Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers…This turned out to be a particularly hectic week for the Presgraves, and I ran out of time to adequately prepare the blog I wanted to write. However, I remembered this one from a little over a year ago, and it is similiar in content and spirit. Even though it’s a year later, you will clearly see how history repeats itself, especially when nothing is learned from past catastrophies. I’ll be back in live action next week. 🙂
What a beautiful St. Louis weekend! We picnicked; we visited the wineries; we enjoyed the hot-rod for what is sure to be one of its last excursions before winter sets in, and I topped it off by attending an intercessory prayer meeting at Grace Church-St. Louis last night. What a powerful experience! The purpose of that meeting was to lift up our country and our culture in prayer, and to pray for hope in the face of a multitude of uncertainties. But the unshakable truth is…for those of us in Christ, there is nothing to fear if we stand on the truth of 2 Timothy 1:7: “God didn’t give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but one of power, love and a sound mind.” And with our sound mind, we can stand on our platform of faith, and know without a shadow of a doubt we are standing on His Truth! And that truth is…He is a Sovereign God who tells us to be “strong and courageous, for I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6) Romans 8:31 reinforces that: “If God is with me, who can be against me!”
I want to use the moniker of my webpage as a springboard to what I want to write about today. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” And the hope I am referencing is the hope found in the truth of Deuteronomy 31:6 listed in the paragraph above. We have to put our hope in a Sovereign God who told us in Ephesians 1 that he had a plan even before the creation of the world (or man), and that plan was revealed in verse 1:10: “at just the right time He will bring everything together under the authority of Christ – everything in heaven and on earth.”
We can never forget that we are living in a fallen world that is still under the authority of satan. That is explained in no uncertain terms in Ephesians 2:1-3 when Apostle Paul was explaining the reality of the world to new believers in Ephesus: “Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins. You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. “All of us used to live that way (note: this is past tense), following the passions and desires of our evil nature.” This is the reality of the world and our relation to it before being in Christ.
But here is the hope and truth about who we are today. “But God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. And He raised us from the dead along with Christ, because we are one with Him.” As His followers, we are called to be “in” this world, but not “of” this world”, and we have been given the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit to ensure we can rise to that calling. This gift is from a loving God who wants us to succeed at becoming the person He created us to be.
The reality is, we do live in a fallen world, and we are affected by this fallen world whether we want to be or not. “And how did this become a fallen world”, you might ask? Well…it became a fallen world when “sin” entered the world. And that “sin” was Man turning his back to God and putting the focus on himself. For all of those who are not in Christ, they are still their own god, therefore still “living in sin.”
So what do I and other Christ-followers see when we look at the world around us? We see a culture that is spiritually and morally bankrupt. We see a culture that has sold out the fundamental principles that made our country great: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the traditional family structure, the sanctity of life, the values of honor and integrity, mutual respect and racial equality, and a healthy respect for law and order.
“But how could this happen”, you might ask? “Those values seem fundamental to a free society”. And I would have to say, “how right you are!” But the truth is…the problems we are facing right now as a country and as a culture are really not unique to us. If you lay an ancient history book and a Bible side by side, you can trace the same rise and fall of previous cultures, but one explains them in secular terms (greed and the desire for wealth, power and control) and the other explains them in Biblical terms (sin-nature). Regardless of the nature of the explanation, the common denominator is…God was expunged from the culture by those in control. The Word of God shines way too much light on evil agendas. Can you see evidence of that happening in our culture today?
At this time in our history, we have the opportunity to exercise one of our rights as a (still) free nation. We have the right to vote for what WE believe to be in the best interest of our country. Many devoted soldiers fought and died so we could exercise this privilege. Right now the very direction of our country is being challenged by a political party that wants to point us in the direction of Socialism. This is the exact opposite of the Republic our forefathers handed to us in our founding documents. Even Benjamin Franklin saw the challenge that lay ahead when he responded to a question from a reporter: “Well, Dr. Franklin, do we have a democracy?” His response was, “No, you have a republic…if you can keep it.”
No doubt the media will keep this mid-term election a personality contest, but I implore you…please do not chose to “sit this one out”. We all have the responsibility to voice our opinion concerning the future of our country, and the stakes could not be higher, and the agendas could not be more different. Our current President, even though he has his faults (like all of us), was elected because he was not “just another politician”, but because he was bold enough and committed enough to tackle what he called “The Swamp” in Washington, DC.” (If you witnessed the Kavanaugh hearings this past week, you saw “The Swamp” in action, and you got a glimpse of their evil agenda!) We voted for a courageous leader who spoke to our concerns. Now we have the opportunity to provide for him a congress and a party that will support his efforts rather than resist and subvert his attempts to provide what he promised.
Clearly our country is in the shape it is in because we have exalted the teachings of man over the teachings of God. The Bible is resplendent with examples of countries that were in line with God’s will, and they were blessed. When they were out of line with God’s will, these things dominated the culture: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions – the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your group, envy, hatred, lying, cheating, stealing, despair and hopelessness. (Galatians 5:19-21) Do you see any evidence of this in our culture today?
I learned this principle in my recovery group: a problem cannot be solved by the same mind-set that created the problem. Therefore, I want to close with two truths taken from Jonathan Cahn’s, “The Harbinger”
“America was founded on prayer. Therefore, the removal of prayer from its public life was a central part of its fall from God. A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it.”
“As God was expunged from American life, idols came in to fill the void; idols of sensuality, idols of greed, of money, of success, comfort, materialism, pleasure, sexual immorality, self-worship, self-obsession. The sacred increasingly disappeared, and the profane took its place.”
And here is our hope.
“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
This IS the time for every Christ-follower and every Church to pray for the future of our country!
Feel free to respond to this post, and please “like” and share it with other social media friends.
May God Bless You abundantly,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
Leave a Comment