“ WHO BUT THE RULER OF THE WINDS?..........” As the president of In our lowest and most dangerous state, in 1776 and 1777, we sustained our selves against the British Amy of sixty thousand troops, commanded by…. The ablest generals Who but a Who but the Ruler of the winds could have delayed the British reinforcements by three months of contrary ocean winds at a critical point of the war? Or what but “ a providential miracle’ at the last minute detected the treacherous scheme of traitor Benedict Arnold, which would have delivered the American army, including George Washington himself, into the hands of the enemy? On the French role in the Revolution, it is God who so ordered the balancing interests of nations as to produce an irresistible motive in the European maritime powers to take our part…….. The United States are under peculiar obligations to become a holy people unto the Lord our God. WORSHIP “ Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!” MARK 4:41
WORLD WAR II IN THE CLOSE OF HIS ANNUAL State of the Union messages to Congress in January 1939, and with war about to break out in One wonders if WITH THE JAPANESE ATTACK ONF PEARL HARBOR on December 7,1941, Americans whose lives has been shaped by the trying times of the Great Depression volunteered by the hundreds of thousands to fight the enemies abroad and to save the world form tyranny. The majority of th worlds nations split into opposing military alliances; the Allies and the Axis powers. Over 100 million military personnel would engage in the battle, and over 60 million people, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest and most widespread war in history. By the D-Day invasion of FROM OVERCOMING THE MISERY OF LONG years of economic depression in the 1930’s, to defeating Nazism and Japanese imperialism, to the Herculean task of remaking the postwar American society, this generation of Americans born of “ a rendezvous with destiny’ was undoubtedly the most influential of the twentieth century. But what was it that made them a generation of patriots, heroes, and builders? Perhaps the answer was expressed through one of their won, Mitchell Paige, a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s most prestigious military honor, for his actions at the Battle of Guadalcanal in the In the years to come, Paige was repeatedly asked why he would be willing to put his life on the line for his country. He aid that the answers took him back to the Pennsylvania three-room country school where the children were so steeped in the traditions of America that they literally felt themselves a part of a glorious heritage-where the teacher opened the school day with a Bible verse and the Pledge of allegiance, and where they memorized all the great documents that established the bedrock of America, such as the Gettysburg Address. “TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND LEAN NOT OUR YOUR OWN UNDERSANDING; IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, AND HW WILL DIRECT YOUR PATHS. “ His response went this way; “ My undying love of country, and my strong loyalty to the marines fighting by my side, gave me no choice but to fight on unswervingly throughout my battle, utilizing my God-given ability to make use of what I had been taught and learned.” WHEN PAIGE LEFT HOME TO WALK the two-hundred miles to the nearest marines recruiting station in 1936, his mother packed him a lunch in which she included the note; “ Trust in the Lord, son, and he will guide your always.” He aid those words remained forever in his mind and whenever fear would overtake him, he was comforted by them. Paige said, “ I will never forget sitting in a foxhole, bloody, burned, and injured the morning after our all-night, fierce, hand to hand battle against on overwhelming Japanese force on Mitchell Paige was a true servant and patriot of In 1917, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States, stated: The most perfect machinery of government will not keep us as a nation from destruction if there is not within us a soul. No abounding material prosperity shall avail us if our spiritual senses atrophy. The foes of our own household shall surely prevail against us unless there be in our people a inner life which finds its outward expression in a morality not very widely different from the preached by the seers and prophets of Judea when the grandeur that was Greece and the glory that was Rome sill lay in the future. In his Farewell Address to his countryman, Washington said: “Morality is a necessary spring of popular government… and let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can e maintained without religion. Whatever many be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” …..His words were given expression when the European movement with which the American people were in most complete sympathy-the French Revolution-had endeavored to destroy the abuses of priestcraft and bigotry by abolishing not only Christianity but religion. ….. The result was a cynical disregard of morality and a carnival of cruelty and bigotry, committed in the name of reason and liberty. Which equaled anything ever done by Torguemada and the fanatics of the Inquesition in the name of religion and order? Washington wished his fellow countrymen to walk clear of such folly and iniquity. As in all cases where he dealt with continuing causes, his words are as well worth pondering now as when they were written… In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoff at or ignore their Christian duties is a community on the rapid downgrade. It is perfectly true that occasional individuals or families may have nothing to do with church or with religious practices and observances and yet maintain the highest standard of spirituality and of ethical obligation. But this does not affect the case in the world as it now is, any more than that exceptional en and women under exceptional conditions have disregarded the marriage tie without moral harm to themselves interferes with the larger fact that such disregard if at all common means the complete moral disintegration of the body politic. MORAL STRENGTH………everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him. 1 JOHN 2:29 FAITH “ … all things are possible to him who believes.” MARK 9:23 THE MOTTO OF THE STATE OF |