Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Free will to trust and obey God is the cornerstone to our nation’s foundation, and it is also the key to our survival. We speak often in this church about positive volition; that free will choice to submit to the word of God. Positive volition is our acceptance of God’s authority over our lives, I Pet.5:6.
Some people submit only in terms of establishment law such as honorable marriages and honorable family life and genuine patriotism. Others submit also to the Gospel of Jesus Christ through which God blesses the entire nation. Yes, many good things make up our nation and our world, but there are also evil counterparts to these good things. Sin and evil opposes the Bible, what we Christian’s site as the word of God. This negative resistance to God is never content being idle. It pushes forth by way of the evil imaginations of men as well as the prodding of satanic powers and principalities.
Wherever negative volition abounds evil grows. When enough men love pleasure more than the pursuit of freedom and goodness there will always be those who will rise up and subjugate them to their will. We call this movement, organized evil. When organized evil men have enough power they will enslave even more people until they grow stronger. Each time they will push their boarders a little farther out until they must be stopped.
Ps.55:20-21 says they will speak smooth words, but war is in their hearts. They either want what you have, or they don’t want you to have it.
Many in this nation think the USA is the problem with the world, but for those of us who love our nation and our Savior we know the USA is not the problem with the world: sin is the problem with the world and if the Bible is not accepted as the answer, then the billy club, and the bomb will have to take up the slack.
Many unbelievers reject the existence of original sin, and many who are in denial go so far as to say man’s environment is the problem, that poverty and lack of opportunity is the problem. This falls right into the evil schemes of power hungry men.
“Some seventy five years after our nation began, U.S. Congressman Robert Winthrop, the son of the great Puritan leader John Winthrop made a classic speech at the annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Bible Society in Boston. He declared:
“All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.” Dr. James Kennedy’s book, What If America Were a Christian Nation Again? p.61
Due to the existence of the old sin nature mankind must have his actions hedged in by laws and law enforcers; if not sinful mankind will impose his desires and wishes on as many as he wants. Rom.13:1-7 tells us law enforcers are ministers of God for our good, whether they are police officers or military personnel, that they shall not bear their enforcement tools in vain.
The soldier of a client nation is always called upon to put a stop to tyranny and aggression, Ps.140:1-2.
In the Old Testament a warning is given to Israel, God’s previous client nation in the dispensation of the law, that if a part of a population of Israel did not assist in stopping aggression and tyranny against her home land that those people would have innocent blood on their hands.
From Numbers 32 we see the tribes of Ruben and Gad had settled in the land of Gilead and Jazer. Once they saw the blessings and benefits of raising cattle and obtaining great wealth they did not want to squander their resources and time and men to go fight to protect the other ten tribes of Israel, 32:5.
They asked for God’s blessings, but not for God’s directions.
God’s servant Moses said to them in v.6, shall some of your brethren fight to protect your homeland, but the rest of you stay put and enjoy the fat of the land at their expense?
The answer was no!
v.7
It was discouraging to the soldiers in battle for there to be discord among those at home while they were off fighting for the freedom and protection of those who were enjoying the fat of the land at home. Our soldiers need our support and they are not getting it from a large portion of our country and our leaders. Some of our leaders do not understand Ps.18:37: “I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them; neither did I turn again until they were consumed.”
Moses told Ruben and Gad’s tribes in Num.32:14-15 that if they did not change their attitudes toward those who fought to preserve their freedom that God would take the blessings of the land away from them, and when this was told, Ruben and Gad’s people changed their tune very quickly, and they said in 32:17, “But we will go ready armed before the children of Israel..” There was no room for conscientious objectors or partisan favorites.
From v. 18-19 Ruben and Gad’s people said we will not stay home and live like kings, as we had planned, while our brethren go off to protect our land and our children and our blessings. We too will go and fight and our people will support our efforts.
Num.32:20-22 tells us they did not hesitate to go fight because they knew if they didn’t fight; armed to the teeth, that they would loose all they had.
The result is that they would be found guiltless of abandoning their brethren in arms. They had a common bond in that God blessed each tribe and each tribe knew their blessings came from God.
If they did not go, then v.23 says their sin of not going would find them out. For Israel to possess the land of Jordan and all of Canaan they would have to fight for it together, and they would have to fight to protect it together.
Men and women have died to possess this land and protect it from both domestic and foreign threats, but if we do not stick together now we will loose our land and our freedom.
The greatest blessing of freedom is freedom itself, not the things we can acquire or do within that freedom.
If soldiers must go to fight for our freedom then they must claim Ps.91 and trust God’s will for their lives. Our soldiers need our prayers and our support, and whether some in our nation want to admit it or not, our freedom is at stake. It has been taken for granted too long. As Christians we need to realize our freedom to assemble to worship is also at stake. What can we do to preserve our nation? Outside of military service, positive volition is the believer’s contribution to national freedom, for without positive volition toward Bible doctrine God has no reason to retain the USA as a blessed nation.