Lord Jesus, thou who art the way, the truth, and the life; hear us as we pray for the truth that shall make all free. Teach us that liberty is not only to be loved but also to be lived. Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books. It costs too much to be hoarded. Help us see that our liberty is not the right to do as we please, but the opportunity to please to do what is right.

Peter Marshall, Before the U.S. Senate

Although this message was delivered some years ago, the significance of what you will read is timeless. We are seeing an unprecedented crisis in this country and around the globe. So what is our part? It is time to seek God and ask for a miracle!

God blessed the nation of Israel. God has blessed the nation of America. There are principles and parallels in our heritages that the discerning eye can see and the ready heart can apply.

Grave National Danger

Psalm 80:12 says, “Why hast Thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?” Here was a vineyard, divinely planted, divinely protected, and divinely prospered, then suddenly God removed the hedge. Anyone who came by could now pluck the fruit off the vines.

Do you see any similarity with what is happening in America? Our adversaries are plucking our fruit – we are disintegrating before our eyes. There is an external danger but also an internal danger.

Something is happening in America that is very un-American. America is tottering. And I am not talking about the danger we could experience from external forces. Instead, we are experiencing internal danger.

I do not believe that America can hold back the hand of God’s righteous intervention much longer. This nation has become so immoral, corrupt, and vile that I believe we are ripe for God’s judgment.

And for that I believe God’s judgment of external danger is imminent. Now, not only is there external and internal danger, but there is also eternal danger. The vine has been cut down. Psalm 80:14-16 says,

Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine; And the vineyard which Thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that Thou madest strong for Thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of Thy countenance.

Now, the great wrath of God has been manifest in the vineyard. This may come as news to you, but I want you to understand that not only is God our only hope, but God is also our biggest threat.

The acts of God’s judgment – the fire to burn the vine, the ax laid to the very root – are not only probable events, but as we have seen in history these are also real events. We have no right to believe that God is going to let this nation endure unless we have a national revival.

I believe we are no longer standing at the waterline, we are knee-deep in the waters of the wading pool of God’s judgment. And it is time that America repents.

Great National Despair

What is it that so grieves my heart? First, it is the spiritual sterility of our country. People say we need to pray, and we do. But, don’t think God is pleased every time someone prays. Sometimes when people pray, God gets angry. Psalm 80:4 says, “O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt Thou be angry against the prayer of Thy people?”

The prayers of a wicked, unrepentant people only move God to anger. Religion without righteousness is repugnant to God. Right now, the cesspool of iniquity is overflowing in America. It’s a wonder He doesn’t blot us off the face of the earth!

On top of the spiritual sterility I see in our country, there is personal sorrow. Israel was baptized in salty tears. America will, as well. Sorrow follows sin like night follows day. Psalm 80:5 says, “Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.” We cannot flaunt God and prosper.

We seek peace, but we’ll not have it until we have an alliance with the Prince of Peace. Proverbs 29:2 says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” I wonder how high the price is going to be that we will pay – how large the oceans of tears and rivers of blood?

The once mighty God-blessed America has become a laughing stock in many respects to the world. Now, I’m not saying we should not be patriotic and think we are a great nation. But, I believe the Bible when it says: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12).

Well, is there hope for America? Yes. Can there be a way in these last days? Absolutely. There was a gracious national deliverance for Israel, and there may be one for us.  (By Adrian Rogers)

Then Naomi her mother-in-law said unto her, “My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?”

–Ruth 3:1

Maybe you’ve experienced tragic disappointment in your life. Naomi could relate. She was uprooted from her home and lost her husband and her sons. Life’s troubles had darkened her spirit and turned her bitter.

But I’d like to remind you what Naomi did in the midst of her state of depression. In fact, it’s one thing that helped get her out from under the dark cloud of bitterness she was living in:

Naomi stopped thinking about herself and started thinking about someone else.

I don’t know where you may find yourself today, but if you’re down, I have a word for you: If you can get outside of yourself and start serving others, you will find any depression you have will begin to lift.

If you’re discouraged today, I encourage you to get interested in someone else! Get involved in your church. Adopt a family or find a child that you can share a gift with.

And certainly it’s important to share your faith. Nothing will lift your spirits and enliven your heart like sharing the Good News with someone who needs to hear it!

When you’re discouraged or depressed, the best thing you can do is to get your mind on the Lord Jesus Christ… to worship Him, to look to Him, to speak to Him, to open your Bible, and to ask the Spirit of God to mend your broken heart.

And when you will do that, watch God begin to restore and replenish and refresh your despondent spirit. To move your life from bitterness… to blessing.

BLESS SOMEONE ELSE TODAY. WHEN YOU OFFER A SMILE, A CUP OF COFFEE, OR PRAYER OF ENCOURAGEMENT, YOUR SPIRITS WILL BE LIFTED!

—By Dr. Jack Graham

“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:14).

God gets His greatest victories out of apparent defeats. Very often the enemy seems to triumph for a little, and God lets it be so; but then He comes in and upsets all the work of the enemy, overthrows the apparent victory, and as the Bible says, “turns the way of the wicked upside down.” Thus He gives a great deal larger victory than we would have known if He had not allowed the enemy, seemingly, to triumph in the first place.

The story of the three Hebrew children being cast into the fiery furnace is a familiar one. Here was an apparent victory for the enemy. It looked as if the servants of the living God were going to have a terrible defeat. We have all been in places where it seemed as though we were defeated, and the enemy rejoiced. We can imagine what a complete defeat this looked to be. They fell down into the flames, and their enemies watched them to see them burn up in that awful fire, but were greatly astonished to see them walking around in the fire enjoying themselves. Nebuchadnezzar told them to “come forth out of the midst of the fire.” Not even a hair was singed, nor was the smell of fire on their garments, “because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort.”

This apparent defeat resulted in a marvelous victory.

Suppose that these three men had lost their faith and courage, and had complained, saying, “Why did not God keep us out of the furnace!” They would have been burned, and God would not have been glorified. If there is a great trial in your life today, do not own it as a defeat, but continue, by faith, to claim the victory through Him who is able to make you more than conqueror, and a glorious victory will soon be apparent. Let us learn that in all the hard places God brings us into, He is making opportunities for us to exercise such faith in Him as will bring about blessed results and greatly glorify His name.
–Life of Praise

The following is written by Ray Pritchard, of Keep Believing Ministries: A friend asked for my thoughts on living with no regrets. To me it’s all about direction. A few years ago the Lord gave me a set of  sayings that I call the First Law of Spiritual Progress:

I can’t go back.
I can’t stay here.
I must go forward.

In truth, there is no such thing as a life lived with no regrets in the literal sense because we all fall short in many ways. Only Jesus truly could say “It is  finished” and know that he had perfectly completed all that God had for him to do. The rest of us will struggle with a sense of failure, of jobs left undone, of projects uncompleted, of dreams unfulfilled, of steps not taken, or roads not traveled, or decisions made that now seem like wrong choices. I see no way to escape this. 

The question then becomes, what will we do with our failures? If we let them shape us, our failures will dominate us forever. Or we can resolve to believe that in Jesus Christ, we can always make a new start with the Lord.

So the key is to say, “I won’t go back. I’m not going to live in the past. I won’t let my yesterdays define who I  am today. And I can’t stay here because life is like a river that rolls ever onward. By God’s grace, I will go forward, one day at a time, one  step at a time, trusting God to lead me, following the Lord to best  of my ability, believing that with Christ, the  best is always yet to come.”

In the spiritual life, direction makes all the  difference. It’s not where we’ve been but where we’re going that matters.