".....but the real cross of Christ is not there."

        The following is my Lord's Day post which I will leave up for a day and then transfer to another blog:

         In roughly twelve hours from now pastors will take to pulpits across this land. What will be preached from those pulpits will entertain, inform, motivate and comfort. Folks, I don't mean this as a compliment. From other pulpits doctrine will be preached in amongst extravagant worship... doctrine that is man-made and worthless, and yet in others there will be a condemnation with no love and no realization that that condemnation was first ours before God reached in and plucked us out of the fires. In other pulpits, and I don't know what percentage this is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed preached. The cross is preached. The love of God, demonstrated to us from Calvary, is evident along with judgment mixed with mercy for those who believe.
         My hope, my prayer for America, has been what I wrote first in a post from July of 2011:  My prayer has consistently been for God to allow 40 more years...one more period where we would be a source of stability in the world, one more generation added to a storied past of spreading freedom and liberty, one more testimony to the rest of the world that God upholds nations who trust in Him. I hope only for 40 years because of human nature. A couple decades of trusting solely in Jesus Christ and we surely would begin to fall away again. Pessimism, you say? I look at it as the opposite for it is only God's mercy and grace that permitted the world to reach this stage and God is as real today as when He, time and again, humbled and blessed repentant Israel.... as when He sent His church throughout the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.... as when the Reformation of the 16th century exploded in the hearts and minds of peoples and nations.... as when he guided the Mayflower to Plymouth Rock and as when He crushed the occult Nazi Third Reich. We will turn to Him as a nation...should He will it. And if we do not then that is also His will, also glorious as it would be His plan and maybe...maybe...a precursor to His Second Coming in power and glory, the fulfillment of all of history and the final triumph of good over evil. As bleak as the future of our nation is it is within one word of restoration and that word would be spoken within the Godhead. If you are not overly concerned right now, any words that I write would surely seem ridiculous. If you are, then we are two of hopefully many who are petitioning God for one more manifestation of His power in mercy and blessings upon our nation...and therefore the world.
          Personally, I'm convinced that should God have mercy upon us as a nation it will begin in our pulpits. If you should happen to agree with me then please pray for your pastor. Pray that he would be overcome with dread at what we as a nation have become and then filled with the power that only God's Holy Spirit can give, the power to preach the redemptive graces won on that cross of Calvary. Graces that can protect us from the deception that engulfs us as a raging forest fire destroying everything in it's path.
          The Chapel Library is a ministry that "Send (s) Christ centered materials from prior centuries worldwide." I would like to quote the 19th century Anglican preacher from London, J. C. Ryle, from some materials I just received: "You may know a good deal about Jesus Christ, by a kind of head knowledge. You may know who He was, where he was born, and what He did. You may know His miracles, His sayings, His prophesies, and His ordinances. you may know how He lived, how He suffered, and how He died. But unless you know the power of Christ's cross by experience, unless you know and feel within that the blood shed on that cross has washed away your own particular sins, unless you are willing to confess that your salvation depends entirely on that work that Christ did upon the cross-unless this be the case, Christ will profit you nothing.... you must know His cross and His blood, or else you will die in your sins."
           The Reverend Ryle, who preached at the same time and in the same city as Charles Spurgeon, continued, "As long as you live, beware of a religion in which there is not much of the cross (emphasis his).....there is carved oak and sculptured stone; there is stained glass and brilliant painting; there are solemn services and a constant round of ordinances; but the real cross of Christ is not there. Jesus Christ is not proclaimed in the pulpit. The Lamb of God is not lifted up, and salvation by faith in Him is not freely proclaimed. And hence, all is wrong......Do not be ashamed of the 'old paths' in which men walked who were inspired by the Holy Ghost. Let not the vague talk of modern teachers, who speak great swelling words about 'catholicity' and 'the church' disturb your peace and make you loose your hands from the cross."
           Our pulpits, many of them, are filled with men who love Christ but for one reason or another failed in their calling to preach Him. Pray for them for in doing so you will be praying for us all in a nation that, evidenced by news items every day, is hastening to oblivion.

The Gideon's

         The Apollo 8 mission in 1968 saw, for the first time, man leave the gravitational pull of the earth and come under the same force of another heavenly body. Frank Borman commanded the mission that included James Lovell and William Anders. On Christmas Eve, on the ninth orbit of the Moon, with the world watching on television, the three astronauts read in turn the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis:
 
         In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
        And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
        And God said, "Let there be light", and there was light.
        And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
        And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
         And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
        And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
        And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
        And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.
        And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:  And God saw that it was good. (KJV)

         There was a Japanese correspondent watching this on television from his hotel and called NASA for a copy of the script that the astronaut was reading. He was asked where he was calling from and told to look in the desk drawer and he would see it in the first ten verses of the first book, Genesis, of the Gideon Bible that would be there. The correspondent was impressed that NASA Public Relations would leave him an advance copy of the script! (This from an old Parade Magazine I believe.)
          In 1982, as a new Christian, my wife and I were on our first cruise. As we rounded the western end of Cuba there was a storm that rocked the boat so much that the passengers could do nothing but sit in their cabins. Too new of a believer to even bring a Bible with me, I opened the desk drawer and there was a Gideon Bible. I opened it and read the first verses that I came to. It was the 93rd Psalm. As the boat rocked, I read:

The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty;
The Lord has clothed and girded Himself with strength;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.

Thy throne is established from old;
Thou art from everlasting.

The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their pounding waves.

More than the sounds of many waters,
Than the mighty breakers of the sea,
The Lord on high is mighty.

Thy testimonies are fully confirmed;
Holiness befits Thy house,
O Lord, forevermore. (NAS)
 
          I'm writing this blog from a motel room and the ever present Gideon Bible is in the drawer. They have distributed over 1.5 billion Bibles since 1908 and I am reminded of Romans 10:15b:
How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. (NIV)