Psalm 33:12
195 Nations
I know the title probably makes no sense at this point, but I believe
it will.
Portions of the message that I preach this morning, I will not enjoy.
I find parts of the message very distasteful. It will bring out
truths that no one wants to hear, neither the saved nor the lost; but
I will preach it because I truly believe it is the message God wants
me to preach.
Psalm 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is
the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for
his own inheritance.
Would you consider four thoughts with me?
I. The Universal Call
A. Much of the Bible, especially the Old Testament is directed to
the nation of Israel.
1. As early as Genesis 12, God had selected a people to be
His.
a. From that people, He would create a nation.
b. From that nation, He would birth the Messiah.
c. From the Messiah, He would redeem another people.
d. With that people, He will glorify Himself for all
eternity.
2. The first two parts of God’s plan then were to select a
people and, with them, to create a nation.
a. That nation was Israel, and much of the Old Testament
was directed to Israel.
b. It contains God’s efforts to shape that nation into
something more than just the birthing parent for the
Messiah but into a people that God could use.
B. Yet this verse is not directed exclusively to Israel.
1. God did not say, "Blessed is Israel whose God is the
Lord…."
2. God said, "Blessed is the nation…."
a. God wrote this verse to be a Universal Call.
b. It is not directed to a specific nation and neither
is any nation excluded.
c. That means it could be ANY nation.
d. For that matter, it means it could be EVERY nation.
(1) The United Nations recognizes 195 independent
nations in the world today.
(2) Every one of those nations could be the "blessed"
nation.
(3) Sadly, I do not believe a single one of them is.
C. Note the Universal Call.
II. The Universal Choice
A. A Universal Call obviously leads to a Universal Choice.
1. Once the call goes out, each nation must decide whether
they will answer the call or not.
2. Hence, the Universal Choice.
B. Of the 195 recognized nations on the planet today, some have
answered the call.
1. There was a time the United States of America stepped up
t say, "Yes! I’ll be the blessed nations!"
2. At least, according the Supreme Court of our land.
3. The case was, "Church of the Holy Trinity v. United
States," 1892.
a. The Church of the Holy Trinity had been found guilty
of breaking the law and hiring a foreign clergyman.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that they were
not guilty (although they actually had broken the
law.)
b. But what was interesting in the case was what Justice
David J. Brewer wrote in the opinion of that case.
Explaining why the Court had found the church not
guilty, he listed as one of the evidence, "this is
a Christian nation."
c. While I do not normally favor the idea of court
rulings establishing precedents, that one should
have; but the article I read went on to say that
that court’s ruling has not had the effect that
other rulings have had on shaping our nation into
a non-Christian nation.
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/724/church-of-the-
holy-trinity-v-united-states
4. The only way anyone can deny that the United States
was founded by Christians to be a Christian nation is
to deny the abundance of American history, including
writings, documents, monuments, and buildings.
C. But no nation can claim the Lord of the Bible is their God
while committing the sins this country commits. For
example:
1. Most in today’s America have no idea who God is.
a. According to a Pew Research survey,
(1) 63% of Americans believe in god.
(2) 20% are fairly certain there is a god.
(3) 9% do not believe in God.
(4) 8% do not know what they believe.
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/belief-in-god/
b. Of the 63% that believe in god, only 46.6% are
Protestant, meaning all the remainder are not even
being exposed to the Bible message at all.
(1) They could be Catholic, Mormon, Jews, Buddhists,
Hindu, or any other kind of "believer" you can
imagine.
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/#religions
(2) While we know each person has the right to
believe in or not believe in any god they wish,
if a person is not even exposed to New Testament
or its truths, they cannot go to heaven!
(3) 46.6% of 63% means only 29% of our nation’s
population (at most) has any chance of believing
in the God of the New Testament.
(4) The sad truth is that most who are exposed to the
true, Bible-believing God never accept Him.
2. In our country, the blood of an estimated 62 million
babies cries from the ground.
https://www.nrlc.org/abortion/
a. They say the number of abortions is on the decline,
perhaps dropping every year since 2011.
https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2019/09/us-abortion-rate-continues-
drop-once-again-state-abortion-restrictions-are-not-main
b. The decline is not believed to be due to any kind of
moral conscience or the legal restrictions that have
been put into place.
c. They say women just aren’t getting pregnant in numbers
as they once were.
(1) Perhaps it is due to the "morning-after pill,’
which is still an abortion; but the it looks
like the world has locked away information
relating to the sale and usage of such
chemicals. I couldn’t find any.
(2) Perhaps God has gotten fed up and decided to
sterilize our whole nation.
d. Regardless, if the blood of Abel cried out to God,
the blood of the millions of babies will cry out
until God judges our land.
3. And what of the sexual sins of this nation?
a. Question: How many sexual sins are there? Answer: I
do not know but this nation seems determined to host
them all.
b. In 2019, the US reported 980,000 same-sex households
in the US.
(1) 58% of that number are "legal" marriages.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/nearly-1-million-u-s-
households-composed-same-sex-couples-n1240340
(2) Who would have thought our nation would ever to
do away with legal marriage to allow for
"illegal" marriage?
c. Sex Trafficking is just one of the growing business of
our country.
(1) Yes. It is a business.
(a) It’s a $32 billion industry in the U.S.
alone, the 2nd largest criminal industry in
our country, second only to the drug trade.
https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2019/08/28/the-sex-trafficking-
industry-right-in-alabama/
(b) Apparently, many politicians and many of
Hollywood elite are involved in it.
(c) Smallville actress, Allison Mack, was
convicted and sentenced to 3 years this
past week for her involvement in such a
ring.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/30/1011728671/allison-mack-sentenced-nxivm
(2) In 2019, Polaris, a human-trafficking rescue
organization received 11,500 hotline tips (in
the US) which resulted in 22,326 rescues, the
apprehension of 4,384 traffickers, and the
noting of 1,912 suspicious business. Yet they
note that human trafficking is notoriously
underreported and these statistics are only a
small fraction of the situation.
https://polarisproject.org/myths-facts-and-statistics/
(3) The I20 corridor, running less than 4 miles from
our church, is known as the "sex trafficking
super highway."
https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2019/08/28/the-sex-trafficking-
industry-right-in-alabama/
(4) If you are not for national border control for
any other reason, you should be for this.
(a) American women and children are stolen and
swept across state and national lines while
woman and children from other nations are
brought into America.
(b) Taking their victims into foreign countries
with languages they don’t speak and
cultures they don’t understand makes it
that much harder for the victims to be
rescued and if they are, for the
traffickers to be identified and caught.
D. At one time, America’s voice was heard as a nation that called
out, "Yes! I’ll be the blessed nation;" but I do not think
it possible that it is so today.
1. On June 26, 2006, Mr. Barak Obama, while serving in the
highest office of American government, made the
statement:
"Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a
Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a
Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation,
and a nation of nonbelievers."
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/obama-and-the-christian-nation-quote/
2. Only a pagan could fail to understand the error of that
statement.
a. God will not be co-god with any deity, real or
imagined.
b. Either we are a Christian nation or we are a damned
nation, and there are no other alternatives.
3. The fact that a heathen man like that would even be in
office, let alone that he would have the audacity to make
such a statement, tells us all that America is the
blessed nation no longer!
4. There are 195 recognized nations on the globe today, but
not a one of them can lay claim to being the blessed
nation, to accepting God’s universal call.
5. Each of them have made their own universal choice, and
the choices made lead me to the third point.
III. The Universal Condemnation
A. There is another Bible verse with a Universal Call, and it
also gives a Universal Choice; but this verse introduces
us to the Universal Condemnation.
Ps 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell,
and all the nations that forget God.
B. Notice the word "nations."
1. It is the same Hebrew word used in Psalm 33:12, our text.
2. It means that the truth of this verse is not directed to
the nation of Israel alone but to any and all nations
that meet the criteria.
C. Then notice the word "forget."
1. Before a nation can forget God, they would have first had
to have known God.
2. Down through the annals of time, several nations may have
been the blessed nation; but they seem to have all
forgotten God.
a. Israel forgot God. This was the sad message of one
of Jeremiah’s sermons:
Jer 2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which
are yet no gods? but my people have changed their
glory for that which doth not profit.
Jer 2:13 For my people have committed two evils;
they have forsaken me the fountain of living
waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns, that can hold no water.
Jer 2:32 Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a
bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me
days without number.
b. And by both the actions of the American people and the
declaration of Mr. Obama, so has the United States of
America.
D. And last, note the phrase, "shall be turned into hell."
1. The phrase denotes a future destination, hell.
2. Contrary to public opinion—which doesn’t change
anything—the Creator God says there is a hell.
3. Here we learn that not only individuals but entire nations
shall be damned.
a. Listen to something truly horrendous.
(1) Presently, because the church is on this planet,
spread like wheat throughout the entire world,
it is "probably" impossible for an entire nation
to be damned.
(a) I would hope that God has not left one
single country or nation without at least
one believer in it.
(b) If that condition were to exist anywhere on
this globe—that a single country or nation
would not have a single Christian in it—
then the church is to be condemned for we
have failed the Great Commission.
(2) But once the rapture of the church takes place,
every single Christian on the earth will be
removed, leaving every country and nation
without a single, solitary Christian.
(3) Even worse for the world, God’s seed planting
tool—the church—will be gone, meaning the
means to win new converts to Christ will be
gone.
(a) Now, I am sure that God has a means for
winning more souls to Himself, but the
devil with the anti-Christ will be doing
his best to kill every seed before it has
time to sprout and to kill every Christian
as soon as he is born-again.
(b) That means it is possible that when Jesus
returns and lines the nations up for
eternal judgement, every single soul who
lived within the boundaries of a nation
might be "turned into hell," every single
soul.
b. It might literally be a Universal Condemnation!
(1) As far as I know, helping those souls is beyond
us.
(a) I hope our sermons, our tracts, our books,
our videos, and everything else will be
available to them.
(b) I pray what I leave behind might win more
souls to Jesus than I have ever touched in
this life; but that is up to God.
(2) But our duty is to win them now.
IV. The Universal Command
A. What can we do about it?
a. Just two things.
b. The same two things that has been the goal of every
Biblical sermon ever preached.
B. What?
1. If we are not saved, be saved.
a. There are four reasons I can think of why a person
should be saved.
(1) For the glory of God.
(2) For the sake of your own soul.
(3) For the sake of your family.
(4) For the sake of your country.
b. This being our Patriotic Service, I would tell you
once again that your nation needs you to be saved.
(1) The time is running out, not only for America but
for all 195 nations.
(2) If you have ever wanted to do anything for your
country, be saved today!
2. If you are saved, live like it.
a. In our homes, business, and communities.
b. In our conversations, our hobbies, and our habits.
c. In our deeds and with our words.
C. There is an accusation I have heard from those who call
themselves "progressive" Christians.
1. They say we have allowed our patriotism to affect our
Christianity.
2. That we are Christians second or even further back, and
Americans first.
D. Well, I would reject their notions on several fronts.
1. First, I reject the thought that they are "progressive."
a. To be progressive suggests that they are moving on
to being a better Christian.
b. I don’t see any progress being made by such Christians
as producing anything better.
c. They say the proof of the pudding is in the taste.
d. I say in the years that progressive Christians have
been progressing, they have not made anything better,
especially the church.
2. Second, I reject the thought that God would have either
the American Christians or the American non-Christians
weaken their country’s borders or stability by allowing
America or any country to be overrun with idol
worshipping, God-rejecting immigrants who will not work.
a. Neither God nor the Bible, New Testament or Old,
advocates any such evangelism.
b. What God and the Bible advocates is threefold:
(1) Saved family
(2) Holy home
(3) Godly nation
c. Case in point: Psalm 33:12.
I am neither an American Christian nor a Christian American. I am a
Bible Christian who lives in a country—it happens to be America—and
I want the nation I live in to be the blessed nation. And I want the
nation that I live to help the other 194 nations to be blessed
nations as well.
May God help us to make it so!
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