Military History
History Lessons, Part I
It’s interesting what you can learn (or re-learn, as is the case here) in church if you listen. I was reminded today of a story about the forest trees looking for a king to rule over them. The story comes from the Old Testament book of Judges 9:7-20, where a man named Jotham responded to the people picking Abimelech to be their king after he killed his 69 brothers, the sons of Gideon, who, with his three hundred men, fought the Midianites and won Israel’s independence.
The people of Israel had been enjoying a time of national resurgence after years of subjugation by the nation of Midian. It had gotten so bad in Israel, what with the Midianites burning their crops and taking anything that wasn’t burned, stealing their flocks of sheep and goats, that the men of Israel had taken to hiding in caves and threshing their wheat in secret so that the invaders could not take what little they had. The people of Israel were so impoverished that they finally called out to God in their distress. And the man God chose to use was a simple farmer of no name, no background, no military history, probably the youngest in his family, and He called him a “Valiant Warrior”. His name was Gideon.
Well, you know the story. Gideon took a Large Army and God made him leave most of them at home, attacking with only 300 warriors against an army about which the Bible says: “the Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.” This was a huge army to contend with, and Gideon had only 300 men. But in the end, God was with him and they routed the Midianites and gained their independence.
Years later, after Gideon had seventy sons, one son, Abimelech, decided to “clear the field” so he could lead by any means necessary. And now he gathered a group of men around him to prop him up and he was intent on being the next king. This led to the story about the forest asking a thorn bush to be their king. In the story, the trees asked the olive tree to be their king, but he refused because he had more profitable things to do. The fig tree also refused for the same reason. As did the vine. Only the scruffy thorn bush, which never provided anything positive nor been of service to anyone, but the problem of being a thorn in their side, agreed to take the job.
The message from this lesson is not only for the past. Europe had to learn this lesson again in the 1940’s as they suffered under the hands of a dictator who convinced everyone that he could make sweeping changes if they just gave him the power to make the effects by fiat rather than by the will of the people. In the end, Germany and many European nations suffered because they could not find a suitable leader who would take the job, even though it was a thankless one, because it was more profitable to do something else.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) once said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Sometimes, good men do nothing because they’ve forgotten how dangerous a world we live in. Darryl Worley sang a country song several years ago and in it he asks, “Have you forgotten how it felt that day?/To see your homeland under fire/ And her people blown away.”
I’m not just talking about one single incident. When we get comfortable, and our lives are going good, we forget that our liberties can be taken away if we Are Not careful to fight to protect them. In 1998, when Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted of second degree murder because he assisted in the suicide of Thomas Youk (never mind that he eventually assisted in the suicides of 130 people before it was all said and done), everyone thought: “How can this happen in the United States?” Now we are facing the possibility of ‘end of life counseling’ for senior citizens and no one seems to bat an eye. They are more concerned with the fact that a government run health care bill would ruin our economy.
In his second Inaugural address, Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what is was once like in the United States where men were free.” Sadly, the people in charge don’t seem to want to listen to history’s lessons.
About the Author
A simple man with a lot of experience in several areas in life, love, faith andrelationships
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