We Need A 21st Century Activist Pulpit!
Proverbs 22:28, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”
Proverbs 23:10, “Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:”
Why does it seem that Americans are the only people on earth who are blind to the truth and ignorant of their history? Wherever you look, we can see the vision of freedom that once swept over our nation being swept away. We have to wonder how much longer our American Republic can survive.
Our government has become a great candy machine spewing out an endless stream of treats to lucky people, and we have to pay the bill for it! I’m talking about millions of hard working, law abiding citizens, and the government’s appetite just keeps growing and growing, getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
What we need in this nation of ours is a political revolution, just like the one we had in 1776. Above all, I believe we need pastors and other Christian leaders who are willing to stand up to our current batch of spoiled, secular, elitist bureaucrats and tell them enough is enough. O that we could say “a sleeping giant” has been awakened. Look what Noah Webster wrote in his History of the United States wrote:
“Almost all the civil liberty now enjoyed in the world owes its origin to the principles of the Christian religion…. The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother or sister and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitution of government."
We need pastors who reject the lie that our national ideals stem from the influence of the French Enlightenment rather than from the Bible and Christianity, pastors who, with John Wingate Thornton, understand that “To the Pulpit, we owe the moral force which won our independence.” We need pastors who realize that our independence today stems from one thing and one thing only: from the biblical concept that all men are created in the image of God, and because of this all men are entitled to equal treatment and unalienable rights. We also need pastors to realize that the church of the Living God IS to be involved in politics. Have we forgotten that in Isaiah we are told that the government in upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ?
In short, we need pastors who are willing to stand today like the “Black-Robed Regiment” of our American Revolution did back some 234 years ago. The Black-Robed Regiment was a group of clergy who were fierce opponents of British tyranny and a driving force in the decision of the colonies to seek independence. They would get in their pulpits wearing their long black robes, and they would preach the Word of God without fear or favor.
These men of God would get in their pulpits and they would uncompromisingly tell people what or who they should and should not vote for, because they understood that in order to have a great government, then you must have great citizens. The way that you have great citizens is by having great people that are rooted in the foundation of the Word of God. Week after week after week, they expounded upon the principles of the proper role of government, the proper role of individuals, all underneath the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
King George had provoked many of these men to leave England by demanding that they submit to licensing by the crown. He called them the Black-Robed Regiment because of the black robes they wore when they preached.
These men of God staunchly opposed the divine right of earthly kings. Their cry was, “Restore the crown rights of King Jesus!” Many of them wrote impassioned pleas for freedom, and some even joined the Continental Army. When George Washington asked Lutheran pastor Peter Muhlenberg to raise a regiment of volunteers, Muhlenberg gladly agreed and raised the 8th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army. Before marching off to join Washington’s army, he delivered a powerful sermon from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 that concluded with these words:
“The Bible tells us there is a time for all things and there is a time to preach and a time to pray but the time for me to preach has passed away, and there is a time to fight, and that time has come now. Now is the time to fight! Call for recruits! Sound the drums!”
Then Muhlenberg took off his clerical robe to reveal the uniform of a Virginia Colonel. Grabbing his musket from behind the pulpit, he donned his Colonel’s hat and marched off to war.
Conversly, his brother Fredrick Augustus Mulenberg, who was also a minister, pastoring in Philadelphia, did not approve of his brother’s stand for freedom and proving it by going into the army. Fredrick supported pacifism until the day he stood and watched helplessly as the British burned down his church. Then he joined the military himself.
The British knew that American policy was made from the pulpits of America so they knew they need to stop the pulpits. They desecrated and burned the churches, jailed and imprisoned it’s pastors and scattered their flocks.
During the 2nd War for American Independence (1861-1865) General Sherman knew the very same thing. One pastor from Georgia wrote after Sherman’s march to the sea; “..you can follow Sherman’s line of march by the burned and desecrated churches and destroyed Bibles.”
How long are the pulpits of 21st century America going to stay quiet? The pulpit of the American church needs to speak out again and take its place as the opinion maker for the American people. Please don’t forget what Rev. Charles Finney said;
“If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it.”