America's Choice

America stands upon the brink of a decision this day with eternal consequences - whether she will openly embrace the sin of homosexuality and protect it with her laws, or whether she will hold to her Godly heritage.

But first let's be clear about a few things.  True Christians - those who have given their lives to Jesus Christ and follow His teachings - do not hate homosexuals, nor do they fear them.  True Christians hate homosexuality and fear the consequences to their society and nation.  There is an enormous difference between the sinner and the sin itself, for each of us are sinners by nature.  Christians hate homosexuality because God hates it.  This is ABUNDANTLY clear and easily shown from His Word throughout both Old and New Testaments.  God hates all sin, yet loves all sinners and desires deeply for us to come to Him in repentance and humility, but the choice is given to each individual.

Likewise, Christians recognize that marriage is an institution created and ordained by God - not Man!  From the very beginning of Creation this has been so.   It is specifically and explicitly designed to join one man and one woman in a life-long bond that produces offspring and, by its very nature reflects Who He is, who we are, and portrays deep spiritual truths about our relationship to God in ways which specifically require one man and one woman.   This too is affirmed throughout both Old and New Testament and in the words of Jesus Himself repeatedly.

Human history is littered with the wreckage of nations that have abandoned God's moral laws and, specifically, His design for marriage.   From the time before the Great Flood, to Sodom and Gomorrah, to Egypt, Greece, Rome, and so forth, one of ... perhaps THE primary trigger of the downfall of each of these empires was their abandonment of God's Laws - and homosexuality in particular.  More specifically though, it is not the just immorality in general that portends the destruction of a nation, for there is always sin present in every nation.   Rather it is the point at which the nation's leadership begins to publicly, officially, and even legally protect and promote such immorality.   For THIS is the point at which the nation's leadership has openly and officially defied God, His design, and His laws.

Such a nation cannot long endure, and history bears this out.

America was founded upon God's laws and rose to greatness because she proudly proclaimed the Lord as her Source, Protector, and Light.  Though children have been taught otherwise in public schools for decades now, even a cursory review of the actual writings of our Founding Fathers proves this in abundance.  Yet in recent decades, America has increasingly drifted from her roots and her God.   Her governing institutions have been systematically eradicating every public proclamation of her reliance upon God and set about erasing all traces of her historic roots in His Word (The Bible).  Steadily, America's populace has softened to, not just the presence of, but the "normalcy" of homosexuality and begun to openly embrace and even promote it.   I have watch with both sadness and horror, the percentages of the population opposed to open, legal, homosexual unions plummet. In many places, the majority opinion is no longer held by those who understand and respect God's design and Word.  Not long ago every state in the Union held laws against homosexual acts, and the very idea that the legal institution of marriage could be perverted to apply to homosexual "unions" was so unthinkable that virtually no such legal definitions were thought necessary.   But recent history has seen many states have to pass laws or constitutional amendments defining and protecting marriage as God designed it and requires.

Today however, even those states' efforts to protect the historical, Biblical definition and institution of marriage has come before the highest court in our land and are in imminent danger of being struck down permanently.  Today, having already slidden far down this slippery slope of immorality and defiance of God, America stands upon the last precipice ... her last opportunity to turn back, or at least postpone, an official, legal embrace of defiance against God's most sacred institution.  If America's government officially states that homosexuality is not only acceptable but protected and even promoted by law, we will have taken that last fatal step of defiantly slapping the face of God and daring Him to render judgment unto us as He did the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah ... along with every other great nation in history in who's footsteps we now tread. I emphasize again that the downfall of Sodom was not simply the sin of homosexuality, but the open condoning of it by its leadership.

In the first chapter of Romans, the Holy Spirit, through Paul the Apostle, lays this out with precision and clarity:

"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.   And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; ... who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them." -- Rom 1:26-32 (emphasis mine)

That last line highlights the point here ... they not only do such things but also "approve of those who practice them".

And as George Mason¹ so aptly stated at the Federal Convention of 1787,
"As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities."

This is it America. Before you lies the same choice that lay before the ancient Israelites 4 millennia ago:

"And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." -- Joshua 24:15

To paraphrase a line from the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "You must choose.  For whereas the true cup will give you eternal life, the false cup will bring death."

Choose wisely America.  For Heaven's sake ... choose wisely.

- Tim -

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^{1. [George Mason: Virginia delegate to Constitutional Convention, often regarded as "the father of the Bill of Rights"]↩}

On "Thankfulness" This Thanksgiving Day

Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!

-- Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31 --

It's been a real joy this month to follow those making posts on Facebook each day about something for which they are thankful.  What a wonderful example they have set.  One thing I have noticed though throughout this month is that not much has been said about to WHOM we are being "thankful".  And while I think it is largely implicit in many such posts, I'd like to take this time to make it explicit!  After all, by definition, "thanks" is something given to another person in gratitude for something they have done or given to us.  Being "thankful" (filled with "thanks" or gratitude) is not something that we can be or think or feel simply within ourselves ... thanks and gratitude are given to another person or persons.  And while there are no doubt MANY sources of blessings and other people in our lives who are deserving our thanks and gratitude, I would like to point out that that is not what this day is about.

I was pleasantly surprised today to discover no less than 3 references to "God" or "Creator" in President Obama's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.  He spends far more time thanking our troops than our Creator, but in all, not bad. Considering the source and his history with these sort of things, I'd say really well done!  Thank you Mr. President!

While it is entirely appropriate to be thankful for all our men and women in uniform every day (and if you know me at all, you know I'm a huge fan of our armed forces!), yet again, with deepest respect, that is NOT what this day is about.

From the first thanksgiving(s) at Plymouth Plantation in 1621, to the founding of our national annual observance by President Lincoln in 1863, and throughout most of our nation's history, this day has been about recognizing that all we have, and indeed "all good things" (Jas 1:17) come from our Great Creator, Redeemer, and Lord - Jesus Christ as those first Puritans fully recognized.

We all have many, many things to be thankful for on this and every day of the year.  Blessings come to us in many forms and through many sources.  But this day was designed and intended to be focused on the One "from Whom all blessings flow" ... Jesus Christ.

President George Washington made the first official proclamation of a (single) "day of thanksgiving" in 1789 at the urging of the newly formed United States Congress (though it was not to become an official annual observance until 1861).  Washington's proclamation read as follows:

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
...

He goes on to implore each of us to repent of both personal and national sins and to continue to solicit God's  help in securing a good and sound government both here and for all nations and to promote "true religion". (See link below for full text)

When President Lincoln officially created "Thanksgiving Day" as an annual national observance in 1861, he wrote these words within the presidential proclamation:

"... No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union."

Although he did not write the following words specifically for Thanksgiving, President Lincoln summed up - perhaps better than any other author I've encountered - what I believe should be the true spirit that should drive all Americans to Thankfulness - ANY day, but especially this one.

On March 30, 1863 President Lincoln, in his Proclamation for a Day of Prayer and Fasting, called the nation to find spiritual strength through prayer with these words:

"Whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness... All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace."

And so I pray that each of us will this day remember, not only those many blessings for which we are so thankful, but even more importantly, let us also explicitly direct our thanks and gratitude to Him from Whom each one of them has come - our gracious and loving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ: the Author and Mediator of all good things.

"Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people." 

-- 1Chron 16:8 --

- Tim -



General history of "Thanksgiving" in America:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/

President George Washington's first official proclamation of Thanksgiving by the U.S. Government:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/thankstext.html

Original sources regarding the event regarded as the "First Thanksgiving":
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/1stthnks.htm

President Lincoln's official founding proclamation of an annual, national day of Thanksgiving:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm

President Obama's Thanksgiving Proclamation 2012:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/20/presidential-proclamation-thanksgiving-day-2012

Remembering September 11, 2001

On Sept 11, 2001, I was on a business trip to Patuxent River Naval Air Station near Washington DC. We'd flown into DC and driven the 50-60 miles south to PAX with several team members in 2 cars. We were well into the day's meetings when the highest ranking officers (Navy captains) were called out of the meetings briefly after the first plane hit.  There were a few whispers about what had happened but we didn't hear much.  We were shocked at the tragedy of what was being circulated, but didn't think too much about it.  I remember being instantly reminded of the B-25 that hit the Empire State Building in heavy fog in the 40s, but this was a perfectly clear day.  Very strange.  The meeting continued.  Then there was a bigger commotion and the officers were pulled out again.  The meeting was halted for 15 minutes, and we all gathered around an officer with a laptop and internet connection to see what CNN had to say.  Reports were sketchy and conflicting, but the 2nd plane had hit the 2nd tower.  Someone had captured the event on video and they it was being played over and over and over and over ...

I walked outside and made a cell phone call back to the guys at the office to see if they had any more / better news as to what was happening.  They were gathered in the conference room watching it on TV, but didn't know any more than we did.  Then I tried calling Andrea ... too late.  Seems everyone had the same idea and suddenly the cellular system was maxed out and nobody was getting any calls through.  I tried for quite awhile, but no-go.  I felt terrible that my first call hadn't been to her and of course she's never let me forget it!!

At some point in all this caos - (memory's getting a bit foggy on the particulars), the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon.  It's difficult to describe the atmosphere and the cascade of events that occurred at that point, but I can say that it was a pretty awesome thing to be on a Navy Base the moment our nation realized we'd been attacked and were now at war.  All hell broke loose around the base.  The meetings ended abruptly and we were given a phone number to call in the morning that would inform us as to whether the meetings would continue the following day.  Then the entire base went on security lock-down.  There were Marines with machine guns everywhere and I was really thankful that our meeting had actually been off-base across the street from the main entrance.  Nobody was getting on or off the base without a full search of their car (dogs, mirrors, everything) and the line was already enormous with people coming an going.

Within our own little group, it quickly became apparent that our own leadership wasn't handling the crisis well and wasn't going to be providing leadership anytime soon.  I was sharing a rental car with another person and so we got together to decide what we were going to do.  My first instinct was to go fill the rental car with gas and buy some non-perishable food items from the local grocery store having no idea what would happen over the next few days.  All flights had been grounded within minutes of the Pentagon attack and the airports were shut down indefinitely.  It was pretty clear we weren't going to be flying back any time soon.  I called the rental agency and was informed that they had waived the usual "one-way" fees and we could drop the cars off anywhere in the country due to the circumstances.

Andrea was around 4 mos pregnant with Daniel at the time and was in an absolute panic back home. She knew only that I was on a trip to DC for a military program meeting. She wasn't even sure whether I was in the Pentagon when it was hit, and now all the lines were locked up well into the late afternoon.  Eventually though, I was finally able to get a land-line call though and she was more than a little relieved.  We spent the evening glued to the TV in our hotel rooms.  It's difficult to describe the boiling mix of uncertainty, fear, frustration, and helplessness we all were feeling ... indeed the entire country was feeling.  You could sense it, see it, hear it everywhere.  It seemed like EVERYTHING came to a halt and people just clung to their TVs & radios for news.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much of it.  I felt somewhat sorry for the news anchors who clearly had no script, no new news, and no clue what was happening.  So they just kept restating what everyone already knew.  Eventually they all started speculating - which was extremely unhelpful - but probably unavoidable too.  Later the reports and pictures of all 4 crashes were coming in - eyewitness accounts, amateur videos & pictures, and then even 1st person accounts from downtown New York and Virginia.

Then, as the entire nation watched on TV ... live in many cases ... the first tower collapsed.  It just started at near the top, and like a deflating airbag, just rolled down on itself from top to bottom spewing an enormous pile of brown dust and ash.  People screamed and ran, and soon most cameras were blotted out by the dust cloud. You could no longer see anything except from extreme long shots where the top of only one tower remained poking above the huge, billowing cloud of dust.  We couldn't believe what we were seeing. It was just gone.  Were there still people in there?  Yes.  Lots.  Only moments before, we'd been watching video of them jumping out of windows to their deaths because they were trapped by the fire.  I'm sure I wasn't the only one trying to, and trying not to, imagine what they must have gone through in those last moments.  How many were there?

Suddenly, the news crews came alive again screaming, expressing their shock, replaying, going for eye-witnesses.  People were speculating and worrying about whether the fall, shock, debris, etc. from the first tower might have weakened the second tower.  They were discussing whether to evacuate emergency crews and how to get engineers there to assess the damage to the other tower ... and then it went as well.  Like an instant replay, it went in nearly identical fashion to the first.  Again, the dust boiled, the cloud thickened, and the streets of Manhattan went dark beneath the cloud.  The live news feeds showed men and women in business suits that were shredded, some covered in blood, all caked in dust and trying to breathe through shirts or jackets to filter the choking dust.  Emergency crews were few and far between being unimaginably overloaded with the magnitude of what was happening, the lack of communication (much less coordination) and now, the loss of huge numbers of their own crews.  Firefighters, emergency crews, and rescue workers were on their way from neighboring towns, counties, and even from most of the rest of the United States, but it would be hours, days, even weeks before any kind of organization could be brought to the huge numbers of people that began pouring in to help.

It was late into the evening before I could bring myself to turn off the TV, wipe the tears away, and try to get some rest.  Tomorrow would be a long day.  But I did sleep ... a little.

Brenda (my rental-car buddy) and I left the next morning after breakfast with our team.  I happened to have a laptop with a map program and a GPS with me that we used to navigate the rental car all the way back to Indiana.   I chose a route through the deep backwoods of West Virginia to avoid having to go back through the DC area fearing horrible traffic. (It turned out it wouldn't have been that bad, but accurate information about ANYTHING was extremely scarce at the time and we didn't want to get anywhere near D.C.).

We were home surprisingly early and traffic wasn't nearly as bad as we'd worried about.  Andrea and my family was extremely relieved and all wanted to hear the tales of our adventure.  The entire nation was in shock for weeks / months and we all stayed glued to the TV as events & information unfolded.

Almost immediately an enormous ground swell of both patriotism and crying out to God took place that swept the nation and was apparent EVERYWHERE.  Flags were hung from overpasses and flown from vehicles, prayer meetings were being held everywhere, and even newscasters were using the word "GOD" in public (of all things) - covering church services and prayer meetings. It was an amazing and, in some ways, wonderful time in that regard.  The liberal, anti-Christian yahoos were strangely silent.  They probably felt they would be putting their lives in danger to attempt to speak out about the public displays of Christianity. (And I'm pretty sure they were right!)  The nation was crying out to God, showing a completely non-partisan unity, and the most amazing display of patriotism I've seen apart from how the history books depict what things were like during WW-II.  Americans took pride in being Americans, again and as the shock and horror turned to resolve, they wanted to know who was responsible.  And about 40 million rednecks with guns were ready to go to war on a moment's notice if anyone would have just said, "jump"!  And it was wonderful!  The daily displays of patriotism, Christianity, and unity were nothing short of amazing.  Yet over all of it hung the shock and dark heaviness of what had happened ... and the uncertainty of what would be happening next.

Over the next few weeks, reports were solidifying about how many people were actually lost ... thousands. How could that be possible?!  How were the towers not evacuated - at least below the fires - in all that time?  But it would be months, even years for all those details to be sorted out.  The event was compared to Pearl Harbor early on, but no one thought it could have been THAT bad (in terms of casualties).  But soon it was realized ... it was worse.  But the worse the news got, the more the country pulled together.  Certain images began to circulate that brought people together.  The "cross" that appeared in the rubble formed by girders; the 3 firefighters raising the flag over what came to be known as "ground zero"; and of course the skyline with the towers still standing.

Despite the way most people seem to want to remember President G. W. Bush, this was his shining moment. He stepped up to the plate, demonstrated true leadership, and spoke some great words during those dark days.  He and New York Major Rudy Giulianni were instantly on-the-ground and in the middle of what was going on.  They were THERE. They brought leadership, hope, strength, courage, resolve, and FAITH to the nation and the nation responded in unity and strength to the president's leadership.

I shudder to think how different it would have been if our current administration had been in power at the time.  Bush did a great job in an impossible situation and the nation LOVED him for it ... for quite awhile. It's a shame how quickly most have forgotten that.  And it's shameful how the subsequent administration has failed to recognize those achievements and the context in which many decisions that have since become unpopular were made.  The public in general has always been fickle and fame, as they say, is fleeting.  But I remember when Bush was at his most popular - and in my opinion, he deserved every moment of it.  Not many men, much less presidents, are handed such a moment ... such a test of character ... when nothing artificial will do - when the whole WORLD looks to you - some out of desperation, some for organization, some just to see what you're made of.  The white-hot, penetrating, soul-revealing glare of the eye's of the entire world turning to you and waiting to see what you'll do and what you'll say.  THAT's when everyone finds out what you're made of - and no amount of politics, or slick speech writing, or posturing, or blame-shifting will cover for a lack of actual character in that man to whom everyone looks for what they need in that moment.  And George W. Bush came through.  That is what I remember most about his presidency. And whether that is your most memorable thought about him or not, it is something that you should not forget.  His leadership brought loyalty from his citizens, respect from his allies, and fear from his enemies during that time.  And that is impressive no matter how you cut it.

Air travel was grounded for a LONG time (don't recall exactly), and it was extremely hard on the nation and really has never recovered.  The impact to the airline industry was horrendous and several major airlines went under - even after "government bail out" attempts.  The restrictions, procedures, and new regulations that flooded into the air travel industry were extreme and, in my opinion, largely ridiculous ... still are.  Up to that point, I'd been flying for business about twice a month and really loved it.  I've never enjoyed flying commercial airlines again since.  The airline industry could certainly have handled the necessary changes to prevent similar tragedies in the future, but the "take over" by the newly created "Office of Homeland Security" - which I personally consider to be president Bush's greatest (though also most understandable) mistake - has left nothing but scars, failed businesses, overburdensome regulations, and massive unnecessary expenses in its wake.  But I digress.

Eleven Years has seen a lot of water go over the dam. And our nation today seems to be to have made it to the complete opposite end of the spectrum during that brief time.  We are more divided than I ever remember, we are less patriotic, more skeptical of our place in the world, and certainly more anti-God and anti-Christian than at any time I've even read about much less experienced.  We've lost our way, lost our resolve, and lost our respect for God.  I attribute this almost entirely to a complete lack of leadership or, worse, leadership in the wrong direction.  What a difference a decade can make.  If you'd have described to me the state of our nation in 2012 from back in 2002, I'd have never believed it.

I hope this day, September 11, 2012, we all will remember what it was like ten years ago when we were proud to be Americans, proud to state that we were a nation UNDER GOD, and proud of our leadership, and that it will provide us with some guidance - at least a vision - of where and what we can be again.  Americans have always been at their best when responding to a challenge.  I wouldn't wish for crisis / tragedy / challenges to come upon our country, but boy could we use one about now.

- Tim -