TOPIC:"Ideals That Must Be Remembered"
by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap
TEXT:Deuteronomy 23:9-14
"When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure" (23:9, NIV)
In the verses before us we find God giving to Moses, Israel's great spiritual leader, some important advice for the building of this new Hebrew nation. Realizing they would be influenced and tempted by the pagan people around them, Moses knew they must be on their guard, and ever ready to defend and preserve those distinctive ideals that brought them into existence as a chosen people.
That advice given by God to Moses is desperately needed by modern America today. The Spirit of God is saying to us as a nation, "keep away from everything impure," or as the Authorized Version renders it: "keep thee from every wicked thing." He is telling us to make sure that our hearts are sound, our hands are clean, and our principles upon which our nation was founded are preserved.
This nation was established on the firm foundation of Scripture. Our forefathers, George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln, to name only a few figures in American history, openly acknowledged that the true genius behind this new nation to be the eternal principles of God's Word. The question remains: Do we as citizens of these United States have the moral and spiritual fortitude within us to remain a God-conscious country?
Let us honestly face that question on this Memorial Day Sunday. I want to mention four distinctive principles upon which our nation was established and find out if we as a people still firmly hold to them.
First of all, what about the ideal of REVERENCE for ALMIGHTY GOD. We read in verse 14 these words about the sovereign God that Israel was to worship: "For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that He will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you."
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