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!'
:


Saturday, January 30, 2010

Quote of note from Jan 10'

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 Moussolini 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

The Manhattan Declaration

(copied from the website) http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/


The Manhattan Declaration

A Call of Christian Conscience

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family. It was in this tradition that a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration on November 20, 2009 at a press conference in Washington, DC. The 4,700-word declaration speaks in defense of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. It issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere firmly to their convictions in these three areas


You too can sign the petition by visiting the website. The question In your mind is, "why should I", and "is this really a good and needed thing to do"?

You can read the full Declaration at the website http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/
And you can hear an arguement/question and answer in defense of the Declaration at http://www.rzim.org/USA/Resources/Listen/LetMyPeopleThink.aspx?archive=1&pid=1711

Please do, and pass it on!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Massachusetts Republican Senator! Really? Your Kidding! Right?


Hey can you believe this headline: Brown wins Mass. Senate race in epic upset

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34923900/ns/politics-capitol_hill
How could this have happened? Since I am a Massachusetts resident and voter I'll give you my observations. This is a bit more partisian than I usually get. I might have supported Democrats of the 50's and 60's but I don't support Socialists!
1) Ted Kennedy is gone! There were many voters that voted for Ted over the years just because of who he was and the power that he held in Washington. Martha Coakley did not automatically convert those voters.
2) a.While Massachusetts is predominately a democratic registration state and usually votes 60% to 80% of the time with the democratic candidate they are not by majority Socialists. Mass is made up heavily of Irish, Italian, and Portuguese heritages. They have voted for years ans years with the Democratic ticket, but they are not Socialists. The present government in Washington has had time to expose itself for what it really is. People don't like it.
b.After Nancy Pelosi came here to endorse Capuano, he fell in the primary election. If you mention the trillion $ stimulus package every one, without exception says "where's the money"! with exception of a few road projects and 3 cops standing around collecting overtime, no one can see any result of a trillion dollars!
c.Labeling of groups, individuals, and companies has offended virtually every one. (example: saying that Fox News was not a news organization. "they are an entertainment organization." and the famous Homeland Security domestic terrorist list, that included everyone good, but no domestic Moslem's.)
3)Immediate negative campaigning by Coakley. The statements were so distorted that even the liberal leaning media had to expose it. (ex: Brown voted against a women's right to rape crisis treatment! This was extrapolated from Brown voting against the RU 486 morning after pill!)
4) The Morning after pill brings me to the next reason for the Brown win. The Catholic Church has been pushing the abortion issue lately among this predominately Catholic state. Just before Christmas the Bishop of Rhode Island told one of the famous Kennedy's that he should consider not taking Communion because of his repeated votes in favor of abortion. This was headline and editorial news all over New England. Coakley lost Catholic votes!
Furthermore, Brown's lovely and intelligent daughters came out of nowhere in defense of their father. Brown's wife and mother of those daughters is a long respected T.V. news anchor on one of Boston's biggest stations. The girls got full press coverage and worked it well!
6) Scott Brown is a very like able guy who comes across as the average guy.

Well here to hoping this miracle is repeated across the country!

Haiti, Jonah, and Judgement


When the Haitian earthquake took place, I was already in "birth pang" observation mode. There had been in the last 3 weeks several moderate quakes in various places. Then Bang! the big disaster in Haiti.
As I watched the news coverage, my heart really hurt for those people. So many dead, so many, trapped, so many homeless, without water, food, facilities, and all of this in a country that is basically already in a state of anarchy. We are looking at a glimpse of what it will be like on a global scale during the Tribulation period.
It was only last summer that our church was asked to pray for the safe exit of a work group from a sister church, because of what was going on there. There had been other mission groups in the news from around our state that had also been caught up in rapid retreat.

Sunday night a Christian truck driver I know came to my store. We discussed Haiti. he said that another Christian driver had said, "I am not helping those people, that's God's judgement on them. They...[are evil]...and got what was coming to them"!
How do you answer this, after all is is basically true?
My first thought was, "we are all evil, we all deserve the same judgement"! It is only by grace that with have received through faith in Christ, that we are not destroyed utterly, and delivered to The Great White Throne for eternal damnation!
My second thought was that of the prophet Jonah. Its a short book everyone should read it right now! Jonah was told by God, "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." Jonah decided to go somewhere else instead. Now we find out later in the story that Jonah did not like the Ninevites. He became indignant with God because after the Ninevites repented of their wicked ways God did not destroy them. It could be that Jonah was a prejudice racist or just self-righteous. In the rest of the book God deals with straightening out Jonah's attitude.
It is true that Haiti unruly and wicked. It is also true that an Earthquake is God made and he does "place the feet of the wicked on slippery slopes". It is also true that God sent many Jonah's to Haiti ahead of this great disaster. BUT! It is also true that God usually saves a remnant for himself when he brings judgement. Now that God has their attention, now that there is a major armed police force in place to establish order, now that he need to pray most for those people and support Christian missions into their land with money, supplies, and prayer. Now is not the time for self-righteous indignation. We could be the next to be judged. We don't deserve it any less!