Author: John Page 121 of 172

II Chronicles 15:7 “Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.”

Adoniram Judson, nineteenth century missionary to Burma, was determined to remain faithful to his calling through doubt and discouragement. Even though he didn’t see a single convert in the first six years of his ministry, he continued on faithfully. By the time of his death, he left behind dozens of churches, thousands of Christians, the first-ever Burmese-English dictionary, and a Burmese translation of the Bible. The fruit came because he didn’t leave. Through the challenges of his ministry, Judson said “I will not leave Burma until the cross is planted here forever.” Two centuries have passed since his arrival in South Asia, and the gospel of Christ continues to thrive in his absence … all because he didn’t give up.

Judson’s work was rewarded because he was strong in the Lord and refused to let weakness overcome him. His dogged determination to serve Christ, even in the absence of visible progress, allowed God to use him in a mighty way.

American Christian, your work will be rewarded if you are strong, faithful, and determined. Your prayers will be rewarded if you are similarly strong, faithful and determined. Your work to return this country to its Christ-centered foundation may not yet have yielded any visible fruit. Your prayers for nationwide repentance and revival may not yet have produced any visible progress. Yet, God will work through us if we remain strong, faithful, and determined. He will produce amazing fruit if we stave off weakness, doubt, and discouragement. Indeed, He is already working though we may not see it. Don’t give up on Him. The moment we give in to weakness may be the moment before God’s Spirit is ready to sweep over this land.

PLEASE PRAY FOR STRENGTH, FAITHFULNESS, AND DETERMINATION TO REMAIN COMMITTED AND PRAYERFUL. Our work shall be rewarded!

NOTE: Last week on Twitter and Facebook I kicked off a new PLUS campaign – IF YOU’RE ALARMED, SET YOUR ALARM! This week’s thought – If you’re alarmed (by an American citizen being jailed for sincerely held religious beliefs), set your alarm (to pray for our nation).

Philippians 2:10-11 “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

As the Treaty of Paris (signed September 3^rd, 1783) continued from its opening statement, the document and its signatories recognized that it “pleased the Divine Providence” to mold hearts to bring about peace. In doing so, the treaty that was ultimately ratified in the national capitol of Annapolis, Maryland in January 1784 acknowledged God’s undeniable hand in the formation of America.

The leaders of this world, as they should, bowed to the name of Jesus. They confessed, as they should, that Christ is Lord. They gave glory, as they should, to God the Father. So should we! Our American forefathers refused to allow an important historical landmark to go by without acknowledging God’s role in it. After all, His role is always the preeminent role.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD BOLDLY PROCLAIM GOD’S PREEMINENT ROLE IN OUR LIVES AND IN OUR NATION. It would please Divine Providence for us to do so.

Philippians 2:8-9 “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.”

On September 3^rd, 1783, representatives from the United States of America and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, officially bringing the Revolutionary War to a close. The terms of the agreement were very favorable to the new American nation (negotiations nearly prompted the British to even give us what is now eastern Canada). The document signed by British representative David Hartley and American representatives John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay began with the simple but important phrase:

“In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.”

It is very sensible to begin this important treaty with His name. He is the source of all authority and credibility. He is rightly exalted and glorified. He rules nations and governs relationships. He has a name that is above every name.

The hopeful nation would never have succeeded in its bid for independence had the colonists not fully relied upon Him and His name. The fledgling nation would never have started on favorable terms had they not fully relied upon Him and His name. The maturing nation would never have grown and thrived had they not fully relied upon Him and His name. Similarly, our present-day nation will not succeed if we fail to fully rely upon Him and His name. PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD FULLY RELY UPON HIM, LEADING OUR NATION TO DO THE SAME. We successfully began “in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.” We will only successfully continue in the same.

Isaiah 1:25-27 “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.”

Samuel Langdon did not see his current situation as beyond hope. Nor should we. Langdon’s formula for retrenchment and recovery was a personal and national revival:

“Would it not be much superior wisdom and sounder policy for a distressed kingdom to retrench the vast unnecessary expenses continually incurred by its enormous vices?  To stop the prodigious sums paid in pensions, and to numberless officers, without the least advantage to the public?  To reduce the number of devouring servants in the great family?  To turn their minds from the pursuit of pleasure and the boundless luxuries of life, to the important interests of their country and the salvation of the commonwealth?  Would not a reverend regard to the authority of divine revelation, a hearty belief of the gospel of the grace of God, and a general reformation of all those vices which bring misery and ruin upon individuals, families, and kingdoms, and which have provoked heaven to bring the nation into such perplexed and dangerous circumstances, be the surest way to recover the sinking state, and make it again rich and flourishing?  Millions might annually be saved, if the kingdom were generally and thoroughly reformed; and the public debt, great as it is, might in a few years be cancelled by a growing revenue, which now amounts to full ten millions per annum, without laying additional burdens on any of the subjects.  But the demands of corruption are constantly increasing, and will forever exceed all the resources of wealth which the wit of man can invent or tyranny impose.”

Our nation, like Langdon’s, is sinking under the weight of its own onerous errors. The demands of corruption are constantly increasing, and increasingly unbearable. The surest way to return to our former glory is to cling to the source of our former glory. Our distressed kingdom demands reformation that returns us to righteousness and the righteous One.

PLEASE PRAY FOR A SWEEPING NATIONAL PERIOD OF REVIVAL AND REPENTENCE. It is not yet too late to recover and retrench. To flourish once again, we must do so immediately.

Isaiah 1:2 “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.”

While Samuel Langdon largely focused his condemnation on the corruption of the British government, he recognized the condemnation due to the people themselves because of their corruption. Langdon stated:

“Let us consider–that for the sins of a people God may suffer the best government to be corrupted, or entirely dissolved; and that nothing but a general reformation can give ground to hope that the public happiness will be restored, by the recovery of the strength and perfection of the state, and that Divine Providence will interpose to fill every department with wise and good men.”

“But, alas, have not the sins of America, and of New England in particular, had a hand in bringing down upon us the righteous judgments of Heaven?  Wherefore is all this evil come upon us?  Is it not because we have forsaken the Lord?  Can we say we are innocent of crimes against God?  No, surely; it becomes us to humble ourselves under His mighty hand, that He may exalt us in due time.  However unjustly and cruelly we have been treated by man, we certainly deserve, at the hand of God, all the calamities in which we are now involved.  Have we not lost much of that spirit of genuine Christianity, which so remarkably appeared in our ancestors, for which God distinguished them with the signal favors of providence, when they fled from tyranny and persecution into this western desert?  Have we not departed from their virtues?  Though I hope and am confident that as much true religion, agreeable to the purity and simplicity of the gospel, remains among us as among any people in the world, yet in the midst of the present great apostasy of the nations professing Christianity, have not we likewise been guilty of departing from the living God?  Have we not made light of the gospel of salvation, and too much affected the cold, formal, fashionable religion of countries grown old in vice and overspread with infidelity?  Do not our follies and iniquities testify against us?  Have we not, especially in our seaports, gone much too far into the pride and luxuries of life?   Is it not a fact open to common observation that profaneness, intemperance, unchastity, the love of pleasure, fraud, avarice, and other vices, are increasing among us from year to year?”

Christians should look inward as well as outward as we consider the errant direction of our nation. Our government is a mere reflection of us. Even the best governments can be corrupted and dissolved by our sins. Alas, our sins have had a hand in bringing down the righteous judgments of Heaven upon us. We are not innocent of crimes against God, and as we have departed from His virtues, we deserve His wrath.

PLEASE PRAY FOR CHRISTIANS TO EXAMINE OURSELVES TO ROOT OUT ALL SIN. Even the best government cannot withstand an onslaught of sin from its citizens.