Americans at the Cross-roads of Destiny
Shall we profit by the past and value our freedom as highly as did our progenitors
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The oppressed and tyrannized people of England of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, waged their battles for freedom and won their immortal Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta1, upon the conviction expressed in these words:
"There is no peace or happiness under the rule of kings. Forced obedience to their exactions and arbitrary laws, with no means of redress or avenues of escape, is torture in its severest form."
Our own forefathers, after having won their freedom through seven long years of war, framed our God-inspired Constitution and founded this great Republic upon the principles expressed in this paragraph:
"Personal rights must not be infringed...and the independent sovereignty of the states must be preserved, and yet a federation of all states must be accomplished in a manner that will give the central government the stability, the dignity and the requisite powers of a national empire under which the blessings of peace, tranquility, and personal security will be preserved unto ourselves and to our descendants even to the remotest generation."
And we, Americans, of this generation, the beneficiaries of the struggles and sacrifices of both the English and American patriots and the possessors of the priceless heritage of freedom, which they bequeathed to us, what price shall we place upon their experiences under tyranny, and what value will we put upon our freedom in this world crisis of forced selection as we stand this day before the Cross-roads of Destiny?
Shall we profit by the past and value our freedom as highly as did our progenitors, on both sides of the Atlantic, or will it happen to us according to the true proverb: "The dog is turned to his vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire?"2
God grant that we shall never be tricked into discounting the value of our freedom or into ignoring the terrific price in blood and tears and sacrifice it has cost to establish. Most earnestly do I pray that in this great crisis we shall be aroused to the reality of our full peril and be inspired to see the right and to do the right before the die of wasted opportunity is cast, and thus make certain that "this Government of the people, by the people, for the people” and our priceless Christian civilization “shall not perish from the earth.”
Copyright 1942
by Federated Libraries, Inc.
Quotations from this publication are allowed
2 Peter 2:22 https://www.bibleref.com/2-Peter/2/2-Peter-2-22.html
This verse concludes Peter's teaching about those who had been led astray by the false teachers. He has in mind those who had come into contact with the community of Christians, only to return to the sinfulness of the world. These people had apparently heard about the gospel of Jesus without genuinely placing their faith in Christ. Instead, enticed by the lies of the false teachers, they had gone back to their old place in the world among those who live only for their sinful desires.
Peter now writes that those who persist in continual sin embody the wisdom of Proverbs 26:11: the fool returns to his folly just as a dog returns to eat his own vomit. Similarly, they are like a pig who can be scrubbed clean, but soon returns to wallow in the muck again. This is a particularly pungent analogy for Peter, as pigs and dogs were two of the most despised and unclean animals in Jewish thinking.
In other words, these people were never truly changed in their nature. Dogs and pigs do what dogs and pigs do. Those truly in Christ don't merely get rid of the sin in their lives and, thus, become acceptable to God. Through faith and by God's power, true believers are changed in their very nature, becoming more and more like Jesus over time through the power of God at work in them. This does not mean perfection, but it does mean a changed life. Those who show evidence that they were never changed, it stands to reason, are still exactly what they used to be.