The View From 1776

Jeff Lukens’s essay should have been posted before the Glenn Beck rally in D.C.  But its message is just as relevant now as before the rally.

Restoring Honor: A New American Awakening?
By Jeff Lukens

If anything good can be said about the progressive left controlling our government, it’s that their astonishingly brazen and heavy-handed tactics may have aroused the American people into a new spiritual awakening. With basic liberties under assault, we are seeing a revival of values that have been dormant for a long time.

Every great moment in this country, when real progress is made, there was a spiritual awakening. The Restoring Honor Rally in Washington D.C. on August 28 may be the one of those moments. The rally’s organizer is radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Beck says that our country’s troubles cannot be solved by the same methods that got us into this mess. Like an old time revivalist, he says “We must call upon God, and He will see us through.”

The message is resonating. As many as a million people could attend the rally. Beck and his audience generally agree that this is a country of divine providence, a country of American exceptionalism, and that God has a special purpose for this land. And like the Founders, we too can call upon divine providence to overcome our nation’s troubles.

The Founders were all people of great faith who saw America as a new promised land. The popular myth is that they were not religious is not true. They believed in divine providence, and that if they relied upon God, then God would set things right.

The Founders knew that besting the most powerful army in the world in battle did not happen by accident. Nor was it an accident that they came together with like mind to agree to a lasting foundation of governance in the U.S. Constitution.

There have been major periods of revival, or Great Awakenings, in American history. The first occurred in the quest for independence. The Declaration of Independence and other founding documents frequently refer to freedom and divine providence. The Founders saw the two concepts as interrelated. Another Great Awakening began in the early 1800s, and reached its climax with the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

Visiting America in the 1830s, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville was surprised by the religious atmosphere and noted that, “Freedom sees religion as the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its rights.” Tocqueville’s observation was simply that, for America, tyranny may be able to do without faith, but liberty cannot. This point is as timely today as ever.

These days, faith in God as the Provider of all human rights is an alien concept to many of our fellow citizens. Many think their rights come from government. Our Constitution is ignored as something that is quaintly out of date and can be rhetorically contorted to fit any political purpose.

Could it be that only after a calamity of such unspeakable proportions that enough people will adjust their attitude toward faith and the founding principles that a renewal can take place? We may soon find out.

With the economy as bad as it is, imagine what happens when Baby Boomers begin retiring as the Social Security and Medicare systems simultaneously go broke. This looming financial crisis, among many others, threatens the everyday freedoms we take for granted.

Our government spends trillions it does not have. When hyperinflation turns our dollars into Monopoly money, the resulting civil disorder could be unimaginable. Savings accounts will be wiped out, commerce could break down, and within a short time there could be anarchy in the streets. In their shortsightedness, “compassionate” politicians will probably then step in with price controls to “protect the people against greedy businessmen.” The resulting shortages on the store shelves could then reduce the lives of many people into a desperate search for such basic items as food and water.

There are no easy answers to what lies ahead. Life as we know it could be dangling by a thread. People already sense trouble and are starting to pay attention. They are beginning to realize we don’t need a transformed nation, we need a restored nation. And that only happens by a transformation of individual attitudes and beliefs.

Perhaps we should heed the words of 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Beck, who is Mormon, is calling people across all religious denominations to participate in an American revival. Like the Founders, we can differ theologically and still agree in the common cause of liberty.

Beck prompts his audience daily: “We must begin by seeking God… The Hand of God will save this country… We must choose today how we are going to live… To be a free people implies we must be a responsible people… We must be involved… We lose freedom by not valuing it as a gift from God… If America perishes, where will the world run? Who stand against tyranny when we are gone? A new dark age will come.”

If the message of American renewal speaks to you, come join us at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, and be a part of “Restoring Honor” to our nation.

Jeff Lukens is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets. He can be contacted at http://www.jefflukens.com

Many liberal-progressives will strongly object that they do not share this view.  But they cannot deny the history of their secular religion and the teachings of those who animated it, as well as the actions of the New Left baby-boomer, student-anarchist generation, who now are in positions of authority, ranging from government and education to media.

An article in the Wall Street Journal (available only to subscribers, unfortunately) drives this point home.

Quote:

In “The Switch,” coming later this summer, Jennifer Aniston plays an attractive 40-year-old professional who has given up on finding Mr. Right for marriage and decides instead to move straight on to motherhood with a donor father. The movie offers a largely celebratory treatment of donor insemination, as do two other movies out this year, “The Back-up Plan” and next month’s “The Kids Are All Right.” Indeed, one of the bottom-line conclusions these movies are pushing is that the children turn out “all right” with donor dads.

Hollywood is not the only industry peddling the story line that flesh-and-blood fathers are an optional accessory in today’s families. Plenty of academics—from New York University sociologist Judith Stacey to Cornell psychologist Peggy Drexler—also have been arguing that mothers can do just as well raising children with donor fathers as they can with real ones.

In her book, “Raising Boys Without Men,” for instance, Ms. Drexler claims that “maverick moms,” including single women who rely on donor insemination, are just as successful raising boys as mothers who opt for the older model of marriage and motherhood. All that is needed for parental success, according to Ms. Drexler, is a “caring and supportive” model of mothering.

This view, of course, is a product of liberal-progressivism’s feminist Women’s Liberation Movement that surfaced in the 1960s.

Bill Ayers, a close friend, confidant, and political and philosophical advisor to President Obama (as well as the putative ghost-writer of Obama’s Dreams From My Father), was a principal officer in the radical wing of the 1960s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later a founder and officer of its even more radical offshoot, the Weather Underground.  He has this to say regarding fathers and families:

A lot of the problems that people are going through now have to do with monogamy and its basis in male supremacy...That’s something that just has to be smashed...people have come to see the need to build collectives that can fight, the need to build collectives that are strong and tough, and in order to do that a lot of individualism has to be worked out of every one of us.  Any notion that people can have a primary responsibility for one person, that they can have that “out” - we have to destroy that notion in order to build a collective, we have to destroy all “outs” to destroy the notion that people can lean on one person and not be responsible to the entire collective.

(From New Left Notes, 9/12/69, excerpted from Bill Ayers’s speech at the Midwest National Action conference held in Cleveland, August 29 - September 1, 1969)

For political purposes President Obama disavows the revolutionary bombings and murders of Bill Ayers’s Weatherman Underground, noting that he was himself a young child during the 1960s and 70s activism.  It’s always somebody else’s fault, not his responsibility.  But the fact remains that Obama, via support for abortion, actively encourages anti-family sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility of men who are biological fathers, but not real fathers within families.

Moreover, Obama’s appointees are tinged with the same anti-traditional ethos that permeated the 1789 French Revolution, the source of modern liberal-progressive-socialism.  For example, Aaron Klein’s 10/23/09 article in WorldNetDaily reports:

The U.S. government should abolish its sanctioning of marriage, argued Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s regulatory czar.

Sunstein proposed that the concept of marriage should become privatized, with the state only granting civil union contracts to couples wishing to enter into an agreement.

Sunstein explained marriage licensing is unnecessary, pointing out people stay committed to organizations like country clubs and homeowner associations without any government interference.

Liberal-progressives’ infatuation with shedding all moral standards, expressed prominently in “hooking up” rather than marriage commitment, is a social steamroller obliterating traditional marriage.  Liberal-progressive politicians do their part with the so-called marriage tax, making the tax burden higher for a married couple with two incomes than for two singles living together unmarried.

Why is it so important for liberal-progressives to reduce or eliminate loyalty to the family unit?

The answer is that the road to complete political dominance by liberal-progressive-socialism’s secular religion is blocked by Judeo-Christian religious morality.  Triumph of liberal-progressive-socialism requires the destruction of spiritual religion.  The family as a marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God-given natural law.  Hence the steady undermining of fathers and traditional families.

Emma Goldman, one of the best known orators for liberal-progressivism in the early decades of the 20th century, stated liberal-progressivism’s antipathy toward marriage and the traditional family quite bluntly in her 1913 essay entitled Victims of Morality.

It is the narrow puritanic spirit, as represented in the sterile minds of the Young-Men-and-Old-Maid’s Christian Union, Temperance Union, Sabbath Union, Purity League, etc.  A spirit which is absolutely blind to the simplest manifestations of life; hence stands for stagnation and decay. ..it is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality...It is Morality which condemns women to the position of a celibate, a prostitute, or a reckless, incessant breeder of hapless children.

Personal morality doesn’t come from the political state.  It comes from the Holy Spirit infusing our individual souls, softening our individual hearts to do the right thing for the needy individuals in our local communities. 

In contrast, liberal-progressive-socialism’s collectivist state fosters indifference to individuals around us.  It promotes instead grasping greed for handouts under new welfare-state entitlements.

Yes, it’s true that liberal-progressive-socialists speak incessantly about the economic classes who supposedly are malevolently oppressed by “the rich.” But very high taxes and the blizzard of liberal-progressive government agencies and welfare-state programs lead people, especially of the generations since the 1960s New Left movement, to say, in effect, “I’ve already paid my taxes.  Call the welfare office if you need help.”

The liberal-progressive political state thrives on the explosion of its beloved sexual promiscuity and resultant single-parent families.  Single mothers struggling with the economic and social problems of raising children without fathers in the house are encouraged to turn to Big Brother for assistance. 

Liberal-progressive-socialism requires ultimately destroying the historical traditions of Western civilization.  After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, but for Christianity, Western Europe would have disintegrated into chaotic anarchy, in which Thomas Hobbes said life would be nasty, brutish, and short.  Christianity, based on Judeo-Christian morality, was the sole unifying element that kept Western Europe from falling into political chaos or under the dominance of Islamic aggression.

As fathers go, so go families.  Without them and the Judeo-Christian morality they represent, the Declaration of Independence’s “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” and the Bill of Rights become meaningless Rorschach ink-blots that politicians, educators, and judges can interpret to mean anything they wish.

Summoning Our Inner Hero
By Jeff Lukens

Rarely does the concern of the middle-class reach a point where they start protesting the government en masse. The passage of ObamaCare and the impending financial ruin of our country is now one of those times.

Despite immense opposition, Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress forced through a health care bill, not to improve people’s health care but to expand the power of the state over them. It is the height of arrogance. As ObamaCare moves closer to reality, we know the resulting intrusion of government in our lives will not allow us to continue to live as we have before.

We know the government can’t keep running huge deficits and think there will be no consequences. We know the federal and many state budgets are already broke, and that hard times are coming. We know that Obama is deliberately trying to drive the country off a cliff with debt our grandchildren can never repay. And we know that when we speak out against this madness, they will malign us and likely smear us as racists.

Until recently, many have avoided speaking publicly about politics, and we now know that must change too. We could never live with ourselves if we sat by and did nothing while liberals dismantle the country. We need heroic action, and we know we are the ones who must be the heroes. Each of us need to reach deep and summon what may not come naturally, and bring out the hero that resides inside.

A hero is someone motivated to act beyond his or her own self-interest. It’s that person faced with an overwhelming challenge or moral dilemma who acts for the greater good. He or she acts in the interest of duty, honor, and country.

Think of the iconic hero Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) in the movie “Casablanca.” In it, he is a world-weary American in a lawless town. As lost love and horrendous world events spiral beyond his control, he is faced with the uncomfortable necessity of standing up for good. At first Rick shrugs, “I’m not interested in the politics. The problems of the world are not in my department. I’m a saloon keeper.” His response is typical of many of us today.

Rick eventually comes to the realization that he can no longer run away from himself in drink and self-pity. He knows the only way to move forward is bravely to act on the side of good. His inner hero emerges. At great risk, and some sorrow, Rick puts the courageous underground Nazi resistance leader and his wife on the plane to Lisbon so they can continue their movement.

With the daily assault by progressives on our values, we know that all we hold dear about this county they oppose. Like Rick, we know we too must get off the bench and strive for what is right. And we know we must do it soon.

We know we must fight back now before ObamaCare takes effect, not years from now when the benefits become embedded. We know the massive expansion of the federal government into personal health care will drive health insurance providers out of business and force employers to dump their workers on to the government plan.

Obama thinks he can initially hide the negative effects, hooking us on new benefits until they become entrenched, and putting off the reduced care, the cost overruns, and the tax hikes that are sure to come so we will not make the connection between this horrible legislation and the resulting economic carnage. Like so much about this man, this deception is nefarious and dishonest.

But his plan may be backfiring. Suddenly, the steady encroachment of socialism these many decades is very noticeable by tens of millions of ordinary people who care deeply about their county, and they are taking to the streets.

We must start now at working to repeal this health care debacle and remove Obama and his cronies from office. And we must get out of our comfort zone and do what we may have never done before. We must be sure to vote. And we must peacefully do the tasks of manning picket lines at rallies, encouraging our family and friends to get involved, working the phones lines and canvassing precincts to elect conservatives, and more. In short, we must become heroes for the republic.

The cancer of progressivism didn’t start with Barack Obama and his corrupt Congress, but we can see to it that it ends with them. We must never forget the outrage we felt that Sunday in March when these people forced this legislative monstrosity upon us. Let that outrage spur your inner hero on.

Jeff Lukens is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets. He can be contacted at http://www.jefflukens.com

Verse 18 above ("The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth...") contrasts with verse 17 (For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.")

In his continuing exposition of the foundational Christian doctrine in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, Pastor Dan Gardner (Assembly of God Church, Cohocton, New York) used the term “natural man” to describe secularists who steadfastly deny our Creator God. 

The natural man looks into the mirror and sees his god: himself, the egotist for whom there is no higher power than his own mind.  The natural man is he who, like Protagoras (quoted in Plato’s Theaetetus), declared, “Man is the measure of all things,” meaning that there are no independent, transcendent standards of right and wrong, that every person is free to make his own rules.

Natural man found great comfort in the 1920s and afterwards in the mind manipulation hypotheses of Sigmund Freud.  In Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Freud wrote that the problems of western civilization arose from conflict between morality and deep-seated sexual desires.  The result was debilitating guilt; the solution was to junk morality and come to terms with one’s sexual drives.  By implication, the purpose of humanity was no longer aspiration toward the highest of ideals, but surrender to sexual drives.  The future of humanity was not upward, but downward toward the sewer of moral relativism.  The human soul was thrown out and replaced by worship of our genitalia.  We see the results today in our juvenile adulation of hedonistic sensual gratification in movies, TV, and the print media.

As Paul makes clear, however, even the dullest of intellects can perceive order in the immensity of space surrounding our planet, in the vast panorama of the sun and stars and our moon, which move in regular patterns, from day to day and over periods of many years. Suppressing the truth of such obvious evidence of design in the cosmos is to turn one’s back on God and to invite His wrath. 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

A current example of large scale suppression of the truth is our climategate scandal.  Secularists who fancy themselves capable of controlling the weather of the entire planet and brook no challenge from God’s Truth go to criminal lengths to manipulate and to fabricate data, as well as to prevent publication of contradictory evidence.  Without regard for the attendant, immense setbacks in standards of living, particularly in poorer countries, secularists are intent upon imposing their unsupportable hypothesis of man-made global warming upon all of humanity.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:21-32)

Exalting himself over God and His Creation, natural man commits sins of omission: he neither honors God nor gives thanks to God for his blessings, fancying that all is the product of his own genius.

Natural man, in the same vein, indulges in sins of commission: he makes futile speculations (e.g., socialist bureaucrats’ attempts to control the entire economy, and corrupt global-warming scientists’ endeavors to arrogate to themselves control of the world’s energy resources). 

Natural man professes his own wisdom as the final answer to all questions.  The fool says in his heart, “There is no God. (Psalms 14:1)

And natural man forsakes God for man-made images: money, power, prestige, and self-importance. 

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:  "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.  (1 Corinthians 1:18-19)

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.  (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Whatever one may think of homosexuality, the bible condemns it as an unnatural practice. 

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." (Romans 1:26-27)

Our modern-day culture not only tolerates depravity, but both encourages it and teaches it to our young students.

Those defending homosexuality say that it is an inborn tendency.  But alcoholism is a similar, inborn vulnerability, yet hardly anyone opposes programs to reprogram alcoholics’ destructive urges.
   

   
“Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32)

Pastor Dan Gardner (Assembly of God Church, Cohocton, New York) opened a series of sermons exploring the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.  The epistle was written approximately 27 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, while elements of Jesus’s life and teaching were still fresh in the minds of those who lived around him and were eye witnesses to his ministry on earth.

Pastor Gardner’s text was Romans 1:1-17:

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6 And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. 9 God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you 10 in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith."

In this opening portion of his epistle, Paul begins his witness to the power and righteousness of God and the good news, the gospel, of Jesus that salvation is open to all people, Jews and Gentiles, through faith leading toward a lifelong path of sanctification.

Pastor Gardner emphasized the many doctrinal precepts tightly summarized in verses 1 through 6.  Paul begins by identifying himself as an apostle, a term that, in its Greek root, means messenger.  Paul was both the principal messenger of the gospel outside Judea and, in that role, the founder of all the original churches in the Gentile world.

Paul notes that he was called by the spirit of God to be an apostle.  Although less dramatically than Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, we all are called to salvation through the Holy Spirit.

Paul was “set apart for the Gospel of God.” This congers up sanctification, holiness, and separation from the darkness of sin.  Setting apart and justification are by the Grace of God, through Jesus Christ.

Verses 2 through 5 state the most fundamental doctrine of Christianity: Jesus is both divine and human, descended as foretold in the Scriptures from David, to witness through his Resurrection the power of God and the way to salvation for believers.

31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.

33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD.  “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The theme of Paul’s salutation to the church in Rome can be stated as live by faith and unashamedly preach the Gospel:

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.  (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Pastor Dan Gardner’s sermon at the Cohocton, New York, Assembly of God Church covered the concluding portions of the Book of Malachi, the last words of the Old Testament.  Fittingly, the prophet concludes with a message of hope for those who remain steadfast in their faith and strive, with softened hearts, to follow the spirit of the Mosaic law. 

13 “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD.  “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’

14 “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? 15 But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’ “

16 Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.

17 “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession.  I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. 18 And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

1 “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.

2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. 3 Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD Almighty.

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

5 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."

(Malachi 3:13-17; 4:1-6)

Ultimately there will be retribution for injustice and iniquity, but we shouldn’t indulge in schadenfreude.  Instead, we should do our best, by example and exhortation, to bring light and truth to those who serve Satan.  We know not when the Lord will return; only that it will be sudden and unexpected.  We must be ready.

Above all, there is meaning and purpose to human life on earth.  Christianity stands in sharp contrast to those who worship secular socialism and see their salvation in the minds of intellectual intendants overseeing statist bureaucracies.  Christianity stands in sharp contrast to those who accept the Darwinian view that evolution is a blind watchmaker, a process with no meaning and no direction.  Life is far more than mere chance, far more than Thomas Huxley’s survival of the fittest in which there is no such thing as transcending morality and no sin, just every man for himself.

In sermons last Sunday and today, Easter Sunday, Pastor Dan Gardner (Cohocton, New York, Assembly of God Church) preached on God’s benevolent grace to us and upon what we owe God.  Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, brings all of it into focus.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18)

And, in the words of the Apostle Paul:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.  (1 Corinthians 15:1-7)

Jesus died for us, a blood sacrifice, upon the cross.  We owe everything to God, everything we have.  God owns everything, because all of it is His creation.  We are merely His stewards of what we have received.

From that vantage point, tithing is the least we can do as thanks for His grace.

On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.  (1 Corinthians 16:2)

We must give freely and with a glad heart.  It must be from the heart, not as a matter of ritualistic duty or for public show:

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.  Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  (2 Corinthians 9:6-7)

For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.  (2 Corinthians 8:12)

“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” (Luke 16:2)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  (Romans 12:1-2)

Tithing is even older than the Mosaic law.  The patriarch Abraham, liberating his nephew Lot and his possessions from the four kings, in gratitude to God gave to Melchizedek, a priest of God Most High, a tenth of what God had granted him:

After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).  Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying,

"Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.  And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” 

Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.  (Genesis 14:17-20)

In the Old Testament, tithing was the only source of support available to the Levites, the priests appointed by God to preserve and to teach the Word of God.  Today, as then, the least we can do is to give our tithes to support the churches and ministers of God.

What we need is a change of heart that is faithful, true, and enduring

By Marie Jon, Christian  analyst

 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” ? 2 Corinthians 5:17

At one point in my grandfather’s young life, he found himself to be a very unhappy man. He became angrier and angrier with every passing day. He knew he had a problem, but he wasn’t about to admit it to his wife and children. Grandpa would often say that he was misunderstood by others, including his own family. Instead of seeking guidance, he made them pay the price for his pent-up frustrations.

Too often he took his anger out on his family by becoming verbally abusive behind closed doors. And then, when it was over, he would leave the house in a huff, while hanging his head in shame over the fact that he had just treated his defenseless brood so badly. Within his heart, he knew he was wrong.

With tears stinging his eyes, he would walk down the street whispering to himself a promise to never do that again. He would assure my grandmother that he really meant it. But just a week later, after a tough long day at work, he would do it again. And at times he would break furniture into pieces while shouting at the top of his voice. He frightened his entire family, who cowered in their bedrooms.

These escalating acts were repeated just like a time-bomb ticking. He yelled at his wife and snapped at his kids without provocation, again and again. It was those outside forces that annoyed him. Unfortunately, this young father and husband had not learned not to bring destructive emotions through the door of his own home.

A changed heart

Thankfully, grandfather’s life changed and there was happiness after all. For you see, grandfather made a promise to God to follow Him. And by grace, he allowed Christ to have His way. He literally became the father that my dad longed for. And to God’s glory, grandfather became one of the major reasons why my own father gave his own life to the Lord. His father’s transformation was a tremendous witness to attest to what Christ can do when you’re willing to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit.

Because of my young age, I never experienced the out-of-control and angry side of “papa.” He was, to me, a happy, kind, smiling face who sang with the church choir. Those are the memories I’m privileged to have whenever I think of him. He died a little over two years ago with his loving family by his side.

The truth is that no matter what your personal circumstances are, when the human spirit yields itself to God, His love can bring about changes because He is faithful. It’s my personal opinion that folks can’t truly alter their lives without a commitment to a loving God. The Bible describes this as having a born-again experience:

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Man is sinful and separated from God, yet He still loves us. Being apart from God makes it impossible for people to keep promises to themselves and put a stop to doing things they know are destructive behavior. But by the grace of God, they can overcome their sinful nature.

“When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, With men this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible” (Matt. 19:25-26).

Willpower not enough

To this very day, America is still fighting a war against terrorism. I can’t help but think of the tremendous increase in church attendance shortly after the World Trade Center collapsed in 2001. Stunned and very frightened, people suddenly became determined to be on good footing with the Almighty God.

Prominent pastors became enthusiastic because an act of terrorism promised to precipitate a major spiritual revival in America. Unfortunately, it took only two short months and it was over. Church attendance went right back down to where it was before the horrific attack took place.

It’s regrettable that this revival only lasted a couple of months. Didn’t the people who suddenly went back to church actually mean to return to matters of faith and take it seriously? They had the perfect opportunity to experience a renewal and make a positive impact on society, while bolstering morality which is floundering in our country today. I am convinced, for the most part, that they did, at least for the time being. It’s evident, however, that fear was not enough of a motivator to keep their religious faith intact, it was enough only to bring them to church temporarily. When the planes stopped crashing into buildings, life just simply went back to the mundane. People quickly forgot all their promises and went back to the way things were.

We can spend a lot of time deciphering the self-sufficient will of human beings who do a lot of talking about willpower and the strength of sheer determination. Apply those topics to arenas in the world of business, careers, or politics, and there is something to be said for that. We live in a country where we can become as successful as the next person. However, in the world of faith, sheer willpower simply isn’t enough, because most temptations are bigger than the willpower we can muster up all by ourselves.

Broken promises

While reading through my Bible, I’m reminded about the Israelites. In the Book of Exodus, they had just been delivered from Egyptian slavery. God’s “Promised People” had seen the hand of God part the Red Sea and drown the Egyptians. They witnessed the fiery presence of God come down on the top of Mount Sinai. As they were privileged to watch the spectacular wonder of the moment, they made a solemn promise to God. Moses spoke with God, and then gave a report to the Israelites:

“And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord had commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.’ And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord” (Exodus 19:7, 8).

The Israelites made a promise to God, and they believed it was an easy promise to make after following God’s presence out into the desert. They repeatedly made the same promise after Moses had received the Ten Commandments:

“And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words which the Lord hath said will we do’” (Exodus 24:3).

They repeated the same promise again a couple of verses later:

“And Moses took the book of the covenant, and read it before the people, and they said, ‘All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient’” (Exodus 24:7).

When the Israelites made these promises they were sincere. Unfortunately, the rest of the Book of Exodus and the Bible exposes the sad record of God’s people repeatedly breaking their promises to the Lord. They found themselves doing the very things they had promised God they would never do again.

The problem is not just sin, but ‘sinfulness’

I believe that God’s people today mean it when they promise to stop committing certain sins. They just don’t have what it takes to keep their promises. There has to be a real personal relationship with the Lord. When you love God, you want to please Him.

The Word describes sin as the transgression of God’s moral law: “And the problem of sin runs very deep. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

But sin is not just something we do. It’s also something we allow to enter into our lives. God could have solved the whole problem by just removing the laws we were breaking. Yet, intuitively, we know there’s more to it than that. Our sins separate us from God. The Scriptures say that we are powerless to change our sinful ways by ourselves:

Isaiah wrote, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).

The prophet Jeremiah expounds on the subject plainly: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13:23).

God says that you can no more change your sinful nature than you can change the color of your skin. If transgression were just a matter of breaking the rules, all you would have to do is stop breaking them. Can you do that?

But there is something about the human heart that has been changed by the nature of sin. Unless regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians will continually find themselves helpless to live the life they know they should live to glorify their Savior. They will not be able to witness to others and draw others close to them. The work of the Great Commission will be difficult to complete ?

“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:16-20).

A faithful heart

It’s obvious that too many Christians suffer from a heart problem. So get out there and flex your spiritual muscle, and with God’s help begin to change your ways.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Breaking God’s law is sin. Acting out and being disobedient has trickled down into the very essence of our being. Everything we do is infected by it. Even the good things we do, according to the Bible are sullied:

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6).

Without a spiritual rebirth, even with all the good we do, our works are like filthy rags. Sin will have sway over us. Mankind’s thought processes have been perverted. Sin has altered our misguided priorities. Most importantly, it has taken our focus off “The Great I Am” and put it squarely on ourselves.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Our own weakness explains why we sometimes find ourselves unable to walk away from sinful habits. We know that smoking cigarettes can cause cancer. Yet we often refuse to take personal responsibility and break free from a psychological habit. We know that bad temper can ruin our family, but we can’t seem to close the lid on our fuse. We know that our lying, gossiping mouth is doing untold damage to others. Yet many will not have that conversation with the Lord and ask Him to help them change.

Not alone

Take solace in the fact that you are not alone and that everybody struggles with something. You have never experienced a temptation that somebody else hasn’t felt:

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Whatever you’re going through, others have walked that same path. Let me share with you a little secret. The most recognized persons in the Bible have struggled with the same temptations you struggle with.

Most of the disciples proved to be faulty in one way or another because they were human, despite being saved by the blood of their Savor. Did you know that Moses had an extremely hot temper? David certainly struggled with a lust problem. And Abraham lied about his wife to save his own skin. Peter struggled with taking a stand in public acknowledging his discipleship. He denied his Lord three times. Noah had a problem with alcohol.

The Bible is full of people just like you and me. It’s amazing that throughout His Word, God refused to abandon suffering people. If you are willing to be used by God, and willing to let Him make the changes in your life, you’ll be astonished at how He can turn things around.

Real hope and change

As we strive to remove a Marxist progressive agenda that now plagues our country, we must understand the game plan: If “We the People” are not willing to return to the God of our forefathers, there will be little or no chance to do what we desire to accomplish.

America’s beginnings where ushered in by men of faith who embraced the fact that mankind received their inalienable rights from our Creator God.

Patriots, it’s time to dust off your Bibles and put your emphasis on the Word of God. Let us never forget that God established the greatest nation in the world. When we think of freedom, remember that it is The Almighty who has given us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What America needs is a change of heart that is faithful, true, and enduring.

Marie Jon is a political/religious-based writer and founder of http://www.DrawingClose.org , a sister website to RenewAmerica. Marie extends her hand of welcome; visit DrawingClose and receive your free gift of salvation by taking an online Bible study.