My fellow Americans and Brethren,
I am deeply moved and saddened by what I see around US. Since September 11th, 2001, I have witnessed the slow death of a great nation. A nation that was founded upon the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness –––– That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” –––– Rights that were held by our Founders “to be self-evident” –– A nation that “our Fathers brought forth on this continent, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” –––– made self-evident by the Word of Almighty God and established by Him as enshrined in our Holy Bible for which this nation was conceived to be a sanctuary and a home to the despondent, the persecuted, and the fleeing masses of humanity from every nation under heaven, and whose government was established originally to secure these rights which its Founders rightly understood come from God and not from man, since such a government can only exist if it derives its just powers, as its Founder correctly established from the consent of the government –––– or as one of its greatest statesmen and leaders once said –––– that its government be “of the people, by the people, for the people,” –––– so that it would “not perish from the earth”
There was a time in this nation when such rights were protected and established as a sacred trust to its leaders who revered and respected those rights, for which also a great Civil War Between its States was fought and much blood shed –– American blood, the blood of its patriot martyrs –– shed so that all Americans would be equal and never witness their Rights so hallowed by our Founders be violated by despotic rulers and capricious and self-serving tyrants, as has been so often witnessed in the history of Man.
It was indeed true that as Abraham Lincoln observed –––– “Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully
“The Almighty has his own purposes. –––– But having made this observation, also to be given to understand and explain to a hurting and bleeding nation why it such a terrible war would be inflicted upon it, where so many lives were taken, President Lincoln expressed the very heart of Almighty God when he said, "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." ––––– For having uttered those words, he articulated with great eloquence that teachings of the Holy Scriptures that Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people, and having established that God’s judgment had fallen on the United States, this humble man whom God had elevated to the highest office in this land for such a time as this, crushed as he was by personal tragedy as well as national tragedy, called upon every person in this land, both North and South; to humble and pray to the Offended Power, it was in this following manner that the United States Senate ratified the following Proclamation by the President of the United States of America on March 30th, 1863.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.*
Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863
March 30, 1863
Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.
Where today we must ask, are such statesmen? When such proclamations and confessions are made by leaders of this great nation? We have indeed forgotten our God! For if at a time when one of its greatest statesmen and leaders could proclaim to this nation that they in their generation and time had forgotten their God, how much more have we in this age of alternative lifestyles, deviant behavior in the classrooms, showrooms, and bedrooms of our land we so cavalierly frolick and so live our lives and conduct our businesses, and erect our monuments to? How much more have we fallen from that perch that we once were ensconced and called our home? And how much more have we offended our God, when having rightly driven from our land and trampeled the First of such Liberties ––––– The Right to Life for all of Our People ––––– The Right of the Unborn, the Right of the Newborn, the Right of the Aged, and the Right of the Infirmed, the Right to Liberty for all of Our People, and the Right to their Pursuit of Happiness –––––– That when such rights are abrogated to any of its citizens and violated by this government, it is the duty of every citizen to redress with its duly elected representatives to take immediate action on their part to restore such rights, and to see to it that they never again be violated by any part of our government.
President Lincoln wrote of this, and realized that the Civil War between the States was a remedial judgment of God upon our nation for the savagery and sin of slavery upon our people. And it took another hundred years for US to come to accept that we Americans are ONE PEOPLE UNDER GOD and ONE NATION UNDER GOD, but as soon as this discovery was made, it was like someone pulled the carpet right from under US, and we forgot God and removed Him from our public schools, the halls of congress, our government, and every facet of our lives ––––– And we are discovering that without Him and the firm foundation of His teachings, even with the knowledge that we are ONE PEOPLE, we cannot be ONE NATION unless we acknowledge the One who has established US in this manner, so that can properly declare that WE ARE ONE PEOPLE AND ONE NATION UNDER GOD. Multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, but ONE PEOPLE AND NATION INDIVISIBLE WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL ONLY UNDER GOD WHOM WE CLAIM TO TRUST ––––– Our public schools do not teach this, God’s Word does, and the Holy Spirit imparts US with the ability to understand it and appreciate what we have. This is the birthright of everyone whom God has created, and for this purpose this nation was founded to secure those rights which only God gives, and as long as a part of OUR PEOPLE were denied such rights, our nation faced judgment, and judgment it received from the hand of Almighty God in the form of the Civil War between the States ––––– It continued to face more judgments until every American could live in liberty in this great country that was founded to secure those liberties for every human being from every land whom have travelled to live freely and securely under these rights which no other nation quite has secured them in such ways. God has blessed America, but it is time now that America again bless the God Who has so blessed it! If indeed as Our Motto is In God We Trust, then let US call in full repentance upon that God Whom We Claim to Trust, and fall on Our faces before Him, for we and those whom we have elected as a people to lead US have most assuredly broken His heart and brought judgment upon ourselves and upon our land and upon this nation so founded at one time upon His precepts so long ago!
Jose J. Bernal
Systems Analyst
As a man thinks within himself, so he is.
Proverbs 23:7a
The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
"Do not petition G-d to go where you are going; rather find where G-d is going and travel with Him."-- Unknown Jewish Wise Man
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer not neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.".--- William Penn
"It’s not failure, but the fear of failure that stops most people.”-- Philip Anschutz
"THERE IS NOTHING MORE FRIGHTENING THAN ACTIVE IGNORANCE." -- Goethe
"To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth." - Unknown Author
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life, as by the obstacles that he has overcome while trying to succeed.” – Booker Taliaferro Washington, 1856 – 1915
“ A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. ”— Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Truth is in history, but history is not the truth." - Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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Dear Friend,
It is all happening as we believed it would – and yet it is still hard not to find it stunning….
The Gathering Darkness
Word for the Month & for Saturday, March 1
Scripture: Psalm 85:4-7
See Message: The Tipping Point
I shared a message called The Tipping Point. In it I described that in physics, when the moving of an object reaches the tipping point, there is a dramatic increase in momentum and acceleration. It was about the same time The Harbinger was released, that America crossed a tipping point, in which the numbers of people in favor of redefining marriage from its traditional and biblical bearings, became the majority. At the same time the president switched his official position and came out for gay marriage. This was a tipping point.
When a tipping point is passed, the momentum greatly accelerates. This is what we have been and are witnessing happening before our eyes. Since this threshold was crossed, we have witnessed a marked acceleration of momentum of moral and spiritual apostasy. The number of states having redefined marriage more than doubled. The highest court in the land struck down the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act. That decision has now been a catalyst in rulings for gay marriage across the country. The Boy Scouts of America, after years of holding to its moral stand, has begun to cave in. One of the largest ministries to gay people, Exodus International, closed down their operations and issued an apology to gay advocates. In the last few months, the speed and intensity of this moral transformation has further increased.
National headlines were made when Phil Robertson, the Christian patriarch of Duck Dynasty, condemned and temporarily banned from his television show for paraphrasing the apostle Paul’s writing in Corinthians as to who would be saved and would not. Then came the Grammy Awards, in which Madonna serenaded a host of gay couples exchanging vows to one another before millions of television viewers and a Hollywood audience enraptured by the spectacle.
None of these events would have been thinkable much less possible just a few years ago. And just a few years before that, they would have appeared nothing short of apocalyptic. How far we have come from the days when Christians thought there was going to be a spiritual revival as people flocked to houses of worship in the wake of 9/11. Not only did revival not come, but in its absence has come a national apostasy that only increases in intensity and speed.
It could have hardly been otherwise. And where there is no repentance, there can be no revival. And where there is no revival, there is a continuous progression of moral and spiritual descent. And we are now witnessing things not seen in ancient Rome, Greece, or even Sodom.
The timing of The Harbinger release, I don’t believe was an accident. It came as the nation passed the tipping point. Before judgment falls upon a nation, God sends warning. Though millions have now heard the message, the nation’s mainstream culture continues in spiritual free fall.
The Bible is clear. No nation can so defy and mock the God of its foundation and of its blessings and expect those blessings to remain. It can expect judgment. And in a strange way, it is only in that judgment that can come the hope of redemption.
Let us not cease praying and interceding for this land, that revival will come, no matter what it takes.
Your brother and co-laborer
in His love and service,
Jonathan
It is all happening as we believed it would – and yet it is still hard not to find it stunning….
The Gathering Darkness
Word for the Month & for Saturday, March 1
Scripture: Psalm 85:4-7
See Message: The Tipping Point
I shared a message called The Tipping Point. In it I described that in physics, when the moving of an object reaches the tipping point, there is a dramatic increase in momentum and acceleration. It was about the same time The Harbinger was released, that America crossed a tipping point, in which the numbers of people in favor of redefining marriage from its traditional and biblical bearings, became the majority. At the same time the president switched his official position and came out for gay marriage. This was a tipping point.
When a tipping point is passed, the momentum greatly accelerates. This is what we have been and are witnessing happening before our eyes. Since this threshold was crossed, we have witnessed a marked acceleration of momentum of moral and spiritual apostasy. The number of states having redefined marriage more than doubled. The highest court in the land struck down the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act. That decision has now been a catalyst in rulings for gay marriage across the country. The Boy Scouts of America, after years of holding to its moral stand, has begun to cave in. One of the largest ministries to gay people, Exodus International, closed down their operations and issued an apology to gay advocates. In the last few months, the speed and intensity of this moral transformation has further increased.
National headlines were made when Phil Robertson, the Christian patriarch of Duck Dynasty, condemned and temporarily banned from his television show for paraphrasing the apostle Paul’s writing in Corinthians as to who would be saved and would not. Then came the Grammy Awards, in which Madonna serenaded a host of gay couples exchanging vows to one another before millions of television viewers and a Hollywood audience enraptured by the spectacle.
None of these events would have been thinkable much less possible just a few years ago. And just a few years before that, they would have appeared nothing short of apocalyptic. How far we have come from the days when Christians thought there was going to be a spiritual revival as people flocked to houses of worship in the wake of 9/11. Not only did revival not come, but in its absence has come a national apostasy that only increases in intensity and speed.
It could have hardly been otherwise. And where there is no repentance, there can be no revival. And where there is no revival, there is a continuous progression of moral and spiritual descent. And we are now witnessing things not seen in ancient Rome, Greece, or even Sodom.
The timing of The Harbinger release, I don’t believe was an accident. It came as the nation passed the tipping point. Before judgment falls upon a nation, God sends warning. Though millions have now heard the message, the nation’s mainstream culture continues in spiritual free fall.
The Bible is clear. No nation can so defy and mock the God of its foundation and of its blessings and expect those blessings to remain. It can expect judgment. And in a strange way, it is only in that judgment that can come the hope of redemption.
Let us not cease praying and interceding for this land, that revival will come, no matter what it takes.
Your brother and co-laborer
in His love and service,
Jonathan
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