As we walk through the month of August, our elementary to college family and friends will begin a new year of studies. They will hopefully be given a learning of knowledge and wisdom by their teachers that will be important to both their further education and future opportunities. Though secular understanding is not all they need.
Along with parents, Sunday school teachers, and pastors, seasoned Christians should also have a wealth of wisdom from both experience and meditation in the Scriptures through their life of serving God. We must ensure that we give these students godly examples concerning our Christian walk, to help them prove what is right from the Word of God. For, surely they will see a variety of morality and lifestyles in their fellow students, and possibly their teachers, this year.
May we all join in praying for each and every soul, that God would protect them from the evil of this world. Let us not dismiss the idea that from the youngest child to the mature college student, they do in fact face similar types of intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual warfare as we all do. By this, I mean the intellectual battle of their minds to believe or discount the things of God, the emotional battle of peer pressure and fitting in that may often go unknown to us, the physical battle of temptations along with protection from the desire of others to hurt fellow students, and the spiritual battle of doing that which is right even when it isn’t easy. All of these are extremely real, even though they may not be brought to our attention very often.
Should not our desire be that these may grow in the knowledge and wisdom of the Lord, bypassing many of the sins and pitfalls we have found ourselves in, that they may have a better Christian testimony and joyous life than we? May it be so.
Let us be mindful and prayerful of one another.
Along with parents, Sunday school teachers, and pastors, seasoned Christians should also have a wealth of wisdom from both experience and meditation in the Scriptures through their life of serving God. We must ensure that we give these students godly examples concerning our Christian walk, to help them prove what is right from the Word of God. For, surely they will see a variety of morality and lifestyles in their fellow students, and possibly their teachers, this year.
May we all join in praying for each and every soul, that God would protect them from the evil of this world. Let us not dismiss the idea that from the youngest child to the mature college student, they do in fact face similar types of intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual warfare as we all do. By this, I mean the intellectual battle of their minds to believe or discount the things of God, the emotional battle of peer pressure and fitting in that may often go unknown to us, the physical battle of temptations along with protection from the desire of others to hurt fellow students, and the spiritual battle of doing that which is right even when it isn’t easy. All of these are extremely real, even though they may not be brought to our attention very often.
Should not our desire be that these may grow in the knowledge and wisdom of the Lord, bypassing many of the sins and pitfalls we have found ourselves in, that they may have a better Christian testimony and joyous life than we? May it be so.
Let us be mindful and prayerful of one another.
2 comments:
Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (62 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted "peaceniks" and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that "Peace is not a cause - it is an effect."
In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was a BARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.
B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.
We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.
In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government refused to surrender. Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered.
Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." Indeed, they had. Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily where choice-making opportunities abound. America!
Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature's pit bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any generation should know: Never start a war with a free people - you never know what they may invent!
As a newly assigned member of a U.S. Marine intelligence section, I had a unique opportunity to visit many major cities of Japan, including Tokyo and Hiroshima, within weeks of their destruction. For a full year I observed the beaches, weapons, and troops we would have assaulted had the A-bombs not been dropped. Yes, it would have been very destructive for all, but especially for the people of Japan.
When we landed in Japan, for what came to be the finest and most humane occupation of a defeated enemy in recorded history, it was with great appreciation, thanksgiving, and praise for the atomic bomb team, including the aircrew of the Enola Gay. A half million American homes had been spared the Gold Star flag, including, I'm sure, my own.
Whenever I hear the apologists expressing guilt and shame for A-bombing and ending the war Japan had started (they ignore the cause-effect relation between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki), I have noted that neither the effete critics nor the puff-adder politicians are among us in the assault landing-craft or the stinking rice paddies of their suggested alternative, "conventional" warfare. Stammering reluctance is obvious and continuous, but they do love to pontificate about the Rights that others, and the Bomb, have bought and preserved for them.
The vanities of ignorance and camouflaged cowardice abound as license for the assertion of virtuous "rights" purchased by the blood of others - those others who have borne the burden and physical expense of Rights whining apologists so casually and self-righteously claim.
At best, these fakers manifest a profound and cryptic ignorance of causal relations, myopic perception, and dull I.Q. At worst, there is a word and description in The Constitution defining those who love the enemy more than they love their own countrymen and their own posterity. Every Yankee Doodle Dandy knows what that word is.
In 1945, America was the only nation in the world with the Bomb and it behaved responsibly and respectfully. It remained so until two among us betrayed it to the Kremlin. Still, this American weapon system has been the prime deterrent to earth's latest model world- tyranny: Seventy years of Soviet collectivist definition, coercion, and domination of individual human beings.
The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth's choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature's beautiful blue planet and the natural premise of man's free institutions, environments, and respectful relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men choose, create, and progress - or die.
Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, "Know ye not you are in league with the stones of the field?"
Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War
a follower of The Lion of Judah
I'm not sure about the context within which this was written, but I don't think the subject is as cut-and-dried as the former soldier makes it out to be.
We started the war with Japan. We announced a total embargo of materials and oil against them in 1940. The US, against the judgement laid out by our nations founders signed treaties with the enemies of Japan. The idea that Japan awoke a sleeping giant ignorant of it's actions is lacking. FDR knew quite well that he was antagonizing Japan by siding with it's enemies and emboldening their resolve to attack us, which is what he wanted. Great Britain was trying through great effort to bring the US into the war. However, the US easily rememberd WWI and didn't want any of it. However, Pearl Harbor changed their attitude.
The idea that Japan wouldn't surrender after we dropped the first atom bomb is incorrect. They did surrender, but they wouldn't surrender unconditionally. This wasn't unacceptable since the US had an interest in maintaining control of the resources and strategic value of that area of the world. After the second bomb was dropped Japan had no alternative but to surrender. This is the reason the number of a half of million people is often thrown out. The US wanted total control the little island and it's people, so a normal surrender was out of the question.
Little publicized is the fact that Nagasaki had, at the time, the largest population of Japanese Christians in Japan. This was undone when the bomb was dropped. In war, it is often easy to overlook how many of our brother and sisters are murdered - by our own hand. Is it any wonder why our "masters" get upset when us normal people actually communicate with the enemy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce)? Is it any wonder that the British cut the only communication line between Germany and America before WWI?
The atom bomb was not produced by a free people in a free environment. Whether you disagree or not does't matter, Japanese American citizens were loaded up and placed in camps. Many who would not have gone to war were drafted (involuntary servitude). The money for the bomb was produced through taxation. Taxing a man's wage, unhead of in the US until the 20th century, is slavery. (This is why the government was only given the right to tax tariffs and not wages.) The money procured through taxation corresponds to a US individual who is the collateral for this debt (see the creation of the Federal Reserve). Ever wonder why the US deficit is announced according to how much each person would owe should that debt be called in?
Pat Buchanan is correct when he says that the wars of the 20th century could have been avoided. The most decorated soldier to ever serve in the US military, Smedley Butler, was correct when he noted that war is a racket*. Now, I'm not trying to disrespect a soldier who believes in the cause for which he served, but we cannot dismiss the facts. It is better to admit that we made a mistake and not glorify our own follies in order to justify our incorrect actions so that we can feel better. There is no need for it. I'm sure that you and your whole generation lost a great deal. Learn from that experience. You owe it to the next generation that war is not to be taken lightly, on incomplete evidence, and we must always understand when our own actions or the actions of our government antagonize other nations to respond likewise.
*http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
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