Jim Van Gelderen: This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from Abilene, Kansas, where my wife and I are conducting revival meetings. We are headed out west. Next week, I’ll be preaching at Treasure Mountain Bible Camp in Marble, Colorado. Then my wife and I will be heading to a family camp in Oregon, doing some revival meetings in Wyoming, and meeting our team in Grand Junction, Colorado, where we’ll begin training for our fall semester. Lord willing, we’ll be out west through December, returning east for our final meeting in Florida. It looks to be an exciting semester. We would appreciate your prayers that God would meet with us in our Christian school ministry, see many young people saved, and see young people respond to God’s working in their hearts.
That brings me to today’s podcast. I’m podcasting on July 6, and I’m not sure when this will be launched. A couple of days ago, we all know there was a big celebration in our country for our 250th birthday as the United States of America. A lot of people were recounting American history and the encouraging things we hear, and certainly the blessings that have been upon our nation. We’re all grateful for that, and I’ve been encouraged and stirred myself reflecting on the nation God has given us.
I’m old enough to remember 1976, which was our 200th anniversary. I was in high school at the time, and that was an exciting time as well. In a certain sense, I think this might have been a bigger celebration, but at that time there was a lot of sobriety among God’s people as they saw a national decline taking place. Certainly, there was a national decline that has continued to this day. Sometimes God’s people get desensitized to the decline we’ve been witnessing. It has brought me to a verse of Scripture I read in my daily reading just a few days ago that most would be familiar with, and I want us for a few moments to reflect on it: “Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
I believe that verse is one of the key truths that gives us an understanding of why America has been such a great and blessed country. It is not a perfect country, but it has certainly experienced the blessing of God, because righteousness exalts a nation. As I view our nation, there are things to be encouraged about, but there are other things that dishearten us, particularly when you look at some of the sin that is not only overlooked but encouraged in our country—things that were unspeakable a few years ago that are now mainstream, tolerated, and celebrated. Those things trouble God’s people, as they well should, because the Bible speaks clearly about them.
The purpose of this podcast is not primarily to point out sin. It is simply to point out that sin is a reproach to any people, and it will be a reproach to us. But the thing I want us to focus on is righteousness exalteth a nation. You are either aiding that truth—in other words, living a righteous life that God blesses—or you are part of the other side, where we are reproached because our sin brings reproach not only on us but collectively upon our country.
When we think of righteousness, sometimes we think, “I know what that means. It means doing right.” In a certain sense, that is what it is. But there are two kinds of righteousness. There is self-righteousness, a righteousness that is your own. God tells us about that. In Isaiah 64, the prophet Isaiah said, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” I’ve thought about that familiar verse, but it hit me that Isaiah used the word our, which means he included himself. That seems to indicate that this is not talking only about lost people, though it would certainly be true of them. It is talking about God’s people.
When you and I attempt to be righteous in our own strength, it is our own righteousness, and it does not impress God. He calls it filthy rags. Anything that has self in it does not impress God, because the source of that righteousness was us. When somebody endeavors to be righteous in their own strength, they will always come up short, which means they have to resort to hypocrisy. Anybody who endeavors to be righteous in their own strength will have to act like something they are not, because the flesh cannot do what God wants it to do. The Bible says that the flesh profiteth nothing, and Jesus said, “Without me ye can do nothing.”
Our own strength and dependence on our own abilities will not cut it. So what is the answer? For a righteous nation, the answer is for God’s people to be truly righteous: “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” The thing God blesses and the thing that pleases Him is faith. Many of you know Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” It does not say that without works it is impossible to please God. You can be doing good things and not please God because your good things are rooted in self-dependence.
But if you start with faith and say, “God, I need You. I can’t get anything from Your Word without You enabling me to understand it. I can’t pray without You enabling me to pray and giving me the grace to pray. I can’t win people to Jesus Christ without You empowering me. I can’t live a holy, separated life from the world without Your enabling grace,” then you are beginning with dependence upon God, and that pleases God.
Even after we have failed, it pleases God when we trust Him for cleansing, forgiveness, and restoration. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. When we trust Him for forgiveness because we have confessed our sins, He is pleased by that. The Bible says He takes pleasure in them that hope in mercy. Hoping in mercy is faith: “God, I’m trusting You to be merciful to me, a sinner, and to enable me to have victory where I’ve been defeated.” That pleases God.
That is righteousness that comes from heaven. When you got saved, you received imputed righteousness. Every step of faith where we trust God, He enables us. Could we say that He imparts His righteousness? “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” God receives the glory when we depend on Him for His righteousness to be lived out through our dependent obedience. It glorifies God because it is supernatural and divine intervention. People know that is not human; that is God divinely intervening in that person’s heart and life.
That kind of righteousness exalts a nation when there is a collective turning to the Lord. That is why God blesses revival. When nations experience revival, it blesses those nations because people are experiencing true righteousness—not self-dependent righteousness, not trying to look good on the outside so people will be impressed, but genuine, supernaturally enabled righteousness that comes from God, which is the Lord Jesus Christ’s life being lived out through our obedience.
Are you a part of that? Are you part of God blessing America because He sees in you the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ—not just judicially, which is imputed righteousness, but practically, which is sanctification and imparted righteousness? That is God at work in your life, enabling you to live a righteous life.
I know you hear these themes on Thee Generation Podcast from time to time, but I thought that on our 250th birthday as a nation, we need to remember this is the key to God exalting and blessing our nation. We can easily move away from it, and we have. We need revival. We need to get back to Christ-enabled living, to a great understanding of our weakness and our need of Jesus, our inability to be righteous in our own strength, and learning to trust Him and depend on Him—not just for imputed righteousness, but for imparted righteousness, His enabling righteousness, which comes from Jesus who lives within.
That is the key to a nation collectively experiencing God’s blessing when many of its citizens have that kind of mentality. It never takes a majority; it just takes a minority. I remember my dad used to say that it is the minority of a church that keeps the church on the mark—the spiritual minority that walks with God. They are the ones who hold the church, and I believe that is true. It is always a minority. We can be part of that minority here in the United States and bring back a God-dependent righteousness that God will bless and use to exalt us as a people. We certainly want God’s reviving presence.
Young person, would you pray for God to do that reviving work in our day and your day? Would you pray in your own heart and life, “God, I need You. I need You every day. I want to be a part of the righteousness that comes from God, that He blesses, and that He will use to exalt a nation whose citizens live that way”?
Remember, on our 250th birthday, what is the key? The key is that righteousness exalts our nation, but sin will always be a reproach to any people. It does not matter who it is, whether we are Americans or not. Sin has already been a reproach to us. It will continue to be a reproach to us unless we turn back to God as a people and experience that righteousness that comes from God. So, young person, that is the key as part of Thee Generation—a young person who is surrendered to God because that is the One you need, and who depends upon Him to daily enable you to know His righteousness and His enabling grace in your Christian life.
