we saw in our passage of scripture for today. True worship requires reverential awe as we come before a holy omnipotent God. We need to be aware of his glory.
Frederick Nietzsche, which is more properly pronounced Frederick Nietzsche, more than a hundred years ago, predicted that in the 20th century would see the death of God. Nietzsche didn’t mean that God would cease to exist. What he meant was that men and women would no longer need God. Men and women would no longer focus on God and that men and women would begin to worship self, worship self.
You know, in Romans, chapter 1, it speaks of humankind as having exchanged the glory of God and worshiping the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. I think that is what’s happening in America today. We’re kind of worshiping the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
Robert Bella, an imminent secular sociologist, asked people all over this country what they expected to get out of marriage. They said “personal development.” He asked them what they expected to get out of work, and they said “personal advancement.” He asked them what they expected to get out of church and they said, “personal fulfillment.” All those answers at first glance don’t seem so bad. Yet when you think about it, they’re all directed at itself. That’s kind of what we’re experiencing in America today, what amounts to the worship of self. I mean, everyone just living life, not seeking to honor a transcendent God, but living life seeking simply to serve self. We really do need to pray for revival in our country.
I know in the early days of America with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, there was the great awakening and how we need an awakening today. There was a third belief that came to this country through our Christian heritage. A belief in hard work, a belief in a transcendent God, and then finally a belief in Judeo-Christian values. There’s no denying that the founders of this nation believed in Judeo-Christian values, values that came from the Old and New Testament.
Now, Allan Bloom wrote that book, The Closing of the American Mind. I think some of you read that book. It’s a secular book in there. Allan Bloom expressed some alarm when he said one thing every professor at every university in America knows to be absolutely true today is that virtually every incoming freshman views values as relative and believes there is no absolute truth. What a tragedy. How did that happen when those who established this nation of beliefs so strongly in the moral and ethical absolutes contained in the Bible? Now it’s not just the Puritans and the Huguenots and the Catholics and the Quakers that believed in Judeo-Christian values. Even those early Americans who were not explicitly Christian, they also believed in Judeo-Christian values. The values contained in the Bible and believed they were foundational to American society.
Fifty-five people signed the Declaration of Independence. I have said before, any thorough study of the lives of those 55 men would reveal that 52 of them were evangelical Christians. 52 of them believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The three who were not Christians were very prominent. Those three who were not Christians were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Now, I know there’s some of you perhaps believe that those three men were Christians. I’ve read books claiming they were Christians. But when you really go back and read the writings of Franklin and Jefferson and Adams, you recognize they did not believe in the deity of Christ. They did not believe Christ was the Son of God and they did not believe in Christ’s atoning work. We see even those three men, the three men who were not even evangelical Christians, not Christians in the biblical sense, even they believed in a transcendent God, they believed that there is a heaven and a hell. They believed that you were saved by works, is what they really believed. They believed in Judeo-Christian values.
Now, I have here Jefferson’s Bible. When Barb and I were back at Monticello, I picked this up. Thomas Jefferson had the audacity to edit the Bible. I mean, he just cut out what he didn’t like. So, in this Bible, he put a lot of time into this. I mean, he thought he’d go through here and decide what really happened and what was really said. He cut out the miraculous birth of Christ and he cut out the resurrection of Christ. But he really retained the teachings of Christ because you see, Jefferson really believed that Jesus Christ was the greatest teacher the world’s ever known.
I want to read you a little quote from Jefferson, because so many people and the liberal friends today quote Jefferson all the time. They would have you to believe that he hated the Bible, which was never true. Now, here’s what Jefferson said: “I am a Christian in the only sense Jesus wished anyone to be, sincerely attached to the teachings of Jesus Christ in preference to all others.” Of course, that’s what Jefferson believed. A true Christian was simply someone who highly regarded the teachings of Christ and seek to follow them. Then Jefferson said this, “I shall proceed to a view of the life, character, and teachings of Jesus, who aware of the heirs in His forebearer’s ideas of God and morality endeavored to bring them to the principles of pure theology and juster notions of the attributes of God. Jesus endeavored to reform their moral teachings to the standards of reason, justice, and brotherly love. Jesus endeavored to inculcate the belief in a future heavenly state. The system of morality that Jesus taught was the most benevolent and sublime ever taught, and consequently more perfect than all the teachings of all the philosophers who ever lived. He was the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent, the most sublime character ever exhibited to man.” – Thomas Jefferson.
Now you see Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin were all deists or theists. I mean, they believed in God, but they really didn’t believe in the deity of Christ. Yet they did believe in Judeo-Christian values. This is a historical fact, they wanted the Bible to be put in school classrooms. They wanted the 10 Commandments to be posted because they believed in the ethical and moral instructions that were in this book. That is simply historical fact.
Now, today, there’s a great battle going on for Judeo-Christian values. Of course, we are led to believe that the First Amendment precluded the public use of anything from scripture. That is not how Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, or Benjamin Franklin or certainly any of the other founders of this nation understood the First Amendment. They understood the First Amendment simply to protect churches from the control of the government. They didn’t want to happen here what had happened in England when the Church of England was controlled by the government of England.
Now, right now in downtown Denver, there’s a monument, you’ve probably read about it this week or heard it on the news. There’s a monument in Little Park across from the Capitol. This monument’s four feet high and it contains the 10 commandments inscribed in stone. The local Colorado government has just ruled that monument must come down because it violates the First Amendment they say. You can’t have the 10 Commandments posted on public property. Of course, there’s been protests this week and that’s been in the newspapers and on the news. As a result, I believe of that protest, the State Attorney General will appeal the decision of the Colorado courts. Hopefully the monument can stand, but that little monument kind of represents what’s going on in America today.
That kind of represents what’s going on in our nation. I think as Christians living in the last decade of the 20th century, the call of God upon us is perhaps the most difficult call any generation of Christians have ever received. We need boldness and faithfulness beyond what our forefathers needed. We need to live the values we espouse, that we might, by our example, be light. We need to speak those values boldly because Judeo-Christian values are eroding in our culture. We need to worship a transcendent God and we need to stand in reverence and awe of His holiness. We need to work as unto the Lord in whatever we do.
You know, it’s often been said, perhaps you’ve heard it too, that America will be judged by what it does with Israel. You ever heard that? America will be judged by what it does with Israel because in the Old Testament, the people of Israel were the people of God. Israel has been reestablished today in fulfillment of divine prophecy and by the will of God. If this nation does not support Israel, the judgment of God will fall upon this nation. Have you ever heard that? I’ve heard that. There might be some truth in that, but I want to share with you this morning a greater truth. You see, the New Testament is absolutely clear that the supreme manifestation of the people of God in this era is the church of Jesus Christ. You are the people of God. All of you who know Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, you are the people of God. The church of Jesus Christ, it’s the people of God. This nation will be judged supremely for what it does with the church and the message that’s been entrusted to the church.
I do believe judgment is coming. Surely, you’ve read the book of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 5, you read about the fall of the Babylonian empire and the fall of King Belshazzar, who was the last king of Babylon. You remember the handwriting was on the wall. You remember how the divine hand, the hand of God appeared and wrote on the wall of the banquet hall of King Belshazzar. It wrote these words, “mene mene tekel upharsin”…“numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.” That was the judgment of God upon that nation because they had ignored the voice of the prophets of God and they had abused what was holy in God’s sight. The days of your nation are numbered. You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting and your kingdom will fall and it’ll be given to the Medes and the Persians.
God judges nations. Make no mistake about that. And one day God will judge this nation and we need to pray. As Christian men and women, we really need to pray. I don’t think we care enough. I mean, this nation is such a blessing. Do you realize that? I mean, if you travel in the world, if you go to other countries, you see how privileged we are to live here. I’ve met very few people who travel to other countries and come back and aren’t glad to come back. We have material abundance here. What a great responsibility. We have freedoms here unknown in other countries. We need to pray that we will not pervert that freedom to license and licentiousness. Of course, in many ways that is already occurring. We need to pray that the hearts of men and women this nation over would turn back to God.
So as the people of God on this 4th of July, we are reminded that we are called to faithfulness. We serve a higher kingdom than this nation. That kingdom is the eternal kingdom, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As Christians, we’re called to be salt and light on the earth, salt and light in America. We need to be faithful to the task. Let’s close with a word of prayer.