An Earnest Plea for Our Country’s Spiritual Awakening

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heql their land” -2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV).

This verse was emphasized near the 4^th of July when we were considering the birthday of our country and the ideals upon which our nation was founded. Much emphasis is heard now from ministers from pulpits and on television and radio for a return to God-fearing, God-honoring ways in America. We stand in the need of a “Great Awakening” as we had in our nation’s earlier history. One is overdue for this disheartening time in which we live.

Three or four spiritual awakenings are identified as periods of evangelical fervor which brought conviction, confession of sin, and strengthening of congregations throughout the colonies. Early, it was a period of turning from “high” church practices to congregational practices and personal religion.

The First Great Awakening in America began in the 1730’s and extended through about 1743. Evangelical leaders during that period were the Rev. Solomon Stoddard who preached in frontier revivals. His grandson, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, was famous for his sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon has been preserved in written form and included in American literature textbooks. In 1838, the Rev. George Whitefield of England came to Georgia and preached convincingly and evangelistically of turning to God. He also preached through the middle colonies and in New York and Philadelphia. The First Great Awakening had a decided influence on religious liberty laws written into our country’s constitution.

The Second Great Awakening began in the 18^th century and was especially strong in the Northeast and Midwest. The preaching brought about awareness for social reforms such as abolition, temperance and women’s rights.

The Third Great Awakening from about 1850 to 1900 saw many new denominations formed, active missionary work, and the “social gospel” preached. The Young Men’s Christian Association was formed in 1844. Dwight L. Moody, a strong evangelical leader, began preaching in 1858. Religious work was strong in both Northern and Southern armies during the Civil War.

The Fourth Great Awakening was about the 1960’s and 1970’s. Evangelistic campaigns like those led by the Rev. Billy Graham occurred. Two denominations, in particular, were strong in preaching, teaching and leading people to repentance and right living. These were churches in the Southern Baptist Convention and in the Synod Lutheran denominations. My husband, the Rev. Grover Jones, was a young Southern Baptist minister beginning his ministry in 1952. I can recall some great local, state and national evangelistic results during those years and following.

During 2016, the Rev. Franklin Graham has sought to make America aware by his “Wake Up America” tours with a service on the grounds of each state capital in the nation. Good reports of attendance and participation have occurred. Prayer groups such as “Cry Out, America” and the emphasis to stop and pray for America at 9:00 p. m. each evening are part of the effort to awaken America to spiritual responsibility.

Awareness, awakening and repentance begin in the heart of each individual. May we pray that we will sincerely study 2 Chronicles 7:14 and earnestly meet what God demands—becoming humble, praying, seeking God’s face, and turning from evil. Then God promises blessings: God will hear, forgive and heal our land.   - Ethelene Dyer Jones 09.25.2016

The Christian as Salt

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” -Matthew 5:13 (ESV)

Jesus used salt to teach how important Christians are as they live out their lives in the world. Comparing disciples to the familiar commodity, salt, He reminded them to think of the value of salt. Salt (sodium chloride), a common commodity, is used for seasoning, for a preservative, as a cleansing agent and in many compounds for medicinal and other uses.

Growing up on a farm, I saw the uses of salt in more ways than for seasoning the food we ate. My father kept blocks of salt suspended on stable platforms for our farm animals to “lick,” thus assuring that they would become thirsty and go to pure water sources to drink. Salt was a part of keeping the farm animals healthy.

Salt was also valuable as a preservative. Near Thanksgiving time, in my home community, we had what we knew as “Hog Killing Time.” Neighbors would help each other as the cold snaps hit our community to butcher the hogs and begin the process of curing the meat for later use. I recall how my father took salt and carefully rubbed it into the cut hams, shoulders and “middlings” laid out on the curing table in the smokehouse. At the right time, he hung them up to further cure. My father had his own formula for a cure for hams, consisting of a mixture of salt, brown sugar and other ingredients. He was somewhat famous for the “Dyer-cured hams.” He had regular customers from Gainesville and Atlanta year by year who would come for their pork ham when the curing process was completed. Salt had been a vital ingredient in this curing, seasoning, preserving process.

Salt as seasoning adds a distinctive flavor to foods we eat. Many of us who have experienced heart difficulties are familiar with the limitation of salt to prevent further damage to diseased arteries. We learn to use less-potent forms of salt to add flavoring to food. We are familiar, too, with other uses of salt as a cleansing agent and as a medicine. We use salt water to gargle for a sore throat to minimize soreness and get at the germs that cause infections. All of the uses for salt—to add flavor, to preserve, to cleanse, to permeate and heal—are characteristic of a Christian’s influence in society. Jesus said, “you are like salt in the earth.” The Message Bible by Eugene H. Peterson gives this translation to Matthew 5:13: “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” Actually, in Jesus’s day, we are told that “un-salty” salt was used as a paving agent on the streets and roads; hence the use to be “trampled under people’s feet.”

In my historical research and writing, I came across Civil War letters from citizens in Fannin County , Georgia, addressed to Governor Joseph Emerson Brown begging for shipments of salt so cattle would have their licks and so people could preserve food. It was an urgent appeal. Consider Jesus’ statement to His disciples to be urgent: “You art the salt of the earth!” What an appeal and what a command to us! Christians must know that they have a flavor given to them by the Lord Christ, different from the world, and making a definite difference in society. Praise be to God! - Ethelene Dyer Jones 09.18.2016

“Cry Out, America”

“He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” -Micah 6:8 (ESV). “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” -James 1:22-25 (ESV).

Today, September 11, 2016, marks the fifteenth anniversary of what we term “9/11,” that infamous date in America’s history when two planes on a terrorist-seized mission crashed into the Twin Towers of the Trade Center in New York City, when another plane crashed into a portion of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a fourth plane, whom authorities later believed was directed on either the White House or the U. S. Capitol, was redirected and crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa. It was a dark day for America when about 3,000 were killed and America was put on notice of a way of life that has been different since. Terrorist attacks are real. The threat is astronomical.

These acts have caused people to ask, “Are we in the days before the final judgment?” We know the teachings of Jesus on that subject, that no one, save the Father in Heaven, knows the day or the hour. But such events—and there have been more since that infamous 9/11—have turned our thoughts seriously to the last days, the days of judgment.

Our scripture focus verses for today teach us God’s requirements. From Micah, we learn that believers are to “do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God.” From James we learn that we are to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” Our actions should be commensurate with what we know of the Word and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the days since 9/11, in these fifteen years, we have had books and sermons, pleas from ministers and leaders to “Return, return to God.” Even during this year 2016, Franklin Graham has launched his effort “Decision America” in which he has scheduled rallies on capitol lawns of all 50 states in our Union with the plea to for the people to turn again to God.

Since 2008, the effort, “Cry Out, America,” has seen rallies held on court house lawns and other public places where the Word of God, the Bible, is read and men and women gather for earnest prayers on the very day commemorating 9/11.

What does this say of us as believing Americans, in a land where the motto since our founding has been “In God we trust”? Many do and are turning to God. Will we, as Sodom and Gomorrah, of old, experience destruction because not enough of a remnant is faithful to warrant God’s saving our nation? We know assuredly that we are living in perilous times. I do not want to be considered an alarmist, one who sounds a trumpet of doom. However, we rest in the assurance that those who know the Lord truly, in spirit and in truth, will be known by Him, both now and in the judgment. “Cry out, America!” God still hears and answers. - Ethelene Dyer Jones -9.11.2016

Support

“There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in His majesty. The eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms.” – Deuteronomy 33:26-27 (ESV).

The context of these verses is Moses’ farewell address to the tribes of Israel prior to his death at age 120. The liberator of Israel could not go into the land his people had been promised by God, and God himself would take care of Moses’ unknown burial place in the land of Moab (see Deuteronomy 34). But before he left them, Moses gathered representatives of the tribes together and gave his final blessing (recorded in Deuteronomy 33), naming eleven of the twelve tribes (Simeon was not mentioned in the roll-call of tribes, perhaps because that tribe would be dissolved and absorbed by Judah). And in verse 33:26, Moses uses a poetic name for all of Israel, Jeshurun, but at the same time use of this term was a strong reminder by Moses that they were to guard against unfaithfulness to God and not seek false Gods.

Moses uses strong metaphors to remind the people of how they are bound to Jehovah God. They are to remember He is their dwelling place; and underneath them are God’s everlasting arms. How strong and useful are arms—the upper limbs of our body. We depend much on arms and hands to do the work we need to do. What better metaphor could Moses have used in his blessing of the tribes and his farewell message to them than to remind them that the everlasting arms of God are underneath them? God’s arms will support them, carry them, guide them.

Arms also express love. How we enjoy the comfort and blessing of arms that enfold us and with tenderness hold us! A fretful baby can be taken into a mother’s arms and the fretfulness eases. When Jesus called the little children “He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands on them” (Mark 10:16, ESV).

When we are in need of support, we should think in terms of the everlasting arms of God underneath us and wrapped about us. In all situations God can supply the support we need. How appropriate is this prayer by the Rev. Dr. Robert D. Young from “Prayers for the Journey” (c1998):“

O God, Break through our callousness and our preoccupations until we realize that we belong to You and that You are with us every step of the way. Help us to handle life with a certain lightness that comes with faith. Buoy us up in our most despondent times so that we might feel not only that underneath are the everlasting arms, but feel the lift of those arms. Hold us lest we fall and give us confidence about the days ahead. Amen.” - Ethelene Dyer Jones (reposted from 09.04.2013 for publication again on 09.04.2016)

A Well-Placed Trust

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” -Proverbs 3:5-6 (KJV).

I give these verses in the King James Version, because that may be the version you used if you committed these to memory earlier in your life. To memorize these verses is good. Better, still, you may have chosen them as “life verses,” instruction from God’s Word to guide your conduct and lifestyle. Notice that trust in God is to be wholly, completely “with all thine heart.” The essence of trust is to recognize who God is and to depend on Him to supply whatever it is we need. This trust does not preclude our working and putting forth effort. It does mean we recognize God for who He is and ourselves as weak and standing in the need of His help. Daily, we should find a “chapel of the heart” where we can commune with God and learn to develop the trust and knowledge of Him needed for Him to “direct our paths.”

In the Chapel of My Heart

“Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.” -Psalm 143:8

“It is not needful always to be in church with God. We make a chapel of our hearts.” 

-Brother Lawrence

This early hour is a time to worship,

To draw apart from the rush and din;

To enter the quiet chapel of awareness,

To call upon the Lord again.

My Lord and I meet in this chapel;

Whatever the hour, He is already here.

In this time and place He meets me

And gives me grace to banish fear.

Although the future seems uncertain,

Its challenges stretching as a cloud;

In this quiet chapel God’s holy presence

Is certain, ‘though He speaks not aloud.

In calm assurance His Spirit guides me

To know His sufficiency covers every day;

And from this chapel in my heart

I find direction in God’s way.

At whatever time I need a boost in strength,

Regardless of the problem, large or small;

Or just to go aside to praise Him,

How reassuring on God’s name to call.

-Ethelene Dyer Jones 08.28.2016

Resting in the Peace of Christ

“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” -Colossians 3:15-17 (ESV)

As I read this passage from Colossians, I thought that if we could really apply the truths of these verses to our lives and live by them, how different would be our world. Our frets and cares would not consume our time and efforts. We would be able to take God’s Word and live by it, and at the same time teach others to rely upon the promises we find in Scripture.

The Greek word translated “rule” in Colossians 3:15 means “to sit as an umpire” or “to arbitrate”. We are familiar with the official at athletic events whom we call an umpire. He rules on and arbitrates in games and gives final decisions that honor the conduct and guidelines of the game. When the peace of Christ is present and active in the believer’s life, the leadership He gives will be as an umpire to quell anger, anxiety and the tendency not to follow His leadership. Note three times in the focal passage we are told to “be thankful,” sing “with thankfulness, and to “give thanks.” We should be ever grateful that the Word of God which teaches us the precepts of the Lord Christ is to be shared one with the other in the fellowship of other believers. How many of us “grew up” going to Sunday School, and continued to go as adults? In the wonderful fellowship of a Bible class we can admonish one another so that we can better understand Christ’s claims for a guide in our behavior and our actions.

Paul advised in the letter to the Ephesians that congregations should sing “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Already by the time the early churches were established, believers had the Torah, the Psalter, Wisdom writings, and the Prophets. But he seems to refer, in “spiritual songs” to recent compositions that were being sung in the churches. We can imagine under the Holy Spirit’s leadership that persons in that day, as in recent times, were led to write words set to music that expressed their faith and how they should conduct themselves as Christians. Paul’s advice, “whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,” could have applied to the “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” that permeated the early Christians’ worship.

Frederick W. Robertson wrote, “The real strength and majesty of the soul of man is calmness, the manifestation of strength, the peace of God ruling.” And as William C. Poole (1875-1949) wrote in a beloved hymn, “Just When I Need Him Most” “Jesus is near, to comfort and cheer, Just when I need Him most.” As my “umpire” who rules my heart, I can trust Him, even “when I falter…when I fear.” - Ethelene Dyer Jones 08.21.2016

The Church: Helping in Time of Need

“During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. This happened during the reign of Claudius. The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.” -Acts 11:27-30 (NIV).

Helping those in need is a principle taught by Jesus and promoted and practiced by the early church and by churches and Christians today. “The poor you will have with you,” Jesus taught. Also, He gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan to teach us that we are to reach out with compassion to those who hurt and are in need.

The passage cited for today’s devotional lists several leaders in the early church, all of whom had active roles in leading the believers to look with compassion on people in need and to respond and give to help alleviate the needs. Prophets had the ability to foresee and predict situations needing response. Agabus was one of those. The disciples, who may refer to the “early disciples,” and also seems in this verse to refer to the new converts in the Antioch church, and the brothers are fellow believers living in Judea, where the famine struck. The elders were those charged with overseeing the business of the church. Barnabas and Saul were the missionaries to Antioch, sent out from the Jerusalem church. They were highly interested in the welfare of believers at any location where churches had been established and believers lived.

Agabus had the ability to foresee the coming of the famine. He led the church at Antioch to begin a relief fund which later (maybe as long as ten years later during the reign of Claudius Caesar) assisted with the famine that did occur.

The example set by the early church of helping those in need became a principle for the church then and since. Those churches who genuinely reach out in love to share with others are fulfilling the mission assigned to disciples and the church by Christ. In recent years many nations have experienced floods, famine, poverty, illnesses and calamities. If we are not moved by compassion to share what we have with those who suffer, we need to examine our motives and rearrange our priorities. I am grateful that my late husband, the Rev. Grover Jones, had a heart for missions and for sharing. He preached it and by example led the people in the churches where he was pastor (and later those in the area he served as director of missions) to be very aware of how churches share resources with those in need. To give to others exemplifies a heart of love and compassion. The nature of Christian love is to share. -Ethelene Dyer Jones 08.14.2016