Gettysburg Revisited

         Our son surprised me a few years ago by taking my posts and having them bound into book form. He has since given me four more volumes and another volume of my short novel which I never formally gave a name but Isaac Crockett, the main character, will do. There really isn't a single post that I could not have written recently although the urgency today has far eclipsed even that of five and six years ago. Anyway, it enables me to bring back past posts and the following is one of them:

Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death........October, 2010      

          OK, I just returned from Gettysburg.......again. It seems like I write that a lot for Gettysburg is like a magnet to me. If I’m going to Ocean City, New Jersey or any points east, the car seems to veer off to Gettysburg for a rest, but this time my wife and I actually had to go to there for reasons other than the battlefield and it also just happened to be our anniversary. We had decided to pick out our own gift to each other as we walked the town and shopped in the stores. My wife picked out a pair of pearl earrings inside a thin sterling loop. As for me, I came across something that signified man and sin, redemption, true glory and everlasting peace.
           I’m not really into relics. Maybe this comes from my Protestant Christian faith that shuns relics like the plague, for the whole concept of a piece of anything that may have belonged to anyone having any intrinsic value other than intellectual or personal interest is way too close to being an occult fetish. Do I compromise this in my great love of visiting historical sites? I don’t think so for I know that it in itself does not make me anything special nor give me any added powers.
          Anyway, I found myself walking slowly past locked glass cases of various Civil War relics that were for sale, most of which had been found on the battlefields of Gettysburg and identified as such. I really wouldn't have even considered asking the price of anything but one of these relics stopped me in my tracks. It was smaller than a quarter and I had to ask for the glass case to be opened to examine it closer. I typically spend about 15 minutes picking out black socks so I was there quite a while just looking at it when the salesperson offered to call the owner of that particular item so I could talk to him. We had a nice conversation and I told him that I wasn’t a collector but was just intrigued by this piece of the Civil War that he owned. He assured me that it was genuine, as best as one can tell for items like this. So I bought it as my anniversary present.

          It is most likely that on that hot July 3rd, 1863 as Picket’s Division of the Army of Northern Virginia came out of the tree line of Seminary Ridge, steel bayonets shining so that even the Army of the Potomac troops were momentarily in awe, that one of those men wore this tiny cross around his neck, and then lost it on the uphill charge to the copse of trees and Union lines, and there it remained until locals scoured the fields years later for just such artifacts. Many times have I visited battlefields but I always tempered my admiration for the heroism with the reality that many of these men did not know Christ nor had any hope in eternity. For instance, as much as I admire General George S. Patton I can’t help but focus in on his mistaken belief in reincarnation and his ultimate standing in front of the judgment seat of the One who is no respecter of persons. On the other hand I know that all of the accomplishments of men such as Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, thankfully, in no way effected their ultimate salvation for it was in their faith in Jesus Christ...alone... that their redemption was secured.

          Today, the wearing of a cross means little to nothing, even attendance at church on Sundays can be done by the most rebellious against God, but that farmer or even landed gentry in the antebellum South would only have donned such a religious item to proclaim their faith in their Saviour! The bearer may have been clutching this small cross as he walked into the hail of bullets and canister fire, maybe even ripping it from its chain in the process. It’s certainly not the small piece of flat metal with no marking whatsoever on it that interests me but the location that it was found, and that the wearer was most probably a brother in Christ, now free of all conflict and praising his Saviour, and also that America today is once again torn apart only much more so than in 1863. The man who dropped this cross was a soldier twice over, a pilgrim and soldier of Christ Jesus, doing his best to protect that which he loved but clinging to that which is infinitely more important, to a freedom immensely more valuable, and to a King whose victory is already accomplished, a King who will one day have every knee bow before Him and separate those whom He knows from those who will be surprised that they are not known by Him!

Cool Water

         My employer provides us with bottled water and I take advantage of this because it is generally a hot work climate. The other day I set out a cold bottle of water to take with me but forgot to do so and when I returned I opened it and took a big drink of the now warm water only to immediately spit it out for there was no refreshing quality about it. I took another sip and it was hard to swallow so I put the cap back on and returned it to the refrigerator. I heard two stories within the past week with an opposite scenario. A new restaurant has opened in our area and different groups of lady friends of my wife's had gone there for supper a week apart. Both came back with the same story. They ordered tea and it was served lukewarm and had to be returned.
          Water at least needs a certain amount of coolness to it to be refreshing and it also has to be hot enough to bring out the flavor of the tea. We are given an analogy of this in a metaphor of the church in the third chapter of the Book of Revelation. Seven churches are described to John and he was to write the descriptions down and distribute his writing. Coming where this is in Scripture, at the beginning of God's apocalyptic prophesy of the last of the last days, it would behoove all Christians to seriously meditate upon it.
           Five of the first six churches that had letters sent to it received some praise and some very serious criticism but the last of the seven churches received no acknowledgments of anything well done. The church at Laodicea was like the waters I described...neither hot nor cold. Here are John's words in that letter to the Laodicean church from the English Standard Version of God's Holy Word: "I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked..."
          Every year, for the last thirty or so years, I researched in advance, churches in the town or area that we were to take our summer vacation. I did so again this evening and it is discouraging. The church websites are very well done. Pictures flash across the screen of the church buildings, and congregational gatherings and various ministries. There's a link there for any questions that you might have, and directions to the church are great, but there is usually something missing, a soberness concerning the day and age that we live in, the country that we live in that is now collapsing from narcissistic bulimia and its government that staggers after gorging itself on our freedoms of religion. Surely the sermons would reflect a nation in collapse, but no, they far more too often than not address the felt needs of a citizenry that wants therapy, motivational techniques and a musical uplift, and certainly not preaching on the blood shed on Calvary two thousand years ago before we understood the inner workings of the mind and importance of self-esteem.
          We are Laodicea in America. Many churches are not, some are even Philadelphia that received no criticism; and if you take no offense at what my comments are here then you see the same warnings given to us in the second and third chapters of Revelation. In order to see ourselves as Laodicea we need something to compare us to and its not easy to find in today's churches. We need input from others who did not have this technological age with all its trappings to deal with. The Puritans can help for they faced the same type of government. The Reformation can show us the importance of doctrinal truth and the errors in our doctrine today, great preachers of the past can show us what we are missing from the pulpit and the lives of great missionaries, and missionaries today, can offer us a chance to view this world soberly and then prepare.
           I suspect that in the years if not days ahead that we, many of us, myself included, will humble ourselves as we see God's prophetic word more clearly as the veils are lifted from our eyes; and our focus will not be on things that perish but on the return of Jesus Christ with His mighty angels in all of His glory and power, and the wiping away of every tear. John's letter to the Laodiceans concluded with this "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."