Wednesday, December 22, 2021

A Diffrent Kind of Christmas Message

 I have been doing more research on my mother's side of the family this past month and what I have found is fascinatingMy great-great-great-grandfather was a minister, and his great-grandfather was a minister. I have several grandfathers who were Quaker ministers on my father's sideI am amazed at the spiritual heritage I have been blessed to find in my ancestors. My father and mother's family came to this county in the 1600s when the world was in spiritual chaosEngland was falling apart.  King Charles was beheaded, Cromwell became king. The country was divided into the Ranters, the Diggers, the Levelers, the Antibaptist, the Quakers and the Puritans. 
Less than a hundred years after coming to America, my ancestors witnessed a world in spiritual and political turmoilSeveral of my ancestors fought in the American RevolutionEven some of my Quaker ancestors took up arms to secure freedom in early America. 
 By the middle of the 1700s, a spiritual revival spread across the colonies. Men like Johnathan Edwards, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitfield, and other faithful ministers were preaching the GospelThere would not have been the American Revolution had there not been the Great AwakeningThe ministers who the Holy Spirit had moved to preach a message of freedom and liberty stirred the hearts of men across the colonies to want what was the rights of liberty and freedom granted by God.  The sermons of these men of good so influence our founders that you can find phrases of their sermons in the Declaration of Independence. These men of God influenced what happened in American Colonies that the British referred to them as the Black Robe Regiment.  These men of God became the voice of freedom and liberty and the enemy of the Crown of EnglandChurches were burned, and pastors were jailed for saying that their rights did not come from a King or government but only from God.  
 On Sunday morning, Jan 21, 1776, pastor John Muhlenberg climbed into his pulpit in Woodstock, VA, to preachMuhlenberg preached from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes in his black clerical robe, the traditional dress of 18th-century preachersHe read how there is a time for all things. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to harvestThen his voice began to rise as he said: "There's a time of war and a time of peace. There is a time for all things, a time to preach and prayBut there is also a time to fight, and that time has now come!" 
 Then he did something his congregation did not expectHe removed his clerical robe revealing a colonial officer's uniform beneathMuhlenberg then stepped down from his pulpit and challenged the men of his congregation to join him in the fight for liberty. 
 A few days before, he had been commissioned by General George Washington to raise a regiment from the Woodstock areaAs Muhlenberg walked down the aisle and out the door of his Church, a drum began to roll outsideOne by one, the men of Muhlenberg's congregation filed out of the auditorium and volunteered to follow their courageous pastor. 
 Bidding farewell to their families, some three hundred men rode away from Woodstock, VA, with Col. John Muhlenberg in the lead to form the 8th Virginia regiment.  Muhlenberg led those men throughout the War of Independence, fighting at Morristown, Brandywine, and Monmouth Courthouse.  By the war's end, Muhlenberg had been promoted to Major General and had become one of Washington's most valued commandersMuhlenberg was front and center at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 
James Caldwell was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethtown, New JerseyBecause of his strong stand for liberty and his sermons encouraging the colonists to fight, he had made himself numerous enemiesSo, he would step into his pulpit each Sunday wearing two pistols, place them on the pulpit, and then proceed to preach powerful sermons about the need for Christians to stand for truth. When the war began, Caldwell became a chaplain in the colonial armyHe was so hated by the British they called him the "Rebel Priest." 
 When the war finally came to Elizabethtown, the British killed Caldwell's wife during the fighting.  By the time he had completed her funeral, the action had moved to Springfield, New Jersey, so Caldwell rode there to join his men.  During the battle, the colonists ran out of wadding for their muskets.  Caldwell jumped on his horse and rode to the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield and gathered up two armloads of hymnals written by Isaac Watts, a popular hymn-writer of the era.  He hurried back to his troops, threw the hymnals at their feet, and commanded them to tear out the pages and use them for wadding.  As he did so, he yelled, "Give'm Watts boys, give 'em Watts!" This is the origin of the famous phrase, "Give'm watt for!" 
 Need I say these men were accused of being political in the pulpit.  You would not have the freedom you have today if these men of God had remained silent.  The American Revolution was not about taxes and tea; and it was about liberty and freedom as granted by God.  As John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  
 The American Revolution was about God-given rights of liberty and freedom.  These rights are not from the government but God. 
 There was another revolution taking place in 1789 not based on God-given rights but secularism. The French Revolution destroyed the Church in pursuit of political equality. The man behind the program of equality was Robespierre.  He created a culture of destroying the civic society of France in the name of progress.  For that reason, the French Revolution turned into a chaotic murder spree that saw tens of thousands of people executed at the guillotine for simply opposing Robespierre's vision. Hundreds of priests and nuns were killed, and any Christian influence was abolished. A law was passed in France that banned God within the borders of France. 
 In my 73 years, I have watched the rise and fall of men who enslaved people in their tyrannical power and mandated actions that ban obedience to God and outlaw to True Church of the LORD.  These people have been influenced by the spirit of Antichrist that has existed since the time of the Apostle John.  Satan has been at war with God and His Church since the day in the Garden of Eden when God promised the world a RedeemerThousands of years later, one night in the city of Bethlehem in a manger, a child was born the Savior of the world, the desire of all nations.  He gave us the liberty and freedom that is in the heart of the mind of people.  It is a law written on our hearts, where the spirit of the LORD is there is liberty.  When we accept Jesus as LORD and Savior were are free from the bondage of sinThis is what the coming of Christ brought to the world.   
 We face the Great Reset, changing the world to a new normal. The economic, political, academic, and media elites worldwide are leveraging the chaos, confusion, and restrictions on liberty by their lockdowns and using them to alter society around the world radically. The religious attacks are apparent, as in "allowing" worship services to continue or accepting a religious exemption regarding a "vaccine." Christians who push back are vilified. Any discussion of natural law or our freedoms under the Bill of Rights is ignored or under outright attack.  
 Are we at a "1776 moment" or 1789? Do we have pastors and Christian leaders that dare to speak up and be referred to as the "Black Robe Regiment"? We are accepting lies about our freedom.  We are being taught to redefine what a boy or a girl is? What exactly is the power of the state over our lives?  
 We are in the most critical time in our history since the Civil War. America is the last, best hope for Western Civilization as we look at the world today. Politicians are not the answer. The answer is the truth of the Bible and leaders who are not afraid to join to proclaim it.  
 There was the Second Awakening in the early 1800s and one of the leaders was Charles Finney. His words in 1873 resound today:  
 "Christ crucified for the sins of the world is the Christ that the people need. If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours to a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discrimination, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the Church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in religion, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it. Let us not ignore this fact, my dear brethren; but let us lay it to heart and be thoroughly awake to our responsibility in respect to the morals of this nation."  
 How will you stand against the oppressive power taking place in our country todayWill you bend and bow or stand and be counted as faithful? We are at a crossroads.  You are being given a choice of which path you will chooseChrist came to bring us freedom and liberty, which is to all men if they choose to acceptHe is coming back to bring us peace and destroy the power and bondage of sin.  Have you received the gift of God's love to a world bound by the bondage of sinJesus Christ came to give you freedom and liberty that no government can provide or offer. 

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