I feel better now.
Posted on 04/06/2016 5:28:34 PM PDT by Lazamataz
Rudyard Kipling wrote a prescient poem in 1919, called "Gods of the Copybook Headings.". This is, simply put, a must-read poem.
Copybooks were texts that allowed British schoolchildren of the time to practice penmanship, and the phrase they would copy -- often a phrase of a sermon, or some wise aphorism -- would be featured on the copybook heading. Kipling was appalled by the counterintuitive modern thoughts of the day, and wrote the poem to point out how eons of wisdom and experience of humankind were hard-won, and he urged us not to embrace the depraved 'shortcuts' we began to take.
Like Kipling -- though lacking his talent -- I, too, urge us to take stock of where we are. Are we in open rebellion with morality and common-sense? Are we in a pitched war with reality? Have we become a Demonic America?
Take yourself back ten years, and (except for the last item, which is older) ask if you would have physically struck a future-you that claimed that any of the above would come to pass.
I know I would.
There can be no doubt. We are in the clutches of great evil. Common sense has been thrown aside for bizarre and absurd conclusions that fly in the face of 2000 years of civilization, and the ideals of decency that surrounded us.
I have not even discussed other forms of evil, such as the Administration's betrayals of Israel -- including an implied threat to shoot down Israeli aircraft that would have struck Iran's nuclear facilities. There are so many other examples, too numerous to list. It all comes together to inform us that this is Satan's time, a time of unbridled evil.
Back in the 1970's and 1980's, I used to listen Iran call us the 'Great Satan' with a combination of derision and bemusement.
Now, I actually wonder... is that what we have become?
Great post.
“The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.”
Tom the Son is looking forward to the terror and slaughter, but I’m not.
I feel better now.
The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.Lovecraft may have been prophetic.-- from "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft
Published in 1928
The entire world is a test that was set up to prove to proud humanity that it would flunk.
The bible itself points out that it is folly to sit in nostalgia about the good old days. And it’s for an excellent reason that it does. The reason we got through them as well as we did wasn’t because the days were good, but because God was good.
An objective accounting would show that we’ve shed some old sins and embraced some new sins.
We need to look beyond this mortal coil rather than moan and groan about why it can’t be as good as it had been. If we merely want to be good men and women, a decent society, we’ve wanted too little. We need to be what, in our mortal view, would be mind boggling outstanding. And this is where the ministration of a Savior makes all the difference in forever.
Wow, fascinating. This will interest my sons.
The four restraints that MacArthur cited are Conscience, Family, Civil Authority and the Holy Spirit (through the Church). It's not hard to see how all four have been marginalized in our society, and now we are on the edge of ruin.
The trouble is, God is more than the answer we want.
God says let the earth itself perish for all He cares — where are our souls?
And they will give us a Pretty Nice Society, we must confess.
But will they save a soul? Even the Holy Spirit needs Christ for that.
yea yea .......
“Must-read”?
I’ve read it.
I’ve memorized it.
Your answer concerns me. I’m not sure why. Maybe it is the premise that things were not better, once, for surely they were.
Once, we did not embrace Bruce Jenner as ‘stunning and brave’.
Once, we did not try to introduce men into little girl’s showers.
Once, we did not persecute Christians for acting, in business, on their beliefs.
If you do not see the present times as more corrupt than times when we grew up, I cannot help you.
That one event guaranteed I would never vote for Jeb!, even before he got out of the gate.
But then again, once, we were a more Christian nation.
Give me your Mac 10.
Pretty please.
They’re both corrupt — in different ways.
You yourself argued against the idea when I said that a certain people group had sinned less in a certain way. Make up your mind?
Critique my work? This one was less rushed. I always value your input.
Making up one’s mind is a sin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.