Vacations are an awesome thing and we have so much to be thankful for as citizens of America and children of the King. Pam, Austin and I really had a wonderful time being able to get away and relax—a Sabbath of sorts—a time to rest. (This Sunday we will look at what the Bible teaches about the Sabbath from Nehemiah 13 and then the law and what Christ taught.) I am continually amazed at the vastness of the ocean; its size is beyond comprehension and the power of water is nothing to be taken lightly and God made it. God controls it. It does what God commands it to do. The ocean is not an entity to itself. It like all that God commands is expected and does obey the voice of the Master. Every water molecule bound together with another and another responds to the voice of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. God asked Job where Job was when God set the boundaries, when God established the limits—when God, if you will, created beaches and coastlines and drew the limits of the ocean.
Even before the foundation of the world God knew that the very beaches He created would be used to profane the Sabbath—men, women and children deciding they need a tan more than preaching on Sunday mornings—yet God still created these beautiful beaches for our pleasure.
And God knew that the human beings He created and creates ignore Him, yet God demonstrated His great love in that while we were yet sinners—sinners by choice and sinners by birth—Christ died for us. My dear brother and sister in Christ let me strongly remind you that regardless of where we are at on Sundays we should unite with our brothers and sisters in Christ and worship God on the Lord's Day. Those downrange do you dead level best not to miss the corporate worship service—it is a testimony to your love for God to the glory of God.
On this July 4th weekend—let's all pause and pray especially for our friends and brother and sisters in Christ who are deployed. Every day they get up with intent to make a difference in their very little corner of the conflict. They don't think about the war as a whole—they just do their job—day in and day out. Pray for the future of America and then rest in God's Sovereignty. Think about God's providential hand upon America in the 17th and 18th centuries and then continue to trust that He is still in charge.
