The Gift or the Giver- Can Liberty Destroy Us?

JOSHUA, JESUS, AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS

Are our liberties destroying us?

“I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove

out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it

was not by your sword or by your bow.” Joshua 24:12

Joshua is an enigmatic book for many. The

most difficult part is not so much God’s

judgment against his enemies, but how any of

God’s people could be the executioners in such

a genocidal action.  Joshua, however, is an

evangelistic book, not a book of ethics.

Joshua 24:12 concludes Joshua’s summary of

the conquest and prepares for a final,

evangelistic thrust, asking, in Billy Graham style

for a decisive commitment to Yahweh. After

preaching this sermon, the entire audience came

forward to make their commitment. The reason

Joshua gives for trusting Yahweh is that Yahweh

has been Israel’s defense, and Yahweh is worth

trusting. Years later in the time of Jeremiah this

national commitment had been repudiated.

Because of such unbelief, Jeremiah preached

surrender to Babylon because the foundation

of faith eroded away and merely human

resistance to tyranny would be futile.

Today Americans face two challenges, one

moral and the other military. Freedom of

speech, the through its abuse. The true enemy of

our children has been the commercialization of

sex in such a way that sex as an idol permeates

all facets of social and commercial life, and our

children are the victims of adult irresponsibility

in the exercise of this liberty. This is a moral

challenge America has failed to meet. Today

liberty rather than the Giver of liberty has

become god.

The other challenge, the military challenge

will soon require the restricting of the first

amendment. Wikileaks has shockingly exposed

the military and political vulnerability. Where,

in the first place, we have been unable and

unwilling to control the propagation of morally

destructive speech, now we have a government

under threat that needs to control free speech

on the basis of defense. The problem is that the

real defense needed is moral, and the battle is

already lost. Like Joshua and also Jeremiah of

old, we should warn of a judgment that no

military can stop.

In Jeremiah’s time, God was ignored, but

the temple was sacrosanct. Today God’s truth

is ignored while the Constitution and Bill of

Rights are sacrosanct. Neither the Constitution

nor the Bill of Rights can save us when God has

been ignored. These have become our temple in

which we have trusted. We are just like the Jews

of Jeremiah’s time. We are also like the Jews

2000 years ago whose temple Jesus had to

cleanse. I suggest it will be better to go to jail or

die, if necessary, for Jesus than to die for

America. They are not the same god.