Here at
Mount Hebron Presbyterian we continue to investigate “The Story”. We reached a
point last week where God's people are divided. God sends them numerous folk to
try and get them back on course. Our sermon from last Sunday “God's Messengers”can be found here.
Following
a time of revolution in the United States, George Washington had the
opportunity to become king. He declined. Maybe he recalled the murder of
Charles I following the English Civil War. Maybe his eyes were on France and
the outcome of the revolution taking place over there. Or maybe he was familiar
with the warning of the prophet Samuel, who told the people of Israel, that
having a king wasn't such a great idea.
The
people of the newly independent colonies seemed to agree. In an article titled
“Is America a Christian Nation?” professor of Constitutional Law, Carl
Pearlston, writes; “In a 1774 report to King George, the Governor of
Boston noted: "If you ask an American, who is his master? He will tell you
he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ." The pre-war Colonial
Committees of Correspondence soon made this the American motto: "No King
but King Jesus." This sentiment was carried over into the 1783 peace
treaty with Great Britain ending that war, which begins "In the name of
the most Holy and Undivided Trinity... * "
The
story of God’s chosen people might have been very different had they adopted
that same motto. But, despite Samuel's
warning, they had wanted a king. Over
the period of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah there had thirty-eight of
them Only five of them were good. Of the
others, the refrain constantly repeated throughout the Old Testament is “They did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
Prophets appeared exhorting the people to turn back to God. God
spoke through one prophet in particular, Isaiah, to tell the people of Judah
that they would be captured and deported to Babylon, but afterward God would
bring them back home. The purpose? “Then you will know that I am
the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed. Then the whole human race will know that I,
the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob” (Isaiah
49:23).
In
Isaiah 53 the prophet depicts the coming Messiah. “He had no beauty or
majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire
Him. He was despised and rejected by
others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53: 2, 3). God did not want the people to miss the
Messiah. But they did. And still do.
The
United States would have developed along a different route had Washington
agreed to be king. Maybe he sensed what
many others didn’t. That when we
displace God on the throne of our lives, the outcome will go horribly
wrong. When we place God on the throne
of our lives, we put ourselves in the best possible position for faithful
discipleship.
Adopt the motto “No King
but King Jesus” in your life. Now that's a revolution! Or if you are
uncomfortable with that kingly imagery, simply adopt the earliest Christian confession,
and try to live into the phrase “Jesus is Lord.”
We can do that in so many different ways. Which is a great excuse
to post a solid gospel song from Vanessa Bell Armstrong (with a little help from
guest soloist Marvin Winans) - “He Is Lord!”
Rev Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Note: The blog is on vacation for a couple of weeks We'll be back :-)