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Dripping Springs Weekly Bulletins
The "Blitz" is Back
Next month will be the 65th anniversary of the London “blitz.” It was September of 1940, and the Luftwaffe was determined to bring the English people to their knees. For weeks, every night – often day and night – the citizens of that city made their way to the shelters, the underground train stations, or whatever shelter they could find to protect themselves from the bombs that constantly threatened them.
Parents sent their young children off to the country to spare them the threat of the bombs. Hitler was convinced he could scare the British people into submission. To his dismay, their courage was greater than his threats, and you know the rest of that story.
Winston Churchill called it England’s “finest hour” and he may have been right. However, there is a new problem – the “blitz” is back – and the English people are just as determined to overcome the fear that comes with today’s threats of terrorism.
Time for self-examination had come for that embattled nation. The September 9, 1940 editorial page of a major London newspaper stated:
"We have been a pleasure-loving people, dishonoring the Lord’s Day, picnicking and boating. We have preferred motor travel to church going. Now there is a shortage of motor fuel.
We have ignored the ringing of church bells calling us to worship, and now the same bells ring to warn us of invasion.
We have left the church buildings half empty when they should have been filled with worshipers. Now, many of them lie smoking in ruins.
The food for which we refused to give thanks is now rationed or unobtainable.
The money we would not give for the Lord’s work is now taken from us in higher taxes and higher prices.
The service we refused to give God is now conscripted for our protection.
We did not send the Gospel to those embracing modern Godless ideologies. Now we send out men to kill those people for believing what they were taught, while we sat at home enjoying modern comforts and conveniences."
America never experienced the bombs and the attacks that were commonplace to London in the early 1940’s. But today’s fear of terrorism is in every nation. Go to the airport, to the bus depot, the train station, even public places of food and entertainment, and the fear of attack may be felt.
The words of that editor sound a bit familiar to us today. Oil production woes producing high prices, meat and dairy prices increasing, businesses in trouble, the threat of global war. The outlook appears bleak indeed, and in many instances, rightly so.
To a great extent, our nation is in a very prosperous time. Jobs are on the increase, stock market rising, production reaching record highs, etc. But secularism and humanism – and atheism – are gaining ground within the lives of some who were at one time firm in their knowledge of God.
No one seems to know what to think about the terror that threatens us. In 1940 we knew where it came from, but now it may be anyone with a back-pack or an old car. How should Christians view these times? Should we back away from our strong convictions in order to ward off terrorist threats? Or must we take up arms in order to defend ourselves?
We must remember that Satan and his power has always ebbed and waned. Just about the time we think we have him cornered he gains new strength. The opposite is also true. Saul of Tarsus, once a source of threats against Christians, felt the stress of Satan’s power. The Holy Spirit used him as an instrument of God’s might to emphasize that there are more important matters than the price of oil, suicide-bombers or threats from the enemy. In Hebrews 13:5-6 we find a source for our courage:
“Let your conduct be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; what can man do to me?’”
I don’t know the editor’s name who wrote those words years ago, but he was right in saying man has idled away his time with the accumulation of goods and dainties while millions were taught the false doctrines of the Middle East and elsewhere.
God is not going to remove His people from all danger, but He will give us the power to overcome whatever Satan and his emissaries hurl at us.
Do you remember what Jesus said to His apostles before He and they faced death and opposition?
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” John 16:33.
We, too, can overcome!
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“There are no great men; only ordinary men who are forced by circumstances to meet great challenges.”
Admiral William F. Halsey
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Who is the Architect?
I was passing through Columbus, Ohio some years ago and stopped to eat in the depot restaurant. My attention was called to a slice of watermelon. I ordered it and ate it. I was so pleased with the melon that I asked the waiter to dry some of the seeds that I might take them home and plant them in my garden.
That night, a thought came into my mind --- I would use the watermelon as an illustration. So the next morning, when I reached Chicago, I had enough seeds weighed to find out that it would take about 5,000 watermelon seeds to weigh a pound, and I estimated that the watermelon weighed about forty pounds. Then I applied mathematics to the watermelon.
A few weeks before, someone, I know not who --- had planted a little seed in the ground. Under the influence of sunshine and shower, that little watermelon seed had taken off its coat and gone to work. It had gathered from somewhere 200,000 times its own weight and forced that enormous weight through a tiny stem and built a watermelon. On the outside it had put a covering of green, within that a rind of white, and within that, a core of red. Then it had scattered through the red core, little seeds, each one capable of doing the same work over again.
What architect drew the plan? Where did that little watermelon seed get its tremendous strength? Where did it find its flavoring extract and its coloring matter? How did it build a watermelon? Until you can explain a watermelon, do not be too sure that you can set limits to the power of the Almighty, or tell just what He will do or how He will do it. The most learned men in the world cannot explain a watermelon, but the most ignorant man in the world can eat a watermelon and enjoy it.
God has given us the things that we need, and He has given us the knowledge necessary to use those things. And the truth that He has revealed to us is infinitely more important for our welfare than it would be to understand the mysteries that He has seen fit to conceal from us.
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