Keep Your Faith and Hope Alive

Ramon Arias | December 29, 2014 

If we sow apple seeds can we expect to reap oranges? You may say, what a thoughtless question and you would be right. Even simple logic and common sense can tell us that our conclusion is not only wrong but also ludicrous. You can tell that lie to a child whose mind trusts the adults and believes what they say, but when that child’s mind understands the truth, only then will that child be able to discard it, and also refute it.

Those who boast of having an educated mind but continue to accept ideas that have proven to fail in the past are no different than a child who has been lied to. For instance, history and its cycles are there to teach us the reason empires failed. The past reveals the reason cycles repeat in economics, such as inflations and depressions; they also reveal economic growth or lack thereof as the result of conflicting theories that lead to financial crisis. Let us not forget climate cycles that harm, as well as benefit the ecological system and what the food chain yields. What can we say about the ever-present yet unpleasant cycles of war? The obvious question should be, if we have such highly educated intellectuals why don’t they pay attention to history’s human cycles? Could the answer be because it means nothing to the intellectually and spiritually gullible minds? They continue to think they can change the future’s outcome by using the same destructive ideas.

These same distorted visionaries of the future bet their lives on these failed ideas thinking they will not be wrong like previous generations. They see themselves as a gift to humanity; they truly believe they are elitists that can lead multitudes to greener pastures of peace and prosperity. They believe there is no higher authority for Americans, or the world for that matter, which determines fate and they want all nations to bow down to them, or else. 

Hosea, the Jewish prophet from the eighth century B.C., delivered a warning to prosperous Israel to turn away from its immorality that was reaching an unacceptable level or it would not be able to avoid national judgment: 

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors.” Hosea 10:12-13 (Emphasis added)

Just as Hosea was a beacon of faith and hope to those who understood his message of repentance and returning to God, America also has the words of those who envisioned the nation’s greatness as a result of an ongoing commitment and responsibility to remain as God’s people.

One of those men who earned the title of Founding Father was Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence; father of the American Revolution; ratifier of the U.S. Constitution and was Governor of Massachusetts, said:

“And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the scepter of righteousness.”

Tyrants, at all levels of society, can only dominate until God’s people come to their senses and admit that they have plowed iniquity; have reaped injustice; they have been eating the fruit of lies because they have trusted man’s ways and rejected God’s. Then, and only then, can they begin to stand up for justice as they seek the Lord that He may bring His righteousness upon our nation and the world. Samuel Adams had this vision of a great nation under God because he inherited it from the Forefathers.

The vision of the Forefathers and the Founding Fathers for the future was not one of defeat because they understood God’s plan for the nations and the extent of Christ’s complete victory over the enemy. They also recognized there’s only one Supreme Ruler of the world and it is not man. They lived and experienced the outcome of tyranny and how the people become oppressed and enslaved. As Samuel Adams stated: the present confusions among nations will banish when God’s people promote and bring about the moral and happy period “when the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the scepter of righteousness.”

Most likely Samuel Adams would not be accepted in many churches today because of his biblical worldview. Nonetheless, he was theologically accurate:

“Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!” Psalm 72:19

 “…and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” Ephesians 1:19-21

“For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” 1 Corinthians 15:25

If we embrace the same conviction and biblical understanding we too can face the looming darkness and trials that are about to overtake us. Let us never lose sight that God controls history and His plan in Christ was, and is, to raise a people; a new creation that will break those man-made cycles. 

Keep your faith and hope alive as we pray for righteous leaders in the home, public service, pulpits, education, science, commerce, world of entertainment, media, and every area of human development. This is not wishful thinking, it is our heavenly Father’s will and Jesus said it can be done, and it will be done!

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