Maineville Lighthouse Church

 

I was thinking…Pastor Steve

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Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for

a king.  He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will

take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they

will run in front of his chariots.  Some he will assign to be commanders of

thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap

his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his

chariots.  He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.  

He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them

to his attendants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give

it to his officials and attendants.  Your menservants and maidservants and the

best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.  He will take a

tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.  When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD

will not answer you in that day.” But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.  Then we will be like all the other nations,

with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

1 Samuel 8: 10-20  (NIV)

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     I know, this is a really long Scripture.  But what I wanted to focus on was what the Lord told them the king would do to them…not for them but to them.  He says the king will take the best of everything, including your sons and daughters.  That these people will actually become his slaves.

 

     And they didn’t care.  They just wanted to be like all the other nations around them.  So much for being different.  Peer pressure, I guess.  People don’t change much, do they?  I’ve watched the people in this country do, or want, the same thing.  They want to be like France or England or Sweden.  They tend to forget that we have a different Constitution than they do.  That our forefathers founded this country on a different set of values and a Declaration of Independence.  It is up to us to try and hold the line of democracy, capitalism, and Godly values for ourselves, children, and grandchildren.  We have to remind them of how this country came to be and how to hold it.

 

     With this being the month that has two presidents’ birthdays, I thought I’d focus on President George Washington’s farewell address (yup, you were wondering what this article had to do with February).  This is some of what he touched on:

 

     “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.  The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.  A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.  Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?  And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.  Whatever may 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.”

 

     A religious and moral society is what America needs to survive.  I pray that this country will always serve God and have Jesus as their Lord.  Again, we need to do our best to pass these virtues on to the next generation.  We can’t force them into it, but we do need to model it and train them up to understand the importance of a Godly nation.  God bless and have a great Valentine’s and Presidents Day.