First Baptist Church in Fernwood, NY » God Bless America

God’s Love part 1

Pastor Scott Griese — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:57:54 +0000

Titus 3:1-7 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, (2) To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. (3) For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. (4) But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, (5) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (6) Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; (7) That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The last two weeks we have looked at worshipping God and how it is to be done. God is the only one worthy of worship because who He is: God is the Creator of all things. This week we are going to try and look at the love of God. This is a difficult task because who do I even try to explain God’s love? God’s love is immense and immeasurable. And we are so very unworthy of His love, yet He willingly and abundantly gives it to His children. There is absolutely nothing that we have done to merit His love and truly, before salvation, we did not really desire His love. We may have said with our lips, “I love God”, but our bodies and our thoughts showed otherwise. Even now after salvation we push Him aside so we can follow our own wants and desires. We partition God into a segment of our life, sort of like keep Him in a closet and pull Him out when we feel like it or need Him. If I took my children or my wife and put them in a closet and for about ten or fifteen minutes of the day I take them out and talk to them and then decide that I have met my obligation so I return them back to the closet, does that make sense? Of course not, but why do we do it with God? We are to interact with Him all day and night long! You walk into a fancy cathedral church: it has the stained glass windows, gold trim, candles, paintings, intricate woodwork and it seems like a fantasy, because when you walk back outside reality hits you square on in the face. Our worship of God should be based on reality not fantasy, because He is REAL! Is He real to you? He should be. He LOVES you and we should return that love back to Him. He gave us our next breath, we should return that breath to Him in worship because of His Love for us.

A Remnant

Pastor Scott Griese — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:58:57 +0000

God always preserves a remnant. He always takes care of His own. Even when Israel went into captivity as divine punishment, God still provided comfort. Read the prophets: God pronounces judgment on the wicked, and offers hope to those that love and obey God.

Jer 46:27-28 But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. (28) Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.

Note that in verse 28 that punishment still happened, but God also is with His servant. We all need correction and chastisement from God to guide back onto the correct path, but punishment and judgment comes when people become stiff-necked and hard-hearted. Leonard Ravenhill wrote:

It has been well said that there are only three classes of people in the world today: Those who are afraid, those who do not know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles. Sodom, which had no Bible, no preachers, no tracts, no prayer meetings, no churches, perished. How then will America be spared from the wrath of the Almighty, think you? We have millions of Bibles, scores of thousands of churches, endless preachers – and yet what sin!

This country keeps pushing God farther and farther away and at some point, He is going to push back. What a fearsome day that will be when God turns away from the United States. Everyone of us needs to pray: pray for our President, pray for our government, pray for our states, our counties, our towns, and our neighbors. I will close with this quote by Leonard Ravenhill:

For this sin-hungry age we need a prayer-hungry Church. We need to explore again the “exceeding great and precious promises of God.” In “that great day,” the fire of judgment is going to test the sort, not the size of work we have done. That which is born in prayer will survive the test. Prayer does business with God. Prayer creates hunger for souls; hunger for souls creates prayer. The understanding soul prays; the praying soul gets understanding. To the soul who prays in self-owned weakness, the Lord gives His strength. Oh that we were men of like prayer as Elijah – a man subject to like passions as we are! Lord, let us pray!

America Bless God

Pastor Scott Griese — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:48:57 +0000

The United States of America is a nation that was founded God’s ideals and commandments. For many, many years, America was the shining light to the world for Christianity. In 1 Samuel 2:30, God declared, “… them that honor me I will honor.” America honored God. America blessed God and God blessed America. Our forefathers may not have all been saved Christians, but they understood something about God and that His ways are the right ways.

“The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?” – BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

“The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.” – PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON

“The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests.” – PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” – PRESIDENT GEORGE WASHINGTON (on September 17th, 1796)

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in 1824: No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.

An 1853 House Judiciary Committee conducted a one-year long inquiry when a group petitioned the government to remove Christianity from our government institutions. On March 27, 1854, that Committee brought the following conclusion:

“Had the people, during the revolution, a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that revolution would have been strangled in its cradle… At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and its amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, but not any one sect… In this age, there is no substitute for Christianity… That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”

Two months later, The House Committee added these words to their previous ones: “The great, vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Now can you picture the leaders of our government today making those same types of statements? Can you picture Nancy Pelosi or President Obama saying these same words? Four times in his speech in Cairo, Egypt, President Obama referred to the Koran as being “holy.” Would a true believer in Jesus Christ (as President Obama claims) make that kind of statement about a book that denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? No! People work very hard to draw comparisons between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. Listen to what Abraham Lincoln said about the Bible:

“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior (Jesus) of the world is communicated to us through this book.” – PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is fond of quoting from the Old Testament when she is speaking about environmental concerns. She has quoted the same verse at least six times since 2005. In April 2009 Nancy Pelosi said: “The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’” I do not know what book she is quoting from, but it is not the Bible.

America needs to get back to God and we need to do it today! This country needs to get back to blessing God and not expecting God to bless us! Why should He bless the United States when the United States refuses to have anything to do with Him? America needs to fall on its collective knees and cry out to God and repent!