"So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. (Judges 2:14 ESV) After the death of Joshua the Israelites were ruled by judges. Time after time they openly rebelled against God and then found themselves being plundered by enemies. What followed that was the people crying out to the Lord for help and often God responding by providing them with a strong judge to lead them....for a time....until they rebelled again.
When I read this verse today I thought about Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. We had been given over to the Clintons who plundered America and later sold to Barack Obama to complete the pillaging. The plunder came in the form of destroying our values, obscuring our heritage and devaluing our traditions. The ideology of the Progressive had no use for terms such as duty, honor and country, and later a dumbed-down culture responded favorably to the prepared and cultured Manchurian Candidate Barack Obama. The Marxists entered through our gates and we feasted with them oblivious to their intentions. It's not that the Clintons and Barack Obama are alone responsible for our collapse for they are only the worst. I bear the responsibility of ten men for our condition, for it is those such as myself, an idol factory...self-serving and asleep in my entertainment induced trance, who caused God to give us over to plunderers and it is also I who wants to be among those pleading for God's mercy, for his name's sake and his glory....alone!
It is difficult, on the one hand, to witness what our military has done with such honor and great skill and then turn around and view the society it defends, a society that ridicules the need for vigilance as it admires the diversity of those who seek to bring us down. General Douglas MacArthur, in his farewell speech to West Point in 1962, spoke these words to the cadets. "The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country." No, the long gray line has not failed America but we may fail it and those who came before us if we do not cry out to the Lord for help.
The following post was written over four years ago, before watertight compartment after watertight compartment of our ship of state had been breached. The second post is more recent. In our foundering condition, the only thing that could get us to a safe harbor would be God's mercy.
April 15, 2009
America The Beautiful expresses the wondrous bounty God had bestowed upon this country. Spacious skies, amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties surely describe this land. I appreciate the beauty of this land and also the liberty that it was built upon, but I love this country for other reasons. When I talk about America, I'm talking about it from its beginning when small ships carried whole communities across the ocean. I love it for its diversity. We have problems but we have overcome bigger ones. We have new challenges that almost seem insurmountable but its not the first time. We have been bonded together through a concept that demanded diversity of background but became unity as Americans. I love America because of the hope and stability it has given the world. I can write my opinion and speak it. I can pass out books without fear of intimidation. I can oppose iniquity and protest tendencies that are too close to tyranny for comfort. I love America most because God has used it to spread the gospel to every corner of the world. Everywhere I go, in the workplace, in the recreation and shopping arenas, vacation spots and at preserved historical landmarks there are Christians. I can empathize with them, enjoy their fellowship, share my needs and pray for theirs. My son will find them at college, my wife and I will work with them, and many of our representatives will govern with Christ as their head. God has raised this nation and used it mightily, this is why I love it so. I write this blog because these things are in danger. The bond is disappearing. European immigration is occurring again but this time it is an immigration of philosophy. Illegal immigration, sponsored by politicians for political reasons does a great disservice to the legal immigrants who continue to bolster and favor us as they become one with us. Our corporations are becoming more international than American. Our activist courts look to international law, for American law will not suffice the paradigm change they envision. Our media is failing its calling and most importantly, the faithfulness of our churches to the gospel is at low ebb. Previous to revisionist history, we were taught that Americans were a special people who could do almost anything. The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville thought this people special enough to travel here just to observe. He wrote, "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power..." Ignoring these problems and the historical tendency of many nations to collapse from within, is not love.
January 14, 2012
Dawn breaks and pull by pull the flag rises until its stars and stripes blend into the red sky. The 21st century America cold front collides with the warm heritage of American liberty. Dark clouds form above the eagle perched atop the pole and the flag snaps as the winds begin another day of adding to the tatters and waiting for the rain that month by month fades the blue and red hues that Americans have savored as the taste of freedom for so long. A icy chill settles in the bones of the one raising the flag for he knows that its stars and stripes will be indiscernible before long. He looks down to see if the cracks in the foundation supporting the pole have widened from the tremors that increasingly shake America...they have. He steps back, standing as erect as he can under the burden of seeing his nation collapse, and salutes; a tear forming as he knows that he may be the last to perform this duty. His mind wanders from, first... the drum and piper escorting the newly created flag, to the inspiration for Francis Scott Key's poem, to the charging Union soldier picking up the banner dropped by a fallen comrade in arms, to the lifting of the flagpole on Mt. Suribachi, to the camo flag on the fatigues of the grunt in Vietnam, to the brilliant contrast of red, white and blue with the gray mountain of fallen steel, brick and mortar of the World Trade Center, to the lone flag now raised in the Green Zone of Baghdad. In only a few hours cheers and shouts will be heard off in the distance, not for returning heroes, not as a President passes by, not as a war ends in victory but for the beginning of a football game. The Star Spangled Banner will play and be sung by the latest celebrity seeking a national spotlight but not a word of its lyrics will resonate with the power it had since Fort McHenry. We are not as the Roman Empire falling, we are as the Roman Empire beginning whose gods are numerous, whose Caesars consolidate powers given by a populace that only wants another day at the Colosseum. God's hand is being lifted and the exhilaration of choosing our own destiny emboldens us to stare into the eyes of Caesar and say not, "Give me liberty or give me death" but "Give me liberty to choose my own death." All the while the remaining Christians gather in their catacombs wondering if God's mercies on America are over; imploring of Him one more time for America to be a beacon to the nations, a people that not only openly proclaim Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind but evidence the beneficence, mercy, majesty, power and glory of Him who created the universe and without whom not one molecule would continue to exist. It was a marvel and a wonder while it existed in its original form....these United States of America, but now they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd (Zech 10:2.) They are a people once different as night and day in their habits and their speech that bonded together as a new entity...Americans, freed from the tyranny of kings, freed from serfdom and most importantly freed from the lie that man is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, but that freedom, once defended, is now merely petted in the lap of luxury, "Free" as the famous rocker penned..."Free Fallin'." The American Creed, never spoken but always evident, is now but a liberal screed against God, against tradition, and against history itself. The sun, obscured throughout the day by clouds, sets in the West. The rain that would normally give life to the fields, runs off of the frozen, barren and lifeless ground. The flag is lowered and gently folded into the shape of a tri-cornered hat, one of the last vestiges that remain of the fight for independence. No Taps is heard, only the music of the night coming from wherever the revellers gather after the game. The winds die down, no longer needed, for the flag has been taken down, while angels sent by God prepare to blow their trumpets.
