Is our nation worth saving or not?

By: American Decency Staff

 

As I begin to write a personal note with every intention of it bringing at least some measure of good cheer, sadly, I simply can’t avoid noting (just hours before a print deadline), the Easter Sunday terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, targeting three Christian churches and savagely destroying over 290 lives and injuring at least another 500.  The relevance of the question I raise at the end of my article on page 1 stands out.

Yet, God is still on the throne and greater than all the sin that we face internationally, nationally, and in our own lives.

It’s a long road isn’t it?  And yet it goes so very quickly.  If you say that to those much younger  (I am 72), they may nod a polite “yes,” and I suspect that that is how I would have responded in much younger years.  Yet, there are those far older than myself, some into their nineties, that still occasionally say, “you are getting up there,” and chuckle as if to say, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Still, who is to know how many years God will grant me.  My spirit  is young, I believe, and my energy level strong, but I can’t run with my young grandkids even as I could just a few years ago (though I will still take them on in basketball in our pole-barn).

No matter our age: “The battle is the Lord’s and we are His workmanship.” Without a measure of doubt, it is a battle!

My friend Max Jordan is a World War II veteran. I’ve learned a great deal over time just watching 95-year-old Max (without him even probably knowing it). A book was written about him and I did a 150 minute video interview of him in recent years.

He is a hero.  And not just to me. He fought in five major battles in Europe. But he’s a hero not only for his war time experiences, but because Max reflects Christ better than perhaps anyone I have ever known.

Max – once the soldier surviving the Battle of the Bulge and Normandy, once the long time Newaygo County Clerk, a husband for 63 years (his wife passed 8 years ago), a survivor of West Niles Virus, even coming out of a lengthy coma – through the decades of his life has faithfully served the Lord.

Max also suffers from a skin disease that has afflicted him very aggressively.  Yet, Max faithfully still attends his church as he has for so many years.  He still exercises at an area facility because, as he says, “You got to keep moving.” 

Yet he still comes faithfully to volunteer at our monthly newsletter mailings. He’s placed some of these very newsletters in these very envelopes.  He comes stooped over, no longer with the erect posture that once characterized him.  Always, he wears a smile. Always. 

I love to talk around the volunteer table with him, and we can’t seem to avoid including in our talk a discussion about the rapidly declining world situation.  Though heart-broken at what he sees happening and though his body is worn, tested, and broken – despite all of the wars and spiritual warfare that comes to a man who has lived with such longevity – Max says with that gracious smile:  “God has been so good to me. He has never let me down.”

Max recently asked me, “Have I ever told you what I do for devotions?”

As a Gideon, only Max knows how many years he has read through the Bible, along with the daily reading from “Our Daily Bread” and other devotionals.

This is a man of God!  A loving, lovely spiritual man of God, trusting Him, come what may.

There are so many people that come to mind.  Loving, tender, faithful people who actively take hold of the Word, studying it, taking it to heart, looking at themselves in the mirror and asking God to forgive them of their sins, and by His grace and mercy to help them live more perfectly for Him.

It is God who fuels our hearts. He keeps us faithful!  He sustains us by His Word and His Holy Spirit.  No one in our office would claim to be as time-tested as Max, but nonetheless it is true that the God Max serves is the God we serve.  The Spirit who lives and works within Max works within us and millions of Christians throughout our embattled country and world.

Max has seen so much in his life, on the battlefields in Europe and in the hometown he returned to.  Yet, he acknowledges God through it all. Trusting and obeying, as the old hymn goes.

I came across this paragraph from C.H Spurgeon in my own daily devotions. It speaks to faithfulness like that shown by Max, and is an example of why daily devotions can be so encouraging.

“And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”    Exodus 17:12

.… Beware of faintness in devotion; if Moses felt it, who can escape? It is far easier to fight with sin in public, than to pray against it in private. It is remarked that Joshua never grew weary in the fighting, but Moses did grow weary in the praying; the more spiritual an exercise, the more difficult it is for flesh and blood to maintain it. Let us cry, then, for special strength, and may the Spirit of God, who helpeth our infirmities, as he allowed help to Moses, enable us like him to continue with our hands steady “until the going down of the sun;” till the evening of life is over; till we shall come to the rising of a better sun in the land where prayer is swallowed up in praise.

Friend:  I urge you to join with Max and with me and all of us here at American Decency Association.  If you are not in the Word daily and in prayer, please dedicate yourself to the Lord, His Word, and living for Him.  Trust and obey!

You and I are needed. Our country is worth fighting for and our Lord is worth living for – til the end – the VERY END!

Indeed, it is a long road. And, indeed, it goes so quickly!

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