Prophecy Files Briefing: PROVIDENCE AND PROPHECY

Hello everyone and welcome to Prophecy Files Briefing. We're glad that you've joined us today and I hope that you will share this out on your social media. What you're about to hear, perhaps you've never heard before. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be sharing with you some things about Bible prophecy and America and what has happened. Now, I can tell you straight up that America is not mentioned in the Bible or in Bible prophecy, but there are principles that if America doesn't abide by, then ladies and gentlemen, we will go the way of many other nations, including Israel, that have rebelled against God. And I want to pull one personality from our history that you may not have ever heard about uh to describe some of what I'm talking today about on providence and prophecy. This article comes, as it's titled, The American Revolution, the the dominion of providence over the affairs of men. In this 250th anniversary that we are in right now this year of the founding of the United States of America, this is one of the most important sermons that was given during the Revolutionary War. In the revolutionary era of America, the pulpit was actually a very important place for the colonies to hear about uh American about values, I should say, and uh human liberty. And in this 250th anniversary, this particular message became extremely important that was given by one of our forgotten um founding fathers. His name was John Witherspoon. He stands among most uh of the founding fathers as one of the most influential, and yet often he's overlooked in the American founding uh process. He was a minister, he was an educator, he was a political leader, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Witherspoon was born in February 5th, 1723 in Gifford, Scotland, near Edinburgh. And he was raised in a deeply, uh, religious, uh, home that was Presbyterian by its their family and roots that trace back all the way to the Reformation in Scotland. At, uh, age 13, he started attending the University of Edinburgh. And in 1745, after completing his education and including his masters in theology, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister, and he quickly gained the recognition as a gifted preacher and writer with sermons that were intellectual and passionate, uh, full of conviction. So, in 1766, the College of New Jersey, you would know that today by this name, Princeton, one of our Ivy League schools here, was seeking a new president, they were, and, uh, somebody that could help strengthen the college at, uh, New Jersey, both academically and spiritually. And the reason why, this is very important, and we've gotten so far away from it that the college, Princeton, as we would know it today, had been founded primarily, along with Harvard and others, to train ministers, uh, to be leaders both in civic, uh, positions throughout the colonies, and train them to minister the word of God. In 1768, Witherspoon, uh, agreed, and he went and took the presidency of what we now know as Princeton, and started getting it on a completely different, uh, higher level of education that would help the colonies here in America in our founding. He believed that education should prepare a student not merely for careers, but for lives of moral leadership and public virtue. So, through his teaching, Witherspoon instilled the in the students the belief that the that liberty, listen to this, required virtue and that free government depended on moral and religious foundation. He argued actually that human rights came from God. That is even debated today in those that are in office in Congress and higher leadership positions. It is coming our human rights come from God, not government, and that tyranny violated both that moral and natural law. So, you can see in what he is describing actually became part of the Declaration of Independence that we've been living now under for 250 years. His emphasis on liberty and morality and responsibility profoundly shaped many future American leaders. Probably the most famous of his students was Madison, of course, who would go on to become a president, but not only that, but Supreme Court justices, senators, governors, cabinet officials, and ministers. All of them were influenced by Jonathan Witherspoon, and as the tensions grew in Great Britain, intensifying during the 1770s, Witherspoon increased his public life and preaching and continued to preach sermons that would encourage resistance against the tyranny that's going on against Great Britain and calling Americans what would then be America to moral seriousness and to a dependence upon divine providence. You can see these terms that he used became part of our founding documents. So, in this 250th year anniversary of one of the most famous messages that he preached, he titled it this, The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men. That was delivered on May 17th, 1776. Congress had actually declared, can you imagine? They had declared the day as a national day of humility, fasting, and prayer. And so the sermon he preached was well attended during that time in the formations of this new country that we would know as America. He preached only weeks after that, continuing to do that, but only a few weeks after he preached that message, he would then attend the Continental Congress and voted for independence for the colonies. And then he offered both a theological justification for the resistance and a moral warning to all of the colonies. And this is what I want to zero in on. In his sermon that he preached, Witherspoon argued that God governs the affairs of nations, peoples, human passions, ambitions, political struggles, ultimately all of that remains under divine control, he said. He said that liberty, listen to this, could only survive among a virtuous and morally disciplined people. He recognized that it would take divine providence in this new nation to be able to be formed, and it was very obvious what was taking place. Sometimes the work comes through favorable circumstances, he would say, and other times it comes through challenges, but God is accomplishing his aims. One of the sermon's most important parts that Witherspoon preached was a warning to the colonies that corruption and moral decay poses as much a danger to liberty as foreign oppression. He famously made this statement. He is the best friend to American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion. We're talking about a founding father who signed the Declaration of Independence is making this statement that our dependence is upon God and upon the God who is the creator of all things. So, at the time of national uncertainty during the revolutionary period, this sermon was calling Americans back to God, back to courage to stand up against tyranny, uh repentance, sacrifice, and trusting in God. Listen, Witherspoon believed that independence was not just a political struggle, but it was a moral and spiritual conquest as well. And the colonies could not expect divine favor embracing selfishness, vice, he says, or corruption. So, his sermon focused upon those things and called them back to repentance. And it was only a few weeks after preaching this particular sermon that he took his place there in 1776 to become the uh only active clergyman minister to sign the United States Declaration of Independence. According to the tradition, when some argued that the colonies were not ready, he responded, Witherspoon did, that America was not only ripe for measure for the measure, but in danger of rotting for the want of it. In other words, if we did not make a move, to make a stand, then we would rot and decay. So, during the Revolutionary War, both Witherspoon and Princeton, as we would know it, suffered tremendous uh tremendous attacks against uh the actual complex and his own life, as a matter of fact, because just because they signed a Declaration of Independence didn't mean that they didn't have to stand for it and fight for it. And that's exactly what he did. And as a result, Princeton, or the College of New Jersey, was decimated by the British, and he actually lost a son in the middle of all that Revolutionary War. So, Witherspoon would go on to be one of the most active members of Congress from 1776 all the way through 1782. Why is this so important and and uh to what I'm talking about in Bible prophecy? Because his teaching and preaching as a founding father of America, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, reminds us that blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. I want you to understand, let me remind you, America is not found in the Bible. America's not found in Bible prophecy per se. But the nation and all nations, the Bible says this, listen to this, all nations, according to Psalm 9:17, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. That is prophetic because from our ancient founding father who caused America to be able to have moral, political, and civic leadership based upon the word of God and the principles of God's word, we can hear the echoing all the way to the time we're living in 250 years later that's calling us back to God because the moral fabric of America is absolutely being ripped apart as you're seeing it on your news right now. Lawlessness in the streets. They're calling it teenage takeovers in in certain locations. We're seeing the fabric of the moral and political division that is taking place, lawlessness again. This is a falling away of the values that America was founded upon and the responsibilities that Jonathan Witherspoon preached that he received directly from the word of God and it affects America today. Prophecy is clear in the future and in the past for the nations that turn their back on God. So, what does that look like? Well, the national sin of ungratefulness that's taking place right now is a copy of Sodom and Gomorrah as we're seeing it. And many people would say, "Well, you always talk about Sodom and Gomorrah, you preachers do, and associate it with just homosexuality." But, listen carefully to what Ezekiel says very quickly. Now, this was the sin of Sodom and her daughter Gomorrah. It was arrogance, being overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy, and they were haughty or pride filled, and did detestable things. Ezekiel outlines exactly what the problem is, and these are the ungrateful mentalities and actions of today. Not only that, but the national sin of idolatry. Here's what the Bible says in Jeremiah. That is what the Lord says. Listen, "What fault did your father find in me? They that strayed so far from me, they followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves." Wow. The Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil, and now we're at a place where that is controlling every part of our lives. Jesus spoke of these idols of the love of money and mammon in the New Testament. He said, "You can't live love both God and mammon and serve them both." Then there is the national sin of indifference. This is something I believe God spoke to my heart about many, many years ago, apathy that would take over in the last days where people would not care whether God was involved in their life or not. Jeremiah speaks to that as well. And so does 2 Timothy. Listen very carefully to this because the apathy or the falling away from the word of God, from your relationship with God, church, any sacrifice whatsoever, the responsibility of that is a mark of last day Bible prophecy. This is where Witherspoon's words come very clear to us. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, it says this, mark this, there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-controlled, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. My friends, we're living in that time period right now. So, what's the answer? What are we supposed to do? I would say this, in this 250th year time of celebration, I'm so thankful that just last week there was a call of humility and prayer on the very National Mall in Washington, D.C. to go to God in prayer and humble repentance before him. Seek his face and turn back to God. That's the call. I want to encourage you from the word of God from the beginning to the end and from the very foundations of America's founding, let us return back to God, because I believe that Jesus Christ is coming soon. We'll see you next time.