ECCE

      The title of this message is loosely based upon the Book by Charles Dickens called "A Tale of Two Cities". There are only two nations in the world that declare "God rules". The first is Israel, and  the second, America, but both of those nations soon violated that covenant. Documents and quotes from our Founding Fathers and later presidents contain the strong belief and reliance upon God as a foundational tenet of this nation. One quote from John Adams is in a letter that he sent to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (Click here to read the complete letter). President Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address given at one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War, said in part: "It is rather for us to be dedicated here to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion - that we her...

When considering the troubling events of this week, my wife, Pastor Mary, made a comment that "there's nothing new under the sun". This is found in Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun...it hath been already from old time, which was before us." (Eccl. 1:9-10). The prophets were given the Word of the LORD in warning to God's people, and they were often ignored or accused because of it. The prophet Amos, a humble shepherd who was called by the LORD to be a prophet to Israel, wrote of the threat of war and conflict, and the judgment of the LORD upon those nations who attacked Israel. Amos wrote of the judgment against Damascus and Syria (Amos 1:1-5, see also Isa. 17:1). Amos also wrote about Gaza, the territory in our headlines today: "...For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the ...