Gain wisdom and learn more as you read this piece by Rev. Michael Bresciani. Read it once…and then again. Read it slowly and begin praying for our America… for repentant hearts…for revival in our homes and churches….for mercy.
In this day of the history challenged it may not be safe to assume that everyone knows that it was Captain John Paul Jones who in the fall of 1779 said the famous words, “I have not yet begun to fight.” Even fewer may know that his ship the Bonhomme Richard had its upper decks nearly blown off and with what may have looked like a tattered raft the fight continued. Two hands assuming that both captain and first officer had been slain went about to lower the ship’s pendant from the mainmast, but were interrupted by Jones who flew toward them with pistols in hand.
The captain threw his unloaded pistols at the mates missing one and striking the other on the head leaving him unconscious. The master of the powerful British warship Serapis called out to Jones and asked if he was about to quarter. (Give up and surrender) Jones’ famous reply has been the example of every great naval officer since, but it doesn’t stop there. The best fighting men, statesmen and ordinary Americans, ever since, have been heard to say the same.
Only moments after Jones replied to the master of the Serapis a grenadier threw a hand bomb across the deck of the Serapis that tumbled into a lower magazine and ignited the powder and shells. The rest is history. But is it?
The Wall Street Journal published an article the day Mitt Romney won the Michigan and Arizona primaries, entitled “Relieved Republicans Seek to Keep Focus on Economy” on March 1, 2012; it was followed by a compliment of more than two hundred reader comments on the day it was posted. Echoes of the warnings of scripture and the unanimous voices of this nation’s best preachers and prophets came through the ether like the barely perceptible ramblings of old ghosts on a quiet street. How often it has been cried aloud in blog, website, newscast, radio broadcast and from the wilderness to the city. Exactly what are they saying?
The message is not muddled; the failing economy is, but a symptom of a failing morality. They are inextricably linked, joined at the hip and one does not move without the other. It is God’s law his way, and is more certain than the rising of the sun. Deist’s are and have always been dead wrong. God is not disinterested with the affairs of men. He keeps his eye on a sparrow in the deep woods (Mt. 10: 29) and knows the number of hairs (Mt. 10: 30) on our heads.
God is keenly aware of everything and unlike us, he does not scoff at the faith of candidates for high office, as do we. He will not urge them to hush their belief in his sovereignty to appease those who claim that, not continually harping about the nation’s economy means they are light headed ninnies who have gone slightly askew from the real issues.
We have joined the crowd that has assured this generation that all there is has certainly come from nothing, or at the least, something known as the big bang. Their cosmic narrative comes from a trinity of nothing comprised of a big unheard noise and untold billions of years of time followed by a complex universe, founded on unshakable laws and perfect balance. Now they are found snickering at those who will not accept that the splendor of the universe along with millions of species of flora and fauna all popped up out of nothing.
They ignore the discovery of the rules they have conjured in their own religion of empiricism. Entropy or the second law of thermodynamics are all set aside for a narrative that being accustomed to absences, leaves out millions of links between species and goes blithely ahead to proclaim that we are the progeny of monkeys and perhaps amoeba depending on whose imagination is referenced. Not only are they claiming that these conclusions are ‘intelligent’ but they are requiring that we teach this to our forthcoming generations in accordance with the law.
Suspending the laws of God, good reason and some basic common sense they have capitulated to the place where laughter and scorn have become the tools by which to quickly put those with an alternate world view in their place, including candidates like Rick Santorum and to some degree Newt Gingrich.
Among the conservatives who are supposedly those who still retain connections to faith and foundational principles, the trend is to lay aside a man like Gingrich who has unequaled knowledge of government and the ability to remain contrite all at the same time. Alone Gingrich is nothing short of a phenomena in today’s world of smarter than thou one-upmanship.
Others are willing to join the scoffers who see Santorum’s cry against rising immorality as an excess based on a Sunday school level theology, even if it does come from a man with a heart as big as the ocean and a spirit not unlike the greatest of our forefathers and heroes, much like John Paul Jones himself. We don’t want a man who has not yet begun or fight, but are satisfied with a man who would be willing to lay down the fight or at best re-label it in accordance with the rap of the hour which is the economy and nothing more.
Unless Rick can shift gears into the true issue of the economy we will set him aside for the businessman who promises us better days and bigger bucks so we all get on with life, liberty and the pursuit. But alas, that is not the way it is going to go. Politics, economics, academics, and all else may bypass the underpinnings of faith, Godliness and principle, but they all run headlong into the prophetic; these are the shoals that have claimed many lost ships throughout history.
The arch deceiver provides an unwary world with a last day’s two for one deal that no one seems to be refusing. Putting God on the back burner under the assurance from academia’s brightest minds that he had nothing to do with our existence, if he exists at all, comes with a bonus. If God is a myth then his chief protagonist must also be a tailed tall tale.
Scripture shows Satan as the ruler of the cosmos or in easier terms the god of this world. He not only controls all wealth, power and fame but metes it out to whomever he wills. He offers it to some as he once did to Christ but in the last days it is prophesied that many will take him up on his offer.
“And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.” (Lu 4: 5-6)
Should we balk at Santorum who openly espouses what was once so commonly known? Shouldn’t we accept his assertions in the proper context and perhaps update our own faltering cosmic narrative or worldview? What part of destroying unborn human beings and same sex marriages does not fly in direct opposition to the scriptures, to humanity, and not least of all, common sense?
President Obama declared recently that a woman’s right to abortion is an assurance that our daughters will have as much of a chance at financial success as our sons. What part of death produces more life? Have we sunk yet deeper from our own musings that all life comes from nothing to; more life comes from death?
Does the phrase moral depravity come to mind or the word reprobation come into play here? Is the word ‘economics’ really the modern substitute for the aforementioned? If you can answer yes to these questions then you are one of those who have no business scoffing at the theology of Rick Santorum.
In these days God is offering his own two for one deal. It is not the morality and the economy deal but is the morality and the prophecy deal. Electing Romney may be perfectly OK in the political scheme of things, but the economy will continue to fail in equal and direct proportion to our failing morality.
We can beat China back, but Maryland’s new same sex marriage allowance passed into law this week is an example of why what China does, makes little difference for us in the future. Is God winking at perversion, is he detained in a long luncheon engagement and too busy to notice our slide into reprobation.
A few good men have noticed the slide and for some reason are now being offered to our nation to take the helm, not to put their theology on us, but to bring us back to the days when our own theology was guide enough to keep us from destroying our very future. They are men who like John Paul Jones. Although they are laughed at, beaten and pulverized by the cannons of modernism, conservatism’s middle of the road washouts, religions apostate weaklings and academia’s everything from nothing crowd, they are still heard to say: “I have not yet begun to fight.”
The Bible clearly warns of rough seas during the last days. From prophecy buffs to well versed eschatologists no one worth their salt today would doubt that our world is on the cusp of these well predicted days.
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” (Lu 21: 25 – 26)
The S.S. America still needs a captain to keep her afloat and on course. Businessmen may be welcomed passengers on this vessel, but should we ask them to take the helm in these stormy seas?
