I just finished a very leisurely stroll through Winston Churchill’s The Second World War. I was trying to find exactly what edition I was reading. Since it has an epilogue covering the years 1945 to 1957 I thought the above edition was correct, but I couldn’t find the name of the publisher. On the back was a little sticky note with “Caves Book Co.”. I searched and found this. This edition includes a tassel to be used as a book mark. I was asked if I was reading the bible yesterday by a student.

I enjoyed the narrative that Winston Churchill lays out in the book. This is an abridged version of his 6 volume set. Winston Churchill led Great Britain during WWII. He was asked to lead the nation after warning and warning the nation about future war, when Neville Chamberlain's compromises, with the infamous “peace for our time”, finally failed to deter Hitler’s ambitions, Churchill was asked to lead the nation as it went to war. We follow the darkness of the early years, and after France’s fall, the hopelessness of England’s situation. The narrative brightens when the U.S. enters the war after Pearl Harbor.

The only comments I want to bring out here are concerning Winston Churchill’s foreboding of the future after Germany’s defeat. The same keen eye that saw it coming in the 1930’s saw something coming as the war was ending. The Russia that was sustaining most of the brunt of the war as our ally was the same Russia that attacked Finland and attacked and divided Poland along with Hitler’s Germany. For Churchill this was the real picture of Stalin’s Russia, not the picture of an ally fighting Nazism along with England and the U.S.

As the war winds down, America and Roosevelt seem ignorant of the communist ideology that motivates Russia. Churchill begins to sense an impending darkness that would cover all the land occupied by the advancing Russian armies. His communications with Roosevelt became more and more difficult as Roosevelt’s health failed as he approached his death. His successor, Truman, did not see what Churchill saw and neither did many others.

He wrote a private message to Truman where he first used the phrase “iron curtain”. His warnings were to no avail. Allied armies failed to move as far east as they could and eventually withdrew to the west destining those peoples to live behind the “iron curtain”.

Churchill’s own nation did not take heed or chose not to take heed to his warnings and voted him out of office just after the war with Germany ended, but before the conclusion of the war with Japan in 1945. It was in 1947 in Fulton MO that he gave his famous “Iron Curtain” speech. Here are some excerpts.

The book allows you to see these developments as he sees them and you feel his despair at not being able to take action as the lesser of two in his partnership with America. The book ends with his night’s sleep before the election results in which a nation says to its fighter: “no mas”.

From the book:

The United States stood on the scene of victory, master of world fortunes, but without a true and coherent design. Britain, though still very powerful, could not act decisively alone. I could at this stage only warn and plead. Thus this climax of apparently measureless success was to me a most unhappy time. I moved amid cheering crowds, or sat at a table adorned with congratulations and blessings from every part of the Grand Alliance, with an aching heart and a mind oppressed by forebodings.

This was Roosevelt’s response in his dying days to accusations from Joseph Stalin:

Finally I would say this: it would be one of the great tragedies of history if at the very moment of the victory now within our grasp such distrust, such lack of faith, should prejudice the entire undertaking after the colossal losses of life, material, and treasure involved. Frankly, I cannot avoid a feeling of bitter resentment toward your informers, whoever they are, for such vile misrepresentations of my actions or those of my trusted subordinates.

Every question about the future was unsettled between us. The agreements and understandings of Yalta, such as they were, had already been broken or brushed aside by the triumphant Kremlin. New perils, perhaps as terrible as those we had surmounted, loomed and glared upon the torn and harassed world.

Life goes on…my one complaint about the book was not a single mention of the holocaust.

The Clarksville church, with Pastor Bob Alvarez did a great job on their “Meth” play last night here in Sparta. The “Sparta Community Choir” gave us permission to use their facilities located within the Cinema Complex of Sparta. The acting was superb. We started with April practicing her violin, exhibiting talent and the drive that goes with mastering an instrument. She shares an apartment with Genny her best friend; as they both are attending university.

Joel arrives on the scene, having taken over his brother’s drug business after his brother was mysteriously betrayed to the police. Joel shares this news with a snicker and an “Oh well, it looks like I will have to carry on the family tradition”. He gets Genny and another friend started on "meth". The action goes back and forth between a video presentation and stage acting. Each time the stage is reset the video screen is filling un in on details about meth and those trapped by it. The refrain is: I’ll just do meth once; I don’t want to end up like him (cut to the same person later on after getting hooked on meth).

Genny gets April to try it to give her energy for her busy schedule. The drugs take over more and more territory of their lives. Bob, the busted brother, gets out of prison and comes to talk to the girls about Jesus and salvation. They chase him out.

One night the drug induced evening goes all wrong, there is a quarrel about the drug, the boyfriend goes crazy and knifes the friend of Genny and April. Genny runs and April comes into the room to discover the body, finding blood on her hands, the police arrive and arrest her. In a dual scene with a rapper rapping she is booked into jail while Genny prays with Bob.

Final scene: Joel leaving after having sex with April. He tosses a bag of meth on the table as he leaves. This is after Genny has moved out and April is all alone. It ends with a handgun.

The play ends leaving everyone stunned the acting has been excellent, the rapper has done great, the technicians have handled the multimedia presentation well and there is a subdued quietness in the theatre. We preach, it could happen to anyone, a few bad breaks, rejection here, betrayal there and a person looks for something more than the ugliness of life and they try drugs. We have an altar call. Hands go up. We pray together. The night ends.

We had a full house. The theater seats 150 and we only had a few single seats vacant. We had a group of 6 recovering addicts attend. We had the McDonald’s crowd, the Marion church, the Carbondale church and I’m sure the movie theatre was even happy as to the amount of pop corn that was purchased. Thanks again to Rich, Anna and Erica of the Sparta Community Choir.

Here is an interesting article about a book review of How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower by Adrian Goldsworthy. Reading the legacy and heritage book really awakens an interest in learning more about the Greek and Roman experience. Knowing that Rome’s main contribution to Western Civilization is a strong family. Remembering from my past one writer’s diagnosis of the fall of Rome centered on immorality. It wasn’t the immorality among the upper classes; the death knoll for Rome was when that immorality was adopted by those same families that gave it its strength. That is an obvious American parallel.

I was talking with Jimmy Britt about life and we got onto some history and I mentioned this book entitled: "The Heritage of Greece and the Legacy of Rome" by E. B. Osborn published in 1925. I had started it before and put it down when it began to awaken intellectual pursuits that I never was able to capture (mainly reading Thucydides’ history). Legacy, heritage and inheritance are preaching words so I read it getting ready for church tonight. Here are some excerpts:

In his introduction he quotes Maurice Barres, “…come to me with your dreams that I may cleanse them from worldly dross—bring me your strong enthusiasms that I may direct them aright…”

Greece was conquered in the great explosion of Roman energy after the downfall of Carthage, but in Horace’s immortal phrase she “took captive her rude conqueror.”

Theory is derived from the Greek; action and transaction from the Latin. Theology is Greek; religion is Latin. Poetry and philosophy are Greek; verse, morality, and conduct are Latin. Nearly all the terminology of the arts and sciences is Greek…On the other hand, nearly all our terms of governance are of Latin origin; among them are state, colony, dominion, municipality, representation, suffrage, election, administration, jurisprudence, justice, legality, Conservative, Liberal, Labour, majority, minority, public, orator, national, rational, to choose a few…

…our Graeco-Latin heritage is of vital importance,…And nowhere will you find this heritage more vitally inwrought than in the Christianity which is still, I feel assured, the chief motive-power in the progress of the various nations onwards and upwards.

Speaking of Greece: …he (the ordinary Athenian) can teach us the vital nature of the truth expressed in his maxim “know thyself”—that, for example, no social reform can be lasting or truly progressive which is not based on the knowledge of what man is, both as individual and as a member of his community. Character is destiny and character-building the end of all statesmanship—such was the teaching of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and it is a lesson we still have to learn.

Speaking of Rome: She bequeathed to the modern world three great gifts. First…administrative work, which no statesman can neglect, so full is it of object lessons for this undisciplined world of ours. Second comes the priceless boon of Roman Law, which is the basis of nearly all modern legal codes and a part of all the rest. Thirdly, there is the Latin language and its literature,….

The Roman Church is the Roman Empire spiritualised—“no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,” according to the immortal metaphor of Hobbes of Malmesbury.

From the Greek Spirit chapter: In all the works and days of man the spirit counts for more than the letter. The idea or ideal is the vital thing—not the imperfect attempts to express it…It is especially so in the case of Greek achievement….For it was this spirit, not the tangible expressions of it such as books and statures, which caused that great awakening of the human intellect known as the Renaissance and so brought into being the mobile modern world out of the fixed mediaeval order…

The Greek spirit…proved a noble contagion. It taught men to trust their intelligence and imagination once more, to question the authority of medieval theologians and philosophers, and to steep themselves again in Nature. It persuaded them to see the world as it is and to enjoy it—not to make life a period of penances undertaken in the hope of winning a place in a feudal Heaven.

But how is the Greek spirit to be defined? In point of fact, it is more easily felt than defined. …its chief attributes: Truth-seeking; Beauty; Sanity; Simplicity; and Freshness or, if you will, Youngness.

The elements of beauty, which are lost in the process of translation, are of two kinds. First, those which arise out of the very nature of the Greek language which can express the finest shades of thought or emotion with an easy grace impossible in English, Latin, or even French. Secondly, there are the felicities that are the reward of consummate technique—of an ear for the music of the words that is for us an alien thing, not to be reproduced on our own modern instruments of expression.

Onto Greek History: …indeed there is an extraordinarily close resemblance, both social and political, between the English of today and the Athenians when they were the citizens of an Empire based on sea-power like our own. The three greatest Greek historians—Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon---were all men of action and travelers, and their books show us men as they are (not as they might be or out to be) faced by the tremendous crises which bring out the points of strength and the weaknesses that are constant terms in human nature.

Speaking of a bust of Thucydides: …still in the unbreakable will power, which could outface the catastrophe that had befallen his unkind and ungrateful, yet passionately loved, Athens.

But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding go out to meet it.

Onto Greek Science: He and Pythagoras, who also visited Egypt and is said to have become initiated into the temple rites there, not out of religious enthusiasm, but so as not to miss any scrap of knowledge worth having, had a very important advantage over the Egyptians. They were not hampered in turning what they found to good account by an orgainsed and dominating priestly caste which always has a tendency to see mystical meaning in certain numbers…and is apt to cover up scientific results in religious ordinances. They were able to give their reasoning powers fair play and so to make generalizations.

Speaking of Archimedes: His theory of proportion, applicable to incommensurable as well as commensurable magnitudes, is still accepted as bed-rock work after the lapse of twenty-three centuries.

“Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth,” he said, having in his mind the principle of the lever.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene, had, by noting the difference between the shadows cast by the sun at Syene and Alexandria, estimated the diameter of the earth at about 7,850 miles (only 50 miles less than the modern measurement for the true polar diameter).

The Arabic scientists, working on a basis of Greek culture, were to carry the torch of mathematical discovery onwards and upwards in the centuries to come. But there is no more surprising victory of the Greek spirit of truth seeking for truth’s sake than the mathematical activity which, in less than 350 years, rose from the land-surveying of the Egyptians and the sterile star-gazing of the Babylonians to brilliant anticipations of the achievements of Copernicus and Galileo, Descartes and Newton.

Just as the Israelites discovered God, so the Greeks discovered Man.

Speaking of Aristotle’s honeymoon: That may have been the happiest period of his life—a joyous open-air holiday from which he gathered sun born energy for the great tasks to come, the teaching of Alexander the Great, and the instruction of the Hellenic and Hellenised cities from the Lyceum.

Quoting Aristotle: “The heavens are lofty and remote, and of heavenly things the knowledge that our senses give is sparse and vague. The living creatures, on the other hand, are at our very door; and if we so wish, we may have ample and accurate knowledge of them all. We take pleasure in the beauty of statue; then shall not the living fill us with delight? And all the more if in the spirit of philosophy we search for causes and r3ecognise the evidences of design.

Speaking of the Greeks: Only they among the peoples of antiquity had, not “medicine men” in our anthropological sense of the term, but “physicians” (the word is derived from physis=Nature) who regarded diseases as natural phenomena (not as punishments for sin or the results of supernatural possession) to be cured or alleviated by means suggested through nature study.

Speaking of Hyppocrates and his oath: Here it is in original form, today most have removed the prohibitions against euthanasia and abortion.

I swear by Apollo the healer, and by Asclepius, and Hygieia, and Panacea, and all the other gods and goddesses…that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this agreement—to count him who taught me this art as dear to me as my parents…to look upon his offspring as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they would learn it, without fee or stipulation…I will follow that system of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is injurious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; nor will I aid a woman to produce abortion…Into whatever house I enter, I will go there for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every act of mischief and corruption; and above all seduction. Whatever in my professional practice—or even not in connection with it—I see or hear in the lives of men which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge.”

About Greek Philosophy: …the vital test of any principle is in its helpfulness in the art of living and to state their conclusions, as far as possible, in the language of ordinary people…philosophy was the “love of wisdom” that its name implies—the earnest and enamoured quest for the truth which enables men to live in harmony with the unseen powers about them and with one another. ….philosophy was regarded as the master-science of living.

Speaking of  "Sophists": Since every citizen took a speaking part in politics and had to plead in person in the law courts, oratory was a necessary accomplishment, and instruction in the art of persuasive speaking was the basis of the course provided by a sophist for his pupils. Gradually these teachers fell into disrepute for three reasons—first, because many of them taught how an audience might be deceived by rhetorical cleverness; secondly, because they sold their wisdom for money, often making very large sums; thirdly, because they lacked as a rule any kind of local patriotism.

Socrates, who was deeply interested in all arts and crafts and in teaching his fellow-mortals, was the greatest of the Sophists. But he did not take money from his pupils and was not content with the showy, superficial knowledge which makes for immediate political success. So he escaped the condemnation of Plato who gave the word “sophist” the bad meaning which it has kept ever since.

Alcibiades describing Socrates: He, to be sure, used to charm the souls of men with his compelling breath in his instrument and the players of his music do so still. But you produce the same effect with your words only, and do not require the flute: that is the difference between you and him.

About Socrates: His mission was to convince the world of its ignorance by the conversation method (dialectic), by asking and answering questions, treating the most absurd or outrageous opinions with tolerant respect, and with unruffled patience exposing the fallacies underlying them.

Speaking of Plato: For him, as for his master, philosophy is always a “way of life.” From Socrates he had also learnt that goodness is knowledge, and that the only secure foundation of conduct is a comprehension of the principle of good in itself as well as in its application.

…he was led to the belief in a world which contains, as everlasting realities, Forms or Ideas, of which the qualities we recognize when we call an action good or a picture beautiful are changing and imperfect copies. And these eternal originals the soul of man knew before it was born into the flesh, and it must return to a knowledge of them, through the shadows or copies which make up the universe perceived by the senses, by the power of reasoning. It is a theory which has influenced poets and preachers, more than any other, to this very day and it is one of man’s inevitable moods.

Plato’s philosophy or poetry, call it which we will, is part of the very texture of Christianity as a way of life.

Quoting Aristotle: We should not listen to those who tell us that human beings should think like me, and mortals like mortals, but we should achieve such immortality as we may, and strain every nerve to live by the highest things in us. They may be small in substance, but in price and power they are far beyond all else.

To the Epicurean (unjustly contemned in the modern use of his name, especially when worn down into “epicure”) true wisdom consisted in the rational enjoyment of all life’s good things—not the mere gratification of the senses, but the rewards of passionless self esteem, such as study and social intercourse. Stoicism, however, which attracted the Roman temperament, was by far the more influential. It appealed to the will, which was a man’s very own, unconquerable by the pangs of tyranny or the pains of disease.

Touching Greek Drama: Emotions were depicted by changes in the voice, to which the Greeks were far more sensitive than we are.

These plays are always a criticism of life in some soul searching crisis.

On Aeschylus: Three vital conceptions---ate, the law of blood for blood; Bubris, the insolence that breeds sin and brings punishment; and Sophrosyne or the golden mean which is the root of all virtue…Aeschylus also accepts the primitive idea of a curse pursuing a family generation after generation provoking its members to rush with blind infatuation into the courses that lead to ruin.

On Euripides: His “Trojan Women,” in which Astyanax, the little son of Hector and Angromache, is ruthlessly murdered (for Odysseus says that, if he lives the Greeks may have the Trojan war over again) is the deadliest indictment of war ever known.

On Homer's Ulysses: …again we meet the heroic adventurer, bravely enduring all the toils and terrors of a world that is still half wonderland; a lover of his wife, too, to the end, and unable to find, even in the embraces of an ageless goddess in her garden close in a fairy isle, any cure for his homesickness—for, if he had no word equivalent to our “home” on his lips, yet he had the thing itself in his much enduring heart.

Above all and before all there is Helen, the innocent cause of the wars of the Greeks and Trojans, who is all the more impressive because we see so little of her, and because Homer, unlike the makers of medieval romances, is far too wise to attempt a catalogue of her charms—here is an early example of the “nothing too much” which is the secret of so many triumphs of Greek art! Because of this reticence the beauty of Helen has lived through the ages and made flaming altars of the hearts of innumerable poets.

Finishing up the Greek section: Only for a brief period in a small country were the Greek gifts regarded with suspicion, and refused—by the Maccabees in Judea.

Onto the Romans.

The Roman, a type that endured for ten centuries, had not the creative intelligence of the Greek. He was a great artisan, but no artist; his chief ability was adaptability.

The Greek temple was the final expression, complete in itself, of the Greek genius for architecture. But it had no future, it could not provide a line of development for the designing of great secular buildings, and there, it would see, the Roman architects displayed a genius of serviceableness.

The wholesale spoliation of Greece, the most shameless looting the world has ever seen, adorned the great houses of Rome with the masterpieces of Greek art.

Next to the lust of power for power’s sake, their contempt for the artist is perhaps the worst thing in Rome’s legacy to the modern world.

Yet the Romans achieved one priceless boon for the advancement of the world’s civilization. They realized in their private life an ideal of the family, as a nursery of kindly discipline and the simple, every day virtues, which was far nobler than the best in the life of ancient Greece.

It may almost be said that the Romans invented home life—the only possible work shop for the making of the character that is destiny. The family was the unity with which the ancient Roman commonwealth was built up and from which it acquired its tremendous resistance-power against the assaults of enemies and the shocks of circumstance.

Religion to the Roman was the reverence for these various influences—a sense of the viewless bonds (religio—a binding-back) which were about him, like the silvery gossamer-threads floting in the still air of a bright far-listening morn. And the house itself was a veritable temple of these spirits—Janus, spirit of the door; Vesta, spirit of the hearth; the Penates, spirits of the store-room; the Lares, perhaps spirits of dead-and-gone ancestors; and the Genius of the father of the family, whose will-power enabled him to fulfill his duties and use his rightful authority aright.

Over all the human beings of his familia dwelling in this sacred hold the father had absolute authority, a power of life and death in practice as well as theory….In theory this awful authority was too much to be entrusted to any human being; in practice, however, it was seldom or never abused.

In practice, however, marriage was a real partnership—as in most Latin countries today, especially in France—and in accord with the inner signivicance of the famous phrase Ubi tu Caius, ego Caia (Where you are the lord, I am the lady). Divorce was esy, but most marriages were a success, and the familiar S.V.Q. (for sine ulla querela, “without a quarrel”) on monuments erected by the surviving partner, husband or wife, must have expressed the truth much more often than not.

Charaacter was the chief product of the Roman home life; it was a nursery of the peculiarly Roman qualities, gravitas, pielas, simplicitas, benevolentia. Gravitas is not easily defined, though a glance at certain portrait busts of Roman worthies tells us what it was. It was the feeling of responsibility in matters both great and small which prevents a man being carried away by ephemeral passions or the reckless enthusiasm which flouts old, well-tried traditions. …Pietas was the habit of paying due respect to traditions and institutions and all duly constituted authority. …Simplicitas was the quality of the man who will not be misled by any pompous look see into losing his grasp of realities. Benevolentia was the spirit of goodwill to relations, dependants and neighbours, the exercise of which made one happy in the happiness of others.

The Romans were the pioneers of organized agriculture, the first real experts on rural economy.

Character was Rome’s chief asset, the real “Fortune of the City,” yet the days of her far-reaching greatness seem to present a picture of unbridled licence among the men and women in the world’s eye. The city itself when Roman power was at its height was a maze of huge tenement blocks thronged by a proletariat living on doles of grain and kept amused by the brutal shows in the Coloseum and the orgies of immorality )perhaps non-morality is a juster expression) in the huge Baths of Caracalla. Rome is unique among the world’s great capitals in that it has never become the eat of great industries.

The women of fashion were heartless and abominably cruel, for such moral degeneration is the inevitable result of an unceasing close contact with a retinue of slaves…Home life was impossible on antique lines in the steep slums of the tenements—the Lares and Penates and the other gentle household spirits count not enter there.

Yet, away from Rome certain degenerate towns, the old tradition of Roman home life endured, and we should not be so often inclined to overlook that significant fact if the searchlights of the satirists and social historians had not been constantly directed to high-placed criminals, prisoners and adulterers and degenerate aristocrats or brutish plutocrats maddened with luxury, with the lootings of the whole world.

Hadrian, that heaven-sent autocrat, a perfect type of the essential Roman, whose high qualities had a background of indefatigable virtus, the capacity to play the man at all times and in all places.

Roman law, which was Rome’s one great and original contribution to the intellectual equipment of the world, grew out of the life of the Roman family with its traditions and strong sense of discipline. The father in his house was the first judge;…he was an anticipation of the Imperial autocrats of the far future.

The spirit of reverence for law in being and custom, which was so often law in becoming, created in the family an atmosphere of law-abidingness (if I may coin an ugly, but useful, term) which passed the portals of the home and was breathed throughout the city.

The Roman constitution, like Roman law, was not deliberately planned; Polybius points out that it was formed “not  on a theory, but through frequent conflicts and actual crises,” the sagacious course being chosen in each situation as it arose.

To the legal genius of the Romans we owe wills and contracts—the latter a really wonderful achievement; for, as Maine says in his “Ancient Law”: “The positive duty resulting from one man’s reliance on the word of another is among the slowest conquests of advancing civilization”.

Thus arose jurisprudence, that philosophy of law which seeks and finds the general principles of justice…This law, which embodied the universal rules of conduct, flowing from the nature of man as a rational creature, has profoundly affected political thought in Europe, and is even to this day a power in public morality.

By being incorporated, to a greater or less extent, in all the legal systems of the West the study of Justinian’s code enabled centuries of legal development to be accomplished in a night, as it were. Except in England, Roman law is the concrete-bed of western civilization, and Scotland and South Africa are two of the countries whose legal systems are securely based on it The “Reception” of Roman law, as the humanized product of Roman character, was one of the greatest events in the history of modern civilization.

Quoting Livy : “Into no other commonwealth, were greed and luxury so long in entering; in those later days” (under the Empire “avarice had grown with wealth, and the frantic quest of pleasure is rapidly leading to the ruin of the whole fabric of society; in our ever-accelerated downward course we have already reached a point where our vices and the cures for them are both intolerable.”

From Tacitus: “The ancient time saw the utmost bounds of freedom, we the limit of slavery; robbed by an inquisition of the common use of speech and hearing, we should have lost our very memories with our voices, if it were as much in our power to forget as to remain speechless. Now at last our breath has returned; yet it is in the nature of human weakness that remedies are slower than the diseases they affect, and genius and learning are more easily extinguished than recalled.”

We are shown the epoch of the Julio-Claudian Emperors, on which Romans under the settled government of Trajan looked back as on a long nightmare thronged with monsters in the guise of human beings, as a time of prodigies and super human crimes, of terrible men and even more terrible women.

During all these dreadful years for Rome, the storm center of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements, the provincial administration was carried on, wisely and well for the most part, by able permanent officials.

These were necessarily abnormal me; the fear of assassination, for which the murder of Julius Caesar was a fatal precedent, was ever before their mind’s eye, even their nearest and dearest were corruptible and corrupted, and the burden of responsibility was too vast to be borne. In such cases, as history shows, men lose their moral essence and behave like madmen, in their lust to grasp pleasures that drug their forebodings for a few moments. It was not until the Imperial system was firmly established and universally accepted, after these generations of storm and stress the “good” Emperors appear on the Roman world-stage.

This history gives us the only complete picture mankind as yet possesses of the rise, culmination, decline and fall of an Empire which was not purely a product of brute-force (as were Assyria and the colossal creations of Mongol conquerors)…the majestically drama of the rise of Rome from small, dubious beginnings to the overlordship of the world, civilized or capable of civilization, has a special interest for us—for it was not the result of brilliant individual genius (as was the ephemeral Empire brought into being by Alexander the Great) but the outcome of the slow but sure expansion of racial energy.

The story of the Roman Republic is ennobled by the deeds of commonplace men, the vast majority of them nameless, who could always subordinate self-interest to the welfare of the whole community. They would die for Rome; what was of far greater consequence, they would willingly live for Rome. St Augustine saw in this spiritual strength,…He pointed to the patriotism of the Roman private citizen who bore “toil, poverty, exile, bereavement, loss of limbs, and even of life, in the effort to enrich the public good.” Such unselfish loyalty, he thought, must be imitated by those who wished to be worthy citizens of the City of God, shining fair and calm and far beyond the flaming walls of the earthly world. The Roman manly courage (virtus) was the basal quality of all the Christian’s enduring virtues.

Once the struggle began, they went on with it to the end; they would never make peace while a foot of the invader remained on the sacred Roman soil. They were always willing to learn from the enemy, and that was one reason why they were always victorious in the end.

She gripped her conquests with the great military roads, built to last for ever, which ran through all the Mediterranean lands, and by colonies which were garrisons of soldiers planted out on the land. “Divide and rule” was the basal axiom of Roman policy which crushed out all factors of local union, even forbidding in Trajans’s reign the formation of a fire brigade and persecuting the Christian Church as being an unsanctioned corporation.

A defeated general marched in the Roman victor’s triumph and was taken down into the dismal dungeons of the Tullianum just as the procession came in sight of the Capitol-so that the moment of deepest humiliation for the vanquished might coincide with that of the wildest exultation of the victors.

From that time on the dictator in domestic politics was the successful general with a professional army at his back. Sulla, Pompey, and finally Julius Caesar, were in succession the Napoleonic dictators. And it was the last-named who laid the foundations of the Empire, after conquering Gaul and thereby removing the haunting fear of Gallic invasions, but was assassinated at the foot of Pompey’s statue in the senate-house (44B.C.) before he could pacify the East by force of arms. This murder was perhaps the most grievous blunder in history, for it removed the greatest practical intelligence Rome possessed and involved a prolongation of the death-pangs of the Republic. When the Roman Empire became the organization for propagating the Christian faith, ordained for that very purpose as it seemed by the will of God, the political crime of Brutus and Cassius took on a darker colouring and appeared as the worst of human crimes. So it came about that these arch-assassins were placed by Dante in the lowest circle of his Inferno in company with Judas Iscariot.

By degrees, however, the saying Civis Romanus sum came to connote a feeling of the essential equality of all men as men, and this sentiment evolved, even during the slow decline and swift dissolution of the Roman world-State, into a noble ideal that still lives on in the heart of man and may not for ever prove ineffectual.

Now to preach on Legacy and Heritage.

We watch as President Obama leads America to a place of bowing to Islam while abandoning our religious and historical ties to Israel, don’t be surprised as God’s promise to the Jews unfolds for us: “I will bless those that bless you and I will curse him who curses you.” This nation is about to lose the blessing of God that has been on this nation since the day we recognized the nation of Israel in 1948.Here is an article commemorating Yom Hashoah Day which is April 21. The wickedness in man cannot be hidden as people celebrate their new religion on Earth Day.

This is my introduction for tomorrow’s sermon. The info comes from these articles: this by David Goldman and articles from China Confidential.

President Obama makes nice with Ahmadinejad of Iran. Simultaneously, George Mitchell our special envoy to Israel tells them that time is running out for a two nation solution. Any peace agreement put into place now with a nuclear Iran, unopposed by the US, would require Israel to give up ground to Syria, Iran’s ally. It would force Israel to recognize Hamas, an Iranian sponsored terror group, as the de-facto leader of a new Palestinian nation. It would give Hezbollah, another Iranian sponsored terror group operating out of Lebanon, a free hand to terrorize a shrunken Israeli nation.

Possibly, this was just an anomaly. But, President Obama bows before a Saudi King, and then continues to make nice with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Iran’s new ally in Latin America.

How tough are we? A missile is shot from N. Korea that violated their agreements with us and we threatened to shoot it down, but we did nothing.

George Mitchell warns Israel to not attack Iran’s nuclear installation. In a very short amount of time everything has changed.

My college experience in doing nation simulations. It was in 1978 or 79 that one group went for total disarmament, and the rest of the groups, including mine went along. The teacher was amazed, because this was the first time in the history of the simulations that a disarmament strategy worked. This is seeming like a strategy that President Obama is willing to try.

Meantime back in the states: In an article by a Mr. Goldman, he talked about the withering of the American family. From 1970 to 2009 our population increased from 200 million to 300 million. Yet, the # of 2 parent families with children stayed the same at 25 million. This helps us understand the present economic distress, because it is these families that are the engine of the housing market where all of our present troubles manifested. In 1973 we had 36 million 3 bedroom or larger houses. By 2005 that # had doubled to 72 million but we still only had the 25 million 2 parent with children families to buy them. Although, the two parent families had stayed the same the single parent families and the childless families made up the majority of the 77 million total families. But, the single parent family is usually not in a position to buy the houses. The fact is that the demographics of the nation could not support the housing market. If those single parent households could have stayed or become two parent households then we would be going very strong and looking forward to a bright economic future.

Instead, we are looking at a dimmer and dimmer economic future where many of the means of production are going to be crippled while the government borrows money to reward the green movement and increase the number of people working directly for the government.

The table has been set. Most people will be willing to take the mark for economic assurances for the future.

The cultural wars seem to have been lost. Americans in choosing sexual freedom, abortion, unwed mothers and homosexual marriage have said “no” to the idea of a biblical marriage. I remember in 1990 being invited over to a party of our neighbor’s in Seattle. Everyone at the party was single because of divorce or choice. We stood out like a sore thumb.

Here is a Goldman quote: “The promise of sexual freedom has brought nothing but emptiness and anomie.” Anomie means: the erosion of a moral code causing disorientation.

And here we are.

I arrived home from a good day of substituting at Coulterville High School. Joan shared with me some info she was studying for her health class about growing old. The gist of it was that you can grow old gracefully and enjoyably. There were some conditions which reminded me of my proverbs studies. One condition is no drinking; the other is a good marriage. Those two conditions are very important in aging gracefully according to her text book. Exercise was mentioned. She did some exercising and then I did.

I then picked up "The Glory in the Grey" by Archibald Alexander. What I read struck a chord in my heart:

Sometimes we claim God’s promises on the heights, and forget that they hold in the valleys.

Blindly and perversely do they squander and spoil the gift of God; yet is their case not hopeless if they but leave themselves penitently to His merciful repairing. God will make of them still vessels unto honour. Though innocence be gone, God’s grace can still make a saint.

I should like to speak of God’s great storehouse of reserve blessing to those who feel that they are growing old. To the man who fears that, with his youth, he has left behind him everything worth having, I want to say God has other gifts still. Youth does  not exhaust our Father’s bounty. God has a gracious Second-best for those who are ageing wisely.

…to speak about God’s Second-best to those whose range of living has had to be narrowed, to those who, though not seriously ill, have had to surrender many of the liberties and privileges of health. Even so, my brother, life need not be wholly sad or bitter. Not a little of the world’s best work is done by its courageous invalids. God has His gifts of quiet happiness even for those who have had to take a smaller house.

But there is a failure that is final, that shuts the door and turns the seeker down some other way, to bear the stigma—unsuccessful…. Even for the failures, God has a Second-best. There are many who have found the blessing that lies beyond failure. Like the oyster, they have healed their hurt with a pearl.

As a matter of fact, “Second-best” is a purely human measurement; on God’s scale it is really “better still.”

There is a wonderful Second-best waiting for him in God’s keeping, if he gets up to try again.

“Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;

God lends His arm to all who say ‘I can’.

No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep

But he may rise, and be again a man.”

I am only hoping how you can see this connecting up. Joan and I then went out to post flyers for our upcoming "Meth" play in the small communities around Sparta. What an absolute joy. We went through Coulterville, Tilden and Marissa. Each store or restaurant treated us with respect even giving us the tape to use to post the flyers. We got a couple of comments from the clerks knowing some people that really need to be there. In Marrisa we stopped at “Main Street Coffee Bar” where we got our Starbucks quality coffee and got permission to post the flyer. The best part was that they had a group of about 15 musicians playing some good music. Joan and I sat down and watched these “old” people jamming away having a great time. We left about 9:30 refreshed to live life.

Just finished reading "Christ in the Passover" by Ceil and Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus. Michael Ramirez had invited us over to a semi-Seder with some great food and some great fellowship. That was the closest I have been to an actual Seder. We, as a group were able to talk about the many pictures of Christ in the Seder and that is what this book does for you. In the preface she gives us the reasons for God choosing Israel as His special people. 1) “to teach all nations of Himself” 2) “to show forth His love and faithfulness” 3) “to be a blessing to all people” 4) “to be a praise to Him” 5) “to bring forth salvation to all mankind”.

She then goes back to the Israelites in Egypt. They had become content in their prosperity but that all began to change as a new Egyptian Pharaoh began to envy them. This set the stage for Moses, the plagues and the mighty deliverance from Egypt for the Jews. The final blow to Pharaoh was the killing of all of the first born males. The Jews were instructed to find a lamb and then sacrifice it, spreading its blood over their doors. The destroyer passed over the house covered by the sacrificial blood. The book breaks down the word and shows that it means more than just passing over; but: “It was not merely that the Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites, but that He stood on guard, protecting each blood sprinkled door.”

“He intended that the ancient experience should have a lasting effect on His people; its importance must be reinforced with regularity for all time….He commanded the annual reenactment of that first Passover night, a ceremony that would appeal through the senses to each person of every generation.’

She talks of the lamb. “Redemption through the death of the Passover lamb was personal as well as national. Even so, salvation must be a personal event. In Ex 12:3, the commandment is to take a lamb, a nebulous, unknown entity, nothing special; in Ex 12:4, God says “the” lamb. Now he is known, unique, set apart. Finally, in Exodus 12:5, God specifies, “your” lamb, each redeemed soul must appropriate the lamb for himself.”

The bitter herbs of the Seder represent the repression of the Egyptians and the bitterness of life, which the life of the lamb that they had taken into their home died so that they may live. “Even so, the believer in the Messiah Jesus receives new life through His death as the Lamb of God.”

The unleaven bread of the Seder represents the putting away of sin, as leaven almost always represents sin in the bible. The word “Matzo” means sweet without sourness. “The unleavened bread typified the sweetness and wholesomeness of life without sin.” “They did not put away in order to be redeemed; rather, they put away leaven because they were redeemed. Paul describes unleavened bread as sincerity and truth. 1 Cor 5:7-8

7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.   8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. NKJV This unleaven bread would take the place of the roasted lamb: “In Passover observances after the cessation of the Temple sacrifices, the matzo (unleavened bread) took on added significance when the rabbis decreed it to be a memorial of the Passover lamb.”

Ex 12:14'So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. NKJV

This “feast” is meant to be a “memorial” kept forever. “Now God commanded the annual memorial of the Passover observance so that His people might reflect regularly upon all that He had done for them.” Feasting, singing, celebration and gladness are the words that surround the time of Passover. The Passover lamb could only be sacrificed in Jerusalem so Jews from all over would come to Jerusalem for the time of Passover. The author refers to Jesus’ wrath in the temple describing them as “a den of thieves” in relation to this quote: “Most people bought lambs in the Temple, knowing from bitter experience that the priests could almost always manage to find some minute imperfection on any animal brought from the outside”.

The last supper of Jesus was a Passover meal or a Seder. The meal would include 4 cups of wine as a symbol of joy. The meal with its blessings and questions from the youngest son as to the “why’s” of the night make each element important. The washing of the hands in which Jesus chose to wash the disciples feet. The Passover lamb would be the last thing eaten.

Here is a breakdown of the meal with Jesus’ actions with the author’s headings:

The Kiddush (the blessing over the first cup of wine)

Luke 22:17-18 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves;  18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 

The First Washing of Hands

John 13:4-5 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

(Table of food brought; bitter herbs dipped in salt water; table of food removed; second cup of wine poured; ritual questions asked; ritual answer given; table of food brought back; explanation of lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread; first part of Hallel; second cup taken; second washing of hands; one wafer of bread broken; and thanks over bread recited.)

Broken pieces of Bread Dipped in Bitter Herbs and Charoseth, and Handed to All:

John 13:26 Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it." And having dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

“The Paschal meal eaten; hands washed a third time; third cup poured.)

Blessing After Meals:

1 Cor 11:23-25…Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,  "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me."

Blessing Over Third Cup (Cup of Redemption):

1 Cor 11:25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 

(Third cup taken; second part of Hallel recited; fourth cup poured and taken.)

Closing Song or Hymn:

Matt 26:30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Here are some interesting insights of the author:

Speaking of Judas: “Because he left before eating the Passover, he had, in effect, excommunicated himself from the congregation. Neither did he have any part in the new memorial that came after supper.”

“The bread that Jesus broke for the bitter sop was not the bread of which He said, “This is my body”. That came later. We see this from the account that He took that bread after He first gave thanks at the end of the meal; then He broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me” Luke 22:19, 1 Cor 11:24. Not only the words were shocking. It was a very unusual act, for after supper no other food was to be eaten. Jesus here instituted the new memorial. He was teaching the disciples in cryptic terms that after His death, the Paschal lamb would no longer have the same significance.”

“The gospel accounts of the Last Supper mention only two of the four seder cups—the first and the third. According to early Jewish tradition, these two were the most important. The first cup was special because it consecrated the entire Passover ritual that followed. But the Mishnah states that the third cup was the most significant of all. The third cup had two names: the “cup of blessing,” because it came after the blessing or grace after meals, and the “cup of redemption,” because it represented the blood of the Paschal lamb. It was of this cup that Jesus said, “This is my blood of the new testament” Mt 26:28

Our author then examines a modern Seder with this observation: “They continued to drink the four cups of wine to symbolize gladness. Still, the main course of the feast was conspicuously missing!” “The appearance of the striped and pierced matzo brings to mind two verses of Scripture that help to complete the picture: “With his strepes we are healed” Is 53:5, and “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him” Zech. 12:10.”

The modern Seder without the lamb, has inserted another ritual with the matzo. The host takes 3 pieces of the bread representing unity. He breaks and hides the middle one to be found by the children later. This “buried” matzo is called the, aphikomen. The rituals of the meal are followed by a great feast of the foods of any given location. Remember, the lamb was the last thing to be eaten at the Passover meal. The only thing left is the aphikomen, the hidden matzo. “In Temple times, the lamb was the last thing to be eaten; now, in the absence of the sacrificial lamb, the unleavened bread was to represent the Passover sacrifice. The taste of the matzo and the memory of the lamb were to linger in the consciousness of each celebrant….The host unwraps the aphikomen and distributes olive-sized pieces to everyone. All partake of it with quiet reverence.” The meal is finished with only the last two cups of wine to go.

So where did this ceremony with the “aphikomen” come from? The middle piece of a trinity that is taken and buried and then found and shared with all their representing the sacrificial lamb. Easy to see Jesus, but how did it get to be a part of the Jewish Seder practiced by Jewish families all over the world for centuries? The answer comes from the “ambivalent status for a time of the Jewish Christians….They continued to worship in the Temple and attended the synagogue with their fellow Jews. When the break finally came, the Jewish believers in Jesus did not abandon the synagogue. Rather, the synagogue expelled the Jewish Christians….The early Jewish Christians incorporated into their own Passover services the spiritual lessons, customs, and insights taught them by Jesus Himself at the Last Supper…..some of their customs and interpretations became part of the Passover ritual of that time. The use of the aphikomen to commemorate the Passover lamb would have been particularly meaningful to the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple…Therefore, the words, “In memory of the Passover Lamb,” spoken over the aphikomen in the Sephardeic seder, present a double symbolism: The middle wafer represents Jesus, the Messiah, who, by His sinless, perfect life, fulfilled the prophetic symbolism of the unleavened break, and who, by His sacrificial death, fulfilled the prophetic symbolism of the Passover Lamb!

At the seder we single out the middle matzo, representing the Messiah, even as He was foreordained to die for the sins of the whole world. We break the middle matzo, signifying His death, for He was crucified, even as the psalmist and the prophets foretold in Ps 22, Is 53 and Dan 9. We hide the middle matzo, signifying burial. Just before the third cup of wine, perhaps symbolizing three days, we “resurrect” the middle matzo, just as Jesus the Messiah rose from the grave in fulfillment of Job 19:25 and Ps 16:10. Then all the faithful partake of the middle matzo, signifying a personal, individual part in the everlasting redemption of God, even as Jesus taught: I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world (Jn 6:51).

Each time I cover this material it adds to my Easter communion experience. Only God can open blind eyes.

Here is a great story of the price paid to have church in the Hanoi Hilton. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODQ3YTRhNGRlYzY1YmFiNmNjNjUzYmY1MDE0ZTM2MmE=

What is the key to good health? Proverbs gives us a combination of words that when brought together in a life brings forth health and vitality for body, soul and spirit. These words are wisdom; doing the right thing at the right time. Knowledge; which is the sum total of what you have learned and experienced in your life. Discretion; this is having a direction or a life plan for the future. Understanding; this is the ability to understand the consequences of our decisions, thus enabling us to make good decisions. One author describes this combination of words bringing a “quiet integrity” and“serenity from good management of life” into our lives.

This balanced and properly lived life is pleasant to the soul, the person you really are on the inside. The soul does not deal well with wickedness and the ugliness of life. Yet, we are surrounded by people who are constantly trumpeting the value of their wickedness, even as they are rotting away on the inside. Wisdom and knowledge protect you from the traps of life that capture and destroy lives, allowing you to understand the end results and see through the lies and hypocrisy surrounding you and make plans for your future that agree with your soul and spirit, thus strengthening your body and giving you a zest for living.

This graceful life, this life of “quiet integrity” is a healthy life. Life becomes easy; rejecting the contradictions of life that disrupt the unity of body, soul and spirit. There is an internal agreement in your soul and spirit with the way you are living your life, producing a vitality in your body that allows you to work hard and sleep well being constantly refreshed to live life. There is a safety and security in life. Good health springs from this life free from fears and guilt. When trouble appears through people or circumstances, God will show up on the scene, inviting you out for a wonderful meal while you talk things over.

Proverbs 2:10-15, Proverbs 3:21-26

“The fool has said in his heart; ‘there is no God’”. This wisdom and understanding comes from God. To know that we “are wonderfully made” allows us to live lives in agreement with the One who made us. Our proverb says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Without God a person can learn to survive and succeed. They learn to act wisely, to manipulate to obtain their desires. This is a selfish wisdom, not the wisdom that “comes from above”. Real wisdom comes when a person realizes there is a God who has communicated to you and I the right way of living. This “great awe” of God opens the door to wisdom and knowledge allowing us to live a life in which God can add to it daily increasing the weight or essence of your life year by year. The desire to understand life by knowing God gives us the understanding to navigate through the twists and turns of life. This “great awe” of God directly affects our bodies giving us a strong and vital life. This internal satisfaction touches our souls and bodies allowing us to live out from under the shadows of wickedness, the shadows of a rotting world.

Proverbs 9:10-12, Proverbs 16:22, Proverbs 19:23

Life presents choices. We can forgive or hold onto bitterness, one releases the spirit and brings health to the body, the other binds the spirit bringing sickness to the body. The broad choice is a choice between following the path of righteousness that comes from God or the paths carved out by the darkened ingenuity of man. The path of righteousness entails more than just right living. It entails living a life where all of our relationships are in proper order. Doing right while a relationship is out of order is not following the path of righteousness. The point is that relationships matter. Doing right by the relationships of your life, starting with God going down to the casual encounter, insure a life rightly lived. This life avoids the poisons that bring death to the soul and spirit with the body following.

When we make a decision to live a life that honors God and the people around us it produces a hope. This godly hope produces a character that is patient and trusting allowing the person to make their way through life with real joy. For people who reject God’s ways we find a different kind of hope. It is not hope but knowledge of an expected end. It is not hope with joy; but a fearful expectation of the unfolding of the consequences of their actions catching up with them. God’s hope brings health, guilt because of bad actions brings a cancer into our souls destroying the life of the person who allows it to fester in their spirit. When we recognize that we do know everything but put our trust in God and refuse to go down the unrighteous paths of life; our bodies produce a built-in cure to ward off sickness and disease. Our life choices directly affect the health of our bodies.

Living God’s way protects our soul, the person we really are. God’s ways will keep us from the hurts and pains that damage our spirits. A casual attitude towards wickedness will result in that wickedness taking on a life of its own bringing the repercussions of bad choices onto our bodies and into our souls, killing our spirits. When our spirits are fouled up because of our bad choices the natural healing of working, eating and sleeping don’t bring restoration. There is no satisfaction in regular life. Nothing satisfies. The person who has chosen God’s ways can be assured that the life they are living with its times of labor, sleeping and eating will work together in their bodies producing a satisfied soul and a joyful spirit, as well as a healthy body. To live a satisfied life is a blessing from above, to always be agitated and restless, is a result of the choices we have made in life. One brings out a tender heart that can experience the natural joys of life, the other produces a hard, cynical heart looking for artificial joys that dry the spirit.

Proverbs 12:28, Proverbs 10:27-29, Proverbs 3:7-8, Proverbs 19:16, Proverbs 13:25, Proverbs 27:7, Proverbs 28:14

What is good for the soul is good for the body. The characteristic of being kind to others naturally clothes the soul with honor and dignity. To have grace on other people, especially people who are not your equal in understanding or social status, is an investment in your own soul as well as a contribution into another person’s life. Many people will forsake kindness in order to achieve their personal goals. They will treat people poorly, even cruelly who not help them to be what they want to be. Their selfishness might help them makes some money or gain a position, but they will do it at the expense of a healthy soul. The person who shows kindness carries a special honor and dignity; and internally their soul, the person they really are, is constantly being refreshed and strengthened by their life of kindness towards others. Being kind is a choice we make every day. Choosing to bring kindness into all of our relationships brings zestfulness into our lives. There is recognition within our souls and spirits and recognition from those whom we show kindness to that we are living a good life. This brings honor and dignity to us, and everyone around us, resulting in a healthy life.

The person who rejects the law of kindness is an unhealthy person. They will resort to lies and distortions to gain the upper hand over others. Even when they succeed, it is never enough to satisfy. Their relationships are a constant source of trouble and irritation. The weak become his prey to manipulate and intimidate into supporting his goals. This selfishness taxes his spirit. The constant need to control and manipulate fails and he resorts to explosions of anger to get his way. This explosion of emotions makes obvious his failure in living.

We are surrounded by people struggling through life. The person who extends himself to help someone who is struggling will always be internally blessed. Struggling people, with their weights of depression, seemed to never be able to climb out of the pits of life. God sees them and He judges us when we deal with these people. When a person manipulates the poor to achieve their own ends, God says there will be a stain on their souls. God calls us to recognize when someone is trying to climb out of the pits of life. It is a call to not hinder them and it is a call to show them kindness.

Proverbs 11:16-17, Proverbs 21:21, Proverbs 22:8-9, Proverbs 22:22-23, Proverbs 25:28

We recognize that everything in life does not unfold just the way we want it to. Every life includes disappointments, sicknesses and tragedies. The issue in terms of our personal health hinges upon how we handle the issues of life. We need to be reminded of the four words that Proverbs gives us to help us maintain wholeness in body, soul and spirit: wisdom, knowledge, discretion and understanding. There is a need to recognize that the tragedies of life affect us where it matters most, in the heart, that word that tries to capture soul, spirit and mind in one. We need to recognize when we are sliding into the pits and traps of life. We need to recognize when our spirits are under assault. “Guard your heart” is always a healthy suggestion.

A sound heart is a heart that carries its own healing medicines within the body. Joy helps keep a heart sound and whole. Singing, laughing and smiling brings freshness to our appearance and makes every day worth living. Joy releases the natural medicines in our bodies to help us stay healthy. But, what about the times I have no joy? Those are the times you need to be careful to apply wisdom, knowledge, discretion and understanding into your weakened life.

We have all had our hearts set on something coming to pass. The days become weeks and the weeks become months and time drags on and on weighing heavier and heavier upon our hearts. This naturally grieves our hearts. If we are not careful we can find ourselves slipping into the pits of life. Each morning we wake to discover that we are still living in the pit. We look at others, and instead of being able to share their joy, we are consumed with our sorrow. We take on envy of others and their circumstances only making our condition worse. The more important the issue is in our life the greater the sorrow produced when our relationship is damaged or hampered. Our tragedy becomes a direct assault upon our soul, trying to change us into a damaged vessel. Life becomes one attack after another against our spirits turning us into bitter, dry and stooped people unable to function in life.

“Just be happy” will not do. We use the phrase “get it together” and it is better advice than we realize. This is a time to take an assessment of the state of your soul. Where are you? Where do you want to be? How do you get there? What can I do? In the midst of our tragedies we need to make plans to live and accomplish. Here is where the importance of that word “discretion” comes powerfully into play. We need to make plans and begin carrying them out no matter how inconsequential they may seem. Bound to the bed, make a plan to make it into the living room one way or another. Each time you accomplish a small desire it is sweet to the soul. Even though you seem to be perishing in the pit, you can begin to strengthen the inner person by making small plans and carrying them out. These accomplished desires slowly become a tree of life in your spirit. You become stronger and stronger, but more important is that as you develop the tree of life in your spirit others come and partake of the life giving fruit of your overcoming life.

Do not let the spirit wither away killing soul and body. The spirit will sustain you in sickness and tragedy. The spirit will measure out exactly what you can and can’t do on the road to recovery. Even in sickness, the worst of sicknesses we can have a strong and vital life. The fact is that all bodies eventually give out. A healthy life keeps our soul and spirit together even as the body releases them into the next life. This is the healthy life that we can have even on our death beds.

Proverbs, 13:12, 13:19, 14:30, 15:13, 17:22, 18:14