The Greatness of Grace

This is one of those sermons that when it is over if you can say, thank you LORD I am not like the people he was talking about then this message was not for you.  It could be that this message is just for me and not you at all.  So if it upsets you, angers you, or make you feel uncomfortable, then it is for you.

Grace Greater Than All Our Sin Lyrics: FORGIVENESS
Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled.

Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold,
Threaten the soul with infinite loss;
Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold,
Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide.
What can we do to wash it away?
Look! There is flowing a crimson tide,
Brighter than snow you may be today.

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
Freely bestowed on all who believe!
You that are longing to see His face,
Will you this moment His grace receive?

Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.

To understand God’s grace is to understand outside our human understanding of Grace.

1. Grace used as a noun (in Christian belief) the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.

2. 
Used as a verb, do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence.

I am not one to watch commercials but I saw this commercial about a bleach pen.  If you had a stain, just pull out the pen and rub it on the stain and it would be gone. Sometimes we treat grace like a holy bleach pen. Oops, I made a mistake. Let me grab my bleach pen of grace. Quick prayer to blot out the stains. And off we go as if nothing happened. Yet grace is so much more than a holy bleach pen. So much more than a moment where we seek forgiveness for our sin. Grace isn’t meant to be just a moment-by-moment "my bad" cleaning. Grace is meant to be a movement of God in and through our lives. Grace not only results in an internal change in our own lives; it also moves us toward actions that result in external changes in the lives of others.

Grace is a terribly misunderstood word.  Some of the most detailed theology textbooks do not offer any concise definition of the term. Someone has proposed an acronym: GRACE is God's Riches At Christ's Expense. That's not a bad way to characterize grace, but it is not a sufficient theological definition.

One of the best-known definitions of grace is only three words: God's unmerited favor. A. W. Tozer expanded on that: "Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits on the undeserving."

Grace is not merely unmerited favor; it is favor bestowed on sinners who deserve wrath. Showing kindness to a stranger is "unmerited favor"; but doing good to one's enemies is more the spirit of grace.

To help us understand Grace today, I want to share with you a few scriptures that have been difficult for some to understand.

Luke 6:27-36  Read

Grace is not a dormant or abstract quality, but a dynamic, active, working principle:  "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation…and instructing us" (Titus 2:11-12).

It is not some kind of wraith like blessing that lies idle until we deserve it. Grace is God's sovereign will for all sinners (Ephesians 1:5-6).

Grace is not a one-time event in the Christian experience. We stand in grace.

Romans 5:2  By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

The entire Christian life is driven and empowered by grace: Hebrews 13:9

It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods.

Peter said we should "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18).

So, we could properly define grace as the free and benevolent influence of a holy God operating sovereignly in the lives of undeserving believers.

We heard the story of the two sons, where the younger son said to his father, ‘Give me my inheritance I am supposed to receive someday. So the father divided his wealth between his two sons. A few days later the younger son gathered up all that he had and left. He traveled far away to another country, and there he wasted his money living like a fool. After he spent everything he had, there was a terrible famine throughout the country. He was hungry and needed money. So, he went and got a job with one of the people who lived there. The man sent him into the fields to feed pigs. He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the food the pigs were eating. But no one gave him anything. The son realized that he had been a fool.

He thought, ‘All my father’s hired workers have plenty of food. But here I am, almost dead because I have nothing to eat.  I will leave and go to my father. I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against God and have done wrong to you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But let me be like one of your hired workers.’  So he left and went to his father.

While the son was still a long way off, his father saw him coming and felt sorry for him. So, he ran to him and hugged and kissed him. The son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against God and have done wrong to you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, ‘Hurry! Bring the best clothes and put them on him. Also, put a ring on his finger and good sandals on his feet. And bring our best calf and kill it so that we can celebrate with plenty to eat. My son was dead, but now he is alive again! He was lost, but now he is found!’ So, they began to have a party.  The older son had been out in the field. When he came near the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing.  So he called to one of the servant boys and asked, ‘What does all this mean?’  The boy said, ‘Your brother has come back, and your father killed the best calf to eat. He is happy because he has his son back safe and sound.

The older son was happy and so excited his brother was home--- oh, you read the story.  He was angry and would not go in to the party. So, his father went out and begged him to come in.  But he said to his father, ‘Look, for all these years I have worked like a slave for you. I have always done what you told me to do, and you never gave me even a young goat for a party with my friends. But then this son of yours comes home (notice he did not say my brother) after wasting your money on prostitutes, and you kill the best calf for him!  His father said to him, ‘Oh, my son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But this was a day to be happy and celebrate. Your brother was dead, but now he is alive. He was lost, but now he is found.  It is time to be gracious, not angry.

I hear Jesus saying, “Give him your cloak also. I’m reminded of Noah, Noah found grace in the eyes of God. But not only Noah, but also his 3 sons and their wives get in the ark too.

The thief on the cross.  Forgiveness plus grace.  “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”  You see, Grace goes beyond forgiveness…

Some of us understand that God forgives, but I wonder sometimes if we really understand His grace.

If you do understand it, “God bless you”, because many have never truly understood what Grace was. Some think Grace and Forgiveness were the same things. To some they sound like the same thing. “I had grace, so I forgave them.” Some think when you forgave someone, you had grace on them. But what I want to talk about is a church that is capable of the same kind of Grace that God has shown to us.

·        A grace that prefers the other person. In honor preferring one another

·        A grace that is not a me first attitude. It is not my way or the highway

·        A grace that goes beyond forgiveness. It is forgetting the past.

·        A grace that supports and comes along side people who do not deserve it. 

Is it possible that this church could be a church that is full of Grace?  It is one thing to be a friendly church but it is greater to be a gracious church.  The real question is …

·        Are we capable of showing grace to other people as well as the household of faith?

·        How will our church ever be a grace church if we are not a Grace people?

When Jesus was talking about our enemies and how we are to treat them how much more gracious should we be to our Christian brothers and sisters?

Some of us haven’t gotten forgiveness down pat yet, how will we ever get to grace?  There is this attitude that I forgive you but I will never forget what you have done, is not forgiveness.  If you keep bringing up the past you have problems with forgiveness.  That is what the devil does.  God has a sea of forgetfulness.

Micah 7:18-19 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love.  He will again have compassion on is; He will tread our iniquities under foot, Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

If we are to say to our enemies and those who have disrespected us more than just I forgive you as taught by our LORD by adding grace to our actions it will look like this: 

·        I forgive you and I want to bless you… Here’s my cloak!

·        You stole 50 dollars from me, but I forgive you and by the way, here are another 20.

·        It’s the father putting a ring on the finger of the son who wasted his inheritance.

·        You wasted everything I ever worked for, but here’s a ring and a fatted calf and a celebration because the son that was lost has come home!

·        Grace goes far beyond Forgiveness.

I am well aware there are people who hard to understand why they act the way they do.  They are spiteful, petty, malicious, and downright hard to love and we call them our brothers and sisters.  They are not in the class of enemies.  So, how much more gracious should we be towards them?  

My advice is pray for them that the LORD open their eyes to see that they are mean, spiteful, petty malicious and downright hard people to love.  It may be that the LORD has just been waiting for someone to pray for these people so He could send the Holy Spirit to open their eyes to their ungracious actions.

If we can ever become a church that extends Grace to everyone, we will be a Church that others say, Behold, how they love one another.

Nature- The Weapon of the LORD

Ezekiel 14:13¬14 "'Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread send famine against it and cut off from it both man and beast, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves,' declares the LORD GOD."

Jeremiah 12:4  “How long is the land to mourn and the vegetation of the countryside to wither? For the wickedness of those who dwell in it, Animals and birds have been snatched away, because men have said, "He will not see our latter ending."

Back one month ago I wrote about the number of natural disasters that had occurred up to July 2017.  In the month of September alone there have been 27 natural disasters that have covered fire, hurricanes, earthquakes, and flooding. All over the world people are seeing an increase in natural disasters.  It is time, we as humanity, focus on what the LORD is saying to us.

Again, for the past decade, it has been obvious that the LORD has been trying to get the attention of the American Christian.  There is within the church, in general, this attitude that in the future the End Time scriptures will be fulfilled.  The problem with this type of thinking is the future is now.  While the country is fighting over whose statue to take down, and what a terrible president we have, our nation is faced with serious issues that will bring this country to its knees.  It is not China, Iran, North Korea or Russia that should be our concern; it is America that we should be concerned about.  The evil that has invaded out nation is destroying us.

The natural disasters should be an eye opener to the need of returning to the LORD.  These are not normal disasters.  Hurricane Harvey just broke the record for rainfall in the continental United States, Hurricane Irma is so immensely powerful that it has been called “a lawnmower from the sky”, vast stretches of our country out west are literally being consumed by fire, and the magnitude-8.2 earthquake that just hit Mexico was completely unexpected.

America is burning and we don’t see the seriousness of what is happening.  California is on fire.  Oregon is on fire. Washington is on fire. Montana is on fire.  All around the world fires are destroying large areas.  British Columbia is on fire.  Alberta is on fire. Nova Scotia is on fire.  Greece is on fire.  Brazil is on fire.  Portugal is on fire.  Algeria is on fire.  Tunisia is on fire.  Greenland is on fire.  The Sakha Republic of Russia is on fire. Siberia is on fire. 

Texas and Florida are under water from the hurricanes.  India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, experience record monsoons and massive death toll. Sierra Leone and Niger experience massive floods, mudslides, and deaths in the thousands.  Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia are crushed in the death grip of a triple digit heat wave, dubbed Lucifer.  Southern California continues to swelter under triple digit heat that shows no sign of letting up.  Northern California continues to bake in the triple digits.

Yellowstone volcano is hit with earthquake swarm of over 2,300 tremors since June, recording a 4.4 quake on June 15, 20017 and 3.3 shaker on August 21, 2017.  5.3 earthquake rumbles through Idaho. Japan earthquake 6.1 possible tsunami.   Mexico's earthquake of 8.2 created tsunami warning. 

 Hurricanes Harvey, Irma (biggest ever recorded), Jose and Katia are barreling around the Atlantic with 8 more potentials forming.  Harvey and Irma could be a breaking point. At $556 billion, the Houston metropolitan area’s economy is bigger than Sweden’s. New Jersey could easily fit inside the region’s sprawling footprint, where Harvey dumped 34 trillion gallons of water, as much as the three costliest floods in Texas history combined. The Harvey response alone eventually could double the $136 billion in government aid spent after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. An estimated $1.73 trillion worth of real estate was in the path of Irma’s hurricane-force winds, according to the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies.

We won’t know the true extent of the damage that has been caused down in Florida for many days, but we do know that much of the state is already without power. The widespread outages stretch from the Florida Keys all the way into central Florida. Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electric utility, said there were nearly 1 million customers without power in Miami-Dade County alone.  Nursing Homes are feeling the impact of the loss of power.  There are now reports of deaths occurring in nursing homes from the lack of air conditioning.

In the end, the federal government will likely step in and spend a lot of money that it does not have to rebuild and restore the communities that Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma have destroyed. But we are already 20 trillion dollars in debt, and it is being projected that we will continue to add another trillion dollars to that total every year for the foreseeable future.  At some point, this debt will simply become completely unsustainable.

I am not an economist nor do I have a vast knowledge of the stock market but given history of booms and bust we are rapidly approaching a bust.  In 2008, many people lost a large portion of their retirement, I was included in that group. As there is more and more demand on the government to pay for these disasters there will be a breaking point where there will no longer be funds to rebuild what has been destroyed.  The major disasters will keep on coming.

The major natural disasters seem to just keep on getting bigger, and they seem to be hitting all over the world more frequently than in the past. The disasters are arriving with greater frequency. Counting Harvey, the U.S. this year has experienced 10 weather-related events each costing $1 billion or more. But it is imperative that we all begin to understand that something has fundamentally changed.  Our world has become much less stable, and “apocalyptic events” are starting to hit us one after another. 

There are many ministers today that will tell you that the natural disasters are not the judgment of God.  What is happening is the normal course of nature. In the 37th chapter of the book of Job, we are given a description of how God controls the “course of nature.”  Job explains how the LORD controls all of nature and how he uses the wind, rain, and snow.  “He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.”  If Job could see how the LORD used nature for correction and mercy, maybe we should pay more attention to what is happening.

Nature is controlled by the LORD.  “From the Lord of hosts you will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire.” (Is. 29:6)

Scripture shows us that God uses natural disasters, such as tornadoes and earthquakes and floods and forest fires and famines and volcanoes, to judge mankind for his sinful ways.  As lawlessness increases in a nation, so do the natural disasters.  When we have record evil we will have record disasters.

Ethical Holiness

We are living at a time when there are questionable ethics in every aspect of our society.  The Bible has much to say about ethical conduct for those who consider themselves a follower of the laws of God.  The terms ethics and morals are virtual synonyms.  Ethics is what is normative and absolute.  It refers to a set of standards around which we organize our lives, and from which we define our duties and obligations.  Morality or mores is the shifting behavioral patterns of society or culture.

The LORD was developing a nation that was based on the ethical holiness of GOD.  The moral laws in the 19th chapter were not just commands of conformity.  They called for just, humane, and sensitive treatment of others. The elderly, the handicapped, the poor all were to receive consideration and courtesy.  The laborer was to be paid promptly.  The stranger was to be shown the same love given to fellow citizens.  The ethical treatment of people was not with overt behavior but with motive; vengefulness and bearing a grudge was condemned.  How our society has changed from how the LORD intended for us to act.

Regarding the aged or elderly. I can remember when the elderly was respected.  People would hold doors for them, offer them a seat, allow them to first in line; they were respected.  The elderly was thought of as wise and insightful.  Here in the 19th chapter, we are given this command: Show honor to old people, stand up when they enter the room.  We are to stand upon in the presence of the aged, show them respect and doing this you show reverence to God.  Manners are not taught to children today.  When an elderly person is speaking to you, stand up.  Don't walk in front of two elderly people talking.  Don't interrupt elderly people who are in conversation.

There was a time when people looked up to those who had been around the block a couple of time or more.  They had a certain knowledge and skills that society thought as useful.  I remember holding my teachers in high regard and having respect for most of them.  Sure, there were those you couldn't stand, but for the most part, you treated them with respect.  You would not even consider cussing out a teacher or calling them a name to their face or threaten them with violence.  When did we lose our respect for the elderly?  I am not trying to make this a generational issue but is does seem that every generation has less respect for the elderly.  I am aware there are some who have been taught to respect their elders, I am speaking about the one who doesn't.  What happened in their life that made them so disrespectful?

Our traditions are part of who we are, and many seem unimportant to the culture today, but they are the connection to the past.  Some of our traditions are like Grandma's quilt.  It is thread bare, hard to clean, and not very warm in the winter.  A newer quilt would be much better, warmer, easy to clean and even fits the bed.  We don't throw out Grandma's quilt because we want to hold on to the past.  The same with customs of honoring the elderly they are our connect to the past and should be honored.

At the beginning of our country, there was no place for the handicap.  They were treated differently.  It was until some people set out to change the way the handicap has been addressed that legislation was enacted in 1973 to change how there were treated.  In 1975, Education for All Handicap Children Act provided education free for any child living with a disability.  In 1990, the American With Disabilities Act protected from discrimination from employers.  Do these laws work to give a better life?

People with disabilities are four to ten times more likely to be a victimized than people without disabilities.  Most crimes against the disabled are not reported.  Caregivers often do not believe them when they do report abuse.  Most programs for crime victims are not available to much disabled because of accessibility. The FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey administered by the Depart of Justice does not include people with disabilities.  

Do we need laws to tell us how to treat people; apparently, since children are not taught at home?

In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of poor in our country.  When President Johnson declared war on Poverty it was a no-win situation the War on Poverty has cost $22 trillion -- three times more than what the government has spent on all wars in American history. Federal and state governments spend $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars on America's 80 means-tested welfare programs annually.

Even though the war on poverty has been a failure, the poor in this country are far better off than other countries.

Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, at the beginning of the War on Poverty, only about 12 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed the air conditioning.

Nearly three-quarters have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks. 

Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.

Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and a quarter has two or more.

Half have a personal computer; one in seven has two or more computers.

More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

Forty-three percent have Internet access.

Forty percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.

A quarter have a digital video recorder system such as a TIVO.

Ninety-two percent of poor households have a microwave. TV newscasts about poverty in America depict the poor as homeless or as residing in dilapidated living conditions. While some families do experience such severe conditions, they are far from typical of the population defined as poor by the Census Bureau. The actual housing conditions of poor families are very different. 

Over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless. At a single point in time, one in 70 poor persons is homeless. 

Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers; 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.

Forty-two percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

Only 7 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Sweden, France, Germany, or the United Kingdom. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)  Could it be that our changing definition of poor has contributed to the problem? 

1.2 billion people live off $1.25 a day.  Poor people in developing countries spend 60-80% of their income on food.  3 million children die from malnutrition every year.

Imagine if every child between the ages of 0 and 4 in the states of Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and D.C. died in 2017. It would be utter chaos.

Maybe the government needs to teach family responsibility, support the family unit instead of breaking it up.  Nearly two-thirds of those classed as living in poverty are single parent families.  It is easier to get government assistance when you are a single parent.  Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us.  Does that mean we ignore them and treat them with disrespect? No.  We need to help free them from the bondage of poverty.

I am about to wander into an area that has already caused me to offend some people.  I have been told I lacked love and was a poor example of a Christian.  That may be true but what I believe is not based on my belief system but the word of God.  

So, let us tackle the subject of how do we treat the stranger.  Countless Bible studies have been conducted in America using the passages of scripture about the "stranger" and the "aliens" in our country.  The 19th chapter of Leviticus is the foundation for some of this discussion.  

Let us read from the Bible Lev. 19:33-34.  Christians were supporting the "stranger and illegal alien" stop right there and decide they know all they need to know about their duty as Christians towards the illegal alien.  We are to treat them like one born among us, according to the Bible.  That means the benefits of citizenship.

But wait, they have developed some terrible theology- not to mention politics.  Liberals have taken a scripture out of context, by not understanding what is being said to whom about whom.  The question is how do we deal with the "stranger or foreigners"?  Before we start quoting scripture, we need to define the eight words which are translations of the word stranger, strangers, foreigner, sojourners or alien and how they are used.  Without this clarification, we have scriptures that appear contradictory and inconsistent.

These laws were given to make a distinction between the Hebrew people and the non-Hebrew.  The strangers were not permitted to worship with the Hebrews.  They were not to come near the Tabernacle if they did they were to be put to death.  They could not participate in the Jewish Passover.  They were to stay separated from Hebrew people.

The command is to treat the stranger well because they knew what it was like to be a stranger.  Here is a significant difference between the Hebrews and those coming illegally into our country.  In the beginning, the Hebrew was the guest of the Egyptian Pharaoh.  Later they would be oppressed by a ruler "who did not know Joseph."  They were not trespassers or lawbreakers; they were not there in Egypt illegally.  In fact, in Genesis 46:28-34, they were not to offend their host in any way.  God loves the stranger and so should we.  They are to be treated with respect and dignity.  They should not be mistreated.  They should be given food and clothing as they need.  That is the message of the Bible- treat the law-abiding foreigner and aliens with love and compassion.

Those who came into the land of the Hebrews were expected to obey Hebrew law.  They were treated differently than the Hebrew citizen.  They could not own property; they could be bought and sold as slaves, strangers were charged interest on loans, strangers would be put to death if they violated the law of worship.  

So, if we are to follow the teachings of the Bible, those who come into this country come by invitation only.   Foreigners can never own property, they will be put to death if they disrupt our worship, are not to offend the citizens of this country, and they cannot celebrate our religious holidays.

We have an ethical obligation to follow the command of God regarding our fellow man.  We can always expect those who have no regard for the law to disagree with us.  I find it difficult to understand why someone would take away from their family and give to someone who disrespects them.  I find it even harder to understand how someone can willingly give away the future of their children to criminals?  We have all witnessed on the news the stories of those in our country illegally who have taken the life of someone's son our daughter.  How is this justified?

As Christians, we do have an ethical and moral obligation to treat people with respect, but we are not obligated to assist those who are lawbreakers.  Let me again say, The moral laws in the 19th chapter were not just commands of conformity.  They called for just, humane, and sensitive treatment of others. The elderly, the handicapped, the poor all were to receive consideration and courtesy.  The laborer was to be paid promptly.  The stranger was to be shown the same love given to fellow citizens.  The ethical treatment of people was not with overt behavior but with motive; vengefulness and bearing a grudge was condemned.  How our society has changed from how the LORD intended for us to act.

When Jesus stated the next great commandment was to "Love your neighbor as yourself, He was saying an Old Testament command found in verse 18 of chapter 19.  This scripture is what has been called the "golden rule."  There are both negative and positive forms of this "rule," but all of them demand that we treat others with the same kind of treatment we want for ourselves.

At the beginning of chapter 19 of Leviticus God gave this command, "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy."  There is no doubt a great distance between the holiness of God and the holiness of man, yet, God urges us to close that distance by keeping the commandments of God.  Jesus said, If ye love me you will keep my commandments."  The Law of Holiness is not addressed to a selected group of individuals.  It is applied to the entire community of Believers.  The Law aims to create a holy people who live their lives in a display of consecration to God in their day-to-day relations in all their affairs of life.

In chapter 18 verse 21 it states, "Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord." In chapter 19 verse 12 the same expression is used, "‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord."  To profane, the name of the LORD is to impair His reputation among the non-believers.

When Christians agree with, tolerate, or condone actions that the LORD has said are a violation of His commandments they profane the name of the LORD.  During the time, these commands were given people would sacrifice their children to the god Molek. Sacrificing to Molek is no different than those who sacrifice their children to the abortionist. Christians who agree with, tolerate or condone abortion profane the name of the LORD.  Murdering an innocent child is to profane the name of the LORD.  How can the LORD bless a nation that both believers and non-believers support the killing of innocent children?

In the book of Ezekiel, when the people of Judah brought punishment upon themselves, they profaned the name of the LORD.  The Gentiles regarded the defeat of Judah as a defeat of Judah's God.  The reason the people of Judah were in exile was their God was not powerful enough to protect them.  So, the reputation of God was profaned.  

How the LORD is viewed by the non-believer is not His worry, it is the responsibility of those who call themselves Christian.  Christians must live and act as to win respect for Jesus Christ among those who are non-believers.  Any behavior that brings public disgrace on Christians is taking the name of Jesus Christ in vain.  As a representative or witness of the LORD, any action that enhances the dignity and honor of Christianity is the sanctification of the Name of the LORD.

In conclusion, morality or mores is the shifting behavioral patterns of society or culture.  We have been given a warning about living a "moral" life. The morality of the end times is given to us in Paul's second letter to Timothy, "But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away."  These are the behaviors that exemplify our society.

As a Christian, we are to live holy lives based on God's ethics. Ethics is what is normative and absolute.  It is the standards around which we organize our lives, and from which we define our duties and obligations.  The command to be a holy people is based on ethical living.  The ethical standard was given to us by the LORD for the normal life of the Christian.  The commands are absolute and not based on the cultural morality.  The LORD says today, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."