Presidents Day – It Is Really Not About Big Sales

Greetings,

            Today is the celebration of George Washington’s birthday.  How wonderfully typical of our society and its government that the day designated to honor Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and George Washington’s birthday can never fall on either of their birthdays.  (The earliest possible date is the 15^th and the latest possible date is the 21^st.)  How also typical of our society that most of what is written about them in our time is designed to tear down their reputations, besmirch their good names, make us feel less guilty about our sins and the sins of those around us (or over us), and to make a lot of money for those who have no shame.  Our own pride is hurt by the notion that there are some people who behaved better than us.  We are now so used to swiping the tar brush across the deeds of the powerful, famous and rich to hid their misdeeds that we can’t let go if it and want to keep on painting anybody and everybody with the same tar.  Such fun.  It makes us feel so good.

            Paul said: “Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due” (Rm. 13:7).  This day we need to remind ourselves that there are people to whom honor is due, and that Washington and Lincoln are among them.  Their names are so prominent in our history, and we are so familiar with them, that we forget just how absolutely vital they were in the shaping of our nation and its history.  Their greatness is in fact so great that it is taken for granted and lost in a mythical haze which ends in our not recognizing it at all for what it truly represents.  We also insist on judging them by our own standards today rather than understanding them in the context of their day. 

            Both Lincoln and Washington were men who would be good, honest, hard working, kind and Godly in any place or time.  True, they might not be famous, for it was the “coincidence of time and place” with their particular needs which brought them to public prominence.  One might even say that it was God ordained that they be in place to fulfill the roles they did.  Both were men of deep faith, even if not conventional.  Both had little use for what they considered the “show” of religion.  Both were devout in their personal lives, well versed in the scriptures, and had a strong understanding of their theology.  Both lived by the scriptural standards of faith, trust, love, goodness and honor.  Both understood and lived the principle stated in Proverbs 15:33: “The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor.” 

            As we remember Washington’s birthday, let us reflect upon the example of service he set for us and upon these expressions he gave of his beliefs:

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called Conscience.

It is impossible to govern the world without God.  He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of

religious principle.

Providence has at all times been my only dependence, for all other resources seem to have failed us.  While just government protects all in their religious rites, true religion affords government its surest support.

            As we recall Lincoln’s birthday last week, it would be most appropriate to reread the “Gettysburg Address” and his “Second Inaugural Address” and to consider the following quotations from Lincoln:

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is not God.

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

I have but to say, the Bible is the best gift God had given to man.  All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.  But for it we could not know right from wrong.  All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.

I recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history that

those nations only are blest whose God is the Lord.

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.  My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.

            After contemplating the lives of these presidents, and all of the political “spinning” which surrounds our current President and would-be presidents, I cannot help but think of another verse from Proverbs, “A person’s pride will bring humiliation, but one who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor” (Prov. 29:23).  I will let you draw your own conclusions from this.

Yours & His,

DED