From the Writings of James Ryle-Nov. 4

     I came across this last night in my meandering, and found it food for thought.

The Book of Presidents

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15, NASB).

On this day we vote into office our next President. Much has been said and done by both candidates in their campaigns for our support. One will win, and one will lose — whether it’s a blowout, or one of the tightest elections in history.

But the bigger question is, “Will WE win?”

Those who pursue the high office seem to be increasingly dismissive of the Highest Office of them all. This is a grave mistake. For no man can soundly govern a nation who is not himself being governed by God; to have authority, one must be under authority. The alternative is dictatorship.

Here is a brief view of how our previous Presidents have regarded the influence of God in their lives and administrations, particularly as that influence was wrought through their devotion to the Bible:

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” — George Washington

“So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society…” —John Quincy Adams

“That Book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests.” — Andrew Jackson

“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to men. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.” — Abraham Lincoln

“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future.” — Ulysses S. Grant

“There are a good many problems before the American people today, and before me as President, but I expect to find the solution of those problems just in the proportion that I am faithful in the study of the Word of God. A man has deprived himself of the best there is in the world who has deprived himself of this, a knowledge of the Bible. When you have read the Bible, you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.” — Woodrow Wilson

“We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.” —Franklin Roosevelt

“The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life.” — Herbert Hoover

“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!” —Harry Truman

“The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all the problems men face. The Bible can touch hearts, order minds, and refresh souls.” — Ronald Reagan

May God revive our spirits and restore our Nation to a love for His Word, that we may walk in His ways.

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A Thought on the Secret Destroyer of Men in our Society

     Did you know that the men of this country are under attack, and that many of them have been destroyed, and the people around them destroyed as well?  Did you know that our young boys are being targeted before they’re even old enough to know that they’re under attack?  Do you know why they’re being attacked, and how, and that the method of attack is so devious and so subtle that our men and boys are being taken out before they have any awareness of what’s going on?

          Why would anyone want to destroy men in our country?  What would be the purpose?   Think about it.  In order to answer those questions I believe it’s of vital importance to talk about what a man is, and why he’s important.  What is a man?  King David asked the question this way in Psalms 144:3 “Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him!  or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!”  People have been pondering this ever since. 

    So what is man?  Man is a spiritual, moral being.  He was created, and intended to be this.  Creation is the first and foremost witness of the creator.  To deny the Creator is to look up at the night-time sky with its’ billions of stars twinkling overhead, and say you can’t see them.  Man, as a created being, cannot be and will not be a man in the way God designed him apart from his spiritual and moral development.  He was made in the image of God, and the more man denies the imprint of the God who created him, and the further away he moves from that knowledge, the more he devolves into a being of little worth and little virtue. 

   Why is man important?  What is his purpose?  From the dawn of creation, these questions have been pondered and debated, and the fact they have been so is a witness to the ignorance and inability of man on his own to see what’s right in front of him.  There’s no great mystery, no indiscernible theory, to contemplate here because the answer has been implanted in the heart of man since his Creator breathed the breath of life into his dust-formed body.  At the risk of oversimplification, man is important because God made him.  God made him in his image, as a representation of all that is holy, good, and perfect.  The purpose of man is to display the glory and perfection of God in all of His unequaled love and holiness. 

     To look at man in view of what he was intended to be, and what he is now is to see what happens when God is set aside and the things of God ignored.  Man’s downfall and his subsequent degeneration wasn’t due, as some believe, to Eve’s taking and eating of the apple.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say sin entered into the world through Eve, or that it was Eve’s sin that precipitated the downfall of man.  It was through Adam that sin entered the world, and through sin (which is rebellion against God) that the true nature of man was and is corrupted.

     Man, being corrupted, had lost his value, and was worthless for the purpose which God intended, and would have remained so had not God in His infinite love not made a way for man to be redeemed.  Man, in and of himself, had no way to save himself, could do nothing to earn his redemption.  Like mold on bread, sugar in gas, man’s corrupted nature had to be thrown out and replaced.  Only a perfect representation of what man was intended to be could restore corrupted man to his God intended condition, and so Christ Jesus took the sin that corrupted man on himself, and paid the price of sin by his death on the cross and His resurrection thus offering man the gift of restoration to what he was originally intended to be.  God made the way for man to be redeemed, but left man with the choice whether or not to be so.

      Now, I’ve said that men are under attack, and that’s true, but if that’s true, then it’s truer still that the man who follows Christ is even more so.  Every man makes a decision about the man he’s going to be.  Either he decides he’s going to choose to be the man God intended by taking the gift God offered through his son, or continue to live in the corruption he was born into.

     Now, we live in a country where I think that the kind of man God intended for man to be is being attacked in a way never before seen in history.  Think about it.  Look at the corruption in our society, in government, in business, in religion; in the way that men are constantly and incessantly being bombarded with every form of vice that can be hurled at them.  In our society, a man is not a man if he doesn’t drink, make a lot of money, look rough and tough, be sexy and attractive, and be powerful in bed and in the boardroom. 

    The secret destroyer of men in our society is the forever enemy of God, and he’s alive and well.   Men are being destroyed in this country.  Make no doubt of it.  They’re being destroyed not by sex or alcohol, or the love of money though they are the destroyer’s favorite tools, but rather they are being destroyed by those who are trying to destroy the Definer, the one who defined His creation and gave man his true idenity.  The sucess of the destroyer is the result of our failure to be vigilant, to be forthright, to be courageous, to be the full representation of what God called us to be.

     I say this again.  The men of this country are under attack, and I say the following to all christian men: if we don’t unite  and take our responsibility to be what God designed and calls us to be seriously our country will fail.   Christian men we must be willing to stand in front of our children and fight for them.  We must live before our boys as Christ lived before us.  We, as men of God, must stand firm in our belief and love of our Creator, our children, and ourselves.  If our country is to survive and remain great, we must have and train our men to be great . . . .

From the Writings of F.B. Meyer-Nov. 3

 

 

     It’s a precious thing to me to know that I’m never alone no matter what I may be feeling.  In those moments when I can’t express the deep fears I have, nor the sorrow for ill-considered days, and wasted opportunities to love.  To know that I’ve been forgiven, that I am loved in spite of and beyond all, and that He is always with me.  How I wish everyone could have that kind of comfort.

 

THE INDWELLING SPIRIT

 

“I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever.”–

Joh_14:16.

THE GIFT of the Holy Spirit was due to the intercession of our Lord, and St. Peter refers to it when he says: “Having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit” (

Act_2:33). In 1Jo_2:1 (R.V.) marg. the word Comforter is translated Advocate–“One who makes us strong by His presence, as Helper, Guide, and Instructor.” Think what this means, to have always beside us, not a vague influence, but a Divine Person, who waits to be our strength in weakness, our peace in trouble, our wisdom in perplexity, our conqueror in temptations, our consoler in sorrow. The Lord meant that the Holy Spirit should be to us all that He Himself had been. This is the meaning of Another. There are two Advocates, or two Paracletes. When the One ascended to the glory, the Other descended into the hearts of His disciples. “He abideth with you, and shall be in you.”

“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” Christ had been speaking of sending Another; now He says, I am coming Myself, so that we learn that He is so indissoluble One with the Holy Spirit, Whom He sends, that the coming of the Spirit is His own coming. Do not look for the Spirit apart from Jesus. As the sun comes in the light, so does Jesus come in the Spirit. When we are filled with the Spirit, we shall not think of Him, but of Jesus to whom He bears witness, and when our hearts are taken up with the Lord, we may know that we have received Him, who is the Gift of gifts.

 

Open your whole nature to the entrance of the Holy Spirit. Unlock every door, uncurtain every window, that entering He may fill you with the glorious indwelling of the Father and the Son. “I will prepare a “mansion,” Jesus said; and, “We will make the holy soul Our Mansion.”

 

“‘He shall teach you all things.” His lesson-book is the life and words of our blessed Lord. We may think that we are fully informed of all that He has said, but as we study the Bible, the Holy Spirit brings us back to them again and again, always revealing new light, and undreamt of depths. Never let a day pass without reading some of the words of Jesus under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

 

PRAYER

 

Thou hast not left us comfortless, O God. May life be renewed in its springs, by the gracious operation of Thy Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and leading us from grace to grace. AMEN.