Veterans Day Message:
“Some Things Worth Standing And Fighting For”
(Scripture Readings: Eph. 6:13; Neh. 4:14)
Eph. 6:13 reads, ” Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”
Nehemiah 4:14 reads, ” And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, ‘Be not ye afraid of them; remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.”
A veteran, according to one dictionary definition is:
1. somebody formerly in armed forces.
2. an experienced soldier
3. A military veteran is ANY person who served for ANY length of time in ANY military service branch.
A veteran is someone sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign or domestic.
A veteran is someone who, at one point, wrote a blank check made
payable to ‘The United States of America’, for an amount of ‘up to and including their life.’
A veteran should be considered a hero, though some of us veterans don’t count ourselves as heroes.
On Veterans Day, we pay tribute to our veterans, to the fallen, and to their families. We honor their contributions to our Nation. We keep faith with the patriots who have risked their lives to preserve our Union, and with the ideals of service and sacrifice upon which our Republic was founded.
Today, we come together to honor our veterans and commemorate the legacy of profound service and sacrifice they have upheld in pursuit of a more perfect Union and the freedom for each of us to live our lives in Liberty and Justice, and according to the dictates of our conscience. Through their steadfast defense of America’s ideals, our active service members and veterans, have ensured our country still stands strong, our founding principles still shine, and nations around the world know the blessings of freedom.
Our men and women in uniform are bearers of a proud military tradition that has been dutifully passed forward—from generation to generation—for more than two hundred years. In times of war and peace alike, our veterans have served with courage and distinction in the face of tremendous adversity, demonstrating an unfaltering commitment to America and our people. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the country they loved. The self-less-ness of our service members is unmatched, and they remind us that there are few things more fundamentally American than doing our utmost to make a difference in the lives of others.
Many of our veterans served; not wanting to go to war, not take another’s life, but willing to serve, none the less, to defend and protect our freedoms and way of life.
We owe them a debt of honor, and it is our moral obligation to ensure they receive our support for as long as they live as proud veterans of the United States Armed Forces.
However, in remembering our American Veterans, let’s not forget the greatest veteran of all; Our Lord Jesus Christ!
According to 2 Cor. 5:16 – ,even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know Him thus no longer. You see, he’s no longer a suffering servant but he’s now a mighty warrior and a conqueror!
We read in Rev 5:1-7 – that Jesus is not a wimpy lamb, but a conquering lion. In fact, He’s is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
Jesus is not a helpless victim, but He’s an over comer and he has power! In fact, ALL power has been given him in Heaven and in Earth!
Paul describes Jesus as a military general in Eph 4:7-10 (READ).
1. The imagery Paul uses is a military victory parade
2. Jesus conquered and gave gifts to men.
The clearest and most inspiring picture of our hero, Jesus, is in Rev 19:11-21. In this passage,
1. Jesus, on a white horse with burning eyes leads an angelic army
2. He defeats the enemy (followed by judgment, then heaven for his people)
Christ left us an example that we should follow in his steps. He has given us a great nation, great families, & great churches. If we have been born again, and are followers of the Supreme Commander – in– Chief, we are all veterans in the army of the Lord.
As veterans, there are three, just three of many things, I want to briefly talk to you about that are worth standing and fighting for, and then, I’ll be done.
1. OUR COUNTRY: Something worth standing and fighting for!
I thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate several years ago. It seems prayer still upsets some people.. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas State Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
Heavenly Father,
we come before you today to ask
your forgiveness and to seek your direction and
guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those
who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we
have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it
the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it
welfare….
We have killed our unborn and called it
choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it
justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our
children and called it building self esteem…..
We have abused power and called it
politics.
We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions
and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and
pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values
of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts
today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Amen!
The response, of course, was immediate. A number of
legislators walked out during the prayer in
protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian
Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than
5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls
responding negatively. The church received
international requests for copies of this prayer
from India, Africa and Korea.
Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on
his radio program, ‘The Rest of the Story,’ and
received a larger response to this program than any
other he had ever aired.
Freedom is a word our forefathers learned from the Bible, and the movers and shapers of our nation were often men of evangelical persuasion.
For instance, there was Samuel Adams who saw individual freedom as “…the law of the creator and a Christian right documented in the New Testament.”
Thomas Jefferson said, “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” [from Notes on the State of Virginia, 1791]
Woodrow Wilson, 28th. President of the United States said, “ A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.”
Other great men & women of history such as Calvin Coolidge, our 30th. President, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Noah Webster, creator of Webster’s American Dictionary, and Patrick Henry, and many others, had something similar to say about this great nation.
Regardless of how bad this country gets, it’s still the greatest nation on the face of the earth and it’s worth standing and fighting for!
2. THE FAMILY: Something worth standing and fighting for!
The traditional family in America and around the world is under attack! State after state across the United States is recognizing Sodomite unions as natural. It’s being taught in our Government school as diversity, while traditional unions between one man and one woman are bigotry.
Census figures show that as of 2011, only 23% of married couple families with children younger than age 15 have a stay-at-home mother (SAHM). These days, there are more kids being raised by single moms than by married couples where the man earns all the income and the wife stays home.
Married couples with children account for less than a quarter of all households. More than 30 percent of households are single person households. 23 percent of children live with a single mother, 5 percent with a single father. More than 70 percent of all children live in families where every adult in the household is employed. Stay-at-home-dads are still a small minority — less than a million in the country –but dads do the primary childcare for more than a quarter of the children whose mother works outside the home.
According to revised estimates from the 2010 census, there are 131,729 same-sex married couple households and almost sixteen thousand same-sex unmarried partner households in the United States, but this relies on self-reports, so is biased toward the low side. About 20 percent of same sex couples are raising kids.
Traditional marriage and the traditional family is under attack by a filthy, anti-Christ, reprobate society!
Education was once the province of the family. It did an admirable job. American society before 1850 (excluding slavery) was the envy of the world. State schooling did not arise to fill a deficiency in the people. It arose, rather, because — in the unplanned order of a free society — people were doing too good a job of educating and nurturing their children and facilitating their growth into independent, competent, and moral adults.
In the eyes of some, this had to be stopped. Why? Because the elite and the parents held two conflicting views about education. Even today, we believe that children are an heritage from the Lord; that God has entrusted them to us to train up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. However, the statists believe that children belong to the state. Even our own Kentucky State Constitution calls children “the state’s children.” It is only another way of breaking down the home and family. The family should be interpreted in the light of God’s Word, not what is politically correct!
The Bible tells us that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established. I going to quote just two of many high education officials and what they say about the goal of public or government education.
Paul Blanchard, a contributing author of “The Humanist” declared: “I think that the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a high school education and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history…”
Dr. John Goodland wrote a report for a National Educational Agency in the 1980’s arguing that one of the goals of public education is to re-educate children and turn them away from the values of their parents. He said, “Our goal is behavioral change. The majority of our youth still hold to the values of their parents and if we do not re-socialize them to accept change, our society may decay.” Well let me tell you something. our society is decaying because of re-socialization!
The Scriptures tell us in Ecclesiastes 12:13: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
Regardless of what the liberal establishment has to say, or what the Government education system teaches, the traditional home and family is something worth standing and fighting for!
3. THE CHURCH: Something worth standing and fighting for!
Is the Church in America under attack? Let’s review some facts!
What is happening in America is an increasing hostility and intolerance toward Christian beliefs and values that many perceive to be an attack on religious freedom. In current American culture, you are free to be a Christian as long as you don’t actually live out your faith, vote your faith, take a stand in relation to your faith, or believe others should embrace your faith; in other words, you must not evangelize. It’s not enough that your beliefs can’t influence society; you must also embrace society’s beliefs. The concern is that government will make people choose between obeying the law and following their faith. For Example:
*Catholic Charities in Illinois shut down its adoption services rather than place children with same-sex couples (as the state required).
*A Christian counselor was penalized for refusing to advise gay couples.
*A court clerk in New York was told to issue same-sex marriage licenses, despite religious reservations. The same happened recently in Kentucky
*A wedding photographer was sued for refusing to shoot a same-sex wedding.
In Colorado, a Christian baker refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple, and his case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In each case, the Christian(s) involved were not attempting to impose their religious views on others. They simply didn’t want to be forced to participate or offer support for something they felt was in violation of their religious conscience. The argument is, of course, that such stands are discriminatory.
Liberty Institute Founder Kelly Shackleford said of the recent hike in reported incidents of Christian persecution. “It is dramatic. I have been doing these types of cases for almost 25 years now. I have never seen the levels of attacks like these and how quickly they are now proliferating.”
Shackleford says government, from schools to social programs, is the ringleader. “There are children being prohibited from writing Merry Christmas to the soldiers, senior citizens being banned from praying over their meals in the Senior Center, the VA banning the mention of God in military funerals, numerous attempts to have veterans memorials torn down if they have any religious symbols such as a cross, and I could go on and on,” Shackleford said.
This is NOT what our veterans have so valiantly served, fought and even died for. But, this is what we’ve become. I believe our country, our church and our families are still worth standing and fighting for!
The enemies of the church are not always from those without the Body of Believers, but many times we are our own worst enemy. Many times we fight among ourselves, we can’t agree on what God’s Word says or even what God’s word really is. We many times give our churches over to Government control through incorporation and our children over to Government control through the Government schools. We fail to realize we should render unto God the things that our Gods and to Caesar, the things that are Caesars.
To sum it all up, let me say this. If you love your freedom, thank a Veteran! If you’re sitting in church today with the freedom to worship as you please, thank a veteran! If you want to get in your automobile and take off on vacation and have a good time, thank a veteran! If you have food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over your head, shoes on your feet, good transportation, the necessities of life, or just plain enjoyment without the interference from an oppressive government, THANK A VETERAN! And, thank Almighty God for empowering that veteran to do what they did!!
God gave us this great nation. The veteran has sacrificed, even unto the ultimate sacrifice, to preserve this great nation. God has given each of us the responsibility to continue preserving the rich heritage we so wonderfully enjoy!
Let me close, with this piece entitled, “The Bravest Man I Know” by Amanda Whitney.
The bravest man I know.
Is a man I’ve never met.
He’s a man who risks his life
To save a friend,
Not only to save a friend,
But to save a nation.
Risking his life
For those he does not know.
Stepping up
Leaving loved ones behind,
So that somewhere,
Someone else won’t have to.
He is a man who follows orders
Even though he knows he might die.
The bravest man I know.
Is the man who would rather die,
So one more person could go home
To see his family again.
The man who stares death in the face,
But never blinks.
The bravest man I know.
Is the man who risks his life
So one day the world may be a better place for his children.
Or any man who goes against his biggest fear.
DEATH
Just to save someone he loves.
The bravest man I know.
Is the man who fights
So another man can have the taste of sweet freedom.
Not fighting only for his own benefit,
But for many others all over the world,
Fighting to make this world a better place.
That’s the bravest man I know.
I’ve heard it said that a person stands tallest when they’re on their knees; in prayer before Almighty God. We have some things worth standing and fighting for. Let’s start right here and now!
Thank you, and God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
Don Woolett.
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