The following preface was written three days before the election that gave us Donald Trump as President and Mike Pence as Vice President....the accompanying post about four months earlier. The economy....if you ignore the debt and the bubbles and North Korea and the ambitions of communist China and Iran along with their sycophants...is on paper doing well.....society.....not so much. We have not changed one iota for the better in the preceding 17 months.
The Puritan mind....whether it be English or early American....reverenced God and lived life to the fullest....minus smart phones of course. They were humble before the face of God....passionate about His holiness....and precise in their doctrine....but here's the kicker. J. I. Packer....noted scholar on the Puritans....once responded to a comment about them as being 'giants' of the faith with something like this....."it's not that they were giants....but that we are Pygmies." It's not a golden age of the church that is needed.....but that this malnourished and biblically ignorant age we live in needs overcome. Little chance of gleaning anything from the Puritans though for we do not have any idea who they really were.....even though they not only came before Washington, Adams and Jefferson but laid the intellectual groundwork for the founders of this nation to concoct this constitutional republic.
Consider if you will the Puritan prayer that concludes this post. It doesn't sound like the Puritans that have been described to you does it?
November 5, 2016
These next few days will certainly be nerve-racking for all Americans who understand that our republic is in danger of total collapse. They will be waiting with bated breath until the election returns start to come in....as will I....but not entirely for the same reasons. Donald Trump can do nothing to save our nation....as neither could any of our great leaders from the past if they were with us today. Breitbart News reported on a rally of Donald Trump's yesterday in New Hampshire where at one point he departed from the teleprompter text. A man, caught up in the euphoria of the moment, yelled out..."Save us!" to which Donald Trump responded...."We're gonna save ourselves!" His comment was meant to imply that we 'all' will save ourselves...not just him, but still it was further evidence that we are looking for help in the wrong place.
No Day Of My Life.....6/29/16
Ronald Reagan could not right this ship of state. George Washington could not buy us another day apart from what God has allotted. Thomas Jefferson could not convince this moribund Congress of its illness. Benjamin Franklin could not shame this media into doing their job. Abraham Lincoln could not find words of wisdom to penetrate the cold, listless, Facebook mentality that paralyzes our intellects. Self-abasement and repentance are what is needed in America. We have done it before but we are different people today. We are more likely to demand that God admit a little culpability in our problems.
It was probably the mid 1990's when I was listening to John MacArthur's radio program Grace To You, and he offered his listening audience a free book titled Valley of Vision. The offer slipped my mind and I never sent for it but happened upon it one day while looking through a catalog from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The full title is The Valley Of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, and it's edited by Arthur Bennett and published by Banner Of Truth Trust. It sits prominently on a table in our dining room and I use it as a dinner prayer book regardless of who we might have over. It is one of my most valued possessions in life.
The following is one of those prayers. I read it over three or four times before starting to compose this post. The reader does not know the author of the prayers. A dozen or so names from the past are given but it was intentional not to put a name to the individual prayers. Please consider meditating on the words of this prayer if only for a few minutes. Does your pastor pray in this spirit of humility? Do your own prayers prostrate yourself before God as this prayer would have us?
The Broken Heart
O Lord, No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in thy sight,
Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart;
Praise has been often praiseless sound;
My best services are filthy rags.
Blessed Jesus, Let me find a covert in thy appeasing wounds.
Though my sins rise to heaven thy merits soar above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell,
Thy righteousness exalts me to thy throne.
All things in me call for my rejection,
All things in thee plead my acceptance.
I appeal from the throne of perfect justice
To thy throne of boundless grace,
Grant me to hear thy voice assuring me:
that by thy stripes I am healed,
that thou wast bruised for my iniquities,
that thou hast been made sin for me,
that I might be righteous in thee,
that my grievous sins, my manifold sins,
are all forgiven,
buried in the ocean of thy concealing blood.
I am guilty, but pardoned
lost, but saved.
wandering, but found,
sinning, but saved,
Give me perpetual broken-heartedness,
Keep me always clinging to thy cross.
Flood me every moment with descending grace,
sparkling like crystal
flowing clear and unsullied
through my wilderness of life
The Puritan mind....whether it be English or early American....reverenced God and lived life to the fullest....minus smart phones of course. They were humble before the face of God....passionate about His holiness....and precise in their doctrine....but here's the kicker. J. I. Packer....noted scholar on the Puritans....once responded to a comment about them as being 'giants' of the faith with something like this....."it's not that they were giants....but that we are Pygmies." It's not a golden age of the church that is needed.....but that this malnourished and biblically ignorant age we live in needs overcome. Little chance of gleaning anything from the Puritans though for we do not have any idea who they really were.....even though they not only came before Washington, Adams and Jefferson but laid the intellectual groundwork for the founders of this nation to concoct this constitutional republic.
Consider if you will the Puritan prayer that concludes this post. It doesn't sound like the Puritans that have been described to you does it?
November 5, 2016
These next few days will certainly be nerve-racking for all Americans who understand that our republic is in danger of total collapse. They will be waiting with bated breath until the election returns start to come in....as will I....but not entirely for the same reasons. Donald Trump can do nothing to save our nation....as neither could any of our great leaders from the past if they were with us today. Breitbart News reported on a rally of Donald Trump's yesterday in New Hampshire where at one point he departed from the teleprompter text. A man, caught up in the euphoria of the moment, yelled out..."Save us!" to which Donald Trump responded...."We're gonna save ourselves!" His comment was meant to imply that we 'all' will save ourselves...not just him, but still it was further evidence that we are looking for help in the wrong place.
No Day Of My Life.....6/29/16
Ronald Reagan could not right this ship of state. George Washington could not buy us another day apart from what God has allotted. Thomas Jefferson could not convince this moribund Congress of its illness. Benjamin Franklin could not shame this media into doing their job. Abraham Lincoln could not find words of wisdom to penetrate the cold, listless, Facebook mentality that paralyzes our intellects. Self-abasement and repentance are what is needed in America. We have done it before but we are different people today. We are more likely to demand that God admit a little culpability in our problems.
It was probably the mid 1990's when I was listening to John MacArthur's radio program Grace To You, and he offered his listening audience a free book titled Valley of Vision. The offer slipped my mind and I never sent for it but happened upon it one day while looking through a catalog from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The full title is The Valley Of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, and it's edited by Arthur Bennett and published by Banner Of Truth Trust. It sits prominently on a table in our dining room and I use it as a dinner prayer book regardless of who we might have over. It is one of my most valued possessions in life.
The following is one of those prayers. I read it over three or four times before starting to compose this post. The reader does not know the author of the prayers. A dozen or so names from the past are given but it was intentional not to put a name to the individual prayers. Please consider meditating on the words of this prayer if only for a few minutes. Does your pastor pray in this spirit of humility? Do your own prayers prostrate yourself before God as this prayer would have us?
The Broken Heart
O Lord, No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in thy sight,
Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart;
Praise has been often praiseless sound;
My best services are filthy rags.
Blessed Jesus, Let me find a covert in thy appeasing wounds.
Though my sins rise to heaven thy merits soar above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell,
Thy righteousness exalts me to thy throne.
All things in me call for my rejection,
All things in thee plead my acceptance.
I appeal from the throne of perfect justice
To thy throne of boundless grace,
Grant me to hear thy voice assuring me:
that by thy stripes I am healed,
that thou wast bruised for my iniquities,
that thou hast been made sin for me,
that I might be righteous in thee,
that my grievous sins, my manifold sins,
are all forgiven,
buried in the ocean of thy concealing blood.
I am guilty, but pardoned
lost, but saved.
wandering, but found,
sinning, but saved,
Give me perpetual broken-heartedness,
Keep me always clinging to thy cross.
Flood me every moment with descending grace,
sparkling like crystal
flowing clear and unsullied
through my wilderness of life
