Veterans For The Lord

Veterans for the Lord

Pastor Jim May

In a world filled with darkness it’s great to know that you have the power of the light of God with you. While others are overcome by fear, frustration, doubt and every thing that Satan can throw against them, you can lift up your head and rejoice because you are made an over comer in Christ.

Isaiah 54:17, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD."

Oh, we have our share of problems in this world. We cannot escape the world, but we are going to be delivered through it all.

2 Corinthians 4:6-10, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."

Today is Veteran’s Day and I want to talk about some real veterans this morning. I appreciate all of those who have served in the armed forces of our nation. Even today there are thousands upon thousands of American men and women in uniform who are fighting our enemies on foreign soil. There are many more who are guarding the home front doing all they can to stop the enemies of our country from doing their worst.

It’s a good thing to never forget that someone, somewhere, right this very moment, is paying the price for your freedom and that price is never cheap.

We have a young soldier on our prayer list that was wounded in Iraq and we are thankful that he is getting better. But how many more are suffering and dying that we know nothing about?

To date, there have been 3,859 confirmed deaths of American soldiers on the battlefields of Iraq. Any life that is lost is a tragedy, and to have this many lose their lives in the battle for freedom is almost more than we can bear. But what is our alternative? What happens if we do not send our troops in harm’s way?

Have we forgotten that we were attacked? No American flew a jetliner into the palace of Saddam Hussein maliciously planning to kill as many Iraqis as possible just to prove a point. America did not engage itself in a jihad to destroy the infidels in the Middle East. Everything we have done, and continue to do, is based upon the fact that we were attacked first and we cannot allow it happen again without trying to stop it in advance.

But do we have the will to stay the course? I think not. America has become too divided to stand for long against an enemy, and as you well know, there are cries from all over the nation to pull out and let our enemies continue their plans against us.

But just as it was in WWI or WWII, if we don’t stop them in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or wherever their home bases are, then we will be faced with stopping them in New York, Washington, and Baton Rouge. Either we send our soldiers to fight in their homeland or we wait to fight them in our own backyard.

America’s enemies won’t stop just because we leave them alone. Doing so will only embolden them to become stronger and attack us with more strength and with greater frequency.

None of us likes the idea of fighting, losing our young men and women in combat, but what is our alternative? Are we just going to sit back and surrender when our enemies attack? Sadly, I believe that there are many in our nation who would do just that! But the fact is that those who would throw up their hands and quit to save their own hides are among the first who would die if our enemies took over.

It’s a fact of history that leaders, politicians, the educated elite and those in positions of wealth and power are always the first to be captured and eliminated. The common man will suffer too, but our enemies are nearly as concerned with what you and I think as they are with how those in positions of influence think. If you are going to destroy a nation, it must start with the leaders.