← Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
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Hello, everybody. Whether you're here in church, in person, or watching online, welcome to today's service. Today marks the 250th anniversary since the Continental Congress urged the 13 colonies of America to join together in prayer, fasting and humiliation. It was just weeks before America declared its independence from British rule. Lawmakers aimed for true penitence of heart and a public acknowledgment of God's providence to aid the cause of independence. Congress urged citizens to confess their sins, to repent, and to request that God frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural enemies. General George Washington ordered his troops to observe the day with strict obedience to prayer and fasting. That was May 17, 1776. Today, on May 17, 2026, many from our church have joined tens of thousands of others on the national mall in Washington, D.C. for prayer, worship and repentance to rededicate America to God. President Trump has encouraged Americans to join together in this sacred assembly. And I have been asked to participate as one of the many speakers. And so I've pre recorded today's message in keeping with the same theme of rededicate America to 250. I'm going to begin reading from Psalm chapter 33. So if you have your Bibles and you want to turn there, I'll read Psalm 33, 12, 22. This is what the Bible says. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his own inheritance. The Lord looks from heaven, he sees all the sons of men from the place of his dwelling. He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashions their hearts individually, he considers all their works. No king is saved by the multitude of an army. A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety, neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold this. The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy. Verse 19. To deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield, for our heart shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us just as we hope in you. Let's pray together. Father, in heaven, we just thank you for this day here on May 17, that we can join together here at church or together with other believers on the National Mall today to rededicate America. To you. Thank you, Lord, for your mercies over our nation. Thank you, Lord, for the freedoms that we enjoy. Thank you, Lord. For the freedom to worship and to assemble here today and to gather in your name. We just dedicate this service to you. And we rededicate America to you, Lord. And so Father, as we just come before you today, and as we just recall the wonderful blessings that we have as a nation, we pray God today that you would visit us in a powerful way. We pray always for another great awakening in America, that you would stir our hearts and that you would begin with each of us. And so Lord, hear our prayer today as we dedicate this time to you. In Jesus name we pray. And everyone said amen. Well, 250 years ago, our founders envisioned a nation not governed by a king or an emperor, but a unique nation of self governing people. And yet the founders knew, they understood that this self governing nation could only work to the extent that people were individually guided and governed by God. President Abraham Lincoln concluded his Gettysburg Address on that note. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. You see, Lincoln, like the founders, understood that a government of, by and for the people could only succeed if it was a nation under God. That's what he said in the Gettysburg Address. We had to be a nation that was governed by God. And what many do not know is that Lincoln actually derived that saying of and by and for the people from a speech given by a reformer and an abolitionist named Theodore Parker. He gave a speech in Boston's Music hall on July 4, 1858 in which Parker said this, quote, Democracy is direct self government over all the people, by all the people and for all the people. So Lincoln borrowed it from Theodore Parker. But listen, Parker borrowed it from a saying that John Wycliffe had printed in the prologue to his translation of the Bible, the wycliffe Bible, in 1384. This is what John Wycliffe wrote. Quote, the Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people. You see, a nation without God. And the Bible can never be self governing. That is what is unique about America. It is dependent upon a people who are a self governing people. But we cannot be self governing unless we have the moral standard of God and his word. President Ronald Reagan understood this when he correctly said, without God there is no virtue because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under. Ronald Reagan April 23, 1984. You see, in other words, what Reagan was saying there correctly is that if a man is left to himself without the moral compass of God in the Bible, then that self governing nation will unravel and freedom will evaporate. That is why in 1787 when the constitutional Convention in Philadelphia ended and Benjamin Franklin was asked by a lady who approached him, she said to him, well Mr. Franklin, what form of government do we have? And Franklin answered, a republic ma', am, if you can keep it. Now let's be honest about America's history. The advancement of freedom and democracy has not always been a straight line. It has encountered setbacks and pitfalls along the way that needed to be corrected in order to maintain our God given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. The sin of slavery took decades to purge, but Christians led the charge to its abolishment. In the Western hemisphere. The people, like the Puritans and the Quakers, Charles Finney and John Wesley and William Wilberforce and Frederick Douglass to name a few, were instrumental in the abolishment of slavery. And they were all guided by their Christian faith. Historian, scientist and author Dr. Robert Fogel, who died in 2013, was the foremost scholar on American slavery. He wrote a couple of books. One was called Time on the Cross and another was called Without Consent or Contract. Now this guy, Dr. Robert Fogel, was a self professed secular Jew. He won a Nobel Prize in Economic sciences by the way, for his work. And he concluded in his writings that Christians ended slavery. Christians ended slavery. It's the Christian worldview that initiated, corrected and advanced American freedom. That all men are created equal and that all of us are endowed by our Creator, not by the government, but by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. And among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You know in the Bible, the Bible speaks about freedom. 2nd Corinthians 3:17. Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But freedom without faith is political anarchy. And faith without, without freedom is religious tyranny. Faith and freedom go hand in hand. The United States of America is a nation that values the freedom of religion. It's enshrined in our First Amendment, the freedom to worship, like we are doing here, gathering together, like tens of thousands are doing on the National Mall right now. The freedom to worship, to exercise one's faith and not just within the four walls of the church, but to exercise one's faith outside the walls of the church, in the marketplace, is something that is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. And America, because it is a melting pot, is filled with a variety of faiths. And even if we do not agree with the tenants of another religion, we must still protect religious liberty for all, or we will lose it for ourselves. But having said that, the truth is undeniable that historically Christianity is the founding faith upon which our nation was built. It was the most influential of any other world religions. It is undeniable that America's history is founded on Judeo Christian principles, that Christianity has had the greatest influence upon the founding of our nation. Many of our founding Fathers of the United States were men with deep religious convictions based on the Bible. And many of them professed personal faith in Jesus Christ. And this profoundly shaped their views, which then shaped ultimately our Nation. Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, more than half of them 29 had some form of seminary or Bible school degrees. And to show you how much Christianity influenced our Founding Fathers and ultimately influenced our nation, here are a few quotes from some of our founding Fathers. John Adams. John Adams would write this. The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. And also Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson once said, quote, God who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God, that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever? Or consider these words from John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. He would write, resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. Continue steadfast and with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave and no man ought to take from us. And Also one more, Dr. Benjamin Rush. He was the signer of the Declaration of Independence and ratifier of the US Constitution. He said, quote, I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration like me, meaning equal with the Bible. But I am as satisfied that it is as much the work of a divine providence as any of the miracles recorded in the old and New Testament. You see, everybody, the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence acknowledged that it was upon God that this nation was founded. And they so relied on him that they were willing to sign their names and to die for for this cause if necessary. The Declaration of Independence ends with this signature line, with a firm reliance on Divine Providence, meaning God. We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And so this nation undeniably was founded on Judeo Christian principles. Now, look, let me just say this for all the skeptics or those who would disparage Christians by saying all we want is Christian nationalism, that all we really want is a theocracy. Look, I have no illusions, and most Christians that I know have no illusions that we will be a theocracy as a nation one day. We'll be a theocracy. The world will be a theocracy. When Jesus returns again and rules from Jerusalem, then the world will be a theocracy under the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus. But until that time, we're not a theocracy. And yet the only two restraining forces against evil in our world today are the presence of the Church and the power of the Holy Spirit. We have a calling as Christians to be salt and light in this world, to be part of that restraining force against evil in our culture today. You see, there is a mission that the world has, and there is a mission that the Church has, and they are diametrically opposed. The world's mission says, be conformed. In other words, what the world wants from each of us is to look like the rest of the world. So the world's mission is be conformed. Look like us, believe like us, talk like us, have your values based on a worldly system. That's their mission. The world's mission is be conformed to us. But the Bible tells us a different mission, that we are to be transformed as individuals. And then the mission of the Church is to carry that message forward to the rest of the world. The world says, be conformed. But the mission of the Church is for the world to understand, to be transformed by the person and power of Jesus Christ. And so while we are grateful to be Americans living freely in this country, I hope none of us takes our freedoms for granted. Our freedoms were given to us by God, must be preserved by God. And there is an active attempt, an agenda of the world to remove God from the equation, to try to get you to conform to its philosophies, its values, its worldly ways, its worldly systems, and as Christians, we have to be wise about this. We have to understand that our mission is to be transformed, to be personally transformed by the person and power of Jesus Christ and then to take that message to the rest of the world. Because while they're saying to us, look and act like us, the message we want them to know is look and act and be like Jesus. Because when you know him in a personal way, your life can be transformed by that person and power of Jesus Christ. So there are two different missions right now in America. And the question is, which mission will you be about? We must not allow the slow creep, what I call the slow creep of anti Christian and anti Jewish bias in our culture to smother the religious freedoms that we have enjoyed for 250 years. And there is an attempt to smother those religious freedoms. But listen, friends, this is still a battle worth fighting. But this battle will only be won if pastors are courageous in the pulpits and if Christians are engaged in the pews. That's the only way, really that the church will act like the bride of Christ and be salt and light in the world to make a difference in our culture. We are called to make a difference, to be ambassadors for Christ in this world. So we must not take the privileges and the blessings and the freedoms that we enjoy here in America for granted. They are slim promises that can easily be lost if the church remains silent and we do not continue to be the kind of salt and light that Jesus calls us to be. Jesus said in John 8:36, so if the Son sets you free, the Son S o n if Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed. But freedom is a gift, both spiritual freedom to be born again through faith in Jesus Christ and religious freedom. Religious freedom to worship the Lord and to fearlessly live for Jesus in the public square. Ronald Reagan famously said that America was a shining city on a hill. Well, he borrowed that phrase from a Puritan preacher named John Winthrop. John Winthrop, who first used that phrase in a sermon in 1630 to describe the promise of America as a beacon of hope for a righteous and free people. Of course, Winthrop adopted it from Scripture. Jesus talked about this himself In Matthew chapter 5, verses 14 to 16, when he said, you, meaning the church believers, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men. Jesus says, that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. So Reagan was right and Winthrop was right, because Jesus is right. We are called to be that city shining on a hill. You and I, the church, believers in Jesus Christ. We are called to be that righteous and free people in Christ who will make him known in our world. So let us do all that we can to keep the light of Jesus and the lamp of religious freedom shining brightly in America. We are the hope of America because Christians who know the hope of Jesus are to be his light in a dark world. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you again for our freedoms, for the privileges of living in the United States of America. We know, Lord, that religious liberty is shrinking. It is being threatened by a culture and a world that is on a mission to call us, to be transformed into its image, to be conformed to the worldly patterns. But, Lord, we have a message of transformation, that the world would be transformed and conformed to Jesus. And so, Lord, we pray that while we enjoy all the sacred privileges of living in a free and the greatest country in the world, that we would not shirk our responsibilities, that we would take to heart the fact that you've called us, Jesus, to be light in a dark world, to be that shining city on a hill, so that others might know the same freedoms, not just American freedoms and religious liberties that we're talking about, but so that the world can know the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ. Freedom from sin, freedom from shame, freedom from ultimate death. That we can be transformed by the person and power of Jesus Christ. And know you, Lord, in a personal way. May that be our mission as we continue to preserve our religious liberties in our country. May we continue to make you known in our world so that others might know the kind of spiritual liberty, the spiritual freedom that we have in Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, for America. We pray for our leaders. We pray for the President. We pray for Congress. We pray for our governors and for our legislatures and for our judges. Lord, we ask for you to bless America. Not because we deserve it. We ask you to bless us because you are merciful to us. Lord, forgive us of our sins. We remember your words, Lord, through Solomon, when he would talk about, when he would write in 2 Chronicles, chapter 7. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek your face and turn from their wicked ways, then you will hear from heaven and you will forgive our sins and you will heal our land. Heal our land, Lord, may we as Christians set the example of humbling ourselves, renouncing sin, turning to you. And may you bring another great awakening to America. Revive us again, Lord, as we rededicate our nation to you and for your glory. Thank you, Lord, for this day. Thank you for the 250th anniversary of that day of prayer and fasting on May 17, 1776, that we renew today over this nation. Thank you, Lord, for blessing us. Thank you, Lord, for being merciful to us. We commit all this to you in Jesus name. In Jesus name. And all God's people said amen and amen. God bless you, everybody. God bless our troops, and God bless the United States of America.