The following post is from August of 2015.....Barack Hussein was President......Hillary was the odds on favorite to succeed him.....and Donald Trump had two months earlier thrown his hat into the ring. Things were bad.....and they're a lot worse today....except for the stock market and the economy....which are dependent upon the stability of this government and also other governments.....a stability that does not exist.. Other than that we are just as violent if not more....and we are not even as concerned as we were before....for a man told us that things were going to be better than ever....and we believed him rather than God's Word. There was at least a flow of information available to us in 2015....mostly from talk radio....but that information has since been condensed to a defense of a President who greatly miscalculated the blowback to his taunting and narcissism.
A Song Of Remembrance....And A New Song
With history as our witness, it is not an anomaly, nor is it inconsistent, nor is it even odd. When a nation or an empire is overrun, destroyed, or even just collapses, it often if not usually happens in what could be called a 'caberet' or 'gladiator games' culture. Its entertainments had consumed it. In such a society, vigilance can be non-existent. That nation's or empire's discernment, not only as to its enemy's intentions but even the existence of an enemy, can also be non-existent. We are such a nation and such an empire.
Where did it begin and what precipitated our fall. It began roughly six-thousand years ago in a beautiful garden in what may now be the war torn and terror ravaged nation known as Iraq...or that garden could have been almost anywhere before the flood of Noah's day. We are fallen creatures capable of, over time, unlocking mysteries of the world around us. We can visit the moon. We've done it a few times and then we got bored with it. We can send a camera through arteries. We can replace a diseased heart with a mechanical pump....for a time anyway. We can carry almost all the information known to man...in our pocket. We can do everything accept make a spray starch aerosol can that won't plug up.....but the Artificial Intelligence that we are about to perfect will have their robots to do that.
You and I have a front row seat to the fall of the most powerful nation that ever was. Who needs Will Durant or Edward Gibbon or Charles Beard or Josephus? We can watch it on the telly, that is until the telly loses power. Or we can see it on stage. We've already sat through two acts. In Act One we jumped up on the throne with God and in Act Two we told Him to get off. We are though, going to want our price of admission back because we thought we were going to see a delightful comedy with a happy ending, but it is a tragedy.
The violence has overwhelmed us. It is now but a long list of nightly news stories that may or may not be read. Our intellects have atrophied. The mechanical functions well but we have no wisdom to speak of. Yet we are giddy. Our sports teams win and that's the only international relations that we care about. We are as children who when frightened the parent places a toy in their hands and the pop-up clown causes us to laugh, the rattle gets our attention and the spinning mobile above our heads puts us back to sleep. We retreat into our enclaves where there is only minimal violence but those enclaves are receding as the snow cover at winter's end.
Oh, but we had the finest minds at the beginning! They could reason. Their sentences, written with quill and ink, displayed a magnificent logic. Their conversation, as we read in their letters, were beautiful prose, flowing, didactic and profound. Though shorter on average in stature they towered above us. Amused by their clinging to something called honor, we place them under a microscope and label them worthless if any imperfection is found.
God has given us weak leaders and cunning enemies. The Song Of Moses from the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy was to be a witness against Israel. They would rebel....God would remind them of it. Moses wrote....."For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps."
But all praise is to be given to Him who as the Psalmist in Psalm 40 sings...."He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."
A Song Of Remembrance....And A New Song
With history as our witness, it is not an anomaly, nor is it inconsistent, nor is it even odd. When a nation or an empire is overrun, destroyed, or even just collapses, it often if not usually happens in what could be called a 'caberet' or 'gladiator games' culture. Its entertainments had consumed it. In such a society, vigilance can be non-existent. That nation's or empire's discernment, not only as to its enemy's intentions but even the existence of an enemy, can also be non-existent. We are such a nation and such an empire.
Where did it begin and what precipitated our fall. It began roughly six-thousand years ago in a beautiful garden in what may now be the war torn and terror ravaged nation known as Iraq...or that garden could have been almost anywhere before the flood of Noah's day. We are fallen creatures capable of, over time, unlocking mysteries of the world around us. We can visit the moon. We've done it a few times and then we got bored with it. We can send a camera through arteries. We can replace a diseased heart with a mechanical pump....for a time anyway. We can carry almost all the information known to man...in our pocket. We can do everything accept make a spray starch aerosol can that won't plug up.....but the Artificial Intelligence that we are about to perfect will have their robots to do that.
You and I have a front row seat to the fall of the most powerful nation that ever was. Who needs Will Durant or Edward Gibbon or Charles Beard or Josephus? We can watch it on the telly, that is until the telly loses power. Or we can see it on stage. We've already sat through two acts. In Act One we jumped up on the throne with God and in Act Two we told Him to get off. We are though, going to want our price of admission back because we thought we were going to see a delightful comedy with a happy ending, but it is a tragedy.
The violence has overwhelmed us. It is now but a long list of nightly news stories that may or may not be read. Our intellects have atrophied. The mechanical functions well but we have no wisdom to speak of. Yet we are giddy. Our sports teams win and that's the only international relations that we care about. We are as children who when frightened the parent places a toy in their hands and the pop-up clown causes us to laugh, the rattle gets our attention and the spinning mobile above our heads puts us back to sleep. We retreat into our enclaves where there is only minimal violence but those enclaves are receding as the snow cover at winter's end.
Oh, but we had the finest minds at the beginning! They could reason. Their sentences, written with quill and ink, displayed a magnificent logic. Their conversation, as we read in their letters, were beautiful prose, flowing, didactic and profound. Though shorter on average in stature they towered above us. Amused by their clinging to something called honor, we place them under a microscope and label them worthless if any imperfection is found.
God has given us weak leaders and cunning enemies. The Song Of Moses from the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy was to be a witness against Israel. They would rebel....God would remind them of it. Moses wrote....."For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps."
But all praise is to be given to Him who as the Psalmist in Psalm 40 sings...."He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."
