Rest Unassured........Redux

         I was talking to a good friend the other day, a good friend being among other things someone that you can give an honest opinion to, hear an opposite honest opinion, and just relish the conversation, and I mentioned in the course of that conversation that I believed that God's judgement on America may be imminent. His response was skeptical to say the least, stating that "we have heard that forever." I knew what he meant but his 'forever' was a bit of a stretch for it's really only been a little over four decades since biblical verses of end-times prophesy began to inundate the thoughts of Christians who read the Bible. Forty years of warnings from God should be expected more than ridiculed.
         The problem is that God has become to us almost as a myth, and if he's not a myth he is an easy mark that we can play according to our own rules. Salvation, if there is such a thing, comes with a very low deductible. Don't worry....we're covered! The following post is from 2011:

Rest Unassured!   


         Somewhere in these past blogs I've mentioned the following thought for it has been a recurring one to me from time to time, as recently as yesterday as I drove through the beautiful, half residential-half country, roads of eastern Ohio. Away from the radio, the newspapers, books and television, as I might take a drive like this or walk in a park, the serenity and peace of life in America seems every bit the same as when I was in my teens. Automobiles gently traverse the neighborhood streets, stopping dutifully at every stop sign, or they travel on the parkways at higher speeds with today's modern technology quietly taking us to a shopping mall or home from work.  Laughter and talk fill the Starbucks and the sidewalks of our towns, mothers push strollers and at home men reach first for the sports pages. The supermarkets may be much larger with every imaginable taste but we fill up the same buggies with the same essential food stuffs as in the old A&P. Appearances and particulars of all the above are new and different but the serene concourse of life appears not to have changed nor would I or anyone reading this want it to.
         It's only when we let in the news of the day that this tranquility is threatened and even then the click of the remote, the ring of the cell phone or the sudden remembrance of an errand that needs done erases a feeling of urgency that might be settling into our minds. My message throughout this blog is that this is a shadow world where the intensity of the sun, that would bake us if we bask in it, is hidden. The blast of heat troubles us only when the clouds break for a minute or two, here or there. This has been my message that was so much more eloquently stated in the Puritan prayer of my last blog...O my forgetful soul, awaken from thy wandering dream.
          Some can audaciously say as Timothy McVeigh did in quoting the Victorian poem Invictus on that gurney before being injected with the serum that would take him to his maker...I am the master of my fate: the captain of my soul, but I would plead with them to consider that as they might recite this ode to autonomy that their children stand alongside them. What they pay attention to, or fail to pay attention to, affects them as well. As with a pregnant mother, what you take in feeds more than yourself. Our national security is being compromised for political gain. Osama bin Laden's death could not even be announced without evidence that politics dictates even the most sensitive matters. Even the extraordinary abilities of our military cannot overcome an administration that glues together a mosaic of chaos not order. Our financial stability is gone. The creed that  once united us as Americans has faded as the In God We Trust on a well-worn 1909 penny. The very gospel of Jesus Christ has been so watered-down that it often bears no taste of salvation or aroma of wisdom and discernment. If we could really see what we so often laugh at on the television or in the theater we would be convulsed with sobs. If we could grasp the true philosophy our children will inherit, all of our hope would collapse as those towers on 9/11. If we could fully realize how the mission of many whose responsibility is to protect America have instead chosen to defend the sensitivities of some who have come to America only to plant a flag of Sharia Law, we might then awaken.
         In reality, the tranquility has not been there for a long time for it takes decades for a glacier to cover over all forms of life and it has taken decades for us to rid our minds of discernment, logic and common sense. We have one, and only one, offensive weapon not tainted by man for it was not formed by him, and that is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17). God dispels the clouds through our subsequent prayers, not that we might cover our eyes from a blazing sun, but that we might gaze in adoration at the Son, our only hope. There will indeed be a day when the Son of God appears amidst the clouds and men will then hide. Whether this is near or far no one knows for we do not know what a day brings but... rest unassured... for we, as a nation, are indeed asleep and we will either awaken or perish in that sleep.