So tell me again what all the Turmoil is about in the Middle East?
Those Who Bless Israel Will Be Blessed, and Those Who Curse Israel Will Be Cursed
In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12, Verse 1-3, we see what God says about His response to how people treat Israel:
“And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
In the Book of Numbers, where the Bible is telling us about the Nation of Israel that God delivers out of bondage in Egypt, it tells us:
“He crouched. He lay down as a lion, and as a great lion. Who shall stir him up? Blessed is he who blesses you, and cursed is he who curses you.”
Although many will point out that this Scripture had its fulfillment in the Old Testament days, it doesn’t seem to have any time-related limitation on it. It doesn’t say, “I will bless those who bless you only until the Messiah comes. . .”, or have any other conditions that would limit the result of actions toward Israel.
Some will object that the promise of blessings applies to nations only, not individuals. To this we respond that our God is a just and faithful God, not giving promises in the Bible and then taking them away through trickery of the meanings of words!
Does this mean that those who bless Israel will become rich, famous, leaders of rock bands and have whiter teeth? Obviously not! Blessings come in many ways. Those who are impoverished in a worldly sense may have blessings in family, good health, and spiritual riches that others find hard to see. What good is it to have vast financial wealth if one does not have the health to enjoy it? And does God promise the blessings in this life only? Not at all! We may not see the full extent of blessings given to us until Jesus returns to judge everyone. In the book of Revelation, Chapter 22, verse 12, Jesus makes a promise. He says:
“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to each according as his work is.”
Note that orthodox Christianity makes it abundantly clear that salvation is a gift provided by the grace of God, not something that we earn, but Jesus also makes it clear that rewards, after we enter heaven, are dependent on what we did with the talents that God gave us. In fact, in the Bible book of Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 19-20, Jesus encourages us to build our treasures in heaven with these words:
“Do not lay up treasures on earth for yourselves, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up treasures in Heaven for yourselves, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”
One Law takes away the Right to Life of the Unborn Child while the other takes away the Rights of Law Abiding Citizens. Can anyone see where all this is going?
WASHINGTON – Abortion opponents plan to march in Washington in a demonstration that coincides with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that created a constitutional, nationwide right to abortion.
Thousands are expected for the noon Friday rally at the National Mall and in front of the Supreme Court.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion. Earlier this week, opponents marked the anniversary with workshops, prayers and calls for more limits on abortion rights.
On that Celebrated Day in August of 1963 America began to take seriously the need to move forward on Civil Rights for people of all Races, Ethnic Backgrounds and Religious Beliefs. Great have been the strides that We the People have made in Equality for all Americans.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all God’s children.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrong deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day out on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat and injustice of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s Children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every Mountainside, Let Freedom Ring!”
And if America is to be a Great Nation, this must Become True.
So let Freedom Ring from the Prodigious Hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let Freedom Ring from the Mighty Mountains of New York.
Let Freedom Ring from the Heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let Freedom Ring from the Snow-Capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let Freedom Ring from the Curvaceous Peaks of California.
But not only that, let Freedom, Ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let Freedom Ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let Freedom Ring from every Hill and Molehill of Mississippi. From every Mountainside, let Freedom Ring.
When we let Freedom Ring, when we let it ring from every Village and every Hamlet, from every State and every City, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s Children, Black Men and White Men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro Spiritual, Free at Last, Free at Last.
Thank God Almighty, we are Free at Last.
What you may not have known about the Democratic Party:
The History of the Democratic Party as Founding Fathers in the KKK or Was the Ku Klux Klan the Military Force Serving the Democratic Party in 1865 and beyond?
Here is a Man who was Born in an Obscure Village, the Child of a Peasant Woman. He grew up in another obscure village where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He did none of those things one usually associated with greatness. He had no credentials but himself…
He was only thirty-three when the tide of Public Opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While dying, His executioners gambled for his clothing, the only piece of property He had on earth. When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the Central Figure of the Human Race and the Leader of mankind’s progress. All the Armies that have ever marched, all the Navies that ever sailed, all the Parliaments that ever sat and all the Kings that ever Reigned put together have not affected the life on earth of mankind as Powerfully as that One Solitary Life.
So tell me again what all the Turmoil is about in the Middle East?
