The book of Malachi 3:1 presents words that tells of "My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me." Here, Jesus was working with His church that would prepare them to recognize His coming when He should be born of a virgin. Malachi received this vital truth from the Lord hundreds of years prior, longer than America had begun forming as a nation. Malachi faithfully shared the burden of truth the Lord had given him, saying: I have loved you... Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Saith the Lord of host: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his...heritage waste. Whereas Edom saith [Esau's descendants] We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of host, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever. (Malachi 1:1-4) This reveals the hatred Heaven harbors for all that is wicked. Esau clung to his wicked ways while Jacob manifested a life, allowing his Father in heaven to bring him up in the admonition of the Lord. Heaven works in the atmosphere of truth. Truth applied to the heart cuts deep. This is necessary for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it" (Jeremiah 17:9). It can truthfully be said that Jesus knew the heart of Peter, also that of Judas. Each did precisely what was said of them. This is our reality. Only our Father in heaven knows what wickedness is lurking in our heart, as it waits for an opportunity to do or say what we adamantly deny, that which is definitely possible. Personal relationships take time to establish. It is no different with the one-on-one Jesus desires to have with those who have experienced wickedness lurking in a heart, professing great righteousness. Each of these articles found in this book covers topics that are meant for spiritual growth in learning the truth as it is in Jesus.

The Lord's Day Alliance of the United States was founded in 1888. That year representatives of six major Protestant denominations met in Washington, D.C. and organized the American Sabbath Union. This name was later changed to the Lord's Day Alliance. The Alliance is the only national organization whose sole purpose is the maintenance and cultivation of the first day of the week as a time for rest, worship, Christian education, and spiritual renewal.

In 1801, the United Kingdom was a semi-confessional State, and the national established Churches of England, Ireland and Scotland were vital to the constitution. They expressed the religious conscience of the State and served as guardians of the faith. Through their parish structures, they provided religious and moral instruction, and rituals for common living. This book explores the struggle to strengthen the influence of the national Churches in the first half of the nineteenth century. For many, the national Churches would help form the United Kingdom into a single Protestant nation-state, with shared beliefs, values and a sense of national mission. Between 1801 and 1825, the State invested heavily in the national Churches. But during the 1830s the growth of Catholic nationalism in Ireland and the emergence of liberalism in Britain thwarted the efforts to unify the nation around the established Churches. Within the national Churches themselves, moreover, voices began calling for independence from the State connection - leading to the Oxford Movement in England and the Disruption of the Church of Scotland.