Transcription
This year America celebrates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And how appropriate that this July 4th falls on the Sabbath, the day when we remember that God has delivered us from spiritual bondage. And as Isaiah chapter 58 reminds us, a day to make the world a better place for those less fortunate than ourselves.
In the Declaration of Independence, the founders recognized that our fundamental right to civil and religious liberty comes from the creator himself. These freedoms are not subject to the whims of king or president or church. They are human rights possessed by everyone created in the image of God.
It was these freedoms that the early Seventh-day Adventists believed were represented by the two horns on Revelation 13's lamb-like beast, which they identified as America. When the American founding fathers later created the United States Constitution, they intentionally excluded matters of faith and religion from the purview of government. The result was to create a free market for religion by separating church and state.
In the First Amendment, they wrote that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The founders were wise enough to understand that combining religion with political power always led to persecution for dissenters. And so they protected the rights of all peaceful people of faith.
At the same time, the founders rightly understood that the ethical values practiced by many religions had an important role in informing and preserving societal justice. Which is exactly what happened when America failed to live up to its ideals. Early Adventists, along with other abolitionists, were motivated by their Christian social values to serve the least of these by advocating against the evils of American slavery and racial segregation.
Adventists also spoke out against another manifestation of the dragon-like spirit in America. In the late 1800s, a group arose called the National Reform Association who wanted to amend the United States Constitution to declare the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler of nations and his revealed will as a supreme standard to decide moral issues in national life and thus indicate that this is a Christian nation. Their agenda also included Bible teaching in public schools and a national Sunday rest law.
Early Adventists believed that this was the spirit of the dragon at work. While Adventists welcomed Christian participation in public life, using the force of government to favor one religion above others or to force religious compliance was not of God. Ellen White, pointing again to Revelation 13, called the National Reform Movement the plain, direct fulfillment of prophecy.
In the American Sentinel, Adventists wrote that even though it were true that all that is intended by national reform were the insertion into the Constitution of the single word Christian, we should yet oppose it just as much as we do so long as the effect of such insertion would be to give to Christians the sole right to citizenship and its privileges and immunities. Why? Because so far as man or civil government is concerned, the heathen or the infidel or the atheist has just as much right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the Christian has. And just because a man is a Christian, he is not thereby entitled to authority or lordship over other men's consciences or rights.
Revelation chapter 13 speaks of a counterfeit Christian movement that will take the world by storm before Jesus returns. The prophecy indicates that people will choose political solutions to the world's spiritual problems. It's really a choice between salvation by faith in human government or salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
In America today, a Christian supremacy movement is again gaining strength. As in the past we're told that America's government is Christian and that there is no such thing as the separation of church and state in the Constitution. And this Christian movement seems bent on using political power to build what they believe to be the kingdom of God.
But a Christianity of force is not the Christianity of the Bible. A religion that seeks to dominate instead of to serve is not the religion of Jesus. God doesn't use force in matters of faith and neither should his followers. Like the early Adventists, this is a movement that we must warn against.
Friends, this is our moment to tell about a Jesus who is love. A Jesus who will save everyone who comes to him by faith and surrenders to him. It's an opportunity for us like those early Adventists to stand up for the least of these, to live out God's love through service to others.
The prophet Isaiah wrote an amazing prophecy about God's end-time church rising to the occasion. Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Here's some good news. Our world has problems that only God can solve and he will use the church, you and me, empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim a warning against the unholy unification of church and state and to reveal a God of love who alone can save us and who is coming soon to set up his kingdom which will last forever.