A Reformation in Our Patriotism (excellent)

Insight for Living - The Bible Teaching Ministry of Charles R. Swindoll

Chuck Swindoll

A Reformation in Our Patriotism
Monday, August 09, 2004

Because my father would have gone in a heartbeat if they would have allowed him to go....

Because they didn't, he worked seven days a week, four and a half years in a row...building the implements of war so we could bring back the freedom to countries that had lost it."

Welcome to the Monday edition of "Insight for Living," as our teacher, Chuck Swindoll, continues his message titled, "A Reformation in Our Patriotism."

As recent world events seem to hit closer to home every time, it's not surprising that we'd be anxious and worried.

If you depend on news services that focus only on the negative, you'd have cause for concern.

You thought life would be like so and so...10 years ago? Has it been like you thought it would be 10 years ago? No. Not at all. You thought it'd be like this, how 'bout 5 years ago?

Some of you are saying, "How 'bout 5 days ago?" I mean, it changes every waking dawn...morning, every dawn.

"Come behold the works of the Lord" who has wrought desolations in the earth. "He makes wars to cease unto the end of the earth"; and what we thought was so impregnable, He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. And those chariots that made the ground tremble when the enemy was coming, He burned the chariots with fire.

Why? Verse 11, because: "The Lord of hosts is with us." The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

We've rendered it "Be still." My Bible reads, "Cease striving." "Stop worrying" could be a paraphrase.

Settle down - and remember, "I am God." Remember Me? I met you in verse (46:) 1 - I am "your refuge and strength." I'm "a very present help in trouble."

He concludes with this great statement: (11) He is the One who "is with us; the God of Jacob is our" stronghold. Selah.

It's what I would have called, but I didn't know to do that until my good friend and loyal companion, David Chevan (sp?), told me about "artillery sermons."

....In the days of the Revolutionary War, it wasn't uncommon for pastors to preach sermons that prepared congregations for battle. Now, I mean, literal battle in the streets. There was a war going on - a war with England, for our independence - and sermons were delivered for the purpose of bringing courage to the congregations. Usually these were delivered by Presbyterian pastors. Interesting.

Those sermons came to be known as "artillery sermons." Isn't that a good name? Delivered to give the people determination, passion, patriotism.

Patriotism - called "corny" in the 21st Century, in a few places - which I despise.

And our President seen as a "gun-toting, trigger-happy cowboy" - are you kidding? I admire his restraint. He could have turned most countries into parking lots with the kind of firepower we have, but he would not allow that.

Very carefully, and very cautiously, with the counsel of those around him, he set his plans in motion. And, being friends with a few of those in the Pentagon...and...even those answering to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I tell you prayer was poured into those decisions that were going to shape our tentative future.

I sort of lost heart when I paid a little too much attention to the news and watched what was happening. And then Paul sent me a wonderful editorial that came from a British newspaper one year after the 2001 atrocity that hit our country.

Just a word about the background. It comes from The Daily Mirror, published in England, notoriously left-wing daily paper. Very anti-American. Kind of hard to believe they would even allow this editorial to be published.

"One year ago the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting - the mass-murder of thousands, live on television.

As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11th was up there with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps.

An unspeakable act, so calculated, so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate.

Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil.

But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance.

There has always been a simmering resentment of the United States of America in this country - we're too loud, too rich, too full of themselves, and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic.

And it seems incredible to me (CS, "writes this man"). More than that, it turns my stomach.

America is this country's greatest friend, and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the U.S. by culture, language, and blood.

A little over a half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedom, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon?

And exactly one year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women, and children - not just Americans, but from dozens of countries - were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray them?

What touched the heart about those who died in the twin towers and on the planes, was that we recognized them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son, somebody's daughter, husbands, wives. And children. Some unborn.

And these people brought it on themselves? And their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter?

These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nutjob in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan.

The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals, who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission.

Truth is, America has behaved with enormous restraint since the 11th of September.

Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of skyscrapers.

Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of those planes with her mum. Remember...So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass me a Kleenex.

So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their submachine guns - semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot. That it didn't is a sign of strength.

American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq - that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? How many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination?

When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that - and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism". A real war.

The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of hell", if America strikes Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe.

The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth.

The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived.

But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand - assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.

I'm a Brit and I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh....America is hated because it is what every country wants to be ...free, strong, open, optimistic - rich.

Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend our country ever had and we should start remembering that.

"I know we have a mixture of nationalities here. I know we have different countries who've come to our conference. That's fine.

If it had been your country, I would have sat and thanked you for this message - had you been the one to speak.

I salute every member of the armed service, every officer who makes a tough decision, every Soldier who is either a victor or has a loss in battle. I salute them.

Because my father would have gone in a heartbeat, if they would have allowed him to go.

Because they didn't, he worked seven days a week, four and a half years in a row, 'til an emotional breakdown - building the implements of war so we could bring back the freedom to countries that had lost it.

Don't listen too closely to CNN....O.K. It's full of...what it shouldn't be full of...Yeah. Right.

One final, Reg likes to read, I do, too. I promise this will not be as long, but I read this to Cynthia and she almost kissed me - so I'm reading this to you:

"Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me.

Now, when I read of the war on terrorism, or the coming conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart.

When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully. Sometimes I cry.

In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blue and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way.

John was headstrong and he seemed to understand those stern, clean men with straight backs and flawless uniforms.

I live on the Volvo-driving, higher education-worshipping north shore of Boston. I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military.

It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown and NY University. John's enlisting was unexpected, so deeply unsettling.

I did not relish the prospect of answering the question, "So, uh, where's John going to college?" from the parents who were itching to tell me about how their son or daughter was admitted to Harvard.

At the private high school John attended, no other students were going into the military.

"But aren't the Marines terribly southern?" asked one perplexed mother while standing next to me at the brunch following graduation.

One parent, a professor at a nearby, and rather famous university, spoke up at a school meeting, suggesting that the school should now carefully evaluate what went wrong.

When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island, 3000 parents and friends were on the parade decks - stands - we parents and our Marines not only were of many races, but also were representative of many economic classes - many were poor. Some arrived, cramped, in the backs of pick-ups, others by bus. My John told me a lot of parents couldn't be there, they couldn't afford the trip.

We in the audience were white and Native American, we were Hispanic, Arab, African-American and Asian. We were former Marines wearing the scars of battle, or, at least, baseball caps emblazoned with battle names. We were southern whites from Nashville, skinheads from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and white ex-cons with ham-hocked forearms, defaced by jailhouse tattoos.

We would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns at John's private school a half year before.

After graduation, one new Marine told John, "You know, before I was a Marine, if I had ever seen you on my block, I would have probably killed you just because you were standing there." This was a serious statement from one of John's good friends, an African-American, ex-gang member from Detroit who, as John said, "would die for me now. Just as I would for him."

My son has connected me to my country - in a way that I was too selfish and insular to experience before.

I now feel closer to the waitress at our local diner than to some of my oldest friends. She has two sons in the Corps. They're facing the same dangers as my boy.

When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it because his younger brother's in the Navy.

Why were I, and the other parents at my son's private school, so surprised by his choices?

During World War II sons and daughters of the most powerful and educated families did their bit. If the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done?

Is the world a safe place now? Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else defend us?

What is the future of our democracy when the sons and daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more likely to be put in harm's way than are any of the students whose dorms their parents clean?

I feel shame, because it took my son's joining the Marine Corps to make me take notice of who is defending me.

I feel hope, because perhaps my son is a part of the future greatest generation.

As the storm clouds gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in uniform in the eye.

"Our Father, I ask you to forgive us for the softness that has begun to characterize a generation.

We desire not to be reactionary, or retalliatory, or, in any way, trigger-happy, gun-toting fools, shooting up a neighborhood.

Because Our God is our refuge, we will not fear, we will not be moved, we will not strive.

Thank you for this man's writing and for his understanding, and willingness to change,

and to see the importance of those courageous men and women who set aside their education

"Patriotism can be costly. And to those who love freedom, and are willing to fight for its preservation, it could mean a great sacrifice, but courage, honor, and duty are the hallmarks that set any nation apart."

2 posted on 08/09/2004 7:32:42 PM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all)

To: Cannoneer No. 4; TEXOKIE; xzins; Alamo-Girl; blackie; SandRat; Calpernia; SAMWolf; prairiebreeze; ..

Chuck Swindoll's brave stand for our military, our President, our nation - a sermon on patriotism delivered to his congregation, and broadcast for his radio and internet ministry today.

An "artillery sermon" - a Christian leader rallying his flock in defense of faith, family, country. (Good news!)

5 posted on 08/09/2004 7:55:31 PM PDT by The Mayor ("Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." George Washington)

Thank you for posting this with the link. I love Chuck Swindoll.

Thanks for the very moving post.

9 posted on 08/09/2004 11:14:42 PM PDT by TEXOKIE (Hanoi John is DIRECTLY responsible for the hurtful epithets hurled at our returning Viet Nam troops)

This thread is now an officially designated Prayer Warrior Field Trip destination.

For those who may wish to hold vigil for our brave young troops with other FReepers, you are invited to check out the troop prayer threads which can be found here (lurkers are welcome!):

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1101474/posts?page=673

10 posted on 08/09/2004 11:24:04 PM PDT by TEXOKIE (Hanoi John is DIRECTLY responsible for the hurtful epithets hurled at our returning Viet Nam troops)

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~

11 posted on 08/10/2004 9:46:55 AM PDT by blackie (Be Well~Be Armed~Be Safe~Molon Labe!)

12 posted on 08/10/2004 11:51:11 AM PDT by windchime (Podesta about Bush: "He's got four years to try to undo all the stuff we've done." (TIME-1/22/01))

"But aren't the Marines terribly southern?" asked one perplexed mother

D*mn-straight-Army-too BUMP, sister

13 posted on 08/10/2004 12:05:13 PM PDT by LTCJ (God Save the Constitution.)

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