Christian based commentaries and observations.

Quote of Note

Billy Graham's Prayer For Our Nation



: 'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.
We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free.
:
: Amen!'
:


Sunday, December 27, 2009

In A World Ready to Explode


If you have ever been present at the birth of a child. You have seen the violent upheaval that contorts the shape and surface of the Mother's stomach with every contraction.
Christ said the end of the age would, "be like a woman in travail". There is no question in my mind that the geopolitical upheaval that is currently taking place is as Christ described.
Here in America we have enjoyed a long period of religious freedom that kept us insulated from the worst persecutions. That freedom is most probably going to change, as the forces lined up against us have their way. Remember We are promised to escape God's wrath but not persecution! So how are we to take this bitter cup if it is forced upon us to drink?
I have a couple of thoughts on this future.
My first thought is that of Glorifying God in the presence of his enemies. Remember when King David sinned word came to David that he had caused God's enemies contempt him?
2SA 12:13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD."
Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die."

Remember also, Ephesians Chap 3, v10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
It glorifies God when we stand fast in his name, in the face of persecution.
Lastly, I thought of the following quote, which I also made the Quote of Note for the month. Take courage that in the end through it all we, in Christ, will stand victorious through him.




We look back on history and what do we see; empires rising and falling, revolutions and counterrevolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth dispersed. Shakespeare has spoken of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon.
I look back upon my own fellow countrymen, in England. Once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that the God who made them mighty will make them mightier yet.
I've seen a crazed cracked Austrian announce to the world, he would, "establish a Reich that would last a 1000 years".
I've seen an Italian clown saying he was going to, "stop and start the calendar with his [own] ascension to power".
I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand, in the Kremlin, proclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world, as a wiser than Solomon, more human than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than a shokur
I've seen an America wealthier, and in terms of military weaponry more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that if, the American people so desired they could have outdone a Cesar or Alexander, in the range and scale of their conquest.
All in one lifetime. All in one lifetime. All gone, gone with the wind.
England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy.
Hitler and Mussolini remembered only in infamy.
Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades.
America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keep her motorways roaring and the smog settling. with disastrous memories of a disastrous campaign in in Vietnam, as the media charge the windmills of Watergate.
All in one lifetime. All in one lifetime. All gone.
Behind the debris of all solemn supermen and self styled diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone, man may still have peace.
THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST.

Malcolm Muggeridge

Quote of note from Nov. 09

It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.
George Washington

The pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts... nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving
H. W. Westermayer