What Does A Politically-Left Agenda Mean For America?

In The Words of Marie Jon:

“He who hates, disguises it with his lips, and lays up deceit within himself; when he speaks kindly, do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart.” — Proverbs 26:24, 25

There is a helpless, sinister sense that seems to be hanging like a heavy weight over the country. One can compare the emotion to that of a death of a loved one — America.

Many astute individuals are beginning to understand that something very different from changes of the past is happening to their country. The Democratic National Committee has adopted an extreme, radical-left ideology. It no longer represents the party our parents remember. It would be more aptly renamed the Democratic Socialist Party.

What does a politically-left agenda mean to the average Joe and Jane?

Continue reading. . . .

The Wondrous Cross

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Galatians 6:14)

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss

And pour contempt on all my pride.

(Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, Independent minister, hymn writer)

The Fall Of Civilization

Quoting George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams:

“A civilized society’s first line of defense is not the law, police and courts but customs, traditions and moral values. Behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct. The failure to fully transmit values and traditions to subsequent generations represents one of the failings of the so-called greatest generation. … Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.”

We Fight, But Not Alone

Alexander MacLaren

From: The Pen of Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910)

‘The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.’ — Psalm 34:7.

It is generally supposed that the ‘Angel of the Lord’ here is to be taken collectively, and that the meaning is — the ‘bright-harnessed’ hosts of these divine messengers are as an army of protectors round them who fear God. But I see no reason for departing from the simpler and certainly grander meaning which results from taking the word in its proper force of a singular. True, Scripture does speak of the legions of ministering spirits, who in their chariots of fire were once seen by suddenly opened eyes ‘round about’ a prophet in peril, and are ever ministering to the heirs of salvation. But Scripture also speaks of One, who is in an eminent sense ‘the Angel of the Lord’; in whom, as in none other, God sets His ‘Name’. . . .

Only remember that the eye of faith alone can see that guard, and that therefore we must labor to keep our consciousness of its reality fresh and vivid. Many a man in David’s little band saw nothing but cold gray stone where David saw the flashing armour of the heavenly Warrior. To the one all the mountain blazed with fiery chariots, to the other it was a lone hillside, with the wind moaning among the rocks. We shall lose the joy and the strength of that divine protection unless we honestly and constantly try to keep our sense of it bright. Eyes that have been gazing on earthly joys, or perhaps gloating on evil sights, cannot see the Angel presence. A Christian man, on a road which he cannot travel with a clear conscience, will see no angel, not even the Angel with the drawn sword in His hand, that barred Balaam’s path among the vineyards. A man coming out of some room blazing with light cannot all at once see into the violet depths of the mighty heavens, that lie above him with all their shimmering stars. So this truth of our text is a truth of faith, and the believing eye alone beholds the Angel of the Lord.

Notice, too, that final word of deliverance. This psalm is continually recurring to that idea. The word occurs four times in it, and the thought still oftener. Whether the date is rightly given, as we have assumed it to be, or not, at all events that harping upon this one phrase indicates that some season of great trial was its birth-time, when all the writer’s thoughts were engrossed and his prayers summed up in the one thing — deliverance. He is quite sure that such deliverance must follow if the Angel presence be there. But he knows too that the encampment of the Angel of the Lord will not keep away sorrows, and trial, and sharp need. So his highest hope is not of immunity from these, but of rescue out of them. And his ground of hope is that his heavenly Ally cannot let him be overcome. That He will let him be troubled and put in peril he has found; that He will not let him be crushed he believes. Shadowed and modest hopes are the brightest we can venture to cherish. The protection which we have is protection in, and not protection from, strife and danger. It is a filter which lets the icy cold water of sorrow drop numbing upon us, but keeps back the poison that was in it. We have to fight, but He will fight with us; to sorrow, but not alone nor without hope; to pass through many a peril, but we shall get through them. Deliverance, which implies danger, need, and woe, is the best we can hope for.