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A Historical and Scriptural Persepective on Tragedy and Heartache in America As we ponder the recent disasters involving the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, reflection on our history as a nation will help to give understanding. After experiencing the afflictions of hunger and hardship in the founding of our nation the colonists began to enjoy the blessings and great provisions of God. While enjoying these blessings they forgot that Jesus was the giver of these gifts and wandered from the Word and will of Christ. One generation after the ratification of The Constitution our nation was plunged into a horrible Civil War. Godly Christian ministers knew that they were called to address the ensuing crop failures, Indian massacres and a great Civil War in the context of the chastening of God. The historical events recounted in this tract occur in 1675 and in the 1860's. Some of these events are recorded in greater detail in the book, The Light and the Glory, written by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. One preacher who responded more in anger than in sorrow was John Cotton: Who commented on the departing of his fellow citizen's heart from the living God. "But when men thus depart. God usually followeth them with a bitter curse: either taking their lives away from them, or blasting them with poverty, or exposing them to scandal "where they come, or in entertaining them with such restless agitations that they are driven to repent of their former rashness, and many times return to the church from which they had broken away." Cotton was commenting on a series of Indian massacres and uprisings now known as King Phillip's War against New England that occurred in 1675] "That day Indians from Chief Philip's tribe based at Mount Hope burned all the houses of Swansea, slaughtering and mutilating their inhabitants. When the colonial troops finally arrived, they were shocked and sickened at the horror of the scene that confronted them. The main street of the little village was strewn with the dismembered corpses of men, women, and children. So hideous was the sight that it did not even register at first that it could have been done by human beings. Satan had unleashed his fury on New England." "Dartmouth was the next settlement to come under the tom-ahawk, a day later, and then Taunton and Middleborough, and Sudbury. Fifty men were massacred in Lancaster, and forty homes were put to the torch in Groton. The Indians now prepared to move on Marlborough ." "New England was totally unprepared, strategically, mentally, and spiritually. A company of local militia would be hastily called out and dispatched to the relief of a beleaguered town or hamlet only to be cut to pieces by a well-placed ambush waiting for it. A second column would be sent to the aid of the first, only to blunder into a separate ambush set for it. And so it went, until the settlers were afraid to go into the woods, let alone vigorously pursue the enemy. Throughout New England, morale had sunk to its nadir, for into the towns not yet under attack came the survivors-some in hysterics, others dumbstruck by atrocities beyond the human mind's capacity to assimilate." Almost immediately a fast day was declared in Massachusetts. But no sooner had the service ended, than reports of fresh disasters arrived. Clearly this time God's wrath was not going to be turned aside by one day's worth of repentance." "Increase Mather and his son Cotton sounded the note that other clergymen soon picked up. They preached the most powerful sermons of their lives, based on Scriptures like: "Behold, l am bringing upon you . . . a nation whose language you do not know . . . Their quiver is like an open tomb, they are all mighty men. They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters . . . they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; your fortified cities in which you trust they shall destroy with the sword . . . . They lay hold on bow and spear, they are cruel and have no mercy, the sound of them is like the roaring sea . . . they [are] set in array as a man for battle, against you, 0h daughter of Zion." (Jeremiah 5:15- 6:23)." "It was manifestly clear to
the Mathers that God was not going to be satisfied with superficial or
temporary change. What He now demanded was what He had been calling for
all along: nothing less than a complete amendment of life. This
would necessitate a rooting out of sin and dealing with it to a degree
which had not been seen on the eastern coast of America for nearly 50
years."
"At first, the people, frightened and badly shaken
though they were, still did not take the Mathers and their fellow ministers
seriously, for they had heard it all so many times before. But the war
news got steadily worse. And it was war now, there was no ques-tion about
that; practically every Indian tribe in New England had donned war paint
and was collecting scalps. Finally, the people began to heed their ministers.
The Bay Col-ony's churches filled, and people who had not attended church
in years stood in the aisles and joined in the prayers
.For the battle
was a spiritual one; there was no question about that, either, and even
the most pragmatic among them was coming to accept that. God's patience
with the colonists' hypocritical ways had come to an end. He was not about
to relent and restore the saving grace, which had so long protected them
and which they had so long taken for granted, unless the whole fledgling
nation had a change of heart." Now in 2001 two symbols of our nation's might and power have been tragically destroyed or damaged with great loss of life; The World Trade Center, the heart of our financial empire and the Pentagon, the nerve center of our nation's military power. Where have we placed our trust for security and protection in these days? Has it not been in wealth and materialism and in our own might to protect ourselves as a nation? Can we not learn from the ministers of old and now seek the Lord while He may be found? We have an adversary greater than any terrorist cell or nation and He is Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's make peace with Him quickly while there is still time. In 1860 we went out to battle the Southern Confederacy believing in our wealth of arms and numbers of men. We trusted in the modern weaponry that we possessed and in our own efforts only to be gravely mistaken. Time and time again our armies were defeated or thwarted from achieving victory until revelation and our President Abraham Lincoln comprehended understanding. For years the nation's Christian abolitionist leaders attempted to persuade President Lincoln to acknowledge the national sin of slavery and issue the Emancipation Proclamation. It was after the call for national repentance and the signing of the Emancipation that the tide of the war began to turn. This understanding prompted Lincoln to address the judgments of the Lord in His Second Inaugural Address. " If we shall suppose that American slavery is one which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." America of 2001 has sought to erase the memory and the influence that the Ten Commandments has had in the formation of this nation. America of 2001 embraces every perverse life style in the name of tolerance, but we shun the Holy presence and ways of The Lord Jesus Christ. America of 2001 will call for moments of silence, yet will not call upon the name that is above every name, Jesus Christ, and ask for His forgiveness. When will we realize that we are a people that honor God with our lips, singing God Bless America, yet our heart is far from Him? It is time for our ministers to call Christians to repentance just as they have done in other times of legalized sin our nation's history. We have killed over 44 million children in our decriminalized abortion clinics and have devalued human life in the process. The blood of these children cries out from the ground and causes the mercy and protection of God to be lifted from the land. Will we still look to our own resources or repent and turn from our sin and run into His arms? Will we turn from our prodigal ways as a nation and forsake ways that are an abomination to Jesus the Lord and make straight paths for our feet and begin to walk according to His Law? Will we as His church renew our first love commitment to Him? It takes a village to kill a child - It takes a nation to kill 44 million children, in America's "legal" abortion clinics. Every institution, including the Christian church in our nation has become complicit and the guilt of the bloodshed touches us all. As Lincoln and his fellow citizens experienced the heartbreak of judgment because of the sin of the nation, so will America. And it will touch Christian and non-Christian. Our strongest defense is not the strength of our military, the bravery of our soldiers, or the singing of platitudes and choruses pronouncing the blessings of God on our land. Rather our surest and most needed defense is the bending our knees and our asking God to break our heart over our sin. Jesus told a story in Luke 13:1-5 regarding current events of terror and tragedy in Judea. His message was very simple to those who asked why. The message was REPENT lest you likewise perish. May God help us and grant us the grace to repent as individuals, churches and as a nation that God might hear from heaven and forgive our sins and then heal our land. Yours for the Least of These, Rev. Mike Warren
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