"America's Godly Heritage" | Freedom Sunday | June 27, 2021

hi i'm robert jeffress pastor of first baptist church in dallas we are so excited to have you join us on the i campus today for a time of inspiring worship and biblical teaching you are part of a vast online community gathered from all over the world we consider you a part of our first baptist church family and we hope you feel a part of what god is doing in and through first baptist dallas no matter where you are we hope and pray that this is a time you will grow in your relationship with god and others as we worship our savior together welcome to worship [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] r [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh yes the words of patriots remind us of ourselves they warn us of the consequences of taking liberty for granted and they urge us to willingly and courageously take up the mantle left to us by those who have sacrificed so that we could be free [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] uh [Music] um [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] let's remain standing together as we continue to celebrate through the singing of our country's national anthem [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] god bless america let's remain standing as we worship how great [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] lift your voice [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me our grace [Music] [Music] is [Music] thank you so much for worshiping with us today i want to encourage you to become an icampus i member from wherever you are in the world we want you to be a part of what's going on here at first baptist dallas when you do so today we will send you daily devotionals from our pastor dr robert jeffress the digital edition of pathway magazine great encouraging equipping resources delivered straight to your inbox each and every month as well as an icampus imember certificate to commemorate this special day we love you guys so much we want you to be a part of what's going on here at first baptist dallas so join us today as an icampus i member to do so simply visit firstdallas.org forward slash free gift now let's join right back in live with the remainder of today's service oh and we welcome everyone to worship at first baptist dallas today for this special freedom sunday worship service we welcome each of you and we welcome our guests joining us in the room as well as on icampus guest we have a very special gift for you today it's our pastor's book praying for america 40 inspiring stories and prayers for our nation guest as you came in this morning you received a worship guide you'll find and close this guest card please take the time to fill this out and keep the card with you at the end of the service take it outside these main worship center doors right there you're going to find our welcome center our staff is waiting there for you to exchange your completed card for your gift today and answer any questions you might have regarding our church if you can't make it to the welcome center we have some orange boxes on your way out you can slip the card in one of those and we will mail you a copy of your gift if you're joining us on icampus just follow that link on your screen to access your gift as well again it's great to see each of you for worship this morning and we've come to a very special time in our worship service and that's where we recognize and pay tribute to those who have served or are currently serving in our united states armed forces so if that's you when you hear your branch's theme song we want you to stand and wave your flag proudly as we honor and celebrate you today joining us here on the platform will be members of our very own first dallas family representing their own military branch here is salute to the armed forces [Music] foreign the united states navy [Music] [Applause] uh the united states coast guard [Music] is [Music] the united states air force [Music] the united states marine corps [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] god bless our soldiers you may be seated we're excited this morning to welcome back to first baptist dallas one of the world's premier acapella groups captivating audiences worldwide with their excellence and heart and musicianship from my alma mater lee university in cleveland tennessee let's welcome back danny murray and the voices of lee [Music] [Music] the [Music] the red and white [Music] in order to form a more perfect union establish justice ensure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to ordain and establish this constitution for the united states of america [Music] me [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] r [Music] [Music] we [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and establish this constant [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Applause] me shining shining shining shining shining [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] [Music] do [Music] or my hope is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] righteousness scorned by the ones he came to save [Music] the wrath of god was laid but here is [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] i [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] danny murray and the voices of lee incredible what a blessing well as we continue in worship through giving let me remind you that you can leave your tithes and offerings in the boxes on your way out as well as you can give online at firstdallas.org slash give online during this time i'll invite you to use the kneelers in front of you as we go to our lord in prayer and coming to lead us in our offertory prayer is longtime church member deacon and retired united states army chaplain colonel gill strickland now the lord is the spirit and where the spirit is found there is liberty second corinthians chapter 3 verse 17. would you join me in praying dear heavenly father for the liberty that we have in jesus christ in our hearts and our spiritual devotion today we pause to praise you and express our gratitude for this magnificent blessing we confess that this god-given liberty was made possible by your death on the cross and the shedding of your precious blood that covered our sins and washed them all away for all eternity today we also remember the liberty of our nation's religious freedom offered by your leading our forefathers to pen the constitution of the united states of america we are certain that the spiritual heritage has come from you also we remember all of those who answered the call to duty over the last 235 years and marched off to war as warriors to defend and support those hallowed and powerful words of human liberty it is with our sacred memory that we express our love and gratitude for those more than four million great americans true patriots men and women who paid for us the highest price by their ultimate sacrifice theirs too was paid by the color red leaving their bloodstains on battlefields of the world may we always remember liberty's freedom is never free for it is bought and paid for with blood's highest price this hour we simply cry out that our own personal life of faith and devotion to thee would be deeper and stronger and we asked that you would allow us to live to see another great movement of god's grace across our land from the atlantic to the pacific and from the borders of canada to mexico may god's third great awakening in our nation renew and rekindle the spiritual foundations of these united states of america we present our supplications in the name of the lord jesus christ both our savior and lord amen and amen [Music] my eyes [Music] he is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] is i see [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] christmas [Music] is let us [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so much marvelous first dallas choir and orchestra for your music this morning thank you voices of lee and i want to take a moment to pay tribute to our church accompanyist for more than 40 years mary ruth tucker who today is officially retiring from her position but she's not going to stop serving here the only difference is she doesn't get paid for it any longer but you know mary ruth tucker has survived numerous pastors and ministers of music during those 40-plus years she has been a foundation stone of our music ministry and would you join me now in saying thank you to mary ruth for a great job she has done here in our church thank you mary we love you and charlie and your family we want to welcome the hundreds of thousands of you who are watching our service today on our first dallas eye campus we want to welcome you to first baptist church in dallas this is our annual celebrate freedom service i read this morning another blog criticizing our church for having a service like this claiming that we are worshiping america nothing could be further from the truth we are worshiping the god who has blessed america and that is what we're here to do today and we don't apologize for what we do once a year here we first of all acknowledge god's undeserved blessings upon our country especially the blessing of freedom we acknowledge that this nation was founded as a christian nation and we declare that our blessings as a nation depends upon our fidelity and faithfulness to god god is no respecter of people or nations any nation that honors god will be blessed by god and any nation that rejects god including the united states of america will be rejected by god that is why the psalmist says blessed is the nation whose god is the lord you know to say today today to say that america was founded as a christian nation is probably the most politically incorrect statement you could ever say do you remember three years ago when i was going to preach a message titled america is a christian nation we put up billboards all around the city of dallas with my sermon title in quotation marks america is a christian nation there was an uproar from the leadership of the city of dallas and from other uh far left people in dallas and such an outcry that the billboard company was forced to take down those billboards thankfully another billboard company that had some guts and a spine put up 18 more billboards around the country around the city to say such a thing the left not only wants to cancel our history as a nation they want to erase our history they want to claim that america was founded by secularists who wanted nothing more than to create a nation that was free from any influence from the christian faith whatsoever that version of american history is a myth and so as i thought today about who we could have to declare that historical reality that this nation was founded as a christian nation i couldn't think of anyone better than our guest preacher today david barton is the founder of the wall builders organization he is a christian historian he is the author of numerous best-selling books presenting the evidence for the christian heritage of our nation we are so grateful to have him and his wife cheryl here today to share with us would you join me in welcoming a patriot and a prophet of god for this time in our nation's history this is david barton god bless you thank you dr jefferson it's good to be with you this morning let me start just this morning with a simple statement that this is a happy birthday america kind of day this is what we're doing here we celebrate independence day as dr jeffress just mentioned this is unique in america because america is under attack by its own people in a way we've never seen as a result this morning as i talked to you we have polling wise the lowest national patriotism on record as a matter of fact less than half of americans today say they're very proud to be americans as you look at the next generation only one out of three and the next generation actually knows what this day is about actually knows what happens today so this is completely different than anything we've had in any previous generation we simply don't teach american history anymore we teach politically correct myths we make claims and charges nobody checks to see if they're true we just repeat them and so that's what we hear across america now the problem with this is what you see right here this is george washington university if you go to george washington university to be a history major you will not get a single course in american history now the american college of trustees and alumni tells us that right now today out of the top 74 universities in america if you go there to be a history major at 62 of the 74 universities you will not have a single course in american history to be a history major you go to history you're a history major so you can teach history yeah but you won't know anything about america you see we see this not only with what's happening at college campuses we see it in the same way with not even offering history university of wisconsin is just dropping history as a major if you want to study history sorry we're not going to help you do that we don't like what it was we want the nation to be something different in addition to what we see there what we see what we saw coming out in september of 2014 the ap history standards those ap standards are history standards that we use all across the united states all 50 states this is the the top kids that study history the history-loving kids in high school about 460 000 a year this is the course that they have this accounts for college credit as well and it's interesting that when you look into the founding of america what you find is there are no founding fathers you can't find anything about thomas jefferson or ben franklin or john adams or james madison nothing there you won't find anything about the american war for independence nothing of the major battles that occurred this is what the top history students in high school don't get right now anything about the american founding assembly when you look at history standards right now we have a network of legislators across the united states and we were contacted by one of our legislators in minnesota who said guess what we just passed in minnesota here in minnesota we just passed new history standards for the next 10 years and for the next 10 years in minnesota what we are going to do or actually what we are not going to do we are not going to teach anything on the american revolution or the civil war or world war one or world war ii or the holocaust all of those are gone out of our history standards for the next 10 years that's what happened this year i went to louisiana to testify in louisiana on some history bills they were doing and you say okay minnesota that's a liberal state but louisiana's not and so in louisiana's went there to testify on bills and it was trying to prevent what we see going across the nation even in louisiana they said well we don't think kids should study world war ii or the declaration of independence we think that should come out so both liberal states and conservative states were moving very rapidly away from knowing anything about our own history so what we have now is a historically illiterate america having said that let me take you back to something that we know that happened in america one of the things that we do at wall builders is we have about a hundred and twenty thousand items from before 1812 by the name wall builders taken from the bible book of nehemiah is the concept of rebuilding things that have been torn down restoring things that are destroyed in communities and history is one of those things that we see being destroyed right now so when you look at independence day and looking back at independence day what you find is we no longer know how unique we are do you know what the average length of a governing document in the history of the world is 5800 years recorded history how long when a nation starts nation creates its own constitutional form government what's the average length that that governing document lasts for 5 800 years the average length has been 17 years that's the average length of a governing document in any country today we celebrate 245 years that's a reason to be really proud of what we've done in america i mean to put it in perspective the average nation has a new new founding document every 17 years and they average a violent revelation revolution every generation america has not experienced that we have blessings we just take for granted we're happy to listen to all the complaints and so many out there telling us about how bad america is and we need to tear it down oh my gosh can you imagine living in a country where you have a new government every 17 years you have a violent revolution every generation we have been blessed beyond measure in ways that we don't recognize we need to appreciate those blessings now what i want to do is i want to take you back to our beginnings and that means back to our founding fathers because that's what we look at on independence day as i take you back to the founding fathers let me kind of give you the starting place the starting place when i look at the founding fathers is a starting place that it should be for all of us anytime we look at anybody in history and it's right out of romans 6 all of sin and come short of the glory of god that's our founding fathers they were not perfect not by a long shot because they were human they all needed saviors like we need saviors but god used those guys in a remarkable way to do something that's never been done in the history of the world and so many of them were very godly so many of them were devout christians so many of them sought his word it was typical for them to read through the bible from cover to cover once every year we did that in schools back then they did it in their own private life we know that because they are prolific writers they do in in writing what we do with cameras tapes and vcrs they recorded everything that's why george washington has 100 volumes of writings jefferson has 100 volumes madison's got 60 hamilton's got 80. franklin's got 60. they wrote it all down we know what they said and what they thought and what they did because they recorded it all so when you look at the founding fathers the first time these guys got together was in the first provincial congress of 1774. at that time we had been 13 separate nations we were not a single nation and the guys in georgia had no clue who the guys in massachusetts were the guys from new york didn't know the guys in virginia so when they got together all these 40 guys that are there from the 13 different colonies what did they do to start things off how what kind of introductions you have it's interesting the first thing they did was they opened with prayer but it wasn't a dinky little prayer like we might have a city council day that says god bless the city council help them their decisions no no according to the historical records it was a two-hour prayer session that they opened with so they opened with a two-hour prayer session and john adams who was there he wrote his wife abigail and he said abigail not only did we open with prayer but we went through four chapters of the bible this morning as we were praying and having studied he said psalm 35 god particularly spoke to us out of psalm 35 that that psalm just jumped off the page caused us to think that we might actually have a have a chance in what we're doing because we had no military and we're fighting the greatest military in the world what kind of chance do you have psalm 35 convinced them they had a chance so this is what john told abigail said abigail i must beg you to read that psalm read the 35th psalm to your friends read it to your father her father was the pastor of their church reverend william smith he said you got to let everybody see what god showed us this morning out of psalm 35 and he continued he said abigail he says we've appointed a continental fast he said millions will be upon their knees at once before their great creator imploring his forgiveness and blessings and smiles on american council arms he said can you imagine the impact of having three million americans that's what the population was back then was three months they said can you imagine the impact of having three million americans pray and fast now that was the first of fifteen times that congress called the nation to prayer during the american war for independence that happened to be a day of prayer and fasting and it's interesting you find an alternating pattern in their prayer time they had a day of prayer and fasting and a few months later they said it's time to have a day in prayer thanksgiving because look at all the prayers that god answered we prayed and fasted he answered those and so it goes back and forth 15 times prayer and fasting prayer and thanksgiving prayer and fasting prayer and thanksgiving matter of fact we were so much into prayer in early america that when you look at the official prayer proclamations by the time you get to 1815 there have been 1400 government issued calls to prayer in america by 1815. that's a lot of praying being done and it's not by pastors calling forth that's by government leaders calling for prayer now notice up here one of those proclamations see where it says john hancock see john hancock there i think we recognize the name john hancock john hancock was the president of continental congress that big bold signature heat on the declaration he as governor of massachusetts called his nation to prayer on a number of occasions you see one of his prayer proclamations here this is the original this is from 1793 this is one of john hancock's time of prayer and it says appear it's a time of fasting humiliation and prayer now this is one of 22 times that john hancock called his state to fast and pray what would john hancock have the people of massachusetts fasting and praying for let me show you right out of the proclamation he says we need to fast and pray that the kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ may be established in peace and righteousness among all the nations of the earth that doesn't sound very squishy to me that sounds kind of like a christian prayer sounds like he knows exactly who he's praying to and can you imagine the people of massachusetts praying and fasting for that outcome let me show you another of his proclamations he said we need to fast and pray that all nations may bow to the scepter of our lord and savior jesus christ and the whole earth may be filled with his glory and another one he said we need to pray and confess our sins before god and implore his forgiveness to the merits and mediation of jesus christ our lord and savior and yet another one he said we need to pray that the spiritual kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ may be continually increasing into the whole earth shall be filled with his glory that sounds fairly christian and we're told today that the founding fathers are a bunch of atheists and agnostics and deists really see this because we don't know history anymore we would never have tolerated that accusation even a generation ago because we knew too much about our founding fathers so as you look at what happens with founding fathers this time of prayer and fasting that happened john adams watched what happened over the next several weeks and about six to eight weeks after he had written abigail saying we have this day of prayer and fasting he said abigail you're not going to believe what's happened and he started going through all the specific things that he had heard about because we don't have an army we don't have a navy and yet somehow we captured a 20-gun british man of war and a 64-gun british man of war uh one of our officers colonel smith captured entire british forward and he led nothing but a bunch of fish farmers and neighbors to camp and john adams and this is unbelievable i can't believe what's happening here and so what he told abigail he wrote and said abigail he said it appears to me the eternal son of god is operating powerfully against the british nation because there's no way of explaining what we were doing because we did not have a professional military great britain was our military we had a bunch of shopkeepers and a bunch of farmers and a bunch of school teachers teachers that was our military and we did remarkable things and you know it's not just john adams who noticed this the same thing happened with george washington george washington he wrote one of his generals general thomas nelson thomas nelson was actually a signer of the declaration as well and he wrote thomas nelson he said thomas and this is 1778 he said what you and i have seen in battle we've seen god intervene so many times we've watched it we've watched the outcome be different than what was expected and i love what george told thomas he said the hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith and more than wicked that hath not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations in other words thomas if people have seen what you and i have seen if they've seen the way god's intervened and they don't feel an obligation to hit their knees and thank god they're worse than they're just wicked they're infidels if you don't feel like you should hit your knees and thank god for what we've seen and by the way george washington on 250 occasions in his writings talks about the providence of god intervening to change the outcomes and i can take you through a number of those miraculous interventions where even the weather dramatically changed and caused the wind whether wiped out the british didn't hurt the americans several times when it happened and so this is what george washington sees and says so finally we get all the way through the american war for independence and in 1781 this is when we have the battle of yorktown this is when the british lay down their arms and by the way the hero of the battle of yorktown that we used to know a lot about that we don't know anymore is a guy named thomas j this guy named james armistead he's a black patriot he's the first double spy in american europe in american history he actually worked for lafayette he went in he's the guy who found out where lord cornwallis the british commander was going to be he's the guy who got word back to lafayette and back to washington that allowed us to be there before cornwallis and we caught him and we captured him and that ended the american revolution lafayette and others said it wouldn't have ended if it hadn't been for james armist at a black patriot and by the way john adams said that the american revolution started with the boston massacre back in 1770 and the first martyr in the boston massacre was a guy named christmas addicts so the american war for independence starts with a black patriot it ends with the work of a black double spy and somehow we don't study anything about black history today as a matter of fact we know nearly nothing about folks like john morant wentworth cheswell folks like absalon jones or william nell folks like prince esther brooke folks like lemuel haynes reverend lemuel haynes peter salem john chavez uh harry hoosier richard allen so many other guys you know if we studied our history we might have a whole different culture a whole different climate in our culture today if we knew american history we wouldn't have the tensions that we're facing today but because we don't know that see the american revolution was a melting pot not only was it black and white and hispanic and male and female george washington had 76 generals and 28 of the 76 generals were from foreign nations we literally were a melting pot in that day we just don't study that anymore and it seems like we're all white today and that's the way it's always been it's not the way it's always been just is not so with what happens there at the end what happened was when we beat the british at yorktown they laid down their arms so the the conflict is over we still have to have a peace treaty but now king george the third doesn't matter what he says to us anymore because we're we're done with that he's no longer over america and this is significant because what happened now that we're out from under what the british said one of the laws the british had was if you live in an english-speaking colony america you cannot print any bible in the english language we have a state established religion whatever the king is that's what you're going to be if he's catholic you'll be catholic if he's protestant it'll be protestant and you will use the bible that he says we were no longer under that and so the result of that was that when we defeated the british yorktown we started printing the first ever english language bible printed in america it rolled off the presses 11 months later it came out in 1782 it is known as the bible of the revolution and this is an original copy it's one of the rarest books in the world they printed 10 000 of them back then this is one of a handful that survived and lasted this day the interesting thing about this bible is you look at it and say well who who printed it well it's the guy really kind of behind it is a guy named robert aiken you can see his name there on the title page interesting thing about robert aiken is he is the official printer to the us congress and when you look in the front of this bible you actually find that there's a congressional committee in the front of this bible and you actually find a congressional endorsement in the front of the bible as a resolve the united states and congress assembled recommend this edition of the bible to the inhabitants of the united states and you go wow that's interesting well it gets more interesting because you see when robert aiken when robert aiken approached congress on why we should have this bible explain to them he said this bible is a neat addition to the holy scriptures for the use of schools and here it is in his own handwriting this is the bible we need for schools and congress said you're right about that and so we have this bible that it's done by congress has this congressional endorsement we don't know about that anymore we think oh no that didn't happen yes it did happen and this is the actual evidence that did happen with the congressional endorsement right in front a bible for the use of schools and we're told the founding fathers never one of the bible in schools again this is where history has so much to say so what happens is after we've ended the war now we have to conclude the the peace treaty and so on the left is john jay and the centers john adams on the right is ben franklin these are the three negotiators that were sent to paris to finalize the peace treaty of great britain we signed that peace treaty in 1783 you can see their names on the left the first um first inc the first wax seal there is david hartley the british ambassador and then it's got john adams ben franklin and john jay and you see at the top there are 10 articles to the peace treaty that secured us as an independent nation i would draw your attention to the top right the biggest letters on the treaty are these on the top right that says in the name of the most holy and undivided trinity that kind of sounds christian to me how about you guys oh no it's a bunch of atheist diagnostics and this so when you actually look through american independence the documents are very clear and that's why john adams who was there from start to finish he signed the declaration he signed the peace treaty at the end john adams it was real simple for him he said the general principles on which the fathers achieved the dependence for the general principles of christianity i will now avow that i then believed and i now believe that those general principles of christianity are as eternal immutable as the existence and attributes of god i'm there from start to finish i'm telling you this was christian and that's john adams that's what he says now interestingly today we say exactly the opposite i love collecting articles like this america's unchristian beginnings editorial in the l.a times and they say that all of our founding fathers were diaz to reject the divinity of jesus then you got to let the academics the professors they've got their opinions too and so the founding fathers were not christians with a big emphasis on the word not and then an editorial ran all along the east coast all over the east coast in a variety of papers it said the authors of the declaration were enemies of christ really how can they say that that's because they don't know who they are if i take you back to the siders of the declaration um i speak at a lot of universities and law schools at the duke university law school and put that picture up and said hey who who do you recognize up there tell me by name who you recognize and everybody got thomas jefferson everybody got ben franklin and then he got real quiet after that they didn't recognize anybody i said come on guys there's 56 give me some more they gave me two i said all right let me help you what you got right here is richard henry lee beside him you have sam adams beside him you have george clinton the guy looking back the opposite direction is charles carroll beside him and light jacket you have robert morris beside robert morris benjamin russ beside him as elbridge and i just keep going through all the others and they go who don't recognize those guys yeah we've all been trained to recognize the two least religious founding fathers we can recognize jefferson franklin we have no clue that of the founding fathers so many of them 29 of them were involved in direct christian ministry and came from bible schools they graduated from schools that were seminaries for training ministers 29 of these guys let me take you to one of them for example this man john witherspoon's side of the declaration john witherspoon is responsible for this book right here this is america's very first family bible this was done in 1791 there's about a dozen volumes of gospel sermons that are published from john witherspoon and they were best sellers kind of like reading billy graham people couldn't wait for the next one to come out when you read his writings you find statements like this i entreat you in the most earnest manner to believe in jesus christ for there is no salvation in any other acts 4 12. if you're not reconciled to god through jesus christ if you're not clothed with a spotless robe of his righteousness you must forever perish that's fairly evangelical and then you have folks like benjamin rush dr benjamin rush is the the man who started the first abolition society in america trained the first black physicians in america great racial relationships with benjamin rush he's also the guy who started the sunday school movement in america he's also the guy who started the first bible society in america this is actually the bible they produced this is the first mass-produced bible ever done in american history came from the sign of the declaration he too like the other founders is a prolific writer when you read his writings you find statements like this my only hope of salvation is in the infinite transcendent love of god manifested the world by the death of his son upon the cross nothing but his blood will wash away my sins i rely exclusively upon it come lord jesus come quickly kind of sounds evangelical to me no they're atheist agnostics deist let me take you to roger sherman roger sharma is the only founding father who signed all four founding documents he was the theologian he wrote the doctrinal creed for his denomination in connecticut this is what you find in his writings he says god commands all men everywhere to repent he also commands them to believe on the lord jesus christ and has assured us that all who do repent and believe shall be saved god has promised to bestow eternal blessings on all those who are willing to accept him on the terms of the gospel that is in a way of free grace through the atonement again very evangelical but why not he was a theologian as many of the founding fathers were you have charles carroll interesting man he lived to be 95 years old at a time when the average lifespan in america was 33 years old so 95 years old when he was 89 he'd already outlived his kids and his grandkids et cetera and they said charles you're going to die someday and when you do die are you ready to meet god when you die and his answer he gave them in this letter right here this is his original letter he's 89 years old he says you're asking me if i'm ready to meet god when i die he said of course i am and this is the part i want you to see right here you can tell there it says on the mercy it says on the mercy of my redeemer i rely for salvation and on his merits not on the works i've done in obedience to his precepts that's ephesians 2 8 and 9 by grace you say through faith not of works lest any man should boast and interestingly he he is the longest surviving sign of the declaration on the 4th of july 1826 you had thomas jefferson and john adams on the 50th anniversary of the declaration they died on that day the only surviving side of the declaration left was charles carroll at that point new york city said charles we have an original copy of the declaration because we're one of the original 13. you're the last guy alive that helped create the nation we're sending you this copy of the declaration we want you to write your final thoughts on this now 50 years later what do you think about america because this can't be what you imagined back then i mean look how god's prospered and blessed what do you think about america 50 years later this is what he wrote on the declaration of independence he says i am grateful to almighty god for the blessings which through jesus christ our lord he's conferred on my beloved country he said when i look back over the past 50 years i can't thank god enough for what jesus christ has done for america now that's on an original copy of the declaration we've never heard this before yeah but this is the stuff that's out there that this generation has not heard and what a different and you know pastor jeffrey's talking about that we're not ashamed of the fact that we love our country and they call that christian nationalism listen jeremiah 29 god told jeremiah wherever i send you you seek the good of that country if every nation in the world sought god's best for that nation if they thought of government without corruption they sought the best government ever the best economic system ever the best education the whole world would be terrific if everybody saw god's best for the nation we don't apologize for seeking god's best for the nation that's what these guys wanted back then and again they aren't perfect there were plenty with well they don't there's so many blemishes they were slave owners yeah but three three out of four were anti-slavery they started abolition societies they freed slaves they passed anti-slavery laws as they did in massachusetts massachusetts is the first region in the world to pass an anti-slavery law john hancock and john adams and sam adams and robert treat payne 1780 banned any slavery by 1804 every northern state had banned slavery nowhere in the world had been slavery before new england did 1807 america passed the first law banning the slave trade first nations of the world the ban the slave trade was america we weren't perfect we had problems but we were so far ahead of other nations because of what we understood that god wanted and yes we had blemishes in the southern states it took them a while to get on board nonetheless god has still blessed america in unique ways that other nations have not been blessed so when you look at where we are you say authors the declaration and means of christ how can they say that they can only say that because they don't know who they are and that's the problem we have today so looking at independence day kind of wrapping this down take it back to john adams again john adams we've used him a lot on the day that we approved the declaration of independence john adams on that day wrote abigail two letters the first one was short it was jubilant he said we've done it we've separated from great britain we're now an independent nation the second letter he wrote that day was a whole lot more pensive a lot more thoughtful he said abigail i've been thinking about what we've done today and he said you know and here's what he predicted he says i'm have to believe that this day will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival he said i think future generations are going to look back at what we've done today and say we should celebrate that day we should celebrate independence he said i think this is going to be the national birthday now that's really astute on the day that you do something to be looking hundreds of years ahead and say how are future generations going to view what we just did today very few did that they did that he said i i think that's what's going to happen and he thought about that and he said is this a good thing or not should this be celebrated and he finally decided yeah this probably should be celebrated he said this day ought to be commemorated how this day ought to be commemorated as a day of deliverance how he said this day ought to be commemorated as a day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to god almighty now it was his view that in the it was his view that independence day should be a religious holiday we don't think about that but i can show you for decades our top two religious holidays in america were the fourth of july and christmas because we said on christmas look at the principles that jesus christ brought us into the world through his birth and on the fourth of july we took those principles christ brought through his birth and we tried to apply them into the nation so that was the top two religious holidays in america for all those years and that's documentable by their own writings so significantly if you're interested in this and you haven't heard this outside you'll find a couple of books that have this content but going back to this being a religious holiday we were talking earlier about patriotism patriotism was not a bad deal i want to close what they charge the patriotism that george washington gave his troops when george washington was at valley forge and this was in the winter of 76 and 77 he there at valley forge saw things that had never been recorded in history he wrote about that he said i've read all of history i've never seen army whose footprints can be tracked by the blood in their snow he said our guys without blankets or without shoes he watched from 8 to 20 guys a day die around him they could have all gone home and been warm for the winter they didn't they wanted to be there in case the british moved out of philadelphia they can intercept the british and they sacrificed and he watched those sacrifices in a way that's never been recorded in history and that's what he talked about in his diary journals again he's a prolific writer you read about what they saw at at valley for forge and just tears your heart up to see what what those guys went through on the day that they broke camp they broke camp on may the 2nd of 1777 the night of my actually broke camp on may the 3rd the night of may the 2nd he wrote his final order at valley forge that final order says to the distinguished character of patriot i've watched there's never been patriotism displayed like i've seen here with you guys he said your distinguished patriots he said but to the distinguished character of hatred should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of christian he says as as much as your patriotism impressed me he said you need to understand it's more important to be a christian than it is to be a patriot and one does not exclude the other patriot you love america we love military i got two kids serving the army right now we're patriots but higher than even patriot is that of christian and that came from the original commander-in-chief george washington so closing out this morning let me remind you of what the scripture says we've talked this morning about the american war for independence and the word i want to emphasize for for a minute is the word war with the word war we go back to scriptures we're told in the scriptures that there is a war between us and god there's enmity between man and god it happens because god created us for purpose we're not following the purpose a lot of us are not and therefore we're doing things he doesn't want us to do and that creates a war between us and god if there's war between us and god let me assure you god is going to win that war he will be the one who gets the final word it's not going to be how good we are and jesus didn't you understand that this is why i was trying no you've got to do what god wants that's the only way to have peace with god now you need a negotiator to arrange a peace treater just like we had with the founding fathers in the american revolution you need a negotiator to do that and we have to negotiate a trader treaty and it will be on his terms america we want so we get to dictate terms god's going to win this battle he's laid down the terms and one of the terms he said is the only negotiator that i'm going to accept is jesus christ he's the only one that can can make a treaty between me and you and so we know that jesus is the only one who can end the war between us and god and bring peace and the scriptures told us that if we're going to negotiate a peace treaty there's three things that have to be part of that negotiated peace treaty the first thing that we have to understand is that we have to repent and be sorry for what we've done god you've got a purpose for me i haven't asked you what it is i haven't tried to do it i'm probably not doing it and i'm sorry for that i want to find out what you want me to do the second thing we're told is that we have to believe and confess we have to believe that jesus christ is the one who can negotiate that peace treaty and we have to tell others about that that jesus you're the one you're the one that can make peace between me and god and we want others to know that so we tell them about that and third and final thing actually comes from jesus he said if you're going to be my followers you have to deny yourself daily and follow me it's not just about just your confession you have to have a lifestyle that matches that so what we're told in ephesians 2 8 and 9 by grace we save their faith and verse 10 says we're saved under good works there are actions that have to go that life change this is what god expects of us so if you've never had a chance to make peace with god if you've never stopped to even say god what's your plan for my life what's your purpose for me why did you create me we're all created for a specific purpose if you've never done that let me encourage you to do that and fourth of july is a great time as we celebrate independence day and think about fourth of july it's a great time we made peace with great britain we established ourselves as a free independent nation make peace with god and establish yourself on a good relationship with him if you want to you can just cry out in your own heart how to do that or if you'll follow me i'm going to pray a prayer and you can kind of say amen as i pray that but you need to make peace with god this is the most important thing we can learn that's what every founding father had to do to be a christian that's what every person has to do to be a christian you need to do that as well let's pray father we thank you for the nation you've given us but more importantly we thank you that you have a plan for every one of us just like you have a plan for nations you have a plan for my life and father i've never asked you what that plan is but i'm asking you now to show me what that plan for my life is help me to get in that plan and you've told me that jesus christ is the only way that i can come to you so i'm looking to jesus i'm asking him to forgive my sins i'm asking him to establish me with you peace between us so that i can know what you want me to do and i can follow that father i look forward to a new life through jesus christ following you following your word and doing what you want me to do i ask you to empower me this through the holy spirit in jesus name amen let me just say if you prayed that prayer today so many of you are watching online right now if you prayed that prayer with david just a moment ago to have peace with god by trusting in christ as your savior i want to encourage you if you're watching this program to just go to the top of the screen and click on the link that says i prayed the prayer to trust in christ and we'll send you some free information about what it means to live as a christian for those of you in day one or here in our worship center let me encourage you to take this card out it's very important it's in your bulletin today if you prayed to trust in christ check that third box maybe you're a guest today we're so glad you're here i'd encourage you to check the first box maybe you want more information about our church i've already been told there are a number of you who would like to join first baptist dallas you can do that by checking the final box when you have completed these boxes whether you're a guest or you're making a decision take this completed card and on your way out go by the welcome center and you can exchange your copy or the card for a copy a free copy of my book praying for america 40 inspiring stories of prayers for our nation and would love to give that to you if you don't want to stop at the welcome center drop your completed card and one of the receptacles on the way out we'll process it and get the information to you well haven't you loved the message today thank you david barton thank you cheryl for being here today now i know what you're thinking you're thinking man he talks so fast he's faster than the pastor i couldn't get all those notes i don't i'd love to have that material all of it's deposited in david's new book along with his son tim the american story the beginnings hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of footnotes you have children you have grandchildren who aren't going to hear this truth in school this would be a great book for you for them to have and david has pre-signed copies you can get those on the concourse so i encourage you to do so right after the service let's say thanks again to our marvelous choir and orchestra and the voices of lee for their music today and today they're going to lead us in our closing song tyler thank you and joe for the excellent job you did let's stand together now for our concluding song thank you pastor what a tremendous morning of worship here in the worship center and in day one let's join together as we worship the god who is so blessed this great land blessed is the nation whose god is the lord every voice let's declare together [Music] stand beside [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] sweet god bless you church [Music] well thank you so much for joining us for worship today on the first dallas eye campus it's our honor and privilege to worship chat and pray with you throughout the service if you are local to dfw let me encourage you to come on down we'd love to have you visit us in person we'd love to greet you and show you a great spot in the worship center for you to sit it would be our honor to worship with you in person in the heart of downtown dallas right here at first baptist dallas also if you are new here to the icampus or have been watching for a while and want to get plugged in let me encourage you to sign up for a free gift we'd love to provide that to you directly in your inbox and then sign you up for pastors daily devotional it's straight from the pen of dr jeffress and you will be encouraged with that great resource each and every day simply visit the link that's provided on your screen and lastly stay connected with us each and every day with our facebook global group there we encourage one another through scripture and graphics but also pray for one another so head on over to facebook and join our icampus global facebook group thank you again for joining us today for worship we look forward to seeing you next week on the first dallas i campus hi i'm robert jeffress pastor of first baptist church in dallas we are so excited to have you join us on the i campus today for a time of inspiring worship and biblical teaching you are part of a vast online community gathered from all over the world we consider you a part of our first baptist church family and we hope you feel a part of what god is doing in and through first baptist dallas no matter where you are we hope and pray that this is a time you will grow in your relationship with god and others as we worship our savior together welcome to worship [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] r [Music] [Applause] uh [Music] [Music] is [Music] is yes the words of patriots remind us of our glory they warn us of the consequences of taking liberty for granted and they urge us to willingly and courageously take up the mantle left to us by those who have sacrificed so that we could be free [Music] [Music] is [Music] ah [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] let's remain standing as we continue to celebrate through the singing of our country's national anthem [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] god bless america let's continue in worship together how brave [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we'll see how great [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] hey [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh praise the lord this morning how great is our god great worship church you may be seated thank you so much for worshiping with us today i want to encourage you to become an eye icampus i member from wherever you are in the world we want you to be a part of what's going on here at first baptist dallas when you do so today we will send you daily devotionals from our pastor dr robert jeffress the digital edition of pathway magazine great encouraging equipping resources delivered straight to your inbox each and every month as well as an icampus imember certificate to commemorate this special day we love you guys so much we want you to be a part of what's going on here at first baptist dallas so join us today as an icampus i member to do so simply visit firstdallas.org forward slash free gift now let's join right back in live with the remainder of today's service oh and it is so good to see each and every one of you here for worship this morning for this special freedom sunday at first baptist dallas we welcome you we welcome our guests joining us here in the room today as well as on our eye campus guests we have a very special gift for you it's our pastor's book praying for america 40 inspiring stories and prayers for our nation guest as you came in this morning you received a worship guide and you'll find enclosed this guest card please take the time to fill this out keep the card with you at the end of the service take it outside these main worship center doors right there you're going to find our welcome center our staff is waiting there for you we can't wait to meet you you'll exchange your completed card for your gift and we'll answer any questions you might have regarding our church now if you can't make it to the welcome center you'll find some orange boxes on your way out just slip the card in one of those we'll mail you a copy of your gift and those joining us on icampus just follow that link on your screen to access your gift as well again it's so good to see each of you this morning for worship well we've come to a very special time in our service this morning and that's when we recognize and pay tribute to those men and women who have served in our united states armed forces so if you have served or are currently serving when you hear your branch's theme song we want you to stand and wave your flag proudly as we honor and thank you for your service today we'll be joined on the platform by members of our own first dallas family representing their own military branch here is salute to the armed forces the united states army [Music] [Music] is artillery the united states navy [Music] is [Music] the united states coast guard [Music] is [Music] the united states air force [Music] here [Music] [Applause] the united states marine corps [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] me let's hear it one more time for those serving in our united states armed forces god bless you and thank you for your service you may be seated well this morning we're excited to welcome back to first baptist dallas one of the world's premier acapella groups and they captivate audiences worldwide with their excellence in musicianship and heart in worship from my alma mater lee university in cleveland tennessee let's welcome danny murray and the voices of lee [Music] amen [Music] the red and the white and we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union establish justice ensure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the united states of america we [Music] are [Music] you [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] blessings [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] grace shining shining shining shining shining [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] down [Music] in christ alone my hope is he is [Music] is [Music] my [Music] know [Music] is [Music] that jesus [Music] but here in the death of christ [Music] ground [Music] [Applause] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] this is [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] the voices of lee [Applause] incredible worship you may be seated well as we continue in worship through giving let me remind you that you can place your tithes and offerings in the boxes as you leave the worship center you can also give online at firstdallas.org slash give online i want you to invite you to use the kneelers in front of you as we go to the lord in prayer and this morning we're led in our offertory prayer by long-time church member deacon and retired united states army chaplain colonel gill strickland now the lord is the spirit and where the spirit is found there is liberty second corinthians chapter 3 verse 17 will you pray with me dear heavenly father for liberty that we have in jesus christ in our hearts in our spiritual devotion today we pause to praise you and to express our gratitude for this magnificent blessing we confess that this god-given liberty was made possible by your death on the cross the shedding of your precious blood that covered our sins and washed them away for all eternity today we remember the liberty of our nation's religious freedom offered by the leading of our forefathers to pen the constitution of the united states of america we are certain america's spiritual heritage came from you also we remember all those who answered the call to duty over the last 235 years and marched off to war as warriors to defend and support those hallowed and powerful words of human liberty it is with our sacred memory that we express our love and gratitude to those more than four million great americans true patriots men and women who paid for us the highest price by their ultimate sacrifice theirs too was paid for by the color red leaving their bloodstains on the battlefields of the world may we always remember liberty's freedom is never free for it is bought and paid for with blood's highest price we honor you in this hour with our love and devotion and simply asked that our own commitment would be deeper and stronger than ever before i pray that you would allow each of us to live long enough to see a great movement of god's grace across our land from the atlantic to the pacific and from the borders of canada to mexico may god's third great awakening in our nation renew and rekindle the spiritual foundations of these united states of america we make these supplications in the name of our lord and savior jesus christ amen and amen [Music] my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] ah [Music] hi [Music] is [Music] i see [Music] [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] me let us [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so much marvelous first dallas choir and orchestra voices of lee for your tremendous music this morning i want to say a special word of thanks to one of our musicians mary ruth tucker she has served for more than 40 years as our church accompanist and today she is officially retiring but she's going to continue to serve with us mary ruth has endured multiple pastors and ministers of music but she's always done so with a smile we wouldn't have this fantastic music program we're it not for mary ruth tucker so mary ruth congratulations thank you for all of your service to our [Applause] church [Applause] we want to welcome the multitude of you who've joined us from all 195 countries to the worship service of the first baptist church in dallas texas and this is the pastor welcoming you to our annual celebrate freedom service you know i was reading a blog this morning instead of my bible i should have been reading my bible but i read a blog this morning yet another one critical of our church for having a service like this having a patriotic service accusing us of worshiping america instead of worshiping god nothing could be further from the truth we are not worshiping america we're worshiping the god who has blessed this country that we love and i can tell you this as long as i am pastor of this church we are going to have this service every year in which we acknowledge god's blessing on our country and not only that we're going to have this yearly service to explain the christian heritage of this nation and to declare our utter dependence upon god god is not a respecter of people or nations god will bless any nation that reverences him and god will judge any nation including the united states of america that disobeys god the psalmist said in psalm 33 12 blessed is the nation whose god is the lord today the most politically incorrect statement you can make is to declare that america was founded as a christian nation do you remember three years ago when i preached that sermon it was titled america is a christian nation the supreme court declared that two different times america is a christian nation we put it on billboards all around the city and there was such an outcry from the city leadership and from others about those billboards that the billboard company uh forced us to take them down unfortunately there was another billboard company that had a spine and some courage and put up 18 more of those billboards in their place i was talking to our godly former vice president mike pence recently and he said robert what is concerning me now is not so much the cancel culture it's the erasure culture people want to erase godly values and they want to erase the truth of america's christian foundation they will tell us that america was founded by secularist atheists dias who wanted nothing more than to keep any influence of faith outside of our national life that is a myth that is a lie america was founded as a christian nation and as i thought about today's service i thought who could we have who better understands that truth and there's only one name that came to my mind david barton is recognized as the world's foremost authority on the faith of america's founding fathers he and his wife cheryl have built a wonderful organization wall builders that is having influence throughout the country and encouraging our nation to follow biblical godly values he's a best-selling author he is a prophet as well as a patriot and we welcome him today to first baptist dallas would you join me in welcoming our friend david barton thank you guys it is an honor to be with you this morning and this is the morning we say happy birthday america i mean this is the time when we remember independence day independence day is significant but independence day this year is different from any other we've ever had and that's not mere hyperbole we do a lot of polling work and one of the things we know right now is when you look at america today we have record patriotism at a low people today don't feel as good about the countries they have at any other time previously as a matter of fact less than half americans really proud of being american we no longer want to admit that we're americans that's a terrible place for us to be and particularly when you look at the next generation millennial gen z you find that only one out of three students who have gone through school or in school even know what fourth of july is about there's just not a knowledge there and the reason it's not a knowledge is there is we don't teach it anymore a great example is this is a headline recently from george washington university about history majors if you go to george washington university as a history major george washington university removes u.s history from required courses for history majors now we know from the american council of trustees and alumni who is part of they have members from every university in america they have done a study and it shows that of the top 74 universities in america if you go to the 74 universities to get a history degree a degree in history at 62 of the 74 universities you will not have a single course in american history you'll study everybody else's history but you won't find a thing about america's history so that's a real change uh you look past that we're even at the point right now where that if you want to go to a university to study history we don't even offer that of course anymore university of wisconsin is one of the latest who have joined that trend you can't even get a history degree if you want it at certain universities in america and then you look at what's happening with high school back in september 2014 the ap standards came out for high school students and high school ap students are students who really like history they're involved in it they actually get college credit for this course when they take the high school level and as you look at the ap standards it's interesting to see what they did with american independence with the founding with the american founding era just completely removed founding fathers we don't talk about jefferson or madison or franklin or any of those guys we're not even going to talk about the major battles in the american revolut american independence didn't even happen it's just gone and this is this is the top students in history in high school you go even beyond that and look at where we are right now we have a network of about a thousand legislators at wall builders and by the way the word wall builder comes out of the bible book of nehemiah the concept of rebuilding things that have been torn down and so there's about a thousand legislators we deal with across the nation we got a note from got a call from one of our legislators in minnesota said well we just passed our history standards here in minnesota and in minnesota for the next 10 years in our history standards we have removed american revolution we've removed the civil war we've removed world war one world war ii and the holocaust that will not be taught in minnesota schools for the next 10 years really well that's a liberal state well let's go to a conservative state like louisiana it was recently in louisiana testifying some history bills there because the bills they didn't want to go in the direction of all these other states and so they had their bills and yet even louisiana they removed world war ii and they moved removed the american revolution declaration and penance even that one so we see this trend going all across america right now we're just flat erasing our history and that's as pastor jeffrey said that's what mike pence mentioned it's not the canceled culture it's just flat erase it i've been placed on a number of states by a number of states and to write their history and government standards in the states it's amazing what is absolutely just flat disappearing we're not even teaching anymore so when you look at where we are you look at america and what we have in independence day is striking that we don't even know the good things about america anymore do you know 5800 years recorded history what's the average length of a governing document in world history and as pastor jeffress mentioned 195 nations at the un this year so we've had thousands of nations across the 5800 years of history what's the average length of a governing document for any nation in the history of the world and the answer is 17 years so on average a nation makes it 17 years under a single piece of paper hey america makes it 245 years this year i kind of like not living in a nation that has a revolution in every generation or so and by the way not only do most nations average a new document every 17 years they average a violent revolution every generation so the fact that we have the stability we've had in america is something that is a real blessing and we just kind of take it for granted now we're just dissing it and say oh no it's not that great i mean it's just amazing to see how little we know about who we are so i want to take you back to our beginnings we're talking about independence day let me take you back to our founding fathers they're kind of the guys who are behind independence day and as we look at them i i look at the founding fathers the way i look at any other aspect of history and that's from a biblical viewpoint which tells me romans 3 23 all have sinned and come short of the glory of god and while we venerate and respect our founding fathers they were sinners they were people they were humans they needed a savior they had problems they had faults and they had things that they did really good and that they did really right that we appreciate so we recognize all that the story of america is the story of god using very imperfect people to do some remarkable things and that's what we see in the story of america so let me take you back to the start with these guys and for them it's in 1774 with the first provincial congress now we have been 13 nations up to that point we had never been one nation every state was its own independent nation each had its own currency etc and so now we're coming together and quite frankly these guys didn't know each other the guys from new york had never met the guys from georgia and the guys from virginia didn't know the guys up in connecticut so they're all together and this is the first time they've really met and it's interesting to see how they started according to the records of congress they opened that a first that first session of congress with prayer but it was not a dinky little prayer like we might have over a let's say a city council meeting god bless the city council no no according to official records that opening process in congress ran for right at two hours for that opening process in congress john adams who was part of that prayer session wrote it down and by the way this is one of the remarkable things about that generation they believed in writing things down in the same way they re-record things cameras tapes and vcrs electronically they wrote it down which is why george washington has a hundred volumes of writing says says jefferson 80 for jefferson 84 madison 60 for franklin just wrote it all down john adams recorded what happened that morning he said that in addition to praying he said they studied four chapters of the bible that morning and he talked about how one chapter chapter 35 of psalms completely changed her attitude so he wrote his wife abigail to tell her about it he said what we saw in psalm 35 we now think for the first time we might actually be able to beat the british because we didn't have an army we didn't have a navy we had no military we're taking on the greatest military power in the world but what they saw in psalm 35 changed his attitude and so he told abigail said abigail i must beg you to read that psalm read the 35th psalm to your friends read it to your father her father was the pastor of their church reverend william smith you've got to let everybody see what god showed us in psalm 35 but he continued he says we've appointed a continental fast he said millions of people on their knees at once before their great creator employing his forgiveness his blessings on american council in arms he said not only did we have a time of prayer but we've called the nation to a time of prayer now this is the first of 15 times that the founding fathers called the nation to times of prayer during the american war for independence this happened to be a time of prayer and fasting and those 15 times alternated between prayer and fasting and prayer and thanksgiving we pray and fast ask god to help he did so we have a time of prayer and thanksgiving we need help again we praying fast he helps we have a time of things 15 times it goes back and forth and so dedicated where we did prayer by the time you get to the year 1815 there have been 1400 official government calls to prayer in america by 1815. now one of the names you'll see up there you see that john hackel john hancock on that that prayer proclamation there this is actual prayer proclamation from john hancock we own 120 000 documents prior to 1812. let me back up here just a minute prior to 1812 and this one by john hancock is from 1793. so the one that i'm holding here is the one that you see right here on the screen you can see this day of fasting proclamation and prayer so what does he have the state of massachusetts fasting and praying about by the way he called the state to prayer on 22 separate occasions so what do what do you have the people of massachusetts praying and fasting for let me show you he's asking them to fast and to pray that the kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ may be established in peace and righteousness among all the nations of the earth on another occasion he asks them to fast and to pray that all nations may bow to the scepter of our lord and savior jesus christ and the whole earth may be filled with this glory on another occasion he asks them to pray and confess our sins before god and implore his forgiveness through the merits and mediation of jesus christ our lord and savior on another occasion he asked the people of massachusetts to pray that the spiritual kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ may be continually increasing until the whole earth shall be filled with this glory and on it goes and by the way that's the people of massachusetts fasting and praying are you kidding me we're told there are a bunch of atheist agnostics to us that america doesn't have christian foundations people who say that know nothing about history and that's why original documents matter that's why going back and seeing what's there actually matters it doesn't matter what the opinion of someone else is it matters what truth is and that's where you find in the writings and the good news for us is they've recorded this stuff they made it available so that we can see so go back to the founding fathers they had this time of fasting and prayer and about six weeks after this time of fasting and prayer there had been so many things that had happened that john adams wrote abigail again they said he remember that day of fasting prayer we had said you won't believe what's happened say he went through all the stuff that had been happening having no navy we actually captured a 20-gun british man of war and a 64-gun british man of war which is fairly impressive and colonel smith and a bunch of his neighbors went and captured a british fort and he's just look at all the stuff that's happened he said this is amazing he told abigail he says it appears to me the eternal son of god is operating powerfully against the british nation i mean these are divine interventions this doesn't make sense logically george washington said the same thing in 1778 having been through so many battles in the war for independence about by that time he wrote he wrote fellow general um and this this thomas nelson is also signer of the declaration and he wrote thomas and said thomas you and i have seen god intervene so many times and by the way if i were to just take you through the number of battles where that the weather decided who won the weather shows up and it pounds the british and does nothing to the americans i mean that's pretty remarkable and that happened time after time that's why george washington told thomas nelson he said thomas he says the hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith and more than wicked that hath not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations in other words anybody who's seen what we've seen anybody who's seen god intervened the way he has and doesn't feel like they should hit their knees in gratitude to god that person is just flat wicked they're an infidel if they don't believe they should be thanking god for what we've seen see that's what we saw throughout the revolution and we saw that all the way to the final and 1781 is when we finally defeat the british uh there at the battle of yorktown and by the way the hero of the battle of yorktown we don't even talk about today it's a black man named james armistead see james armistead is the first double spy in american history he's very close with lafayette general lafayette lafayette said we really need intelligence help he said i'll do it he goes in the british camp and actually becomes the aid to general cornwallis in the british camp now he's a spy for the americans but cornwallis says we've got a spy in the camp james well it was james not knowing it was james he said would you be willing to go spy on the americans and tell me who the spy is in the camp well it was james so james said well if you want me to so now he's feeding bad information to the british good information to the americans and that's why we were able to trap corn wallace at yorktown because he told washington he told lafayette exactly where cornwall was coming where he was going to be we were there ahead of him waited for him and that's why we won so people like washington lafayette said the reason we win is because of james armistead never heard of his name before by the way if you back up at the start of the american revolution john adams said the american revolution started with a boston massacre the first martyr in the boston massacre is a black name man named christmas addicts so the american revolution starts with the death of a black man and it ends with the intelligence of a black man how do we tell the american revolution story today and leave out blacks see this is part of the problem we have in america we don't even teach history anymore we don't know folks like john moran or folks like wentworth cheswell you have absalon jones you have william nell you have prince esther brook let's just keep going through these guys lemuel haynes name after they are significant names we used to study them in history i can show you exactly the time in history when we stopped studying this and now america thinks it's all white it's always been white and that's what we hear today do you realize how different racial tensions would be today if we actually knew what happened in america you see not only were there a lot of blacks and whites the number of hispanics involved the ladies of cuba who helped george washington win the american war for independence washington had 76 generals 28 of his generals were from foreign nations we were a melting pot even back then we have no clue about that today nonetheless going over the story 1781 the british lay down their arms which means what king george iii tells us doesn't matter anymore he's not our king any longer and the significance of that is that one of the laws that we had being british citizens was it said that in any english-speaking country america you cannot print a bible in the english language well once we win the war we can and so the first bible in english first bible print in english rolled off the presses in 1782 it is this bible right here took them 11 11 months to be able to do it this is the first bible printed in english in america it's called the bible revolution it's one of the rarest books in the world they printed 10 000 copies back then there's only a handful of copies left today and this is one of them interestingly who printed this well the guy's name is robert aiken you see at the bottom there robert aiken robert aiken is the official printer of the us congress he's the guy who does all the printing work for congress if you open this bible up you find that there's a congressional committee there in the front of this bible and you find that congress says we recommend this edition of the bible to the inhabitants the united states whoa congress is endorsing a bible for the people oh it's more than that because you see when he brought the bible to congress he told congress very simply he said this bible is a neat addition to the holy scriptures for the use of schools there's this handwritten document congress says you're exactly right this is the kind of bible weeding in our schools and congress has an endorsement in front of it and congress recommends it we haven't heard anything about that we're told the founding fathers didn't want the bible in schools really well what do you do with this well going back to this bible 1782 the next year is when we signed the peace treaty to end the war for independence that peace treaty is signed by three individuals john jay on the left uh john adamson center ben franklin on the right here's the peace treaty you see up top there's 10 articles in the peace treaty at the bottom of the signatures david harley the british ambassador then john atlas ben franklin john jay but look at the title of the treaty the largest words on the treaty it says in the name of the most holy and undivided trinity i could be wrong but that sounds christian to me there's no question here oh no no it's it's atheist agnostics you see john adams is there from start to finish and this is what john adams said he said the general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of christianity he said i will now i will avow that i then believe and i now believe that the general principles of christianity are as eternal and mutable as the existence and attributes of god i was there from star trek i signed the declaration i signed the peace treaty i'm telling you this was done on christian principles and yet today you find editorials saying exactly the opposite for example you look at l.a times america's unchristian beginnings it says the founders were deist to reject the divinity of jesus and then of course you've got to let the professors weigh in on it so you get the professionals and they say the founding fathers were not christians big emphasis or not and then a whole chain of newspaper a whole a newspaper a whole series of newspapers ran this editorial on the east coast it says the authors of the declaration were enemies of christ and how in the world can they say that historically it's because we don't know our history i speak at a lot of law schools and universities and and i was at duke university law school put this slide up and said okay guys who do you recognize and do sharp kids there really sharp kids in that law school i said who do you recognize and they said well there's thomas jefferson and there's ben franklin i said good but there's 56 give me the other 54. i couldn't get another single one at all i said mark let me help you let's start here let's just go across from left to right let's take richard henry lee and you got sam adams and of course you've got george clinton the guy looking backwards the other direction is charles carroll the man with a light brown jacket is robert morris beside him as benjamin rush leaning on his elbows albert jerry and i just went through the others and they said who never heard of those guys before isn't it interesting we've all been trained to recognize the least religious founding fathers we can find the two that weren't very religious we know nothing about the others see what happens today in american history we make the exception of the rule and that's not the way history should be taught see if you look at the other guys you find that 29 of these guys actually graduated from seminaries and bible schools that doesn't sound like a bunch of atheists and agnostics and diaz no but if all you know is franklin jefferson if that's all you've had then that's the best you know so let me take you to some of the other founding fathers john witherspoon one of the signers of the declaration john witherspoon was the gospel minister more than a dozen volumes and gospel sermons that he came out with uh he's also responsible for this work right here this is from 1791 this is america's very first family bible this is a family see the size of that it's hard to get a family around that bible to read it's a little bit small this one you can get around and read that's why they called it family bible and if you read the writings of john witherspoon's side of the declaration you find statements like this i entreat you in the most earnest manner to believe in jesus christ for there is no salvation in any other acts 4 12. if you're not reconciled to god through jesus christ if you're not clothed with the spotless robe of his righteousness you must forever perish that sounds pretty orthodox christianity then if i take you to dr benjamin rush this is the guy that started the first abolition society in america helped start the first black denomination in america helped train the first black physicians in america great race relations back then of course there's examples that there's not great but so many of them were and this is one but we don't ever talk about him john adams said he's one of the three most significant founding fathers john adams said the three most notable founding fathers for george washington ben franklin and benjamin rush and we just don't cover him today but he has a number of writings and he also started the sunday school movement in america he also started the first bible society matter of fact this is the bible they produce this is a bible that was produced cheap enough you could give a bible to your friends this was to make sure every american had a bible in his possession and so dr benjamin rush you read his writings you find statements like this he says my only hope of salvation is in the infinite transcendent love of god manifested into the world by the death of his son upon the cross nothing but his blood will wash away my sins i rely exclusively upon it come lord jesus come quickly kind of sounds evangelical doesn't it no he's one of our great atheist agnostic deist founding fathers that nobody knows about anymore you have the same thing with roger sherman he's the only founding father to sign all four founding documents roger sherman was a theologian he wrote the doctrinal creed for his denomination in connecticut you read his writings you find statements like this he says god commands all men everywhere to repent he also commands them to believe on the lord jesus christ and assured us that all who do repent and believe shall be saved god has promised bestow eternal blessings on all those who are willing to accept him on the terms of the gospel that is in a way of free grace through the atonement and then you've got charles carroll charles carroll lived to be 95 years old at a time when the average lifespan in america was 33 years old so charles outlived his family he outlived his kids his grandkids and one of the family members said charles you do know you're going to die someday right yeah obviously and he said are you ready to meet god when you die he answered with this letter right here this letter i'm holding he wrote when he was 89 years old and in the letter he answers am i ready to meet god when i die now you see here if you can read that handwriting it says on the mercy he says on the mercy of my redeemer i rely for salvation and on his merits not on any works i've done in obedience to his precepts that's ephesians 2 8 9 by grace you're saved through faith not of works listening he said of course i'm ready to meet god when i die because i rely on jesus christ for pardon of all my sins by the way of all the 56 honors of the declaration he was the final of the the 56 to pass away on the 4th of july the 50th anniversary in 1826 both john adams and thomas jefferson passed away on the 50th anniversary that left him as the only one alive new york city contacted him and said charles we have an original copy of the declaration of independence you are now the only one who birthed this nation that's still left alive 50 years later what do you think about america when we want you to write on this declaration your your thoughts about what you think about america 50 years later this is what he wrote he says i am grateful to almighty god for the blessings which through jesus christ my lord he's conferred in our beloved country he said well i look at america i think i can't thank god enough for what he's done for america through jesus christ now these are the eyewitness testimonies the guys who are actually there and we're told that they're a bunch of atheists and agnostic how do they get away with that it's because we don't know our history today we would never tolerate this if we knew who those 56 were or what they said or what they did now independence day that's what we are celebrating and as you look at independence day strikingly enough go back to john adams for a minute because john adams they're start to finish i like like him for particularly looking at what happened on that day because he just wrote everything down and on the day that we approved the declaration of independence he wrote abigail two letters that day the first was very short and it was elated we've done it we declared independence the second that day was much longer much more thoughtful much more pensive and this is what he told abigail on the day that we declared independence he said abigail he said i'm out to believe that this day will be celebrated by seceding generations as the great anniversary festival that's pretty astute on the day you do something we usually don't stop and say what are they going to say about this generations from now how will they look at what i just did but he did that on that day he said abigail the more i think about what we just did the more i think that they're probably going to turn this into a annual holiday a great anniversary festival they're probably going to want to celebrate what we did this day and the question was should this be celebrated should should this be a great anniversary festival and he answered and said ah the more i think about it the more i think it should he said this day ought to be commemorated how he said this day ought to be commended as the day of deliverance how he said this day should be commemorated as a day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to god almighty now his view was that july 4th which is our independence day today that this should be a religious holiday very few of us think the fourth of july is religious holiday but they did i can show you their writings decades later i assure you john quincy adams the son of john adams that in an oration he gave in 1831 said the two greatest holidays in america are christmas and fourth of july on christmas we celebrate the principles of christ that came into the world through his birth and on the fourth of july we celebrate the principles of christ that came into america through founding our new government those were the top two religious holidays in america was christmas and the fourth of july so when you look at that if you don't know this if this is new to you out out back you'll be able to grab some materials that will explain this to you but let me take you back to kind of close us down this morning we look at independence day religious holiday but we're very patriotic and by the way i don't apologize for being patriotic or loving america or saying what i say about america you know in jeremiah 29 god told jeremiah said wherever you go whatever country you go into you seek the good of that country and if people all across the world sought the good of their own nation if they were patriotic and said we want god's best for our nation we want the best possible government free of corruption we want the best possible education system we want the best possible economic if everybody sought the best for their country they talked sought god's will for that country imagine how different the world would be today if people love their country and sought god's best for the country which is what patriotism is we simply love the country and what god's best for the country so when you look at the patriotism we have i have to go back to george washington and what happened at valley forge because at valley forge which was in the winter of 1776 1777 it was a brutal brutal brutal time we did not have supplies we are a brand new bunch of farmers and shopkeepers and school teachers out fighting the british and we're just not supplied to do it so washington in his journal day by day the diary he kept every day it is just pathetic to read it he talked about how that you could follow the soldiers by the bloody footprints in the snow because so many didn't have shoes and so many didn't have blankets and they were getting sick all the time from the cold between eight and 20 soldiers died every day around washington and they could have gone home and been warm but they said no in case the british move out of philadelphia we need to be here and he said i've never seen patriots as well he says i've studied history i've read all the history books i've never seen patriotism like i'm seeing right here i've never seen people sacrifice to their country like and it's it was just i mean you read it you you'll end up crying because of what these guys were doing and so washington on the day that they broke camp and they broke camp the first week of may the night before they broke camp in may of 1777 george washington writes his final order to the troops at valley forge and that final order of the troops this is what he says he said the distinguished character of patrick guys you have proven yourself to be patriots i've watched you all went along i've never seen this i've never seen in history the sacrifices i see you making for your country he said you're patriots he said but to the distinguished character patriot it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of christian he said it is so great to be a patriot for your country but it's really more important to be a christian than it is to be a patriot now that's george washington commander-in-chief talking to his army about how important it is to be a christian now we don't think about that much at all especially from george washington we often hear that he's a complete deist and didn't believe in god etc it's crazy that that's just not true so when you look we've been looking this morning at the american war for independence the word i want to emphasize for this last bit is just the word war we look in the bible and the bible says that god created every one of us we're made for his purpose he's got terrific things in store for us and in mind for us if we'll do what he wants us to do he created us for something specific but so many of us don't know what he created is for we've never asked him what we've been created for we don't know why we were put here on this world and so as a result we end up doing things that didn't what he wanted us to do and as a result of that it creates a conflict and so we're told in the bible one of the first principles we learn is that there's enmity between man and god because we haven't submitted to what he wants us to be he created us for something specific well that puts us at war with god the fact that we're at war with god i will guarantee you god is going to win that war you know we're very non-cognizant of god in so many ways we're not aware that we're in a spiritual conflict god's got something planned and if we go something different it's not going to be him that changes he's going to be right all the way through it's going to be his will that gets established we'll be the ones paying the price for not having done what he wants us to do so what happens is because we're at war with god we really need to negotiate a treaty and the thing about treaties is the power that's going to win the stronger power always gets assisted term for the treaties that's what it was the american revolution we told the british what we wanted because we won so god will establish a treaty on his terms and one of the terms that he set out is i have to have a specific negotiator to negotiate this treaty just like in the american revolution we had our negotiators god said you need a negotiator and that negotiator is jesus christ that's the only meteor between you and me the only one that i'll listen to about how to to stop this war that we've got going on is jesus christ he's the only peace peace guy that can bring peace between god and men so if you don't know what god created you for and if you've never asked god you're at war with god you better get that stopped and the way you do that is go to jesus christ to make peace with god and when you look at the peace treaty that jesus is going to sit for there's three things you need to know about the peace treaty first thing is you're going to have to repent and say hey i'm sorry god i didn't realize you had a plan for me i haven't even asked you about that i've been doing everything on my own i'm sorry that was the wrong thing to do the second thing you're gonna have to do is believe and confess you're gonna have to believe that jesus christ is the only way that you can have peace with god and you're gonna have to tell others about that you have to confess to others about that belief that jesus is the only one that make peace with god and then the third thing is what jesus says he says the only way you can be my disciples you're gonna have to deny yourself every day and do the things i want you to do you're gonna have to lay aside your own will and pick up my will because i created you for a purpose and if you do those three things you'll have peace with god now if you've never made peace with god i encourage you to do that if you have made peace with god you know the difference that makes in your life if you haven't made peace with god it's a real simple process just ask him say hey god i've never checked in with you before never asked you what you want me to do never ask why you created me i want to submit my will to yours and be what you created me to be i'm going to pray a prayer if you want to kind of join in and say amen to that prayer it's the kind of prayer you can pray you say in your own words but let's close with prayer and submit ourselves back to god and father even we say that we submit our country back to you we want the country to be what you made it to be what you wanted to be but individually father i want to be what you made me to be i want to find out what your will for me is and the only way i can do that is through jesus christ and so father i ask jesus christ to make peace between me and god jesus christ to come in and change my heart show me the things i need to do help teach me the thanks to the holy spirit that i need to live my life according to that i want to live according to the will and plan that you have for me father and i look for jesus christ to be that intermediary that that peace treaty to make peace between you and me and i ask jesus to come into my life father i ask this in jesus name amen and today if you are watching online and today you prayed that prayer with david just a moment ago to trust in christ for your salvation i want to encourage you right now to go to the top of your screen click on that link that says i prayed the prayer we have some free material we want to send you about what it means to live as a christian for those of you in our worship center today let me encourage you to take out this special card that's in your bulletin and today if you are someone who prayed that prayer with david check the third box we'll send you the same material if you're a guest today or would like more information about our church check those boxes maybe you'd like to join first baptist dallas you can check that final box when you have completed the cards you can exchange this at the welcome center for a free copy of my book praying for america 40 inspiring stories of prayers for our nation or you can drop your card off in one of the receptacles on the way out we will process the card and send you the book this week thank you so much for doing that and letting us know you're here at first baptist dallas didn't david do a great job today david thank you it couldn't have been better thank you and cheryl for coming we love your ministry and what you're doing now i know what you're probably thinking he talks faster than the pastor does i'd love to write all that down there's no way well all of that information you heard is available in david's new book along with his son tim the american story the beginnings this is a great reference tool for you to have over 1 000 footnotes that document everything you heard you may have children grandchildren who will never hear this in school they could use this as a resource as well david has pre-signed some copies that are available on the concourse as you go out and so stop by the wall builders of display out there and pick up a copy for yourself and somebody you care about well i want to say again thank you to our first dallas choir and orchestra and the voices of lee for your tremendous music today tyler brunson and joe harden and all of our music team and they're going to lead us now in our final song together let's stand together as we sing thank you pastor it's been a tremendous morning together as we have worshipped the god who has blessed this great country the psalmist said blessed is the nation who's god is the lord we pray his continued blessing and protection over this land so every voice declare it together [Music] stand beside night me the light from the mountains [Applause] [Music] [Music] my [Music] sweet [Music] god bless well thank you so much for joining us for worship today on the first dallas eye campus it's our honor and privilege to worship chat and pray with you throughout the service if you are local to dfw let me encourage you to come on down we'd love to have you visit us in person we'd love to greet you and show you a great spot in the worship center for you to sit it would be our honor to worship with you in person in the heart of downtown dallas right here at first baptist dallas also if you are new here to the eye campus or have been watching for a while and want to get plugged in let me encourage you to sign up for a free gift we'd love to provide that to you directly in your inbox and then sign you up for pastors daily devotional it's straight from the pen of dr jeffress and you will be encouraged with that great resource each and every day simply visit the link that's provided on your screen and lastly stay connected with us each and every day with our facebook global group there we encourage one another through scripture and graphics but also pray for one another so head on over to facebook and join our icampus global facebook group thank you again for joining us today for worship we look forward to seeing you next week on the first dallas i campus you

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Length: 187min 50sec (11270 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 27 2021