The Real American Revolution

How should we think about the American Revolution on this 250th semi quincentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence? Pastor Steve dives into the history of Independence Day and the meaning it has for our lives today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Steve Holt. I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast. Each week we go into God's Word. We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse. We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world. So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life. I've entitled today's message, The Real American Revolution. And I've entitled that because I'm quoting John Adams in something that he wrote and said some 40 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, looking back 41 years later and making a comment about what was the real American Revolution? Because we often think of the American Revolution as the actual war itself. But he was speaking of something different, and he called it the real American Revolution. So how should we think about the American Revolution on this 250th semi-quincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence? John Adams, one of the chief revolutionaries, looking back more than four decades after the Declaration of Independence, recorded a memorable judgment on the revolution in which he played such a central part. Adams lived through the great events of the Revolution beginning well before and after July 4th, 1776. That's the Boston Tea Party, the convening of the First Continental Congress, Paul Revere's ride, the battles of Lexington and Concord, Washington's crossing of the Delaware, the winner of Valley Forge, and the final battle, the Battle of Yorktown. Adams believed that we could not recognize the most essential lesson of the revolution without understanding the reason why. On February 13th, 1818, he wrote to Hezekiah Niles that the American Revolution took place, quote, in the minds and hearts of the people. A radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the American people. That was the real American Revolution. So he was saying that, and you may know this already, that a third of Americans opposed the war with England, a third didn't care, either way, and a third were very much wholeheartedly involved in the revolution. But there was a change from 1775 or so onward, where there was a transformation in the hearts and minds of the American people. So what were those principles, opinions, and affections in the minds and hearts of the American people? And I pray that in our case here today that we at the road still hold to that abstract idea, that vision of America that's birthed in freedom. They insisted on being heard and refused to cowardice against the English. America was based on an idea that to be led by a hereditary class of monarchs who claimed the divine right of the land was something they were willing to break from. King George III underestimated Americans' yearning for freedom, telling Parliament on October 26, 1775, when the unhappy and deluded multitude of Americans against whom this force will be directed shall become sensible about their error. Despite the king's misshapen presumption, Americans possessed a sensible vision. It led to the opening battles of the American Revolution in Lexington and Concord in 1775 and then the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Now, this is important. You realize how unique that is? How unique that is to any nation before or since in the world. All of the revolutionary actions and the ideas in the hearts of the founders and the early Americans who fought against the British during the Revolutionary War was probably three major freedoms that they were fighting for. Political freedom through representative government. Political freedom through representative government. Freedom of speech by which the people could share and vote their own ideas and viewpoints, and religious freedom based not on a state-authorized religion, but the freedom to choose one's own way of worshiping God without government interference. So, as I've always said, if a Buddhist temple is built in Colorado Springs, if a Muslim temple is built in Colorado Springs, let it be right across the street from the road. Because freedom, there's freedom for that, and I love the competition. Because we win. Because we have the power of Jesus. To experience the real American Revolution, men and women, is to experience freedom for everybody. Everyone has that freedom, even those we disagree with. The experience of being free gives every man, woman, and child the ability with their heart to make and decide their own choices in areas of religion and speech. And as I've said before, and as I believe so strongly, if you have a if you have a parade of communists out here in Colorado Springs, let it go. Again, it's the battle of ideas that makes America free, not just those that we agree with. The founders understood that freedom is a gift from God. Embedded in the Declaration and the Constitution was the belief that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights given by our Creator. And they knew true freedom only comes through Jesus Christ. In the hearts of the founding revolutionaries with a clear biblical understanding of the freedom only Christ can bring. Now in our schools today, that's left out. It's pushed out. If you read some of the latest documents and things that come out, you would get the impression that it was the European Enlightenment that led to the American Revolution. That was part of it. But let me show you that the Christian faith, it was the Christian religion, it was the faith of our forefathers from the Puritans and pilgrims onward that built and instilled the convictions that they had. Christian faith stood at the center of the founders' view of liberty. How many of you have been to Philadelphia and seen the Liberty Bell? Okay, a few of you. Famously engraved on the Liberty Bell and a rallying cry for the American Revolution was Leviticus 25, 10. Here's what it says. Quote, proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto the inhabitants thereof. Engraved on the Liberty Bell. And as Paul wrote to the Galatians, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5.1. The foundations of our republic were framed by men who read and loved Christ and the Bible. At least 54, some say 55, of the original 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Bible-believing, church-attending Christians. All of the 13 colonies had a confession of the Lord Jesus Christ within their state constitutions. Nine out of 13 required you to be a Bible-believing Christian to even run for office. Yeah, that would be kind of fun, wouldn't it? If we had that today. John Adams said that the Constitution was only written for a moral, religious people, and holy and adequate for any other. The body politic of America was so Christian that the form of government that was formed was for Bible-believing people. So the reason, men and women, that we're living in a constitutional crisis right now is that we have a non-Christian country being run by a Christian constitution. So we keep missing each other because our country isn't as Christian as it once was. True freedom must be freely kept by we, the people. John Adams made this point as president in 1798, saying that our government lacked the power to contend with, quote, human passions unbridled by morality and religion. So even in 1798, there was this sense that the nation was swaying away from its constitutional freedoms based on a lack of faith in Christ. As obviously important as our Constitution was, it was insufficient. We have to be and become a people unbridled from our passions through the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Avarice, lust, revenge, and immorality will break the strongest chords of our declaration and constitution. Adams once said, quote, our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. George Washington, in his farewell address in September 1796, concurred, quote, of all the dispositions and habits which led to political prosperity, religion and morality are indisputable supports. He continues, whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason, and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle, end quote. Isn't that interesting? So even George Washington, as he's looking at his eighth year there in the White House as a president, it really wasn't a White House yet, but in the Capitol there, he saw that even as education was growing, and we were putting in universities all over the place, that really faith, faith in Christ and Christianity was the key. So the founders obviously believed that there was a correlation between virtue, freedom, and faith. Oz Guinness, the great author Oz Guinness, drew a diagram years ago. I wanted you to see it. And in this diagram, it's called, he calls it the triangle of freedom. And you see what he has here. He has real freedom starting with virtue. So virtue leading to faith, leading to freedom, freedom back to virtue. So real freedom requires moral and ethical virtue. Let me define virtue. Virtue refers to behavior showing high moral standards. It represents a disposition, trait, or excellence of character that leads a person to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. And the Bible speaks of three great virtues: integrity, honesty, and humility. Integrity is a hallmark of excellence in character. Proverbs 11:3 states, the integrity of the upright guides them, but the perversity of the treacherous destroys them. Integrity involves being truthful and consistent in one's actions and decisions, aligning them with God's standards. So integrity, as I said last week, literally means one. It's the great unifier in the heart of a man or a woman. That unifier that you know that you're living privately the same way you live publicly. Okay, so the first of the virtues in the Bible, in my opinion, is integrity. Integrity holds it all together. So another way of saying wholehearted. Wholehearted is integrity. Secondly, is honesty. Remember, we talk about blood-stained allies around here. So you can't, I don't think you can have integrity without honesty. And I don't think you can have honesty without integrity. Honesty in Ephesians 4.25 instructs us, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we're all members of one body. So honesty builds trust and reflects the truthfulness of God. So learning to be honest coincides with integrity, and then thirdly, humility. Humility is essential for excellence and character as it acknowledges one's dependence on God. Philippians 2. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interest, but also for the interest of others. Can you imagine a business, a church, your family built on integrity, built on honesty, and built on humility? Those are the virtues of Scripture. Well, moral and ethical virtue requires faith in God. In other words, you cannot consistently be a person of integrity, honesty, and humility without power. The power of the Holy Spirit. So I was not a person of integrity, I was not a person of honesty, I was not a person of humility as a non-Christian. But I came to know Christ. And so I've been on this journey, right? That's what we just said. We're on a journey to be wholehearted, that as Christ is allowed to take over the throne of our hearts, then we become more and more people living from the inside of who we are to the outside of the people that we become. And so integrity, honesty, and humility begin to flow through faith in God. That's why whenever the communists take over a country, one of the first things that they do is they outlaw the Bible. They outlaw freedom, but they also outlaw the Bible. Because they understand that if you can outlaw the Bible, freedom will take care of itself because the people will enslave themselves to their own avarice and their own corruption. So moral and ethical virtue requires faith in God. And then faith in God brings freedom. And I'm going to show you in a second how that's been shown in 250 years of history in our nation. Actually, further back than that, back to the Puritans. But it's through the virtue of a person being free in Christ that we actually start to have freedom in our life. So if we are to wish to maintain freedoms won in the American Revolution 250 years ago, freedom of speech, political freedom, and religious freedom, enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, but ratified through our Constitution, our culture must be virtuous. For virtue to thrive, though, we need moves of God. We need God to awaken our nation on a regular basis. That's been God's work. So listen, if you're if you're a note taker, write this down. I want you to write this down. This is really important. Spiritual awakenings lead to cultural revolutions. Let me say that again. Spiritual awakenings, some would call it revivals, doesn't matter to me. Spiritual revivals, spiritual revolutions, spiritual awakenings, that's a term I'm using today. Spiritual awakenings almost always lead to a cultural revolution. So the first Great Awakening, I want to give you some American spiritual awakenings and their impact culturally and civically and socially in our culture. The first Great Awakening in the mid-1700s was led by, I think, two men. What I'm going to share with you is very surface, it's not going deep, but two major men were involved in the First Great Awakening. This is the mid-1700s. So the mid-1700s, starting with a man named Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards was in Northampton, Massachusetts as a pastor there, and he began to preach. He, as I've shared with you before, he read his sermons. He was about two inches away from his notes because he was so far sighted. And in so doing, a revival broke loose, an awakening broke loose, and men and women and children began to fall under the power of the Holy Spirit when he preached. This began to spread all over New England. This amazingly powerful move of God, which America had never seen before, really affected the Boston area. And if you go to Boston and the surrounding areas today, you can see these old congregational churches that those were the locations of the first great awakening. And so Jonathan Edwards started things off. It started happening with them. And then there was an evangelist who had been used by God to spark a major move of God called the London Revival. And it became really the English Revival, but it sped up into Scotland and Ireland and Wales and other places named George Whitfield. If you saw the movie Great Awakening, which came out, I think a month or two ago, Liz and I went and saw that. You see the relationship of Benjamin Franklin and George Whitfield, which is very accurate during this two-year period. So when George Whitfield came, the Spirit of God was moving across Boston and that northeastern part of the country in an amazing way. But he had this trumpeter's voice. He had this kind of like actor's voice, and he had studied acting before he got saved. But they say that you could hear George Whitfield's voice. You could understand him five miles away. I mean, just an incredible voice. And Benjamin Franklin, who is not a believer publicly, you have to wonder privately because of some of the stuff that he wrote and how he was involved in the first Continental Congress and prayer and things like that, just powerfully used by God, saw an opportunity to make a lot of money. So he began to publish the booklets, the pamphlets, and the books of George Whitfield, but they became close, close friends. And every time Whitfield was in Philadelphia, they stayed together. So this move of the Spirit called the First Great Awakening, the mid 1700s, started off in the Boston area, and then Whitfield was used by God more in the Philadelphia area and then Down across the seaboard because he was a traveling evangelist, powerfully used by God. Now, remember what I said? That I believe spiritual awakenings lead to cultural revolutions. Many believe, those who really understand both the spiritual element of America as well as the civic, social, political aspect of America would say that it was the first great awakening that really began to incite and inflame the American people with the idea of freedom. Before that, they were very subtled with just being a provincial colony of England, but something began to be birthed in them through their Christian faith that they could be a free people. So that was the first Great Awakening and its impact on the American Revolution. Second Great Awakening. Second Great Awakening happened in the early and mid-1800s. And this was a these are two different aspects to the Second Great Awakening. One involves Kentucky and Tennessee. So in the early 1800s, revivals began to break out, crazy stuff. People falling over, people speaking in tongues, people getting dramatically healed, resurrections, all kinds of crazy stuff were happening on the frontier. Remember, this is just this is a recent frontier area, Tennessee and Kentucky and the Allegheny Mountains out there. Okay, and this was led by men of that time named James McGready, Barton Stone, and Peter Cartwright. So that was one move of God. Then about 10 years into this, there was another move of God in the New York area by a guy named Charles Finney. Now, Charles Finney is most associated with the Second Great Awakening because he wrote so much. He was a lawyer, he's a prolific writer. We have lectures on revival, part one, part two, part three. I mean, lots of stuff by him. But anyway, this Second Great Awakening was key in the abolition movement against slavery. So here's what's interesting. With the founders, somewhere between 25 and 30 of the founders, 20, 30 years later, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, became very, very discouraged. And they became very discouraged because we had not abolished slavery yet. So in the second Great Awakening, Charles Finney, McGready, others were hardcore abolitionists, and they were for freeing the slaves. So that began a movement. And that movement began to just sweep across the North, especially, and led to and had a lot to do with the Civil War. So it was through the Civil War that we had the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and then the abolition of slaves. Then there's another Great Awakening. I'm going to call it the Third Great Awakening. And this happened in 1906. This is called Azusa Street. I'm going to call it the Pentecostal Revival, the Pentecostal Awakening. So the Pentecostal Awakening happened with a group of poor, blue-collar, integrated group of people in Zeusa Street, LA. Power of God came down. There was this fire that hit this small group, and it grew and it grew and it grew. And it's been key to the Pentecostal movement today. So every Pentecostal or Assembly of God or Signs and Wonders type of church all goes back to Azusa Street that happened. I'm going to call it the third great awakening that happened there. Now what happened? Well, here's the strange thing. Strange thing is that women were a big part of it. It was women that were part of Azusa Street. And as a result, for the first time, the idea of women and leadership in the church began to get birthed all across the country. Guess where that led to? It led to women's suffrage. And so the idea of women having equal rights, the idea of women being able to vote came out of what I'm calling the Third Great Awakening. Then I'm going to give you the fourth Great Awakening. The Fourth Great Awakening, I believe, and by the way, this is Steve Holt's opinion. Okay? I'm not an historian, I don't have a PhD in history. I'm a neighborhood historian, okay? I'm not a classic historian, but I believe I could argue these from a lot of different points of views. But anyway, I'm going to call it the Fourth Great Awakening. The Fourth Great Awakening, I believe, was the evangelistic and healing crusades of the early 1900s. So that's beginning in 1948 in LA with a man named, you might have heard of a guy named Billy Graham. So Billy Graham's just a young man. He's supposed to do this Tenth Crusade in LA. Wasn't supposed to last but for a couple weeks, and it exploded on Hollywood. And suddenly Hollywood actors are getting saved, mafiassos of the darkest type come to know Christ, and it just continues month after month. And then there's this guy, and his name is Randolph Hearst. Ever heard of him? So Randolph Hearst hears about it, and he tells this his the New York Times, New York Times and the LA Times, which he owned, Puff Graham. Puff Graham. And so suddenly Billy Graham is put on the front page, and that was the beginning. Boom. Billy Graham, for the next 30 years, was mightily used by God all over the nation and all over the world with evangelistic crusades. Well, simultaneously with that, really on the other side of sort of the tracks, more in the blue-collar poor sections of towns and cities across the nation, was the healing crusade led primarily by a man named Orl Roberts. And so Orl Roberts is having these crusades, tent meetings, and stuff like that, and they continue for the next 30 years. And they were together. And here's what's interesting about Billy Graham and Orl Roberts is they integrated, for the first time ever, they integrated their crusades. So it wasn't a black evangelist speaking to black people. It wasn't a Hispanic evangelist speaking to Hispanic people and a white guy speaking to white people. It was a white guy speaking to an integrated audience. And when you look back in history, people don't realize this unless you study Billy Graham and you study Orl Roberts. These guys were maligned because of desegregation, as they began to be some of the first men who said, nope, everybody's welcome. Everybody's created in the image of God, and everybody should have a chance to hear the gospel and be healed. And so they started doing that, which led to a young man who is studying theology, and his name is Martin Luther King Jr. He meets Billy Graham, has a close relationship with Billy Graham, and he was the spark of the civil rights movement. Then in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, you had another. I'm going to call it, am I what I want, the fifth? Okay, the fifth Great Awakening was the what I'm going to call the Jesus Revolution. If you saw the movie, anybody see the movie, Greg Laurie's movie, the Jesus Revolution, which was sparked by Lonnie Frisbee and Chuck Smith and others, the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard movements came out of that. And I was just studying history for this message, and I was like, okay, what came out of that? You know, that would be, that would be social and cultural. Here's what I think happened. I think I can support it. I think that the drugs, the rock and roll, and the rebellious movement of the 60s was shot down in its place with the Jesus movement. I mean, it was all of those who had been leaders, many of them who had been leaders in the hippie movement who got saved. And by virtue of getting saved, you started having the communes that were drug-related, Buddhist, higher transcendence, meditational communes became Christian communes. And actually became churches, later became Calvary chapels and vineyards. And so again, God moved. So we need, church, we need another move of God. We need another mighty move of God. I feel like the Holy Spirit's trying. When we look at what was happening, what happened recently at Asbury and the move of God at Asbury. We're seeing it in universities. I get videos from some of the guys that I graduated from Georgia from with pictures of men and women getting baptized in pickup trucks in the back bed of a pickup truck all across the country. SMU, University of Georgia, University of Alabama, and across the country. So God is moving, but let us pray for a mighty move of God that sweeps nationally across our land. So turn in your Bibles. I want to close with 2 Chronicles 7. You turn in your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 7. And I couldn't think of a more fitting passage to close with than 2 Chronicles 7, where God appears to Solomon at the completion of the temple, and he gives a promise and a warning. Or a warning and a promise. Let me read from verse 12. Look at verse 12. And I believe this is about our land. This is about America today. This is not about Israel as it was before. It's prophetic for us in the United States of America at the celebration of our 250th birthday. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place, and I'm choosing to say, this is America, for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people. Remember, he's talking to Israel, his chosen people. I'm saying he's speaking to us, the church, his chosen people. So sometimes God judges nations. He comes and he brings judgment because of disobedience. Verse 14, but if my people, that's the church, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways, then I will again hear from heaven, I'll even be willing to forgive their sin and heal their land. I find that interesting that he goes from an individual humbling, turning from our wicked ways, to a blessing individually, but then he goes national. And he's talking about if my people. So, church, listen, it's not it's not gonna happen out there. It's not gonna happen out there. It starts in the local church. It starts with you and me. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves. So we have that responsibility, and then it flows out to the others. Verse 15. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house. May it be said, he has chosen and sanctified the road church, because that's what we're responsible for. Your life and this church. I'm not responsible for any other church in this city. We are responsible for us. You're not responsible for any other family. You pray, you witness, you're a support, you open your doors too, but your main responsibility is your own life and your own family and our church. That my name may be there forever. And my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast. We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world. For more information about The Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org. That's therode.org.