History Repeats

 As an effort “to temper public concern” regarding the NSA overreach, our President established a five member ‘Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’.  They held their first meeting on June 21^st behind closed doors. The discussion centered on ways to enlighten the American people on the need of our government to violate our privacy and civil liberties.

 

On 10/27/1775, King George had a similar meeting with his Parliament.  He discussed the Colonists’ discontent and how to quell what may be a rising rebellion. The American’s complaints included: confiscation of private property, deprivation of a trial by jury, judges dependent on the will of the King, the covert transporting of arms and armies, jurisdiction of foreign laws on Americans, imposing taxes without the peoples’ consent, mandatory quartering of troops to effect spying on the residents in their own homes, enlarging an arbitrary government, the erection of unelected offices and officers to harass the people, restrictions on trade and business and the government’s silencing of dissent and assembly.

 

On 7/4/1776 a group of leaders: preachers, doctors, lawyers, merchants and educators, declared independence from an overreaching government.  They pledged their lives, reputations and fortunes in exchange for freedom from a government that dictated their lives.  They did this for their children and their children’s children. They determined that it was self-evident that all men are created equal.  They knew that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. They envisioned a government “of the People, by the People, and for the People”.  Two hundred and thirty seven years later – have we lost the vision?

MAN'S WAY OR GOD'S WAY?

Established religions are man's pathway to God.  Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism and all the other religions of the world were all created by man in an effort to stand righteous before God.  Each of the world's religions require that man do something or accomplish something to prove his worthiness; attending mass, pilgrimages, taking sacraments, prescribed prayer times, self- sacrifice and even suicide may be required to stand righteous before God.

Christianity is not a religion.  Christianity teaches that man cannot make himself righteous, only God can make man righteous.  I can't remember my first sin, but I know that it exists by the myriad of sins that have followed.  God stated that the penalty for just one sin is death - permanent death.  Once I committed that first sin, I became corrupted - I could no longer participate in my own salvation.

God knew this and still wanted to give us everlasting life.  So, he came himself to earth - a sinless sacrifice - to die for all our sins.  All he asked is that you believe.  It is a choice to believe - not a feeling - not an emotion.  Make the choice to participate in everlasting life.

Wives Submit to Your Husbands

During the straw pole debates, an interviewer asked Presidential Canidate, Michele Bachmann a question. "You are an evangelical Christian and the Bible says - wives submit to your husbands. As President will you submit to your husband?"

I have longed struggled with this passage of the Bible even though I have remained single for many years. I could not - or perhaps would not - believe that God meant for women to obey their husbands in everything or submit as a dog does to its master. I always believed that women were the soul of the earth and therefore mighty in their own right.

The answer from Congresswoman Bachmann brought me to a new revelation on submission. "Perhaps sir, you do not understand the meaning of this Bible verse. Submit means respect. I respect my husband and he respects me. We have pledged our lives together during sickness and health, richer and poorer until death do us part."

Although her answer moved me to the right ball field, the home run required a little more contemplation. The verse following wives submitting to their husbands states, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."

God created men and women differently. He breathed life into Adam through his head and created Eve from the side (or heart) of Adam. Men want to be respected. It is the most important emotion for men. Women want to be loved - this is their most important emotion.

What God was saying in Ephesians 5 is - give to your husband what is most important to him and husbands - give to your wife what is most important to her.

Why Do Bad People Go Unpunished?

Last summer I had a large pine tree cut down on the side of my house. A small pest had done it's work on the tree and each year the damage became more apparent. Fearful that the tree may topple in a high wind, I paid an arborist for its death.

The stump was ground down leaving a circle of uncultivated dirt in my yard. The crime scene remained fallow for the remainder of the summer and through the winter, but when spring arrived, I eyed the blank space with envy.

My recent lay off kept my resources in check so instead of my usual trek to the local nursery, I opted for a bag of wild flower seeds from Lowe's selling for $5.99. I amended the soil and laid out the seed as prescribed on the back of the bag. I watered the planting faithfully and waited. Soon little green shoots appeared and as they grew so did my anticipation of beautiful flowers.

However, there was a problem with my plan. Along with my flower seeds, other seeds were germinating. Some of these seeds were well recognized weeds; others - well I wasn't sure. Since the bag of seed contained a variety of plants, I could not tell what was weed and what was flower. I let them grow together hoping for a resolution when the flowers finally bloomed.

My plan backfired. As the garden grew, the weeds intermingled densely with the flowers. When I tried to pull out the weeds, the flowers came out as well. Frustrated, I gave up, but I noticed something curious. When I viewed my flower garden close-up, the weeds were readily apparent. When I viewed the garden from my second-story, bedroom window, all I could see were the beautiful pinks, blues, purples and whites of the flowers. It occurred to me that this is the vantage point of God - high up - he sees only the flowers.

"Another parable he put before them say, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. So, when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?' He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, 'No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, 'Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.' " Matthew 13:24-30

The Prince of America

In Daniel chapter 10, an angel of the Lord appears before Daniel because "..you set your mind to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard , and I have come because of your words." We see here that the Lord sent an angel, a messenger, to Daniel because he had set his mind on the Lord to understand.

The angel goes onto say "The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, so I left him there with the prince of Persia..". This was spoken while Daniel along with the Hebrews were held in captivity in Persia or present day Iran.

From this passage we see that Satan, the prince of the world, sets his demons as guardians over countries and principalities to keep God's message or messengers from the people. This guardianship is not limited to other parts of the world - it is present even in America.

As seen in Matthew 4:10 Satan tempted Jesus by offering the kingdoms of the world to Jesus if he would bow down before Satan. Jesus did not refute Satan's claim to own the world, he told him only to begone. If Satan does indeed own the world, then we can be sure there is a Prince of America who stands guard to keep God's message or messengers from the people.

To keep the message and messengers flowing, we must be vigilant in what Daniel did. We must pray continuously and set our hearts to understand the Lord.