BON A' VIDES

One of my favorite premedical courses was Zoology. I can still remember Dr. Claiborne Jones, Professor of Zoology, walking into the classroom with the book “Animals Without Backbones”. We studied amoeba and paramecium and I often thought of the most primitive animal life as I dealt with adult men who still did not have backbones. This Army Medical Officer never saw smiles on the faces of men or women in basic training. Like the training of children, humiliation and coming to grips with weakness engulfs the human spirit in a way that brings little pleasure. The reason for the high divorce rate, prisons filled with young people, high rates of suicide (1 military man commits suicide every day) the human inability for submission. We simply do not want to submit to anyone...commanding officers, parents, spouses or even God. God established this in the very beginning, the “No-No Tree”.

Earliest Jewish history, God had destroyed the world because of sin except for 8 souls and the animals on earth which He chose to save. One of Noah's sons, Seth, father of Cush, grandfather of Abraham (now I know that Abraham and Sarah's names were different in the beginning, for this purpose we will use their later names). God called Abraham to leave everyone – everything and to travel to a place which He would later identify...it so happened to be 600 miles north...no “forwarding address”. One can well imagine what today's Sarah would have said but Abraham had the character – discipline – bon a' vides that evidently his wife never questioned anything. They had no children, and opposed to God's will, dragged along with them his father, Terah and his sniveling nephew, Lot. Terah was a worshiper of idols. God wanted all idol worship eradicated from Abraham's life so, Terah died just outside the present city of Damascus during the trip. As the poet Cowper has said, “God moves in mysterious ways. His wonders to perform.” He is always Boss, will always set His parameters, just as He did with the “No-No Tree”.

So it was with the children of Israel after battling the Canaanites. God had hated the Canaanites ever since Noah's drunkenness. They were moving (pillar of fire by night) in the area of Mount Horeb (mountain on which Aaron was buried). They were complaining (about 3 million in number) talking of killing Moses...so soon forgetting their redemption from bondage. God sent scorpions, and “many died” (Numbers 21). You see, they were complaining about the bread supply to them, every day, a type of worship (if you don't like what God sends you to bite, God may send something to bite you). The people repented. Moses put a brass scorpion on a pole and those who would look upon the scorpion would be healed (type of Christ on a tree, and His healing and forgiving in the future). Every military medical officer wears a brass scorpion on a tree...symbolic of his designation of one in the healing profession, the bon a' vides of preparing for healthcare, men with the backbone to undergo this long course of study.

I have so many people ask me all the time WHY in politics, business, sports, even religion, so few men are genuine – honest in their belief structure. Most are just imposters, bought off so easily, do not have the backbone to stand. The test of a man is not what he does when everything goes well, but what he does when things go wrong...disability, impending death diagnosis, bankruptcy. I did not see it but my mother told me what happened when one of my cousin's family returned home from a funeral service when a young son was buried, victim of a automobile crash. Her cousin, the boy's father, (devout church attender) walked over took his bible off the end table and threw it out the front door. He said, “That takes care of that, never again will I believe in anything.” My dear mother later went out and retrieved the bible from the front yard and put it in a chest in the man's house. He had the stamina to be a church-goer but not the backbone to be a church-believer (church, a group of believers in Christ) when things go wrong, which they always will. Paul told the Hebrews about “bad things” happening to good people. (5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? Hebrews 12:5-7)

Offer your suffering, your disability, to the Lord. Jesus, Himself said, “If you suffer with me, you will reign with me.” Basic Christianity, we have been called from darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). The bon a' vittes of letters after your name, Masonic handshake, even living and giving the usual Christian expectations are not sufficient. It is a matter between you and God (no one else business). The backbone you have to put on the Christian armor and stand in spite of the trials and temptations of daily living. The Bible is your only authority. When you know this, you have the backbone to stand against the darkness of sin in the world, the homosexual agenda attempting to take over the world, same sex marriage, lesbian preachers, the Jezebel spirit of the women in your family. When you belong to Christ, you have no need for alcohol, cigarettes, addictive drugs. Your habits betray what you are, you cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24).