This is one of my all-time favorite hymns, and Heidi didn’t have to ask twice for me to post it. The only problem lay in choosing which version of it to post.
To Be a Pilgrim, also known and loved as He Who Would Valiant Be, rests on the original lyrics written by John Bunyan in 1684. I love this version by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band.
You may remember that the Infernal Revenue Service last month refused to grant tax-exempt status to a non-profit group, Christians Engaged. I’ll give you the incredible reason for that decision in a minute.
This week the IRS reversed itself–because most of the nation was outraged over it–and granted tax-exempt status to the Christian group (https://www.newsmax.com/politics/irs-christians-engaged-tax/2021/07/08/id/1027891/).
Why did they refuse to do that in the first place?
Because…”The Bible’s teaching is affiliated with the Republican Party”! (https://leeduigon.com/2021/06/21/who-knew-the-irs-is-ignorant/).
We are not told which particular idiot wrote that ruling. But we are thankful that the IRS reversed itself… after Republicans in Congress formally objected to it.
Who knew the Bible was based on the ideology of the Republican Party, which didn’t even come into existence until almost 2,000 years after the Bible was written? Uh, this Far Left ninny in the IRS “knew” that. I wonder what else he or she “knows.”
Really, if the GOP is the best the Bible can do, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, some jackass in the IRS has succeeded in branding his own beloved Democrats as the Anti-Bible Party.
I don’t think we can quarrel with that.
Yes, we do get disappointed, yes, it’s hard to take… when we need a solid Christian stand from our leaders–from our clergy, at least. if no one else–and all we get is dodgeball. R.J. Rushdoony in 1995 took aim at “Empty Suits.”
https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/empty-suits
Where do these craven, chicken-hearted, fumfering leaders come from? They come from us. Even if elections are rigged in favor of the empty suits, the lucky empty winners are still born and raised and educated by us. No enemy country imposed them on us. They didn’t drop out of the sky.
If we don’t seek God, neither will our leaders.
You do wonder, sometimes, what goes on in seminaries–at least, when you see the kind of graduates coming out of seminaries. A little tag from Revelation springs to mind: “the synogogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9).
Standing in front of the camera, trumpeting their support for Planned Parenthood–have they no fear of God?
I doubt that they believe in Him.
I had never heard this hymn before. Click “CC” for lyrics: they are not easy, comfortable, “just be nice” lyrics. One thinks of the souls under the altar in Revelation 6, martyred, murdered, by a wicked world and waiting for God to avenge them.
Sung by students from Fountainview Academy, in front of the Colisseum–and we know what happened there, don’t we?
Note: The hymn contest is still on, but I haven’t received any entries yet today.
Requested by Phoebe, sung by the students of Fountainview Academy, Faith of Our Fathers: a hymn that reminds us that sometimes the price of faithfulness is martyrdom.
Our country’s founders did their level best to create a polity in which there would be no martyrs, with a government that would protect religious liberty.
Any fool equipped with brute force can conquer someone, and stay in power until a stronger fool comes along; but “we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Persecution never stopped the growth of the Church; and be sure that righteous God will avenge it.
I’m doing what I can to support my fellow Christian bloggers. I pray this effort will bear fruit. Big Tech is pushing us down to the bottom of the search engines, and we need to raise each other up by posting work by other Christian bloggers.
From the UnashamedofJesus blog: Acts 12 tells us how Peter was imprisoned by Herod and condemned to execution, and how God miraculously delivered him–and punished Herod.
Acts 12- Pray Without Ceasing Part 2
“Pray without ceasing” is the message. We must believe in the power of prayer–and use it!
P.S.–If you are a Christian blogger and would like me to display some of your work from time to time, please just let me know! There is no charge for this service.
I re-run this post from time to time to remind readers that “You’re all racists!” is a project that Far Left Crazy has been working on for quite a few years.
Critical Race Theory, which aims at establishing the perpetual guilt of all white people and building a society founded on racial hatred, has been in the works for a long time. Here’s the “United Church of Christ” in 2016 hectoring its few dozen members to embrace their guilt. I wonder if anyone still belongs to the UCC; it might’ve been completely deserted by now.
Flatline churches have been a national disease for a long, long time.
It’s hard to find “Biblical scholars” (LOL) who believe the Bible. These same people would object to Darwinism being taught by Young Earth Creationists. I think it’s because they’re just not very nice people.
I have been writing fiction, and reading it assiduously, all my life–unlike some “scholar” at a bonzo seminary who needs to get out more often. I’m here to tell you, as a fiction writer conversant with the history of fiction, that the Bible is non-fiction. The Bible is truth. Because the techniques of fiction needed to create a Bible were never even thought of until the 19th century–and can you think of any “Bible equivalent” that has stood the test of time? How many fake “Bibles” have been written, and passed unnoticed into oblivion?
The real Bible–the one dictated by the Holy Spirit over thousands of years–lives on. And it will never pass away.
Pastor “SlimJim” requested this one–My Jesus, by Anne Wilson.
There is nothing that hurts us more than the death of a loved one, no pain worse than that. It’s something pastors are called upon to deal with–still think it’s an easy job?
We could not live, but for the Holy Spirit, God’s word, and Jesus Christ our Savior.