Thanksgiving: Come Into God's Presence

The upcoming Day of National Thanksgiving should not be taken lightly or routinely by the people of God.  If we are not careful, we will get pulled into a cultural viewpoint of the day and not fulfill one of our greatest privileges and responsibilities—that of giving thanks to God.

Psalm 95 exhorts us:

O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.  Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

It is hard to differentiate between singing, praising, worshiping and giving thanks.  Theologians and Hebrew scholars would, no doubt, have a different viewpoint, but from my perspective of this particular psalm, they are all synonyms.  What I do wish we Christians would contemplate is that tiny, stubborn verb:  “come”. 

It is stated twice in these two verses, underscoring a need for movement from us toward God.  The psalmist implies we are not where we should be, so let us come into His presence.  Once you are in God’s presence, it’s fairly easy to sing to Him, to make a joyful noise to Him and to offer Him thanksgiving.  It is while there is distance between us and the Rock of our salvation that these things are difficult and intrusive.   And there is simply too much distance between the modern church and our God.  Psalm 95 will later call us “the sheep of His hand” and Isaiah 53:6 reminds us of a sad fact about God’s sheep—they stray.

The sad reality of this upcoming Thanksgiving is that the only difference between unbelievers and God’s people is that the Christians will pray before their meal.  For 120 seconds someone will “say grace”.  The other 23 hours and 58 minutes will be lived out just like every other American—with no notice of God and no acknowledgement of His blessings.

And that is why the Bible says “O come…come into His presence”.   Come.  It is such a beautiful word.

 It is what Jesus said to Peter one very early morning, probably around 4 a.m. after the disciples had spent a fearful night fighting for their lives on a storm-ravaged sea.   There was Jesus, the Eternal Creator, the Sovereign of the Seas, walking on top of the waves, subduing the laws of nature, drawing near to them and their boat of exhaustion.  “Do not fear” he said.  “It is I…come.” (Matthew 14:27-28).

And who could forget the invitation of Him who loves us that none other.  “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  (Matthew 11:28).  Jesus is, of course, not talking about physical exhaustion, though some Thanksgiving Day chefs might take refuge in him after a long day of cooking.  There is nothing more exhausting than trying to make your life acceptable to God all on your own.

And that’s the heart of thanksgiving.  We aren’t alone.  God has been, is, and will be there for us.  He has provided for our spiritual salvation through Jesus Christ.  And, He has journeyed with the United States of America since the pilgrim landing of 1620.  Shouldn’t we as a nation, and particularly as Christians, give Him much thanks this Thanksgiving?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Houston Mayor Wants to Censor Pastor's Sermons

Houston Mayor Annise Parker is fulfilling Christians’ prophetic warnings of past years regarding homosexual political gains, categorizing denunciations of homosexual behavior as hate speech.  In an unbelieveable and outrageous power grab, Mayor Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor, has demanded that pastors turn over copies of their sermons that deal with homosexuality.  And she has done so, via legal subpoenas. 

It is doubtful this breach of the American principles of separation between church and state and free speech will survive the legal challenges.  But it will not be the last challenge.  And slowly, but surely, Americans will cede ground on this pivotal issue.

Could we imagine Jonas Clark submitting his sermons against the Stamp Act to King George III?  Or asking permission to train militia? It was his house to which the patriot firebrands Samuel Adams and John Hancock had gone to discuss strategies for the Revolution.  That is where Paul Revere rode the night of April 18, 1775 to find them.  And it was many parishioners from Pastor Clark’s church who opposed the British regulars the next day at what history would call the Battle of Lexington.

What of the Reverend Dr. Mayhew and Reverend Dr. Cooper, who John Adams said were the “most conspicuous, the most ardent, and influential [in the] awakening and revival of American principles and feeling.”?  Who could imagine them submitting manuscripts to that state for approval?

Or consider the Reverend John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg.  A devout pastor and ardent patriot.  He actually pastured two churches, an English speaking Episcopalian church and a German speaking Lutheran church.   He also served as a member of the Virginia legislature.   On January 24, 1776 Reverend Muhlenberg preached a sermon out of the book of Ecclesiastes, a time of peace and a time for war.  Afterwards, he flung off his clerical robe revealing his militia uniform and asked for men to follow him to war against the ‘tyrants’. He assembled 300 men from his church that became the 8th Virginia Regiment.

The power hungry lesbian mayor of Houston will lose her insane legal overreach.  But she has sounded the first shot in a long battle to silence Christ’s church on moral issues to which the state does not concur.  And judging from the measured, calculated response from the churches and Christians of Houston, the state will succeed.

Long gone is the view of Thomas Jefferson who said:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

The fight is on.

Feminist Father or Flaked Out Dad?

Perhaps you've seen this photo of a New Jersey dad's shirt?   His 20-year-old daughter was so giddy about her father's support that she posted the picture on Facebook this past Sunday.   And after a retweet by an Australian TV star, the photo went "viral" with some 34,000 likes and shares on FB and 190,000 shares on Tumblr.

So is she a heroine addict?  And the Dad is telling would-be suitors they need to be ok with her depressing her central nervous system?  And that he and they both should be ok with her collapsed veins, a heart lining and valves that are prone to infection, abscesses, cellulitis, and liver disease; as well as possible pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia?   Hey, it's her body....her rules!


Maybe Daddy is saying she'll be prone to go to bars and consume massive amounts of alcohol and the boy better shut up about her drinking too much...after all, what's a little cirrhosis of the liver, polyneuropathy, pancreatitis and skeletal fragility, anyway?  Her body....her rules.  And if she wants to destroy her body with alcohol abuse, let's all support her.


No, I have a feeling Dad would come unglued if his sweet little girl became an abuser of alcohol or drugs.   I'm quite sure he'd instigate a few rules over her body in an instant.


Actually, we know exactly what Dad is talking about.  He would never apply his asinine philosophy in any other area except the area of sexuality.   We are in the 21st century after all.   Dad has no right to tell his baby girl what she can and cannot do with her body in the area of sex.


But because Dads aren't telling, we see 116 million Americans infected with Sexually Transmitted Diseases along with over 1 million abortions every year.


The Bible has a different approach about parental involvement in the life of their children.


Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way (s)he should go..."


And Deuteronomy 6:5-7 couldn't be more clear:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.  ⁶ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:  ⁷ And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.


Fathers need to pass down their morals to their kids; and in particular, they need to be their daughters protector.  What testosteroned, sexually driven young man wouldn't think in a heartbeat he could put emotional pressure or physical intimidation on a daughter who had no protector at home.  It was her choice, after all.


I like this shirt a whole lot better.

A Rant Against the Southern Baptist Convention

As a former Southern Baptist pastor, I still care deeply about the goings on of the convention.  What I have just learned warrants an intelligent blog post, but it’s late at night, so I’ll just give a rant…an opening salvo to one of the SBC’s saddest upcoming chapters.

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave an exception two years ago, and allowed a Muslim to become a student at the seminary.  Allegedly, he has also allowed two Mormons to enroll in the seminary.  This is in clear violation of common evangelical sense and the seminary’s own documents.  I’ll cite sources later….I’m venting after all.

I have enormous respect for Dr. Patterson, but he needs strong reprimand on this point.  Non-Christians have no place in a Baptist seminary dedicated to training Christians for future ministry.

Evidently, Dr. Patterson is citing “evangelism” as the reason he made the exception.  He wants to witness and expose the student to Christ, hoping for a conversion.  We’d have to wonder, then, why only one Muslim and two Mormons?   Why not 20 or 50?   And what of Wiccans?   Are they not worthy of evangelization?  And surely we share the gospel with pedophiles, prostitutes, drunkards, meth users, strippers, evolutionists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists,  Hare Krishnas, Jews and Jehovah Witnesses.  If allowing persons of other faiths entry into SWBTS for the purpose of evangelism is a priority, shouldn’t recruiters start targeting these faiths for enlistment? But of course, that is absurd, since the purpose of theological education is to educate one in a certain theology—in this case Christian theology.

But lest anyone think Dr. Patterson is being reckless, we are told he secured assurances from the Allah devotee that he would conform to the moral code of the seminary.  Whew!  The fellow won’t smoke, drink, cuss or womanize; he’ll only blaspheme Jesus Christ.  What a relief…admission application approved! (allegedly along with a nice presidential scholarship and job with the seminary landscaping department).

But there is nary a peep of objection from the bulk of the people called Southern Baptists.  They used to call themselves people of the book.  When I was there, we fought a battle over inerrancy and the truth of the Bible, fundamentally centered on Jesus Christ.  There are a few rumblings and some action coming from an old Patterson nemesis, Wade Burleson.  But, for the most part, there is no outcry.

The professors at SWBTS are silent, presumably in fear of losing their jobs.  The students at SWBTS are mostly silent, presumably in fear of their futures.   The trustees of SWBTS are silent, presumably out of respect for the conservative patriarch Patterson.  The presidents of the other five seminaries are silent, presumably because it’s not their business.  The churches of the SBC supporting the Muslim student with their Cooperative Program dollars are silent, presumably because they don’t practice accountability.  And the messengers in Baltimore’s  upcoming SBC Annual Meeting will be silent.  A few dissenting voices will sound out, but they will be too measured and tepid, and  outmaneuvered by a system that will protect this insanity.

It’s one of the reasons I separated from the SBC.  They talk truth.  But they don’t practice it.

 

 

A Prayer from the Valley of Vision

O Lord God, who inhabits eternity,

The heavens declare your glory,

The earth your riches,

The universe is your temple;

Your presence fills immensity,

Yet You have of your pleasure created life,

and communicated happiness;

You have made me what I am,

and given me what I have;

In You I live and move and have my being;

Your providence has set the bounds of my habitation,

and wisely administers all my affairs.

I thank You for your riches to me in Jesus,

for the unclouded revelation of him in your Word,

where I behold his Person, character, grace, glory,

humiliation, sufferings, death, and resurrection;

Give me to feel a need of his continual saviourhood,

and cry with Job, ʻI am vileʼ,

with Peter, ʻI perishʼ,

with the publican, ʻBe merciful to me, a sinnerʼ.

Subdue in me the love of sin,

Let me know the need of renovation

as well as of forgiveness,

in order to serve and enjoy You for ever.

I come to You in the all-prevailing name of Jesus,

with nothing of my own to plead,

no works, no worthiness, no promises.

I am often straying,

often knowingly opposing your authority,

often abusing your goodness;

Much of my guilt arises from my religious privileges,

my low estimation of them,

my failure to use them to my advantage,

But I am not careless of your favor or regardless of your glory;

Impress me deeply with a sense of your omnipresence,

that You are about my path,

my ways, my lying down, my end.

Thomas Boston on the Sabbath

The puritan Thomas Boston wrote some thoughts on the sabbath.  I've reposted one of his sections below for your reflection.


VI. Some Improvement of this Command.
USE. Let me exhort you then to beware of profaning the Sabbath. Learn to keep it holy. And therefore I would call you here to several duties.

1. Remember the Sabbath-day, before it come, to prepare for it, and let your eye be on it before the week be done. Timeously lay by your worldly employment, and go not near the borders of the Lord's day, and strive to get your hearts in a frame suitable to the exercises of this holy day.

2. Make conscience of attending the public ordinances, and waiting on God in his own house on his own day. Loiter not away the Lord's day at home unnecessarily, seeing the Lord trusts to meet his people there. This will bring leanness to your own souls, and grief of heart to him that bears the Lord's message to you.

3. Before you come to the public, spend the morning in secret and private exercises, particularly in prayer, reading, and meditation; remembering how much your success depends upon suitable preparation. Put off your shoes before ye tread the holy ground.

4. Make not your attendance on the public ordinances a by-hand work, and a mean for carrying on your worldly affairs. If ye come to the church to meet with some body, and to discourse or make appointments about your worldly business, it will be a wonder if ye meet with the Lord. If ye travel on the Lord's day, and take a preaching by the way, it may well cheat your blinded consciences; it will not be pleasing to God, for it makes his service to stand but in the second room, while your main end is what concerns your temporal affairs. Among the Jews no man might make the mountain of the house, or a synagogue, a thoroughfare. And beware of common discourse between sermons, which is too much practised among professors.

5. When ye come home from the public ordinances, let it be your care, both by the way and at home, to meditate or converse about spiritual things, and what ye have heard. Retire and examine yourselves as to what ye have gained, and be not as the unclean beasts, who chew not the cud. Let masters of families take account of their children and servants how they have profited, catechise and instruct them in the principles of religion, and exhort them to piety.

6. When ye are necessarily detained from the public ordinances, let your hearts be there, Psalm 63.1,2; and do not turn that to sin which in itself is not your sin. And strive to spend the Lord's day in private and secret worship, looking to the Lord for the up-making of your wants. As for those that tie themselves to men's service, without a due regard to their having opportunities to hear the Lord's word, their wages are dear bought, and they have little respect to God or their own souls; and I think tender Christians will be loath to engage so. But, alas! few masters or servants look further than the work or wages in their engaging together!. A sad argument that religion is at a low ebb.

7. Do not cut the Sabbath short. The church of Rome has half holidays; God never appointed any such; it is one whole day. Alas! it is a sad thing to see how the Lord's day is so consumed, as if people would make up the loss of a day out of Saturday's night and Monday's morning, which they do by cutting short the Lord's day.

8. Lastly, Labour to be in a Sabbath-day's frame. Let the thoughts of worldly business, far more worldly words and works be far from you. To press this, consider,

(1.) It is God's command, whereby he tries your love to him. This day is as the forbidden fruit. Who does not condemn Adam and Eve for eating it? O do not profane it any manner of way!

(2.) Heaven will be an everlasting Sabbath, and our conversation should be heaven-like. If we grudge the Lord one day in seven, how will we relish eternity? We are ready to complain that we are toiled with the world: why then do we not enter into his rest?

(3.) The great advantage of sanctifying the Lord's day. He has made it a day of blessing. It is God's deal-day; and keeps up the heart of many through the week while they think of its approach.

(4.) Lastly, Ye will bring wrath on you if ye do not sanctify the Sabbath. God may plague you with temporal, spiritual, and eternal plagues. Many begin with this sin of profaning the Lord's day, and it brings upon them the wrath of God, both in this world and that which is to come.

Martin Luther King Day

Not to detract from the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in the American Civil Rights Movement, but it is important to note, especially on this day, that behind every great leader are a host of others, named and unnamed, who give power to a movement of justice. One such leader in the Civil Rights Movement was Pastor Fred Shuttlesworth.

While I am no scholar of the American Civil Rights movement, I do believe there would be great unanimity in saying that Birmingham was the turning point of this great movement of equality. It was there Dr. King was jailed for eight days and wrote his masterful "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". It was there that racist police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Conner unleashed his dogs and his thugs and his high pressure water hoses on peaceful marchers and children in Kelly Ingram Park. After the smoke from Birmingham cleared, the United States passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And at the heart of Birmingham was the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, Dr. Fred Shuttlesworth. Georgia Representative John Lewis called Shuttlesworth "the soul and heart of the Birmingham movement."

Indeed, while King and others experienced only temporarily the horrible abuse of "Bull" Conner and Alabama’s extreme and violent racism, Pastor Shuttlesworth lived it. Black homes and churches were regularly bombed for nearly a decade before the famous march on Birmingham. In 1955, he led a delegation petitioning the city for black police officers. In 1957, he attempted to enroll his daughters in the all white high school. He was beaten with brass knuckles and bicycle chains. When the doctor wondered aloud that he wasn’t in worse condition, Shuttlesworth said, 'Well, doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head." And it was Shuttlesworth who persuaded King to bring his movement to Birmingham, where history would be changed.

What Shuttlesworth had was a deep and abiding faith in God. And he trusted Him at every obstacle and act of injustice.

While Dr. King is the rightfully acknowledged leader of the Civil Rights Movement, he is not alone in making sacrifices that changed our nation.

Dr. Fred Shuttlesworth

March 18, 1922 -- October 5, 2011

　

　

　

Duck Dynasty, Free Speech, and Biblical Authority

Thanks to some alluring marketing by Yahoo pop up ads, I found my way over to a little internet screed on the Duck Dynasty flap, You know, the one that’s been going on for a couple of weeks about Phil Robertson sharing his views in a GQ interview that homosexuality is wrong behavior and condemned by the Bible.

Well, over at the Huffington Post blog today, some actor, writer, radio host guy equated Robertson’s views with hate speech, entitling his tirade "Duck Dynasty, the Bible and Justification of Hatred". It’s the same old mantra that’s been going around for awhile. If you say anything against homosexuality, you’re hateful. You can’t have a viewpoint different from the Huffington Post Blog guy and every other person who believes homosexuality is an ok behavior. If you do happen to have a different viewpoint, and dare to make it known (even if an interviewer asks you a question for a magazine article) you are "spouting hateful speech".

The Huffington Post blog writer-actor-radio host guy doesn’t hate the Bible, of course. He can share a viewpoint different from a majority of Americans and disparage a deeply held religious tenet of millions of Christians (the Bible is a source of moral authority) and not be hateful. Because, of course, "hate speech" only works one way. Besides, he gets his "moral direction" from a "higher power" – his gut. I’m not quite sure what he does on pizza night, when the somewhat digested pepperoni and cheese go to war with the Pepsi and cheese cake. Maybe his gut is more just reliable than mine.

Of course, we won’t talk about Joseph Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh and the hundreds of thousands of others down through the ages who have followed their own "guts" only to do dastardly deeds. I’m sure the Huffington Post blog writer-actor-radio host guy doesn’t really believe in everyone following their "gut". The Nazis did that in the 1930s and 40s and the results were horribly sinister. He just doesn’t like the idea of a Sacred Book and accountability to a Creator God.

Somehow, having a viewpoint different than his is "believing and saying hateful things about entire groups of people" although he never says what Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson said that was hateful.

I wonder what the Huffington Post blog writer-actor-radio host guy would say about Nazis, arsonists, drunk drivers, child molesters, the Taliban, and other such "entire groups of people". And I wonder if he would call expressing a viewpoint different from those within those groups "hateful"? If his fulmination against the Bible and its adherents is any example, I don’t think he’d be the least bit shy about haranguing any "entire groups of people" with whom he disagreed. He is after all, just following "his gut" --those good, ole trusty, reliable innards.

The problem with following your gut—your innermost visceral response, as any gastro-intestinalogist (or criminologist for that matter) will tell you, is that not all guts are created equal. There’s your gut, my gut, that Huffington Post blog writer-actor-radio host guy’s gut, and of course, there’s Phil Robertson’s gut. I reckon when he was talking to GQ about sin, he was just following his own gut. So, if that’s the higher power, what’s the problem?

Of course, our "gut" hardly trumps the Bible. It is an eternal, external, objective moral standard; not the transient, internal, subjective standard advocated by the Huffington Post blog writer-actor-radio host guy. It was not hateful for God to give us His Word, and it is not hateful for us to declare it to others, even if they recoil at its message.



　

At the heart of Christmas--

The heart of Christmas is about waiting.  Whether in the physical realm or the spiritual one, if Christmas teaches us anything, it is to wait.

Do you remember when you were a child?  The universal question: “Is it Christmas yet?” plagued our parents just as much as we’ve been plagued.  It gets asked ten times a day since the day after thanksgiving.  That’s roughly 27 days before it actually arrives.  That’s about 270 times each season.  Factoring in that a child begins speaking fluently around 3 and doesn’t lose the luster of Christmas about around 13, that’s 10 years of asking…or roughly an average of 2,700 times per child.

And how about those traffic jams caused by holiday shoppers?  Weren’t cars designed to move?  If I want to sit in one I’ll go to an antique car show.  We just don’t have a chance these days.  Either we’re cut off by some dare devil road hog who nearly smashes our front fender or we get behind the most cautious driver the roadways have ever known.  You know the kind—the one who backs off the accelerator two blocks from the stop sign coasting to a complete stop; allowing seconds to elapse; then turning with deliberate intent to the right, perusing oncoming traffic.  Seeing none, they gaze to the left, scoping out the statistical possibility of a traffic skirmish.  Seeing none, what do they do?  They turn back to the right to see if the situation has changed.  And suddenly they see it—an approaching car.  It’s one and a half miles away, but it’s approaching and they’re not about to interfere with oncoming traffic.  About that time I’m hoping, just hoping and praying that they are a Christian.  Because maybe, just maybe, if they’re a Christian, they’ll have a “Honk, if you love Jesus” bumper sticker and I’ll have an excuses for blasting down on my horn!

And speaking of holiday shopping, have you ever seen all 32 cashiers at Walmart working at the same time?  The customers don’t help matters any.   There’s the one who never starts unloading their cart until the person in front of them is totally done.  Then they roll up to the cashier and start unloading their 427 items.  Or the other kind of customer starts unloading their 427 items on 4 inches of conveyor belt space.  Their stuff flowing over the bar separator, covering my own merchandise.  And why don’t people sign their checks before the clerk tells them their cost?  Do they think they’re going to get it free?

Ah, yes, the angst of waiting!

Of course there are far more serious weights of waiting.  An out-of-work father waiting for a job offer.  Or a barren couple that have invested much in fertility drugs, waiting to have a baby.  Or a wife waiting to hear a word of praise, instead of foul criticism from her husband.  Some parents wait to hear from a wayward child—not even knowing if they are alive or healthy.  Some wait for a spouse—someone to call your own and to love on.  They’d probably even settle for a date but the phone never rings and the invitations never come. 

Oh!  The weight of waiting.  But that’s one of the many beautiful things about Christmas.  It teaches us about waiting and helps us handle the weight of it with more grace and trust.

King Ahaz of Judah had to wait.  Around 735 B.C. things weren’t going too well for him.  Assyria was the regional super-power and had subjugated area countries several years earlier.  But now, Assyria’s military attention was elsewhere and countries around Palestine started to form an alliance to rebel against Assyria.  The kings of Aram and Israel were pressuring Ahaz to join their alliance.  In fact, they threatened military invasion if he would not join them.  But Ahaz was inclined to keep paying tribute to Assyria and not rebel.  This did not endear him to the super-patriots of his country.  They were ready to be free and wanted war with Assyria; thus they were more than willing to see Ahaz ousted from power.  Faced with these pressures, God gave Ahaz a promise through his prophet Isaiah: “the virgin will conceive and bear a son and will call his name Immanuel, God with us.”

This promise really went beyond Ahaz.  God was speaking to him, but in a larger sense, God was speaking to all of Judah and, in fact, to all the world.  He was telling us that the day would come when we wouldn’t have to worry about this world’s pressures—that someday there would be a good ruler that we could completely trust.  Immanuel would come and God would be with us!

At that moment, God reaffirmed the promise He made thousands of years earlier in the garden of Eden.  God promised the Serpent, our adversary the Devil that:

·          One was coming who would crush his head. 
·          One was coming who would destroy his kingdom.
·          One would render evil powerless and sin ineffective.
·          One would help rulers make wise and good decisions.
·          One who become like we are so that we can become like He is.

So Ahaz, hang in there!  Face your pressures!  Wait and hold on.  Immanuel is coming!

·          God will not turn his back on our fickleness—He will be with us!
·          God will not ignore us—He will be with us!
·          God will not be standoffish or aloof—but with us!
·          God will not be callous to our pain—He’ll come and feel it with us!
·          God will not abandon us—He will save us!

And so the wait was on.  Messiah didn’t come after the eviction from Eden and Adam and Eve didn’t see deliverance from the curse.  He didn’t come Himself to pull Israel out of their bondage, hurts and oppressions from Egypt—but sent an ex-murderer prone often to lose his temper—to be His instrument.

And Ahaz himself, the one to whom this promise was given, died before seeing the virgin conceive.  In fact, God didn’t show up in the flesh until over 700 years later.  Now there’s a thought.  The problem ripping your heart and shredding your soul will get fixed 700 years from now.  Can you hold on?

The people who believed God’s promise waited and waited and waited.

One such man who waited was named Simeon.  He waited and hoped and trusted and believed and waited some more for God to show up on the scene of human history.  He waited as powerful Romans harassed his friends and perverted justice.  He waited as wealthy and disloyal countrymen exploited common, working-class families.  And one day, his wait was over.  A young couple named Mary and Joseph brought their newborn son into the Temple to be circumcised and the Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon exactly who he was holding.  “Now let me die in peace” he said, “for my eyes have seen Your salvation!”

That’s one message of Christmas!  That God makes good on His promise!  And while people had to wait—and wait and wait—for our Savior to come—come He did!  Through His cross, sin has been paid for and our enemy’s power broken.  I can now be the husband my wife deserves, and the father my children need and the pastor God intends me to be—not because I have achieved some degree of enlightenment; not because of my own effort—I am flawed and often selfish.  I can be those things because I am saved—because Immanuel has come and God is with me!

So hang on to your promise.  Hold on to that hope!  Lean on the God who always delivers on His promises.  Your arduous circumstances will soon change.  Your pain will soon be gone.  Not today, and probably not tomorrow; and maybe not even next week.  In the meantime, let Immanuel love on you.  Let Him embrace you.  Hear Him whisper in your ear, “It will be alright—let’s face it together.”  Let His strength sustain your weakness.  Hang on to that Christmas promise—He makes all things beautiful in His time.

And because God made good on His promise in sending His Son Jesus, I can wait for Him to make good on His promise that He’ll be back.  Don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t say I like waiting or that it’s easy, I just said I can do it.  With His help and by His strength I can wait.

What I want you to see today is that while life is pretty messed up, there is a God who isn’t.  While others hurt me, there’s a God who heals me.  Life can frustrate you—God can fulfill you.

I don’t like greedy, evil abortionists exploiting vulnerable young women and maiming and torturing and killing precious children.  I get tired of the setbacks and wacko judicial rulings. I’ll work hard against those evils but I’m waiting for my King to come back and make His ruling.  Oh, it’s hard to wait, but He’s coming and children will soon be safe!

 

 

The Postal Christmas Stamp

Having recently exhorted my son NOT to play some Christmas music he had recently checked out from the library and to wait until after Thanksgiving, I suppose I risk some degree of hypocrisy on this blog post. I believe we shouldn’t rush into the Christmas season just yet. Merchants go from orange and black to red and green overnight. And while I’m more than happy to see the witches and black cats disappear from the shelves, I wish we’d see more pilgrims and fewer Santas in November. I definitely think it wise to linger over Thanksgiving and give praise and thanks to God.

But upon opening my mail today, I noticed a flyer from the United States Postal Service advertising their domestic Priority Mail Flat Rate holiday delivery. Scanning through the little pamphlet, I noticed a section "Don’t forget your holiday stamps!" Yes, I caught the more benign "holiday" as opposed to "Christmas". But what really irked me was the picture of the three stamps they promoted.

With news of the recent Harry Potter stamps and the 2005 misunderstanding still in my mind (the USPS, for the first time in its history didn’t print a new ‘Madonna & Child’ design, but used the previous year’s design), I feared something amiss. Fortunately, a visit over to usps.com allayed my concerns. While there are more choices for non-Christian stamps than Christian ones, patrons can purchase ‘the Holy Family’ stamp or choose between two different designs of the ‘Mary & Child’ motif.

Still, that the Postal System promotes Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in their ‘holiday’ section of this pamphlet at the expense of Christmas was disturbing. My computer is running too slowly for me to research how many stamps of each the USPS sells; or how many Americans celebrate each of those holidays. But I think common sense tells us more Americans observe Christmas than the other two combined.

We are approaching Christmas. CHRISTmas. Yes, it’s all about Jesus. A Savior who was born, died and saved us from our sins. Perhaps my son can start playing his Christmas music after all.

The Gettysburg Address

Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

When Robert E. Lee decided to invade the North in July of 1863, luring the Army of the Potomac out of Virginia, he had no idea that he would lay the foundation of the Conferacy's defeat and set up one of the most ephocal moments in American history.  Within the span of three days, names like Devil's Den, Cemetery Ridge, Little Round Top, Culp's Hill, Peach Orchard and Pickett's Charge would forever be engrained into every American history book.  And within those same three days, nearly 8,000 soldiers died and another 28,000 injured.

During that summer, the town of Gettysburg tried to recover from the massive death toll.  Judge David Wills wrote to Pennsylvania's governor about corpses that lined the streets and other unseemly situations.  “In many instances, arms and legs and sometimes heads protrude. And my attention has been called to several places, where the hogs were actually rooting out the bodies and devouring them.”

Within a few months, Wills had devised a plan for a national cemetary and invited several dignitaries to speak at a dedicatory event.  Edward Everett was the keynote speaker, with President Lincoln giving a brief remark afterwards.  In fact, his Gettysburg Address was just 272 words in length, consuming only 180 seconds of history. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln believed "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here" but he could not have been more wrong.  Those 272 words have become the best known words of American history.  Future President Teddy Roosevelt called one of the "great classics of human eloquence--of that eloquence which shows forth its human soul."  In the view of historian James McPherson, it stands as "the world's foremost statement of freedom and democracy and the sacrifices required to achieve and defend them."

At the time, many were unimpressed.  Harrisburg's Patriot & Union declared Lincoln "the jester" and stated that "whatever may be the President's virtues, he does not possess sense."

Today, President Obama created yet another stir.  Film-maker and master story-teller Kens Burns, doing a project called Learn the Address, filmed some 61 high profile Americans reading Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  President Obama omitted "under God" when reading "the nation...shall have a new birth of freedom."  Supposedly, Mr. Burns provided the White House with this version, called the Nicolay version.

The Subtle Erosion of Liberties

I am always amazed that the voices of our Founders, now some 240 years distant, remain as relevant in our day as when they were first spoken.  One of the firebrands of liberty was Samuel Adams, who stated:

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.

 Adams’ last statement, “to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men” is the telling one for our generation.  We often romanticize the struggle for liberty.  If faced with a tyrant like King George and his marshaled forces of the British Empire invading New York, Boston and Philadelphia, then we think we would resist.  Or if, like me, you grew up during the Cold War and participated in bomb shelter drills of the 1980s or the “Duck and Cover” drills of the 1950s, you (at least in your mind) were ready to defend America against a Soviet invasion.  So liberties “wrested” from us Americans would, no doubt, be met with a struggle.

But what of liberties “cheated” from us from “false and designing men”.  What of subtle changes that appear benign enough, but that nevertheless strip us of liberties, perhaps something as simple as choosing one’s own healthcare plan?  With the NSA spying on our telephone conversations, it is perhaps safer to blog about these things than to speak of them to one’s friend.  But it is difficult for a thinking person to reach any other conclusion than that we are, in fact, being cheated out of our liberties.

What then should we do?

Presidential Incredulity

Does President Obama seriously believe he can unilaterally disobey the Obamacare law he and his cronies worked so hard to foist upon the American people? I think so. I believe our President has very little knowledge of the Constitution, much less respect for it. After all, American history was hardly the focus of the foreign schools where Obama grew up. Now, he is telling America that he is going to let insurance companies extend their policies to distraught Americans for one year.  The President recently spoke, outlining his new edict.

We’re also requiring insurers who extend current plans to inform their customers about two things: One, what protections these renewed plans don’t include. Number two, that the (Obamacare) marketplace offers new options with better coverage and tax credits that might help you bring down the cost. So if you received one of these letters, I encourage you to take a look at the marketplace. Even if the website isn’t working as smoothly as it should be for everybody yet, the plan comparison tool that lets you browse costs for new plans near you is working just fine… It is important to understand, though, that the old individual market was not working well. And it’s important that we don’t pretend that somehow that’s a place that we’re going back to.”

Civics 101…the President doesn’t get to violate the law; well, unless of course you are Barry Soetoro (a.k.a Barak Hussein Obama).  Hopefully, enough Democrats in the Senate will feel the heat of American's fury to break their blind allegiance and fix this mess (yes, Congress is the only legal fix available).

And speaking of violating the law, the House of Representatives seems to be seriously considering articles of impeachment against Erik Holder, our nation’s chief law breaker…I mean, law enforcer. As Attorney General, he continues to ignore Congressional subpoenas relating to his actions on Fast and Furious. He refuses to enforces our nation’s Defense of Marriage Act, involved himself in the Fox News/James Rosen scandal and a dozen other serious offenses that leave our heads spinning.

I doubt however, the calculating Republican leadership will allow such. What was it James Russell Lowell wrote? "Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne."

Those Angry Days

I just finished reading the very excellent book by Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days.  This book was very insightful as the author tracked the two major movements of pre-WW2 America—the isolationists and the interventionists—focusing on the two major figures of each: Charles Lindbergh and Franklin Roosevelt, while thoroughly interweaving the lives of other significant players of that era.

Interestingly, the two were remarkably different, ideologies notwithstanding.  Lindbergh was conviction driven, caring little where popular opinion was on the topic of America’s involvement with the European conflict.  Roosevelt was at the other extreme.  Paralyzed even by a minority of public opinion against him.

I won’t review the book in a traditional way, but will offer some personal insights I gleaned, which may not make a lot of sense unless you’ve read the book.

Lesson 1—overcome past defeats

Franklin Roosevelt, frustrated by Congress blocking many of his policies in the late 1930s and by the Supreme Court’s adverse decisions to him regarding many lawsuits arising from his New Deal policies, set out to change the nature of the Court by expanding its number to 15 and consequently getting to appoint the new judges—favorable to him and his policies.  Roosevelt (fortunately) was soundly defeated in this attempt and it cost him politically.  This setback caused him to behave timidly in the future, when the country, did in fact, need his leadership in European involvement. 

While we need to learn from our defeats and failures, we should never be paralyzed by them.  Roosevelt was.  Even when public opinion was overwhelmingly on this side on such issues as Lend-Lease, transport escort, or even direct aid to England, he refused to act.  Our passivity can cause as much harm as over aggressive reaching.  Olson gave me a different, heretofore unknown, view of Roosevelt--that off a timid, sheepish, poll-driven leader.

Lesson 2 – listen to others, especially your spouse

Charles Lindbergh increasingly gave speeches in which his isolationist viewpoints were trumped and overshadowed by certain provocative statements, which were highlighted and recommended to be deleted by his wife Anne.   He ignored her insights, only to be haunted by them.  While his view was the wrong one, in my opinion, and would ultimately lose in 1941, he did cause Americans to think through various issues.  It was unfortunate that many of his valid objections were overshadowed by unwise and unnecessary statements.

Lesson 3 – Americans were bitterly and deeply divided over the issue of involvement in the European crisis.

Still reeling from the effects of World War 1, most Americans opposed involvement at the outset of Hitler’s expansion.  One of the reasons I enjoy history so much is that it puts the present in a context.  And while we may believe that only now are we so bitterly partisan, such is not the case.  While the issue of isolation/intervention was not strictly along party lines (though close), the two camps were bitter opposed to each other. 

Lesson 4 – the fight to persuade America was brutal

I was especially intrigued to learn about Britain’s spying and propaganda machine inside America.  Smearing, bribing, etc.  The role of the media was paramount in the struggle to sway America.  In the squabbling of today, we think we’ve descended to a new level of conflict.  Perhaps.  But the descent couldn’t be as steep as some would have us think.

 

Praising the Lord, Especially on Sunday

"From the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised."

A Chiefs Rant -- Get It Right Campbell

The struggling Cleveland Browns are benching their second starting QB of this season--Brandon Weeden--and going with Jason Campbell in this Sunday's game against the Chiefs. I'll resist railing on the struggling Browns, because, hey...the Chiefs were there last season.  Here's a blurp from an interview Campbell gave about the Chiefs. '

'They are No. 1 in third down, No. 1 in the red zone and No. 1 in points allowed, so it is definitely a challenge,'' said Campbell, who signed with the Browns as a free agent in March. ''Arrowhead is one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL, and that means even more we need to be on the same page.''    

A-hem...note to Campbell.  Arrowhead is the loudest stadium IN THE WORLD!!!  I hope fans will give Campbell a thorough education about this in this week's game as we go for 8-0 and continue our well deserved #1 in the NFL.   Go Chiefs!!!

But I do wish I'd hear less from KC's fans of "the Chiefs kingdom" and "the sacred acre" around here.  There is one kingdom and it belongs to Christ Jesus.  The gridiron at Arrowhead is far from 'sacred'.  That word is reserved for those things relating to God.  Hopefully, Christian fans of the Chiefs will, to paraphrase Kipling, "keep their heads when all around them are losing theirs".  Hoop and holler...cheer and shout!  But slam on the breaks when secular excitement trespasses onto our holy realm.

J.C. Ryle on the Sabbath

You can read Bishop Ryle's entire treaty here.  I've listed his section on Profaning the Sabbath below.


The last thing I propose to do, is to expose some of the ways in which the Sabbath is profaned.

There are two kinds of Sabbath desecration which require to be noticed. One is that more private kind of which thousands are continually guilty, and which can only be checked by awakening men’s consciences. The other is that more public kind, which can only be remedied by the pressure of public opinion, and the strong arm of the law.

When I speak of private Sabbath desecration, I mean that reckless, thoughtless, secular way of spending Sunday, which everyone who looks round him must know is common. How many make the Lord’s Day a day for giving dinner parties — a day for looking over their accounts and making up their books — a day for going unnecessary journeys and quietly transacting worldly business — a day for reading newspapers or novels — a day for talking politics and idle gossip — a day, in short, for anything rather than the things of God.

Now all this sort of thing is wrong, decidedly wrong. Thousands, I firmly believe, never give the subject a thought: they sin from ignorance and inconsideration. They only do as others; they only spend Sunday as their fathers and grandfathers did before them: but this does not alter the case. It is utterly impossible to say that to spend Sunday as I have described is to “keep the day holy”: it is a plain breach of the Fourth Commandment, both in the letter and in the spirit. It is impossible to plead necessity or mercy in one instance of a thousand. And small and trifling as these breaches of the Sabbath may seem to be, they are exactly the sort of things that prevent men communing with God and getting good from His Day.

When I speak of public desecration of the Sabbath, I mean those many open, unblushing practices, which meet the eye on Sundays in the neighbourhood of large towns. I refer to the practice of keeping shops open, and buying and selling on Sundays. I refer especially to Sunday pleasure excursions by public transport and the opening of places of public amusement; and to the daring efforts which many are making in the present day to desecrate the Lord’s Day, regardless of its Divine authority. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.”

On all these points I feel not the smallest doubt in my own mind. These ways of spending the Sabbath are all wrong, decidedly wrong. So long as the Bible is the Bible, and the Fourth Commandment the Fourth Commandment, I dare not come to any other conclusion. They are all wrong. These ways of spending Sunday are none of them works of necessity or works of mercy. There is not the slightest likeness between them and any of the things which the Lord Jesus explains to be lawful on the Sabbath Day. To heal a sick person, or pull an ox or ass out of a pit, is one thing: to travel in excursion trains, or go to concerts, theatres, dances and cinemas, is quite another. The difference is as great as between light and darkness. These ways of spending Sunday are none of them of u holy tendency, or calculated to help us heavenward. No, indeed! all experience teaches that it needs something . more than the beauties of art and nature to teach man the way to heaven.

These ways of spending Sunday have never yet conferred moral or spiritual good in any place where they have been tried. They have been tried for hundreds of years in Italy, in Germany and in France. Sunday amusements and sport have been long tried in Continental cities. But what benefiit have they derived that we should wish to imitate them? What advantages have we to gain by making a London Sunday like a Sunday in Paris or other continental cities. It would be a change for the worse, and not for the better.

Last, but not least, these ways of spending Sunday inflict a cruel injury on the souls of multitudes of people, Public transport cannot be run on Sundays without employing thousands of persons if people will make Sunday a day for travelling and excursions. Entertainments cannot be opened on Sundays without the employment of many to cater for those who patronise them. And have not all these unfortunate persons immortal souls? Do they not all need a, day of rest as much as anyone else? Beyond doubt they do. But Sunday is no Sunday to them, so long as these public desecrations of the Sabbath are permitted. Their life becomes a long unbroken chain of work, work, unceasing work: in short, what is play to others becomes death to them. Away with the idea that a pleasure-seeking, Continental Sabbath is mercy to anyone! It is nothing less than an enormous fallacy to call it so. Such a Sabbath is real mercy to nobody, and is positive sacrifice to some.

I write these things with sorrow. I know well, to how many of my fellow-countrymen they apply. I have spent many a Sunday in large towns. I have seen with my own eyes how the day of the Lord is made by multitudes a day of wordliness, a day of ungodliness, a day of carnal mirth, and too often a day of sin. But the extent of the disease must not prevent us exposing it: the truth must be told.
There is one general conclusion to be drawn from the conduct of those who publicly desecrate the Sabbath in the way I have described. They show plainly that they are at present “without God” in the world. They are like those of old who said, “When will the Sabbath be gone?” — “What a weariness it is!” (Amos 8:5; Mal. 1:13). It is an awful conclusion, but it is impossible to avoid it. Scripture, history, and experience all combine to teach us, that delight in the Lord’s Word, the Lord’s service, the Lord’s people, and the Lord’s Day, will always go together. Sunday pleasure-seekers are their own witnesses. They are every week practically declaring, “We do not like God — we do not want Him to reign over us.

It is not the slightest argument, in reply to what I have said, that many great and learned men see no harm in Sunday entertainment, sport and pleasure. It matters nothing in religious questions, who does a thing:” the only point to be ascertained is, “whether it be right.”

Let us take our stand on the Bible, and hold fast its teaching. Whatever others may think lawful, let our sentence ever be that one day in seven, and one whole day, ought to be kept holy to God.

Thomas Watson...Concerning the Lord's Day

We must on this day rest from all the works of our calling. As Abraham, when he went to sacrifice, left his servant and ass at the bottom of the hill, Gen. xxii. 5: so when we are to worship God this day, we must leave all secular business behind. — And as Joseph, when he would speak with his brethren, thrust out the Egyptians: so when we would have converse with God this day, we must thrust out all earthly employments. Though works of necessity may be done and works of charity, (for God will have mercy, and not sacrifice) yet in other cases we must cease from all worldly negotiations. It is observable concerning Mary Magdalene, that she refused to anoint Christ’s dead body on the Sabbath day, Luke xxiii. 56. She had before prepared her ointment, but came not come to the sepulcher till the Sabbath was past. She rested that day from all work, though it were a commendable and glorius work; the anointing of Christ’s dead body.

When this blessed day approacheth, we must lift up our heart in thankfulness to God, that he has put another price into our hands for gaining heavenly wisdom. These are our spiritual-harvest days; now the wind of God’s Spirit blows upon the sails of our affections, and we may be much further on in our heavenly voyage. Christian, lift up thy heart to God in thankfulness, that he hath given thee another golden season, and be sure you improve it; it may be the last. Seasons of grace are not like the tide; if a man misseth one tide, he may have another.

This day approaching, we must in the morning dress and fit our souls for the receiving of the Word. The people of Israel must wash their garments before the law was delivered to them.Our hearts must be washed by prayer and repentance, the oracles of God being to be delivered to us.

And being met together, we must set ourselves, as in the presence of God, with seriousness and delight to hear God’s sacred Word. Take heed of distractions which fly-blow our duties.

We must labor to be bettered by every Sabbath: where the Lord lays out cost, he looks for fruit. Fresh anointings of God are to be thirsted after; and new cubits are to be added to our spiritual stature. We must not be like the Salamander, which lives in the fire but never becomes hotter. Christians should on these days aspire after communion with God, and endeavor to have the illapses of his Spirit, and clearer discoveries of his love in Christ. In short, we should do on a Sabbath as Moses: he ascended the Mount that he might have a sight of God.

You can read his entire chapter here.

Christian-based Education

My wife and I are beginning our 11th year of formal education of our children (nearly 16 years of total education...but that's another discussion).  If you know me personally, you know we have elected to home educate our children.   So, that I am finding time to publish a blog post means that a) my wife totes the lion’s share of this responsibility and b) I am highly motivated to produce something at least quasi-intelligent of my own. If not intelligent, then at least nostalgic.

Writing on education is always delicate because I have family and many friends who have chosen a secular course and I always fear I’ll be misunderstood and perceived as being haughty, self-righteous, insensitive and/or unloving.   But as I continue to meditate on a sermon I preached last night (Proverbs 3:5-6) I have become even more convinced that secular education is disobedient to God.

I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt….I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.                      

Martin Luther, 1520

The reference that suddenly became clear this morning from last night’s sermon was "in all thy ways acknowledge Him." I didn’t even realize one of its applications. I am usually much more focused on ways I am NOT applying Scripture rather than on areas where I am seeing victory. But an educational choice is a decision where God will either be acknowledged or not. There is only one model where He is supreme and honored. Secular based education ignores God at best or ridicules Him at worst. In either case, neither myself nor my family will have any association with a system that does not acknowledge God.

God and His Word are the focus of our children’s education. We talk of Him when we rise up, when we walk along the way and when we lie down. In math, science, history, grammar and every other subject, we strive to find ways of bringing God and His Word into my sons lives. Luther also said:

Christendom must have people who can beat down their adversaries and opponents and tear off the devil’s equipment and armor that he may be brought into disgrace. But for this work, powerful warriors are needed, who are thoroughly familiar with the Scriptures and can contradict all false interpretations and take the sword from false teachers—that is, those very verses which false teachers use and turn them round upon them so that they fall back defeated

I am hopeful my sons will become such warriors.

Kennedy, the Supreme Court and DOMA

By now, you’ve heard that the Supreme Court of the United States, in its last day of session, dealt a strong blow to our nation’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  While only a one vote majority (the court was virtually split 5-4), the decision has far reaching implications.  Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote moderate, sided with the liberals and wrote the majority opinion.

The majority opinion, like so many liberal decisions, is full of opinionated pontifications, grounded neither in logic nor the constitution.  The opinion basically trumpeted state rights over federalism…that is, that DOMA cannot deny federal benefits to homosexual couples legally married in states where such unions are permitted (there are 16).  Then, the decision went on to trumpet federalism—no discrimination against gay married persons.

Kennedy and Co, basically argued against the 1996 morality…saying it unjustly targeted homosexuals.  Such morality, Kennedy argues, is not acceptable.  Of course, that itself is a moral claim.  Kennedy attacks Congress’ morality, while advancing his own.

So whose morality shall prevail?

This, of course, is the Christian’s foundation.  Neither mine nor yours is sufficient to chart the course for our nation.  Only the true God, who has revealed Himself in His Word is sufficient.  The Bible contains objective morality, not subject to the changes of the ages or the whims of a monarch, be he an 18^th century British king or a 21^st century American Supreme Court Justice.

I remembered the words of John Witherspoon, the only clergyman who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  In one of his sermons, he stated:

"He is the best friend of American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind.  Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple [hesitate] not to call him an enemy to his country."

The majority opinion prevented the United States from bearing “down on…immorality” (in this case, homosexual marriage) and in so doing, declared themselves enemies of God.  Witherspoon and patriots like him, know they are enemies of their country.