National Bible Week

Floor Speech

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Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding to me and for leading here on this National Bible Week.

I would like to start out with just a touch of levity, because we are called to address the Speaker, and I know that the Speaker happens to also be a man of God and a Bible scholar.

In addressing the Speaker, I enjoy revisiting Ecclesiastes 10:2, which says: ``A wise man's heart is at his right, but a fool's heart at his left.''

I couldn't resist that, and I pray that you forgive me, Mr. Speaker, for that bit of levity at this time.

I would move on to my favorite verse, which is Ecclesiastes 9:10: ``Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.''

It calls us not to just wander through this life and touch things gently and kind of let the flow of life go by, but we are given gifts by God. He fills us with skill sets that we haven't yet developed, whether it is intellectual, whether it is physical, but skill sets of the heart, and to put our vigor to those things that please Him.

So with that verse in mind each morning, I pray that God will loan me the measure of his wisdom, that He would have me use this day to go forth and glorify Him. And if there is time for a little extra blessing, let me do so with joy. That sustains me through every day.

Another verse that sustains me through these future days came to me this morning at our gathering. This is the first chapter of Jeremiah, verse 17, that says: ``Meet them undaunted, and they shall have no power to daunt thee.''

That says, in my vernacular, never let them see you sweat, but go forth with courage and with confidence. Do those things that God calls you to do, and do so with your might.

I also look back on a verse in James that has caught my eye for some time, and it calls us, I think, in the right way, Mr. Speaker: ``Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.''

That fits with a prayer that I offered for years when we went through the farm crisis years of the 1980s. Things were falling down around us. The economy had essentially collapsed, and my neighbor's farms were being sold weekend after weekend in farm sales.

I was being tested in a similar way myself. Each day, I would pray that God would be finished testing me and start to use me.

And we should take joy in that test before we are made perfect in the tests that He provides for us. I know they are in the Book of James, which is one that has stood out for me for a long time, and that is: If you fail to do what you know is right, then you have sinned.

And I recall an issue that was going on in the Iowa State legislature. I was here in Congress, but I needed a bill introduced and moved in the State legislature. There were those who knew it was the right thing to do, but they didn't have the courage to introduce it because leadership was pushing against them, and it was going to be a big political fight.

But I found a young man who is my State representative today, and when I raised the issue with him, he said: I will do this. And I said: You understand the burden of this and the potential consequences if you step forward in this arena?

And he looked at me and he said: If I don't introduce this bill, I will not be able to receive final absolution.

Whoa, that told me something about the man and the character and the faith of this man. I don't know if this verse in James was something that had been branded on his heart. The meaning of it was--the words, I don't know--but he had to be thinking, if he failed to do what he knew was right, then he would have sinned.

But he stepped forward and did what he knew was right. And I appreciate Mr. Lamborn, the gentleman from Colorado, speaking today about Western civilization and about the foundation of Western civilization. It is everywhere where the footprint of Judeo- Christianity laid the foundation, this Western civilization. The values in it are rooted in the Old and the New Testament.

America would not and could not be the great Nation it is today if we were not a nation that was rooted in Biblical values. And I think that is something indisputable.

Mr. Speaker, I want to bring something to the attention of this Congress and people across this country that not a lot of people know. And this was in Jamestown in 1607. When they landed at Jamestown, the first thing that the settlers did as they arrived there, they erected a cross. They knelt. They took Communion, and they prayed.

The prayer is so profound, Mr. Speaker, that it should be hanging on the walls or somewhere around this Congress, and I don't know that it is. But here is their prayer, 1607, in this New World:

``We do hereby dedicate this land, and ourselves, to reach the people within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the Earth. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this Earth remains, and may this land, along with England, be Evangelist to the world. May all who see this cross remember what we have done here, and may those who come here to inhabit join us in this covenant and in this most noble work that the Holy Scriptures may be fulfilled.''

If that doesn't speak to the American destiny, I don't know what does. It had to be the hand of God on them. There is no way a mortal would have understood the path that they were all to follow and all that follow them.

I appreciate the opportunity to address this topic, Mr. Speaker.

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