Whatever may happen within the next four weeks or the next four years or the next four decades. Whatever our anxieties over COVID or continuing riots or world peace or whatever it may be, God is still on His throne.
I tried to find just the right scripture verse this morning and had a hard time settling on one. There was a lot on this topic But if you turn with me to Isaiah 26, we’ll read the first four verses and go from there.
As you’re turning there, let me read to you something that Charles Spurgeon once said: There is nothing for which the children ought to more earnestly contend to than the doctrine of their Master over all creation-the Kingship of God over all the works of His own hands-the Throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne…for it is God upon the Throne whom we trust.
Scripture: Isaiah 26:1-4
In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. 2 Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. 3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.
If you read The Bible from cover to cover you’ll find that there was a lot of strife among God’s people over thousands of years. Much of it was caused by themselves or were consequences of their own actions for not obeying God. Some of it was caused by their surroundings or other nations, rulers, and authorities with no fault of their own. In Revelation and in Daniel, there is strife by a particular ruler that has yet to be fulfilled.
Humanity has a history of strife. We live in a cursed world. We have blessings and curses. We have instability. We have unknowns. And much of the World looks to its leaders for answers. But who should we look to? Who should we trust? We can use our right to vote and I would encourage that, but even then can we fully trust Washington D.C.? Can we fully trust Albany, NY? I don’t know about you, but no matter who is elected to either the presidency or governorship in any election, I am glad that my faith is in God, not humanity. I’d go crazy if my hope was in flawed, sinful, imperfect human beings.
As our currency says, “In God We Trust.”
Just a few months ago, I preached on God’s sovereignty, and I’m going to touch on that a little bit again today. I think that focusing on God being the ultimate ruler, God being the one on the throne of all creation, God being our hope and our trust is what we need to hear right now. No matter what happens in our government or our society, the true kingdom to which we belong is not of this earth. And we are carriers and ambassadors of God’s kingdom. And though it is a real place, it is a place that for now, as long as we are on this earth, is in our hearts.
Isaiah talks about this kingdom in our scripture verse. The very first verse says “That Day” which means the day when The Lord returns. The Day when the curse is gone and all is set right. That kingdom on earth––The New Jerusalem––will be a kingdom of peace. But God’s kingdom has been and already is a kingdom of peace. Like I said, we just don’t have that kingdom on earth yet, except for ourselves representing that kingdom and experiencing that kingdom in our hearts.
Isaiah goes on to say, “We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.” A rampart, as you’ve seen in pictures and in movies, is a defensive wall of a castle or walled city (back in Isaiah’s time they would have had walled cities), and it would have a broad top with a walkway.
Enduring Word Commentary says, “in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ on this earth, there will be cities – but redeemed cities, glorious communities organized under the strength and salvation and righteousness and truth of the LORD.”
When Isaiah said, “God makes salvation its walls and rampart.” That means that this kingdom exists because of God’s salvation. And God’s salvation is strong and secure and nothing can penetrate it. Jesus said of Peter that, “Upon this Rock, I will build my church.” Jesus’ church is His to build. In the same way, God’s city will not be built by the ability of man to achieve holiness on His own or to earn the right to be in this city by good works or obeying the law, but by the strong and powerful grace and salvation of God.
God built this city for us, we didn’t build this city for us. We couldn’t build this city for us, and we couldn’t build this city for God. This is God’s city, His kingdom on earth. And we are part of that kingdom. And by salvation, we are not only ambassadors who carry the kingdom in our hearts, we are heirs to our Father’s Kingdom when we finally are able to enter that kingdom on That Day.
Verse 2 says, “Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith.” We often think of a nation as a place on a map with lines drawn on it for its borders. We think of wars to take over nations, to add land to another nation––to take it over and expand it.
But a nation is more than land with borders. It is a people. Just like The Church is more than a building, it is a people. We are here at the tip of Seneca Lake, named after The Seneca Nation of Native Americans. But where is The Seneca Nation? Its administration is headquartered now in Salamanca. If you go on I-86 and head West toward Olean, you’ll drive through it, with the administrative building on one side of the interstate and a casino on the other.
According to its official website, The Seneca Nation of Indians currently has a total enrolled population of nearly 8,000 citizens. The territories are generally rural, with several residential areas. Many Seneca citizens live off-territory, some are located across the country, as well as in other countries. Off-territory residents comprise nearly 1/2 of the citizenship.
The nation is right within New York State. And there are other Native American nations within New York’s borders. Even though you never see its borders on a map, unless you’re exclusively looking for it, the Seneca nation is its own sovereign nation. It has its own form of government not unlike our own. They have a president, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch.
Sure, they have their land or reservation. But yet, they dwell right in our own backyard. The idea is that a nation is defined by its people, not just physical borders. In The Old Testament, the nation of Israel was considered a people who needed a land or home to call their own. God promised them that land and eventually––through some of the hardship we talked about earlier––He gave it to them.
And the dwellers of God’s kingdom are God’s people. We are spread out all over the world in different places in different times, yet we are part of one nation, a holy nation. Peter said, “9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
And we, being citizens of His holy nation, have all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Paul said to the Philippians, “…our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,”
So what right do we have as a citizen of Heaven?
We have the peace of God. We don’t have to worry if all goes awry here on earth. Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world and that He has overcome the world. Thank God we are part of The Kingdom of God. That’s truly something to thank God about. We get to experience, through the promises of God, the benefits of The Kingdom of God here on earth. We get to be assured that God is Our Father and Our King. We get to be assured that we have our hope in a perfect, loving father and king. He sees us, he listens to us and he protects us. He knows each one of us by name.
I can’t help but think of Psalm 91:
I’m tempted to read the whole thing, but for brevity, I won’t. But I’ll read several verses to you. It says:
1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
3 Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. (There’s that word again, ‘rampart’)
…
9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, 10 no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
…
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.16 With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” (and there’s that word, salvation again)
And that goes well with our scripture verse in Isaiah. The prophet said in verse 3, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
Do you know anyone on earth who can keep you in perfect peace? Can Washington, D.C. do that? We have been protected and have had a peaceful nation for the most part. But I attribute that to God, not politicians. I attribute that to our nation having honored God and tried to live Godly, holy lives and keeping our nation a Christian nation throughout the years––as flawed as we have been––as to why God’s hand of protection has been over our nation. A lot of people think that the president of the United States is going to solve all of their problems. He or she can’t. Our governor can’t.
But God can. In God We Trust.
Have you ever wondered why we have the motto “In God We Trust” on our currency? This is from treasury.gov
The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins. From Treasury Department records, it appears that the first such appeal came in a letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written to Secretary Chase by Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, and read:
Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.
One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.
You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the all seeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.
This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.
To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.
As a result, Secretary Chase instructed James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, to prepare a motto, in a letter dated November 20, 1861:
Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.
You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.
Now we live in a society where there are people who want to remove In God We Trust from our currency and other Christian mottos that have been part of our nation’s heritage.
This is from Fox News and was also published in The New York Post:
The Supreme Court rejected an atheist case Monday to remove “In God We Trust,” the national motto, from all coins and currency from the Department of Treasury.
Michael Newdow, the same activist attorney who tried to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, lost his case, arguing Congress’ mandate to inscribe “In God We Trust” on currency was a government endorsement of religion and a violation of the First Amendment.
Newdow argued in his petition to the Supreme Court that because his clients are all atheist individuals or atheist groups, the government violated their “sincere religious belief” that there is no God and turned them into “political outsiders” by placing the phrase “In God We Trust” on their money.
The justices rejected his petition without comment.
The phrase was first put on an American coin in 1864, due to “increased religious sentiment.” It was added to both coins and paper bills in 1955.
Newdow also tried to silence prayer and any religious references at the inaugurations of President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.
If our nation decides to no longer trust in God, but rather trust in mankind, that’s a decision that is not new or surprising to God. If you read about The End Times and what precedes That Day, it’s going to happen. The world will turn its back on God.
But in God I trust. As Joshua said:
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Prayer: Dear Lord, I pray that you would be with each and every one of us who declares today that it is in You that we trust. We put our hope in You, not mankind. We are a brotherhood, we are a Church, we are your children and we are a nation that belongs to you. I pray for your love, guidance, and protection over us. And no matter what happens with our leadership on earth, may we be reminded that we belong to a kingdom, not of this world.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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