Shipwreck

Shipwreck

            "[We are] troubled on every side, yet not distressed; [we are] perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

            This writer was just a child at the beginning of WWII, interested in and intently listening to all news broadcasts about the Nazi invasion of Europe. My family had cousins who had returned from WWI and I still remembered their uniforms.

            Edward R. Murrow would give, from London, detailed accounts of Nazi atrocities. I still remember Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, broadcasting from England, where she had fled, to the Dutch people. The Dutch people were starving but she encouraged them to stay alive, to help and protect one another. I remember one of my European guides, whose family had lived in the Hague for many generations, telling me how his parents suffered for one piece of bread. Toward the end of the war, allied bombers, flew low over the Netherlands dropping food. The absolute rule of monarchs, like the rule of Godless politicians, has visited more sorrow on mankind than we will ever know...injured-starving children.

            Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will abdicate her thrown in April. Queen Juliana had succeed Queen Wilhelmina, and then her daughter Beatrix. The Dutch will have a King, Beatrix's son, Wilem-Alexander. This writers ancestors left Europe, went through the horrors of early American living, attempting to escape the brutality of monarchs. History has been punctuated by the rule of despots. Kings-queens, their ilk, void of conscience, some even claiming divine guidance, enslaving their fellow man. At the funeral of Louie the 14th, France, Notre Dame cathedral, Paris, the service by a cardinal, a large candle illuminated the front of the cathedral where the gold casket lay. The cardinal extinguished the candle and said, "He thought he was sun God but now he is like the rest of us."

            The 21st century sees politicians-world's royalty-world's rich elitist, promoting and proclaiming a new world order. Each year the Bilderberg's-made up of these people, have a not so secretive meeting where they blueprint the directions we are supposed to follow. (2012-Virginia near Dulles Airport, 2011- Switzerland, 2010- Greece, etc.) These fellow human beings such as David Rockefeller, Queen Beatrix, Henry Kissinger, and 100 other of the world's power brokers and richest people, know nothing about the world's poverty, have never, as has this writer, seen groups of Chinese eating from a large pot of rice in the mornings before they go to assigned work details. They know nothing about dirt farmers, coal miners or mill workers. They just want to take over the world without too much shipwreck-destruction, and like American communists-politicians, keeping the masses subservient with just enough food to prevent starvation, enough shelter to prevent revolution, enough healthcare to prevent epidemics, keep the masses working so they can pay taxes to support the lifestyles of the "rich and famous."

            In the shipwreck of academia, the dumbing down in education from elementary through college, students who once basked in a freedom of thought, now just puppets of the state. In the shipwreck of healthcare, the scientific community which took pride in discovery, now at the trough of government largess-foundation grants. In the shipwreck accompanying vows, oaths, even pertaining to marriage, or church membership, the same heresy as the oaths of politicians. In our 21st century lives, searching desperately to find nourishment for the soul in a desert of politically correct uselessness, I often tell people to nurture themselves from God's Holy word. "Nourishment from the sweet neat good meat" of promise, not choking on the bones of deceit which we can find anywhere.

            I truly believe that 90% of faith is just raw courage. Now, and even more so in the future, it will take courage to live a Christ centered life, courage to raise a Christian family, courage to support-educate-motivate friends and associates.

            The record is in, very clear for those who want to study it, only a miniscule few in the Old Testament were saved. Perhaps the saddest walk ever recorded, Moses and Aaron ascending mount Hor, where Moses removed Aarons high priest vestments to be put on Eleazer and Aaron, Moses' older brother, left to die, suffering the transgressions of the gold calf-his priest sons evaporated and, so it was with others. Old Testament, New Testament, the first thousand years of the universal church, like Demas "...loving this present world" (2 Timothy 4:10).  

            Called early in life, age 17, John, brother of James, son of Zebedee, lived to be the oldest (85). In his gospel, wrote the entire history of the world in four verses. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:10-13).

            The common man has always been able to comprehend the "Big I, Little U" attitude of our fellow man. It is just when picking over the shipwreck of this democratic republic, seeing how politicians paid millions to get elected to jobs that paid only thousands, exempting themselves from the very laws they made pertaining to everything even stock market investing, entitlements, retirements. We can know without a doubt that God is long suffering...otherwise, he could speak one word and end it all....even as he did one time before, speak one word and start all over.