REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS – THE
WORLD TODAY
You may have
always wondered why and how the orchestra on the Titanic could have continued
to play as the ship sank into the frigid waters and they too were engulfed.
An amazing
act of courage and consideration for the passengers? Certainly.
Personal
sacrifice for others? A contribution to
peace in a time of horror? Probably.
Another
possibility exists: They didn’t know
what else to do. Men were not being
allowed in the lifeboats anyway. So they
played while the ship sank. Certainly
with higher motives they played, but this is a bit like the old saying of Nero
fiddling while Rome burned.
And in this
they are not unlike many Americans. What
do I mean? Well, many Americans at least
somewhat have recognized things are not going well in the country. Something is wrong. Even the political polls have uncovered this
view among the majority. But, and here’s
the tragic part, most Americans don’t know what else to do about it all. They are like the Titanic musicians. So they go to work and care for the kids and
struggle to make the monthly debt payments on the mortgage and the credit cards
and the car loan. And all the while the
nation sinks away from its former greatness and its original objectives.
Why are they
so lost? Most Americans today sadly do
not know the heritage of the country, the amazing struggles of the founding
generations, the struggle of the spiritual fathers like the pilgrims, the
dreams that were held. This could all be
taught in history classes and also in churches, but evidently it is not because
most don’t seem to know much about it all.
Witness the totally ignorant answers of people on the street when entertainers
or reporters take a microphone into a crowd and ask such questions as “What did
George Washington do?” or “Who is the Vice President?”
We have let
the evil one have his way, and he has corrupted the educational system, the
court system, taken away our basic freedoms, corrupted the entertainment and
news media…well, he has because Americans have let this happen. If Americans had known the Bible, had known
Jesus Christ, had known who a true believer is in Jesus, had known their
history, had known how to fight attacks from the evil side, they could have stopped
this. But they allowed the evil one to
march on in so many ways, such as the court decisions that took God out of
schools and away from the public places despite the fact that the overwhelming
majority disagreed with all this. The
people forgot that this was a government by and for the people. They preferred to remain mute and invisible
as they were robbed of all things of real value. For some reason, they were meek and did not
respond as the generation in WWII or those who fought with Washington and froze
in Valley Forge or so many more.
Well, those
past heroic generations did have bold leaders, which the country certainly has
not had. Are there none out there in the
land today? Don’t know. Maybe not.
Maybe it at last clearly is all beyond the abilities of man. Maybe at last people will realize what has
been true all along – only God has the answers.
They have to depend on God.
Without him, they are lost.
September
6, 2012
