THE KEY TO A BLESSED NATION

“The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The LORD looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.”- Psalm 33:11–14

Speaking at a prayer breakfast in Dallas, Texas, in August of 1984, President Ronald Reagan said, “Those who created our country—the Founding Fathers and Mothers—understood that there is a divine order that transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion. A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state. Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

As our nation moves further and further away from God, there is a temptation to despair. But in reality most of history has featured Christians living in hostile environments, both from government and from their surrounding culture. We are blessed in America with freedom of religion, but that is not a guarantee or a promise. And that freedom is under threat today as never before. The cure for America’s ills is not primarily found in electing different politicians, but in a change of heart in the people. That change can only come about through the transforming power of new life from salvation in Christ. What America needs most is not new leaders or laws, but a revival. 

The best thing a believer can do for his country is to be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ. – Paul Chappell

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

THE SOUND OF LIBERTY

“Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”- Leviticus 25:9–10

In 1751, Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, ordered a bell for the State House in Philadelphia. When the bell arrived from England, it cracked on the very first test ring. The metal was melted down and recast by John Pass and John Stow. Around the bell the words of Scripture from Leviticus 25:10, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof,” carried a powerful message. The bell rang to call the members of the Continental Congress to assemble as they debated declaring independence from England. For many years after, it was rung on ceremonial occasions, until in the 1840s a major crack ended its life as a bell, but not its message.

The Lord has called us to be messengers of hope and liberty to a world in chains—not to political oppression, but to sin. When Jesus began His ministry, He selected a passage from Isaiah as the text for His sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18). Freedom from sin has already been purchased through the blood of Christ, but the lost will not know that truth unless someone tells them. It is our duty to proclaim liberty. We are most like Jesus when we tell those in bondage to sin that there is liberty in Him. – Daily in the Word

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

THE WISE MAN’S WAY
“A wise man will hear.”” (Prov. 1:5)

The essential difference between the wise man and the fool in the book of Proverbs is that the wise man will hear and the fool won’’t.

It isn’t a question of the fool’s mental capacity. Actually he may have unusual intellectual ability. But he just cannot be told anything. He labors under the fatal delusion that his knowledge is infinite and his judgments are infallible. If his friends try to counsel him, they receive scorn for their efforts. They watch him trying to escape the inevitable results of sinful and stupid actions, but they are helpless to avert the crash. And so he goes on from one crisis to another. Now his finances are a disaster. Now his personal life is in shambles. Now his business totters on the edge of chaos. But he rationalizes that life is giving him a bad deal. It never occurs to him that he is his own worst enemy. He is generous in dispensing advice to others, oblivious of his inability to run his own life. A compulsive talker, he holds forth with the aplomb of an oracle.

The wise man is made of better stuff. He realizes that everyone’’s mental wires have been somewhat crossed by the Fall. He knows that others can sometimes see aspects of a problem that he has overlooked. He is willing to acknowledge that his memory may be faulty at times. He is teachable, welcoming any input that will help him make the right decisions. Actually he solicits the advice of others because he knows that “in the multitude of counselors there is safety” (Prov. 11:14). Like everyone else, he sometimes makes mistakes. But he has this saving virtue that he learns from his mistakes and makes every failure a springboard to success. He is grateful for a deserved rebuke and is willing to say, “I was wrong. I am sorry.” Wise children submit to parental discipline; fools rebel. Wise young people obey the scriptural precepts concerning moral purity; fools do their own thing. Wise adults judge everything by whether it is well-pleasing to the Lord; fools act according to what pleases themselves.

And so it is that the wise grow wiser, and the fools are stuck fast in the rut of their own folly. – William MacDonald

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346