Thought for January 18

 History:

• 1644: Pilgrims in Boston report America's first UFO sighting
• 1865: Battle of Fort Moultrie, Sullivan's Island SC. My children and grandchildren have climbed over the canons.
• 1896: First demonstration of the x-ray machine in the US
• 1919: Bentley Motors founded
• 1929: Walter Winchell debuts on radio
• 1948: Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour premiers
• 1951: NFL rules that center, guards and tackles are ineligible for a forward pass
• 1963: Al Davis becomes head coach and general manager of the Raiders
• 1974: Premier of "The Six Million Dollar Man"
• Born: Peter Mark Roget [Thesaurus], Daniel Webster, Joseph Glidden [first usable barbed wire], Daniel Williams [first open heart surgery], AA Milne [Winnie the Pooh], Oliver Hardy, Cary Grant, Danny Kaye, Ray Dolby [sound expert], Bobby Goldsboro, Kevin Costner
• Died: John Tyler, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Ponzi, Curley Howard [3 Stooges], Goose Tatum [Globetrotters], Minnesota Fats, Sargent Shriver, Richard Harvey Cain, Louisa Stead.

Richard Harvey Cain was born in 1825 to a Cherokee mother and an African American father. Converted at 16, he led many of his co-workers on an Ohio River steamboat to Christ. Became an AME pastor, attended Wilberforce College. After the war, he went to Charleston as minister to freed slaves where he founded churches and grew his own church to 2000 members. He help found the SC Republican Party, was a member of the SC Constitution Convention and became a Congressman. Upon his death, both the Baptist and Methodist of SC passed a resolution saying, "He was chaste in thought and word and was a living epistle seen and read by all men." Live so that this can be said of you.

Louisa Stead accepted Christ at age 9. After immigrating to the US, she committed her life to missions and wanted to go to China. Her health prevented her from going so she married and had a child. Soon after, her husband drowned. She took her child and went to South Africa as a missionary. There she wrote "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." A single mother takes a child and moves to South Africa--her song tells us what sustained her:

    Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word

    Just to rest upon His promise, just to know "thus saith the Lord.

    How I've proved Him o'er and o'er [sounds like Malachi--prove me now says the Lord of Hosts]

    Oh for grace to trust Him more

    And I know that He is with me, will be with me til the end

Thought: 

In my Bible I have marked a sentence that is repeated 4 times in chapters 9 and 10 of Isaiah: "In spite of all this His anger does not turn away and His hand is still stretched out." When something is repeated, I try and pay attention. When God repeats it 4 times in 14 verses, I really pay attention. What could possibly cause God to continue in His anger? Israel's arrogance.

God sent Syria, the Philistines and the Arameans against Israel hoping it would repent and turn to Him, and yet their response was --we can rebuild, we can recover, we don't need to return to God. [9:8-12]. Then God takes away the leaders and the prophets from Israel because they are leading the people astray, and yet the people do not repent [9:13-17]. The people start fighting each other and even turn on Judah, yet they do not repent [9:18-21]. All the while the people enact evil laws, fail to give justice to the needy and plunder widows and orphans. [10:1-2] So God's anger is not turned away.

So what does that mean to me as I look at the world and nation this morning? Is God warning us? Can we see ourselves in this picture of Israel? Passing evil laws. Plundering the needy. Ignoring the threats from without and the corruption within. Listening to false leaders and false prophets--politicians and religious leaders who do not speak truth. And then we wonder why things are getting so bad. Does it all come back to 2 Chronicles 7:14--If My people? Lord, help me be more like Jesus and be His messenger of the truth this year. 

Blessings

Larry