The Gettysburg Address - 150 Years Later

[Darris McNeely] This is a week of anniversaries. November 19th is the 150th Anniversary of the delivery of the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, the president at the time, over the graves in Gettysburg of the fallen Union and Confederate soldiers in that great battle of July 1863.

It was an interesting speech. It has lived down through the years. It was a speech that offered a warning, a promise, and a hope of redemption as he pointed people to the fact that democracy planted on this soil would endure.

Thinking about that speech, thinking about this anniversary as we look at our land and our world today and especially the United States of America, going through a number of different civil problems, not quite a civil war, but challenges in our own country of debt and leadership challenges. One wonders where's the next Lincoln? Where is someone of that stature and power and bearing that can lead our people into a greater period of time?

When we stop and think about the source of our blessings coming now just a week before our national period of Thanksgiving in the United States it is a very good question to consider, and it brings to mind a scripture. 2 Chronicles 7:14 where God said to His people, but really to any people who call upon Him, He said, "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

If someone could live up to those ideals, and perhaps we can on an individual basis, but someone, a 21st Century Lincoln perhaps could lead us into yet a greater period of prosperity. Nonetheless, they are words to consider, and they're very appropriate in light of the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.