Must-see link: Alive!, by Max Lucado
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Day: April 2, 2010
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Allied Abuse
While the Obama administration has been putting most of its public efforts behind promoting the federal overhaul/ownership of domestic healthcare, the affairs of the world and our place in it press on. There appears a disturbing pattern of the current administration attempting to placate our enemies and mistreating key allies.
Mary O’Grady has an important article in the WSJ on US foreign policy toward one of our regional allies: The U.S. vs. Honduran Democracy . With the crumbling and strains suffered by market democracies over the past decade in this region, we should be doing everything we can to encourage Honduras to stay the course. Trying to placate Chavez instead is a bad move.
The Obama administration has treated Britain, our closest European ally, with disrespect, see here and here and here.
While trying to carry through on the campaign promise to open and strengthen diplomatic ties with Iran, the Administration has taken a hard-line with Israel, our closest and perhaps only ally in the mideast. See here and here. Gary Bauer recently commented,
“What is particularly telling is that this is a president who has bowed to a Saudi king, who has repeatedly held his hand out to Iran only to have his face slapped in response and who has regularly suffered the slings and arrows of insults from Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, to name a few. For whom does he reserve his anger, toughness and vehemence? For Israel, the only reliable ally we have in the Middle East.”
The Obama administration stunned Poland, our closest East European ally, as the administration attempted to court favor with the Russians, an attempt that utterly failed. See here .
John Bolton’s comments on this same topic here.
While critics of the administration focus efforts on rolling back the President’s aggressive, statist domestic policies, they should keep a close eye as well on how well we’re promoting and supporting our ideological and political allies worldwide.
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Happy Good Friday!
The irony and twists of God … a happy day because the innocent Christ was brutally slaughtered. By the grace of God through his blood, we are saved if we will only place our faith and our trust in him. We celebrate the price and fact of our redemption today, our eternal purchase, and at such cost.
Excerpts from Spurgeon’s sermon The Tomb of Jesus:
[W]e will stand at that tomb; we will examine it, and we trust we shall hear some truth-speaking voice coming from its hollow bosom which will comfort and instruct us, so that we may say of the grave of Jesus when we go away, “It was none other than the gate of heaven”—a sacred place, deeply solemn, and sanctified by the slain body of our precious Saviour. …
Away, ye profane—ye souls whose life is laughter, folly, and mirth! Away, ye sordid and carnal minds who have no taste for the spiritual, no delight in the celestial. We ask not your company; we speak to God’s beloved, to the heirs of heaven, to the sanctified, the redeemed, the pure in heart—and we say to them, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Surely ye need no argument to move your feet in the direction of the holy sepulchre; but still we will use the utmost power to draw your spirit thither. Come, then, for ’tis the shrine of greatness, ’tis the resting-place of the man, the Restorer of our race, the Conqueror of death and hell. …
First, I would bid you stand and see the place where the Lord lay with emotions of deep sorrow. Oh cone, my beloved brother, thy Jesus once lay there. He was a murdered man, my soul, and thou the murderer.
“Ah, you my sins, my cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were,
Each of my crimes became a nail,
And unbelief the spear.”
“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sov’reign die?”
I slew him—this right hand struck the dagger to his heart. My deeds slew Christ. Alas! I slew my best beloved; I killed him who loved me with an everlasting love. Ye eyes, why do you refuse to weep when ye see Jesus’ body mangled and torn? …
Come, view the place then, with all hallowed meditation, where the Lord lay. Spend this afternoon, my beloved brethren, in meditating upon it, and very often go to Christ’s grave, both to weep and to rejoice. Ye timid ones, do not be afraid to approach, for ’tis no vain thing to remember that timidity buried Christ. Faith would not have given him a funeral at all; faith would have kept him above ground, and would never have let him be buried; for it would have said, it would be useless to bury Christ if he were to rise. Fear buried him. Nicodemus, the night disciple, and Joseph of Arimathea, secretly, for fear of the Jews, went and buried him. Therefore, ye timid ones, ye may go too. Ready-to-halt, poor Fearing, and thou, Mrs. Despondency, and Much-afraid, go often there; let it be your favorite haunt, there build a tabernacle, there abide. And often say to your heart, when you are in distress and sorrow, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Complete sermon here.
Sapphire Sky 