After we left Khao-I-Dang we did not find out until the next day that the North Vietnamese had probed and killed 30 people right there at the intersection in front of the Khao-I-Dang Camp just after we left. You may recall that I wrote about the man at that camp who had been the only pastor in Cambodia, and how the Khmer Rouge had found him and put him into one of their killing fields camps. I told how God had actually sent one of his “shinning angels” to miraculously protect him from certain execution, just like others Billy Graham wrote about in his book, Angels.
However, we wanted to visit one more refugee camp before dark, Sa Kaeo II. By now things were working just as the KGB had planned. The North Vietnamese Communists were coming into Cambodia and driving the Khmer Rouge out. This was a new camp and was already mostly populated by Khmer Rouge refugees who were themselves escaping Cambodia.
When we arrived, they were pulling this enormous chain across the entrance to block any North Vietnamese tanks from coming in. There were no UN people there. The place was run by a Thai officer. They called him down to the entrance to check our credentials, and right away we found how casual this place was. He came down only clad in his T-shirt and his drawers. He was really nice. He put a soldier on the outside step of our little bus with his automatic weapon and told us to go anywhere we wished.
Everything there was made of big stalks of bamboo, and most all of it was still green. The people here were much younger than the previous camp, and there were many young children.
I walked up to the top of a hill where a Swiss NGO had constructed a hospital. All workers at the hospital had already gone home, but there was a group of the most interesting young boys gathered there. They were all between the ages of 12 and 16. But what was so strange was that almost every one of them had some kind of injury. Some had lost a leg or an arm or and eye, but most just had flesh wounds that were almost healed. They all crowded around me, for they were all in the process of learning English in the hopes of getting to the US some day and had never met an American.
One of the older ones was named Hem-Hatch. He could speak fairly good English, so I asked him about all these boys. Where were their parents? He said: “No parents.” So I asked: “What is your story?” So, he told me that they all had the same story. They had all been in Cambodia in different villages. The Khmer Rouge had come to their villages and lined everyone up and started going down the line, shooting every person, one at a time. These guys saw their parents and siblings shot. They realized that if they did not get out of there, they were going to be dead. So, they just bolted for the jungle. They ran as fast as they could, zigzagging as they ran to dodge the bullets. Most had been hit at least once or lost an eye to the thorns as they crashed through the jungle. What a strange group of orphans, but they were full of energy and enthusiasm.
I corresponded with Hem-hatch for quite a while and sent him some Thai Baht that I could buy at a Dallas bank. I don’t know what finally happened to him. In the last letter I received from him he stated that he had the chance to go to France, but they were trying to get him to go back into Cambodia. I wrote him to get his rear-end into France, for I knew that the North Vietnamese were intercepting those repatriation busses as soon as they crossed the border and killing everyone on them.
When I got back to our little bus, the folks there had found this young lady. She was somewhere between age 19 to 24. She was one of those new Christians that were coming out of Cambodia that I mentioned earlier. And they were not just casual Christians. That terror had bonded them so close to God that it was spooky. This girl had taken upon herself the task to teach bible stories and Christian principals to every young child in the camp that she possibly could. She was teaching groups of children all day and into the night. There were 90,000 people already in that camp. She stayed on the verge of exhaustion all the time. Her dream was to get to the US and attend a bible-oriented college some day.
She gave me the name and address of a young lady friend who worked for the UN and would be able to bring things into the camp to her. When I got back to Dallas I went to several Christian book stores and bought all the different boxes of felt bible stories and sent them to her. Those are where you put up the different characters of a bible story on a felt board for the children as you tell the story. She wrote back how thrilled she was and how she used them to great effect for all those children. I also sent her quite a lot of Thai Baht so that she could buy things such as soccer balls for the older children.
So, before we left, we wanted to have a prayer for this lovely young Christian lady. I was sitting on the front row of the little bus and she sat just above me on the chrome supports. After we prayed, she prayed. And I will never forget for the rest of my life what happened. The bus was air conditioned, so it must have been cooler than normal for her. But as she prayed, I felt water dripping down onto me. When that girl prayed, the intensity of her prayer, the intensity of her communication with God, caused her to become wet all over. Evidently, because of the necessity of what she was doing, God had infused her with a prodigious amount of his mighty Spirit Power.
To this day, I feel guilty that I have never been able to pray like that……with the intensity of that girl.
“O God, have mercy! I look to you for protection…..I cry out to God Most High, to God who will fulfill his purpose for me.”
Are there obstacles or difficulties that seem to block you from fulfilling God’s purposes for your life! Perhaps you’ve worried, planned, and toiled but have ultimately failed to achieve what you desire and despair is beginning to settle in. If so, it is time for you to stop doing and begin asking.
Friend, the Lord your God is sovereign. He can soften hearts that you could never touch, change circumstances beyond your control, provide resources you can’t even dream of attaining, and untangle messes that seem unredeemable. And He is waiting for you to cry out to Him for deliverance.
Friend, it is sheer pride that keeps you relying on yourself rather than depending on and obeying your heavenly Father, who wants to be your strength, your life, and your all. Stop trying to figure everything out. Kneel before Him and leave all that concerns you in His hands. He will not fail you.
With Spain exuberant after successfully driving the Muslim occupiers from Toledo and Leon a few years earlier, the First Crusade began in 1097, led by Godfrey of Bouillon. It freed Iconium, though it was later lost.
Godfrey of Bouillon
The First Crusade defeated Islamic warriors at Dorylaeum and Antioch, and captured Jerusalem in 1099, holding it for nearly 100 years.
Second Crusade (1147-1149)
After Muslims conquered Edessa, another crusade was called for by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1147. It was made up of French and German armies, led by King Louis VII and Conrad II.
Second Crusade Fighting Muslims
The Second Crusade failed to take Damascus and returned to Europe in 1150. Bernard of Clairvaux was disturbed by reports of misdirected violence toward some Jewish populations.
On July 4, 1187, the Muslim leader Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, captured Crusaders who had not yet made it back to Europe at Hattim and ordered their mass execution.
Third Crusade (1187-1149)
In 1190, Pope Gregory VIII called for a Third Crusade. It was led by German King Frederick I, called Frederick Barbarossa—meaning Redbeard—who was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He was joined by Richard I of England and Philip II of France.
King Frederick Driving Muslims out of Iconium
Frederick led 100,000 soldiers across Byzantium, driving out Muslims and temporarily freeing Iconium. He most likely would have freed Jerusalem had he not fallen off his horse while crossing the Göksu River in Cilicia, Asia Minor. Being 67 years old and weighted down with heavy armor, Frederick Barbarossa drowned in waist deep water and the Crusade went into confusion.
Richard the Lionheart was suddenly in charge leading the Third Crusade and successfully captured Acre. Due to rivalries, Philip II, without warning, abandoned the Crusade and returned to France in 1191.
Richard’s troops came within sight of Jerusalem in 1192 which had now been taken back by the Muslims under their very capable leader, Saladin. However, they grew weary as it did not look like they were making an impact.
Then word came to Richard that Phillip II was trying to take away Normandy from England, so Richard quickly ended his part in the Crusade to go back and defend his kingdom.
Richard got things in order back home, and then he heard that Crusade troops had Jerusalem surrounded and later heard Saladin was on the verge of defeat and was propping up dead soldiers along the walls. Saladin allowed some Christians to leave Jerusalem if they paid a ransom, but according to Imad al-Din, approximately 15,000 could not pay their ransom and were enslaved.
So, Richard was determined to return to Jerusalem. He went by ship to get there more quickly. But was shipwrecked and attempted to travel on foot across Europe in disguise. But he was recognized near Vienna and captured by Duke Leopold VI of Austria. He was then imprisoned at Dumstein for three years.
Legend has it that Richard’s loyal minstrel, Blondel, traveled from kingdom to kingdom across Europe trying to find him by singing Richard’s favorite song.
Blondel Looking for Richard
When Richard heard the song, he sang the second verse from the prison tower, and was found. Richard’s brother, King John, had to raise taxes for the “king’s ransom.” This was the origins of the story of Nottingham, Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood.
The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, prepared for another crusade in 1197, but died from malaria.
Once back in England, Richard ruled only a few years before being shot and killed with an arrow during the siege of a castle in Normandy.
His brother, King John, once again ruled, where he raised taxes oppressively. When he lost Britain’s claim to Normandy after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, English baron’s were upset, as they also lost their titled lands there.
Angry barons then surrounded King John on the plains of Runnymede on June 15, 1215, and forced him to sign the Magna Carta – the cornerstone of English liberty.
(Yes, it was a political victory for the Barrons, but the Magna Carta turned out to be one of the most important documents in history. For the first time since the 400 year rule by ‘the people’ established way back there by Moses, people were able to rule themselves. Thus, England was able to become rich and powerful; so were the other countries in that area by copying its principles. And it sowed the seeds that ultimately caused the Pilgrims to self rule, and became the founding principle of the American Constitution. Rule by the people instead of a King.)
Saladin prevailed at Jerusalem; however, though almost defeated, and eventually took over all the surrounding country.
Richard’s exploits gave rise to the legends of the Lion-Hearted, and, through them, Richard acquired a posthumous prestige. Richard did regain Acre and Jaffa for the Christians, but that as all.
The agreement he finally reached with Saladin gave pilgrims free access to Jerusalem and little else. The city itself and the adjoining kingdom, except for some coastal cities were still subject to the same law—The Koran, not the Holy Bible. So the troops of the Third Crusade went home.
The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204)
Initiated by Pope Innocent III, the Fourth Crusade was largely composed of Frenchmen and Venetians.
Innocent was greatly disappointed by the events of the Crusade. In the original agreement, the Venetians had promised to transport the French crusaders to the Holy Land and to provide them with military equipment and provisions.
When the Frenchmen arrived in Venice, they were too few to pay for the contracted amount; only twelve thousand of the expected thirty thousand warriors came. The Venetians who had constructed ships and had assembled provisions for the original number. It was proposed that the Frenchmen make up the deficit by assisting them in attacking the seaport of Zara. Ruled by the Christian king of Hungry, Zara was the greatest Adriatic rival of Venice. To the Venetians, this was reason enough for an attack, and they cajoled the French into helping them make it.
Following the sack of Zara, the Venetians had another plan. They suggested that the expedition now direct its efforts against Constantinople and restore the dethroned Byzantine emperor, Isaac II Angelos. Pope Innocent again issued a reprimand to the crusaders, which they again disregarded; they captured Constantinople on April 13, 1204, and spent the next three days pillaging it. Their seizure of Zara had been uncalled for; their sack of Constantinople was unparalleled.
The crusaders established a new Latin empire and selected the Count of Flanders for its ruler. This empire lasted until 1261, but it never ruled all Byzantium; it comprised most of the land in Thrace and Greece, where the French barons were rewarded with feudal fiefs. For their contributions, the Venetians obtained the harbor rights in Constantinople plus a commercial monopoly throughout the empire and the Aegean Islands. The Fourth Crusade was a complete victory for the Venetians but for nobody else; it never reached the Holy Land.
So that part of the Fourth Crusade returned to Europe. However, there was another part to that Crusade that few have heard or. It was called:
The Children’s Crusade (1212)
This Crusade was the most pathetic of all Christian attempts to free the Holy Land. It was also the most senseless. The movement originated in France and Germany, and peasant children in two separate bands flocked to join it. They were convinced they could succeed where older and more sinful crusaders had failed: the miraculous power of faith would triumph where the force of arms had not. Many parish priests and parents encouraged such religious fervour and urged the children on. The pope and higher clergy opposed the outburst but were unable to stop it entirely. Despite all their efforts, a land of several thousand children (reportedly led by a Cologne boy named Nicholas) set out for Italy. About a third survived the march over the Alps and as far as Genoa, another group reached Marseilles. The luckier ones eventually managed to get safely home, but many others paid dearly for their innocence and ignorance. For them, the route to Jerusalem came to a dead end on the auction blocks of Mediterranean slave dealers.
The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)
Instigated by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, this Crusade was fixed for 1217 under John Brienne, king of Jerusalem, with the intention of conquering Egypt. John was replaced as leader by the papal legate Pelagius in 1218, and in 1219 the city of Damietta was captured by the Crusaders. The sultan of Egypt offered to exchange Jerusalem for Damietta but this was rejected. After an unsuccessful assault on Cairo in 1221, the Crusaders surrendered Damietta in return for the freedom to retreat.
The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229)
Often called the Diplomatic Crusade, this expedition was led by Emperor Fredrick II, the grandson of Frederick I Barbarossa. After several postponements, Frederick undertook the Crusade in 1228, but he fought no battles. Instead, by negotiation, he obtained Jerusalem and a strip of territory from Acre to Jerusalem for the Christians. He had previously (1225) married Yolanda, the young heiress of the kingdom. Following her death in 1228, Frederick crowned himself king of Jerusalem.
The Seventh Crusade (1248-1250)
Led by King Louis IX of France and directed against the Arabs of Egypt, this Crusade was a complete failure. After the capture of Damietta, the crusaders were decisively defeated at Cairo and King Louis was captured. Completely victorious, the Arabs demanded and received a huge ransom for the release of the king.
The Eighth Crusade (1270)
Disregarding his advisers, King Louis IX again attacked the Arabs in North Africa. This time he struck the city of Tunis. The Crusaders picked the hottest season of the year for campaigning and were devastated by a pestilence. One of its victims was Louis IX, whose death in 1270 ended the Crusade,
These holy wars were driven by religious zeal, seeking adventure, and reclaiming “Christian lands”. While achieving initial victories—notably the first crusade—they ultimately failed to hold Jerusalem permanently. However, they significantly increased trade, cultural exchange, and scientific knowledge between Europe and the Middle East, paving the way for the Renaissance.
(Many people have heard about the Crusades, but know little about them; especially what really caused them to happen; and the history and outcome of each one. For your edification, below I have chronicled what really caused them, and then a brief history of each one. Do read it and become informed.)
What happened Palm Sunday 937 AD that led Europe to respond with the Crusades.
Palm Sunday, 937 A.D., Caliph al-Radi ordered the destruction of Jerusalem’s Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.
What was the background of that?
Jerusalem had been a Jewish city since the time of King David, around 1000 B.C. It had been a Christian city since Emperor Constantine, circa 325 A.D.
Part of Ancient Jerusalem
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt, which had previously been Christian lands, were conquered by Islamists. Then Muslim warriors under Caliph Umar took Jerusalem away from the Christian Byzantine Patriarch Sophronius in 637 A.D. “Caliph” is the title of Islam’s supreme religious, political and military leaders.
Caliph Umar forced Christian and Jewish inhabitants to live as second-class citizens under “Jim Crow” style laws called “dhimmi.”
In the 700’s, Christians were banned from giving religious instruction to their children and displays of the cross were banned in Jerusalem. Pilgrims to the Holy Land began to be harassed, massacred and even crucified.
In 772 A.D., Caliph al-Mansur of the Abbasid Caliphate ordered Jews and Christians to be branded on the hand.
In 846 AD, 11,000 Arab Saracen Muslim warriors invaded Rome, Italy, and damaged the Basilica of St. Peters and the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls, desecrating the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul. In response, Pope Leo IV built a 39 foot wall around the Vatican.
In 923 A.D., Caliph al-Muqtadir of the Abbasid Caliphate began enforcing sharia in Jerusalem, inciting Muslim rioters to destroy churches in Jerusalem.
In 937A.D., on Palm Sunday, Abbasid Caliph al-Radi ordered Muslim rioters to plunder the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.
1004, Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah of the Fatimid Caliphate, known as the “Mad Caliph” or the “Nero of Egypt,” began a ten year persecution of Christians and Jews. Thousands were forced to convert or die. 30,000 churches were destroyed.
1008, Mad Caliph al-Hakim forbade Christians from having their annual Palm In Sunday procession from Bethany.
In 1009, al-Hakim ordered frenzied rioters to use picks, hammers and fire to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, considered the holiest site in Christendom.
In Egypt, al-Hakim demanded everyone speak Arabic. Those caught speaking the traditional Egyptian language of Coptic had their tongues removed.
In In 1958, Egypt, President Gamal Nasser told a gathering: “I met with the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and he made his requests to make wearing the hijab mandatory in Egypt. I told him, if I make that a law they will say that we have returned to the days of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who forbade people from walking at day and only allowed walking at night.”
1075, Seljuk Turkish Muslims captured Jerusalem from Arab Muslims. Travelers returning from pilgrimages to the Holy Land shared reports of Islamic persecution of “dhimmi” Christians.
The Italian city-states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia fought the Muslims who were raiding Italy’s coasts, Majorca, Sardinia, and Italian Catalonia.
Italians Fight the Muslims along the Coast
By 965, Muslim forces had succeeded in their 130 year conquest of Sicily.
Nearly a century later, in 1057, the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard fought against the Islamic warriors of Sicily and gained control of Calabria in the “toe of Italy.”
In 1071, the Seljuk Turkish Muslims inflicted a major defeat on the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Manzikert and took control of all but the coastlands of Asia Minor.
Christians Defeated at Battle of Manzikert
Cries for help were carried back to Europe. Europe sent help, it was called The Crusades.
Europeans had just two centuries of crusades compared to Islam’s fourteen centuries of jihad crusades which are still continuing, killing an estimated 240 million.
The Europeans’ nine major Crusades lasted from 1095 till 1291, when Acre was finally recaptured by Islamic forces. The First Crusade began when, in desperation, the proud Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First Comnenus humbled himself and sent ambassadors to the Council of Piacenza in March of 1095, appealing for aid from his religious rival, the Roman Catholic Pope.
The seriousness of this call for help is underscored by the fact that it occurred just a few years after the Great East-West Schism of 1054, where the Byzantine Church and the Roman Catholic Church split.
Pope Urban II gave an impassioned plea at the Council of Clermont in 1095 for Western leaders to set aside their doctrinal differences and come to the aid of their Byzantine Christians brethren.
Pope Urban described how Christians were treated by Islamists, who “compel (them) to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow,” as recorded by Robert the Monk in Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.
“If you ask Me anything in My name. I will do it.”
Will God answer that deep desire of your heart that you’ve repeatedly taken to His throne? Will He reallly help you? Jesus placed only one condition on answering your requests—that they be made in His name. However, this doesn’t mean merely affixing the phrase “in Jesus name” to the end of every appeal.
As Christ spoke to His disciples, they understood that His name signified His character. So to pray “in the name of Jesus” means that they would conform their requests to His mission, values, and will.
How do you do that? How can you be sure your prayers align with His character? Rely on the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:25 explains. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us” NIV.
Praying in Jesus’ name requires the help of the Holy Spirit. So allow His Spirit to guide your words and conform the desires of your heart to His will. And be assured—He hears you and will answer.
March 2nd is Texas Independence Day. But do you know the real history of how it came about. And have you ever read the real Texas Declaration of Independence. Every real Texan should read it at least once.
Below I have transcribed a verbatim copy of it for you. However, first, let me give you a short history of what brought it about, and then show you the document. See, the Mexican people had been under the control of Spain and then France for so many years. Finally they gained their independence. They were overjoyed at what they expected would be their new-found freedom.
The Americans living in the northern part of Mexico north of the Rio Grande River in the area called Texas were thrilled too. They were expecting to enjoy new freedoms also. Most had come to Texas to start a new life and acquire their own land.
The people of Mexico had their first free election and elected their own president. His full name was ………Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón or for short, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
However, much to their consternation, he immediately overrode their constitution and became a vicious dictator. He ruled through executive orders, demanding more control and higher taxes. Santa Anna decided the people were incapable of ruling themselves, so he ignored the Constitution, dissolved the Congress and declared himself dictator.
Santa Anna wrote to the U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel R. Poinsett: “A hundred years to come my people will not be fit for liberty, a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one.”
Santa Anna demanded citizens surrender their guns, decreeing: “All foreigners who might be caught under arms on Mexican soil should be treated as pirates and shot” Santa Anna wrote in his Manifesto, 1837: “I offered life to the defendants who would surrender their arms and retire under oath not to take them up again against Mexico.” He incited killings and used his military against those resisting his centralized power.
New Orleans there was a Mexican army led by General José Antonio Mexía. He decided to march his troops down and free the people of Mexico from Santa Anna. In 1835, Federal General José Antonio Mexía marched his troops from New Orleans to Tampico, but Santa Anna defeated him and executed every prisoner.
None of this sat well with those Texans living north of the Rio Grande river. They needed their weapons to kill wild game, which was a big part of their diet, and for protection from the Kiowa, the Apaches, and especially the Comanches. They drew up a Declaration of Independence from Mexico and started to organize for defense.
So, Santa Anna himself decided to lead his army north and put down these rebellious Texans. On February 23, 1836, General Santa Anna’s army arrived outside the Old Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar. His troops, eventually numbering 1,800, flew the blood-red flag of no quarter, signifying that all those captured would be killed.
Texan and Tejano defenders, numbering between 182 to 257, responded by firing their cannon. In the “13 days of glory at the Alamo,” Santa Anna’s take-no-prisoner policy had all defenders killed, including: William Travis, Jim Bowie, and former U.S, Congressman Davy Crockett.
Santa Anna ordered those who surrendered to be executed and have their corpses burned. The few survivors included Susanna Dickinson, her baby, Angelina, and Travis’ young black servant, Joe.
The only Texas army left in the field was Col. James Fannin’s. It departed Goliad to rescue the Alamo but was surrounded in open ground and 350 were captured. Santa Anna ordered the prisoners executed. When the Mexican officer hesitated carrying out the executions, Santa Anna sent another officer who proceeded to execute nearly all of them in the Goliad Massacre, March 27, 1836. Bodies were stripped, piled, burned and left exposed to vultures and coyotes. A few dozen of the Texans were spared execution through the courageous intervention of Francita Alavez, the “Angel of Goliad,” and Mexican Colonel Francisco Garay.
Had Fannin’s troops been left in prison, Texans would have been disheartened, but instead, Santa Anna’s Goliad Massacre aroused world outrage.
General Sam Houston had by now recruited a crew of tough Texans. Much to their consternation Houston kept retreating until he had led Santa Anna and his troops all the way down to the San Jacinto area south of present day Houston. He waited until the Mexican army retreated into their tents for their daily siesta. Then those brave Texans attacked in force. They loaded their cannons with grape shot and aimed them at ground level. They say that all across the battle field were the loud shouts of the Texans…….”Remember the Alamo!, Remember Goliad!……Remember the Alamo!, Remember Goliad!”
The Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 was a massive Texan victory. Santa Anna was shot through the leg and managed to hide in the swamp, but those Texans found him and drug him back in front of General Sam Houston. He had no choice but to cede all the territory north of the Rio Grande to the new Texas Republic.
So, like I said, every real Texan should read the Texas Declaration of Independence at least once, and here it is for you:
“UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by the delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the Town of Washington, on the Second Day of March, 1836. When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted; and so far from being a guarantee for their inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppressionin such a crisis the inherent and inalienable right of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves and a sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their welfare and happiness”
The Texas Declaration continued: “The late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez Santa Anna,who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers, as the cruel alternative, either abandon our homes acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood. It denies us the right of worshiping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a National Religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God. It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense – the rightful property of freemen – and formidable only to tyrannical governments. It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.”
The Texas Declaration ended: “We, therefore, the delegates, with plenary powers, of the people of Texas … DECLARE, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas, do now constitute a FREE, SOVEREIGN, and INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC. Conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations.”
Remember the Alamo
Please note that in declaring their independence the Texans not only demanded the right to keep their guns and homes and property, but they absolutely did not want to be subjected to a State Religion. As they put it in their Declaration, they demanded the “right of worshiping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience” and that this worship be according to “the glory of the true and living God”.
(Americans are aware of how Captain John Smith came across the Atlantic and saved first English colony in North America. Jamestown was established on May 14, 1607. Jamestown was established on May 14, 1607. Smith trained the first settlers to work at farming and fishing, thus saving the colony from early devastation. He publicly stated, “He that will not work, shall not eat“, alluding to 2 Thessalonians 3:10. Harsh weather, a lack of food and water, the surrounding swampy wilderness, and attacks from Native Americans almost destroyed the colony. However, with Smith’s leadership, Jamestown survived and eventually flourished. Smith was forced to return to England after being injured by an accidental explosion of gunpowder in a canoe. Also, many Americans are aware of the story where Captain John Smith was about to be killed by Chief Powhatan but was saved by the pleadings of 11–year–old Pocahontas.
However, almost none in America have heard of the early days of Captain John Smith. He very effectively fought the Muslims and is greatly responsible for keeping them from conquering Europe. Otherwise we would be speaking Arabic today an worshiping Allah. Do read below about those historic early days of “John Smith, the Warrior.”)
‘The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith, 1630′ recorded that six years before he came to America, John Smith joined the Austrian forces and fought in the “Long War” against the Muslim Ottoman Turks in Eastern Europe.
Mehmed the Third, 1566–1603, became Ottoman Sultan in 1595. He had his 16 brothers strangled to death to eliminate rivalry to his throne.
Bertrand Russell, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature, stated in his Nobel Lecture, 1950: “Over and over again in Mohammedan history, dynasties have come to grief because the sons of a sultan by different mothers could not agree, and in the resulting civil war universal ruin resulted.”
Sultan Mehmed the Third raised an army of 60,000 and in 1596 conquered the Hungarian city of Erlau. He defeated the Austrian Habsburg and Transylvanian forces at the Battle of Mezõkeresztes.
Sultan Mehmed the Third raised an army of 60,000 and in 1596 conquered the Hungarian city of Erlau. He defeated the Austrian Habsburg and Transylvanian forces at the Battle of Mezõkeresztes.
Sultan Mehmed the Third
UNC Press, 1986) reported that at age 21, John Smith joined the ranks of Austrian Hapsburg Earl of Meldritch, assigned to the General of Artillery, Baron Kisell.
The book, Captain John Smith by Charles Dudley tells of Smith marching with German, French, Austrian and Hungarian troops to fight Muslims who had captured Budapest and were invading Lower Hungary, Wallachia, Moldovia, Romania and Transylvania near the Black Sea.
In 1600–1601, during the campaign of Romanian Prince Michael the Brave, John Smith introduced ingenious battle tactics. When Muslims were besieging the garrison at Oberlymback, Smith devised a method of signaling messages with torches and using gunpowder to create diversions. The resulting victory earned him the rank of captain with a command of 250 horsemen.
At the siege of Alba Regalis, Smith assisted Duc de Mercoeur by devising makeshift bombs of earthen pots filled with gunpowder, musket shot and covered with pitch, and catapulted them into the city, leading to an evacuation.
Muslims had captured the city of Regall, located in a pass between Hungary and Transylvania, “the Turks having ornamented the walls with Christian heads when they captured the fortress.”
Smith fought under General Moyses, serving the Prince of Transylvania, Sigismund Bathory, to lead a campaignto regain the city. During a lull in the fighting, the bashaw — officer — of the Turks put out a challenge.
In a “David and Goliath” style contest, the 23–year–old John Smith was chosen to fight. He defeated the bashaw, cutting off his head. To avenge the bashaw’s death, another Muslim challenged Smith and lost his head. This happened a third time, resulting in Smith being awarded a “coat-of- arms” depicting three severed turbaned heads.
General Moyses, with Captain John Smith, soon recaptured Regall, then Veratis, Solmos and Kapronka. At Weisenberg, Prince Sigismund Bathory conferred on John Smith a shield-of-arms with “three Turks’ heads.” Smith continued in the regiment of Earl Meldritch, fighting in 1602 for Radu Serban to defend Wallachia against invading Turkish Muslims.
In the battle, the Earl of Meldritch was killed along with 30,000 soldiers. John Smith was wounded and left for dead: among the slaughtered dead bodies, and many a gasping soul with toils and wounds lay groaning among the rest, till being found by the pillagers he was able to live, and perceiving by his armor and habit, his ransom might be better than his death, they led him prisoner with many others.
At Axopolis, Smith was sold with other prisoners at the slave market to Bashaw Bogall, “so chained by the necks in gangs of twenty they marched to Constantinople.” There, Smith was pitied by Bashaw Bogall’s mistress, who sent him to her brother, Tymor Bashaw.
Unfortunately, Tymor “diverted all this to the worst cruelty,” stripped Smith naked, shaved him bald, riveted an iron ring around his neck, clothed him in goat skins and, as slave of slaves, was given only goat entrails to eat.
Following a beating received while thrashing in a field, Smith seized the opportunity and killed his master. He hid the body in the straw, put on his master’s clothes, took a bag of grain and rode off toward Russia. After 16 days he reached a Muscovite garrison on the River Don, where the iron ring was removed from his neck. With their help he found his way through Poland back to his troops in Transylvania. After being released from service with a large reward, John Smith traveled through Europe to Morocco in Northern Africa to fight Muslim Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. (He was an amazing warrior.)
In 1605, at the age of 26, he returned to England. In 1606, Captain John Smith set sail to help found Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English colony in North America.
In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims arrived, Smith explored Maine and Massachusetts Bay.
In his Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters, published in London, 1631, John Smith wrote: “When I first went to Virginia, I well remember for a church, we did hang an awning—which is an old sail—to three or four trees to shadow us from the sun, our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut planks, our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees, in foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few better. This was our church, till we built a homely thing like a barn.
We had daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every day two Sermons, and every three months the holy Communion, till our Minister died. But we held Prayers daily, with an Homily on Sundays.”
(Yes, John Smith was an incredible and adventurous warrior, but he was really close to God.)
(Many people have heard about the Crusades, but know little about them; especially what really caused them to happen; and the history and outcome of each one. For your edification, below I have chronicled what really caused them, and then a brief history of each one. Do read it and become informed.)
What happened Palm Sunday 937 AD that led Europe to respond with the Crusades.
Palm Sunday, 937 A.D., Caliph al-Radi ordered the destruction of Jerusalem’s Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.
What was the background of that?
Jerusalem had been a Jewish city since the time of King David, around 1000 B.C. It had been a Christian city since Emperor Constantine, circa 325 A.D.
Part of Ancient Jerusalem
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt, which had previously been Christian lands, were conquered by Islamists. Then Muslim warriors under Caliph Umar took Jerusalem away from the Christian Byzantine Patriarch Sophronius in 637 A.D. “Caliph” is the title of Islam’s supreme religious, political and military leaders.
Caliph Umar forced Christian and Jewish inhabitants to live as second-class citizens under “Jim Crow” style laws called “dhimmi.”
In the 700’s, Christians were banned from giving religious instruction to their children and displays of the cross were banned in Jerusalem. Pilgrims to the Holy Land began to be harassed, massacred and even crucified.
In 772 A.D., Caliph al-Mansur of the Abbasid Caliphate ordered Jews and Christians to be branded on the hand.
In 846 AD, 11,000 Arab Saracen Muslim warriors invaded Rome, Italy, and damaged the Basilica of St. Peters and the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls, desecrating the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul. In response, Pope Leo IV built a 39 foot wall around the Vatican.
In 923 A.D., Caliph al-Muqtadir of the Abbasid Caliphate began enforcing sharia in Jerusalem, inciting Muslim rioters to destroy churches in Jerusalem.
In 937A.D., on Palm Sunday, Abbasid Caliph al-Radi ordered Muslim rioters to plunder the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.
1004, Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah of the Fatimid Caliphate, known as the “Mad Caliph” or the “Nero of Egypt,” began a ten year persecution of Christians and Jews. Thousands were forced to convert or die. 30,000 churches were destroyed.
1008, Mad Caliph al-Hakim forbade Christians from having their annual Palm In Sunday procession from Bethany.
In 1009, al-Hakim ordered frenzied rioters to use picks, hammers and fire to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, considered the holiest site in Christendom.
In Egypt, al-Hakim demanded everyone speak Arabic. Those caught speaking the traditional Egyptian language of Coptic had their tongues removed.
In In 1958, Egypt, President Gamal Nasser told a gathering: “I met with the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and he made his requests to make wearing the hijab mandatory in Egypt. I told him, if I make that a law they will say that we have returned to the days of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who forbade people from walking at day and only allowed walking at night.”
1075, Seljuk Turkish Muslims captured Jerusalem from Arab Muslims. Travelers returning from pilgrimages to the Holy Land shared reports of Islamic persecution of “dhimmi” Christians.
The Italian city-states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia fought the Muslims who were raiding Italy’s coasts, Majorca, Sardinia, and Italian Catalonia.
Italians Fight the Muslims along the Coast
By 965, Muslim forces had succeeded in their 130 year conquest of Sicily.
Nearly a century later, in 1057, the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard fought against the Islamic warriors of Sicily and gained control of Calabria in the “toe of Italy.”
In 1071, the Seljuk Turkish Muslims inflicted a major defeat on the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Manzikert and took control of all but the coastlands of Asia Minor.
Christians Defeated at Battle of Manzikert
Cries for help were carried back to Europe. Europe sent help, it was called The Crusades.
Europeans had just two centuries of crusades compared to Islam’s fourteen centuries of jihad crusades which are still continuing, killing an estimated 240 million.
The Europeans’ nine major Crusades lasted from 1095 till 1291, when Acre was finally recaptured by Islamic forces. The First Crusade began when, in desperation, the proud Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First Comnenus humbled himself and sent ambassadors to the Council of Piacenza in March of 1095, appealing for aid from his religious rival, the Roman Catholic Pope.
The seriousness of this call for help is underscored by the fact that it occurred just a few years after the Great East-West Schism of 1054, where the Byzantine Church and the Roman Catholic Church split.
Pope Urban II gave an impassioned plea at the Council of Clermont in 1095 for Western leaders to set aside their doctrinal differences and come to the aid of their Byzantine Christians brethren.
Pope Urban described how Christians were treated by Islamists, who “compel (them) to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow,” as recorded by Robert the Monk in Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.
First Crusade (1096=1099)
With Spain exuberant after successfully driving the Muslim occupiers from Toledo and Leon a few years earlier, the First Crusade began in 1097, led by Godfrey of Bouillon. It freed Iconium, though it was later lost.
Godfrey of Bouillon
The First Crusade defeated Islamic warriors at Dorylaeum and Antioch, and captured Jerusalem in 1099, holding it for nearly 100 years.
Second Crusade (1147-1149)
After Muslims conquered Edessa, another crusade was called for by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1147. It was made up of French and German armies, led by King Louis VII and Conrad II.
Second Crusade Fighting Muslims
The Second Crusade failed to take Damascus and returned to Europe in 1150. Bernard of Clairvaux was disturbed by reports of misdirected violence toward some Jewish populations.
On July 4, 1187, the Muslim leader Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, captured Crusaders who had not yet made it back to Europe at Hattim and ordered their mass execution.
Third Crusade (1187-1149)
In 1190, Pope Gregory VIII called for a Third Crusade. It was led by German King Frederick I, called Frederick Barbarossa—meaning Redbeard—who was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He was joined by Richard I of England and Philip II of France.
King Frederick Driving Muslims out of Iconium
Frederick led 100,000 soldiers across Byzantium, driving out Muslims and temporarily freeing Iconium. He most likely would have freed Jerusalem had he not fallen off his horse while crossing the Göksu River in Cilicia, Asia Minor. Being 67 years old and weighted down with heavy armor, Frederick Barbarossa drowned in waist deep water and the Crusade went into confusion.
Richard the Lionheart was suddenly in charge leading the Third Crusade and successfully captured Acre. Due to rivalries, Philip II, without warning, abandoned the Crusade and returned to France in 1191.
Richard’s troops came within sight of Jerusalem in 1192 which had now been taken back by the Muslims under their very capable leader, Saladin. However, they grew weary as it did not look like they were making an impact.
Then word came to Richard that Phillip II was trying to take away Normandy from England, so Richard quickly ended his part in the Crusade to go back and defend his kingdom.
Richard got things in order back home, and then he heard that Crusade troops had Jerusalem surrounded and later heard Saladin was on the verge of defeat and was propping up dead soldiers along the walls. Saladin allowed some Christians to leave Jerusalem if they paid a ransom, but according to Imad al-Din, approximately 15,000 could not pay their ransom and were enslaved.
So, Richard was determined to return to Jerusalem. He went by ship to get there more quickly. But was shipwrecked and attempted to travel on foot across Europe in disguise. But he was recognized near Vienna and captured by Duke Leopold VI of Austria. He was then imprisoned at Dumstein for three years.
Legend has it that Richard’s loyal minstrel, Blondel, traveled from kingdom to kingdom across Europe trying to find him by singing Richard’s favorite song.
Blondel Looking for Richard
When Richard heard the song, he sang the second verse from the prison tower, and was found. Richard’s brother, King John, had to raise taxes for the “king’s ransom.” This was the origins of the story of Nottingham, Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood.
The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, prepared for another crusade in 1197, but died from malaria.
Once back in England, Richard ruled only a few years before being shot and killed with an arrow during the siege of a castle in Normandy.
His brother, King John, once again ruled, where he raised taxes oppressively. When he lost Britain’s claim to Normandy after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, English baron’s were upset, as they also lost their titled lands there.
Angry barons then surrounded King John on the plains of Runnymede on June 15, 1215, and forced him to sign the Magna Carta – the cornerstone of English liberty.
(Yes, it was a political victory for the Barrons, but the Magna Carta turned out to be one of the most important documents in history. For the first time since the 400 year rule by ‘the people’ established way back there by Moses, people were able to rule themselves. Thus, England was able to become rich and powerful; so were the other countries in that area by copying its principles. And it sowed the seeds that ultimately caused the Pilgrims to self rule, and became the founding principle of the American Constitution. Rule by the people instead of a King.)
Saladin prevailed at Jerusalem; however, though almost defeated, and eventually took over all the surrounding country.
Richard’s exploits gave rise to the legends of the Lion-Hearted, and, through them, Richard acquired a posthumous prestige. Richard did regain Acre and Jaffa for the Christians, but that as all.
The agreement he finally reached with Saladin gave pilgrims free access to Jerusalem and little else. The city itself and the adjoining kingdom, except for some coastal cities were still subject to the same law—The Koran, not the Holy Bible. So the troops of the Third Crusade went home.
The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204)
Initiated by Pope Innocent III, the Fourth Crusade was largely composed of Frenchmen and Venetians.
Innocent was greatly disappointed by the events of the Crusade. In the original agreement, the Venetians had promised to transport the French crusaders to the Holy Land and to provide them with military equipment and provisions.
When the Frenchmen arrived in Venice, they were too few to pay for the contracted amount; only twelve thousand of the expected thirty thousand warriors came. The Venetians who had constructed ships and had assembled provisions for the original number. It was proposed that the Frenchmen make up the deficit by assisting them in attacking the seaport of Zara. Ruled by the Christian king of Hungry, Zara was the greatest Adriatic rival of Venice. To the Venetians, this was reason enough for an attack, and they cajoled the French into helping them make it.
Following the sack of Zara, the Venetians had another plan. They suggested that the expedition now direct its efforts against Constantinople and restore the dethroned Byzantine emperor, Isaac II Angelos. Pope Innocent again issued a reprimand to the crusaders, which they again disregarded; they captured Constantinople on April 13, 1204, and spent the next three days pillaging it. Their seizure of Zara had been uncalled for; their sack of Constantinople was unparalleled.
The crusaders established a new Latin empire and selected the Count of Flanders for its ruler. This empire lasted until 1261, but it never ruled all Byzantium; it comprised most of the land in Thrace and Greece, where the French barons were rewarded with feudal fiefs. For their contributions, the Venetians obtained the harbor rights in Constantinople plus a commercial monopoly throughout the empire and the Aegean Islands. The Fourth Crusade was a complete victory for the Venetians but for nobody else; it never reached the Holy Land.
So that part of the Fourth Crusade returned to Europe. However, there was another part to that Crusade that few have heard or. It was called:
The Children’s Crusade (1212)
This Crusade was the most pathetic of all Christian attempts to free the Holy Land. It was also the most senseless. The movement originated in France and Germany, and peasant children in two separate bands flocked to join it. They were convinced they could succeed where older and more sinful crusaders had failed: the miraculous power of faith would triumph where the force of arms had not. Many parish priests and parents encouraged such religious fervour and urged the children on. The pope and higher clergy opposed the outburst but were unable to stop it entirely. Despite all their efforts, a land of several thousand children (reportedly led by a Cologne boy named Nicholas) set out for Italy. About a third survived the march over the Alps and as far as Genoa, another group reached Marseilles. The luckier ones eventually managed to get safely home, but many others paid dearly for their innocence and ignorance. For them, the route to Jerusalem came to a dead end on the auction blocks of Mediterranean slave dealers.
The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)
Instigated by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, this Crusade was fixed for 1217 under John Brienne, king of Jerusalem, with the intention of conquering Egypt. John was replaced as leader by the papal legate Pelagius in 1218, and in 1219 the city of Damietta was captured by the Crusaders. The sultan of Egypt offered to exchange Jerusalem for Damietta but this was rejected. After an unsuccessful assault on Cairo in 1221, the Crusaders surrendered Damietta in return for the freedom to retreat.
The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229)
Often called the Diplomatic Crusade, this expedition was led by Emperor Fredrick II, the grandson of Frederick I Barbarossa. After several postponements, Frederick undertook the Crusade in 1228, but he fought no battles. Instead, by negotiation, he obtained Jerusalem and a strip of territory from Acre to Jerusalem for the Christians. He had previously (1225) married Yolanda, the young heiress of the kingdom. Following her death in 1228, Frederick crowned himself king of Jerusalem.
The Seventh Crusade (1248-1250)
Led by King Louis IX of France and directed against the Arabs of Egypt, this Crusade was a complete failure. After the capture of Damietta, the crusaders were decisively defeated at Cairo and King Louis was captured. Completely victorious, the Arabs demanded and received a huge ransom for the release of the king.
The Eighth Crusade (1270)
Disregarding his advisers, King Louis IX again attacked the Arabs in North Africa. This time he struck the city of Tunis. The Crusaders picked the hottest season of the year for campaigning and were devastated by a pestilence. One of its victims was Louis IX, whose death in 1270 ended the Crusade,
These holy wars were driven by religious zeal, seeking adventure, and reclaiming “Christian lands”. While achieving initial victories—notably the first crusade—they ultimately failed to hold Jerusalem permanently. However, they significantly increased trade, cultural exchange, and scientific knowledge between Europe and the Middle East, paving the way for the Renaissance.
“The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Have you experienced the power of God’s Word in your life? Have you seen how the Father uses it to sustain your soul and transform your life? It’s not only when He heals a disease or provides for your needs in a supernatural way that He’s active on your behalf. Often the greatest miracles He does involve breaking you free of strong holds and useless behaviors.
However, realize that God releases His miraculous truth in your life not only to liberate you but also as a testimony to those who don’t know Him. Your unsaved loved ones and others see the Savior’s power in your life and it inspires them to believe in Jesus and be saved.
So as you spend time in Scripture and faithfully testify of God’s love, look for ways He exhibits His power in your life. Ask the Father to use you mightily as His representative to those around you. And then watch as He uses His Word to work miraculously through you.
(We study much about amazing people of past times. However, here is an amazing man of modern times that you really should know about. Below I have chronicled a brief history of his amazing life and thoughts for you.)
The Amazing Dr. Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer was born January 14, 1875, in a village in Alsace, Germany. The son of a Lutheran-Evangelical pastor, he won acclaim at playing the organ. He earned doctorates in philosophy and theology. Schweitzer was pastor of St. Nicholas Church.
He was also the principal of St. Thomas College and a professor at University of Strasbourg.
Then, at age 30, his life changed.
He read a Paris Missionary Society article of the desperate need for physicians in Africa. To everyone’s dismay, he enrolled in medical school and became a medical missionary.
In 1912, he married a nurse, Helene Bresslau. The next year they traveled to west central Africa, and founded a hospital in the jungle village of Lambarene, Gabon.
After first using a chicken hut as their medical clinic, they erected a hospital building of corrugated iron in 1913. In the first 9 months they saw over 2,000 patients.
World War I started, and the conflict between France and Germany went global, reaching into Africa. The Schweitzers were arrested and put under French military supervision, then taken to a prison camp in France.
After the war, they moved to Alsace-Lorraine, a border area between France and Germany, where their only child was born, a daughter, Rhena.
Saving their money, Helene stayed back with their daughter, Rhena, and Albert returned to Gabon in1924. Traveling back and forth several times, they rebuilt the hospital. They served uninterrupted throughout World War II, being joined by additional staff.
The patients they treated suffered from: malaria, fever, dysentery, severe sandflea bites, tropical eating sores, leprosy, crawcraw sores, sleeping sickness, yaws (tropical infection of skin & bones), nicotine poisoning, necrosis, heart disease, chronic constipation, strangulated hernias, and abdominal tumors.
He helped Mbahouin tribes and pygmies who lived in fear of cannibalism.
Albert Schweitzer spoke in Europe and in 1949 visited the United States. Once he was asked “Why are you traveling in the 4th class?” He replied “Because there is no 5th class.” Once on a train two schoolgirls asked him, “Dr. Einstein, will you give us your autograph?” Not wanting to disappoint them, he signed: “Albert Einstein, by his friend Albert Schweitzer.”
Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein taught a class on the theory of relativity to black students at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in May of 1946. In accepting an honorary degree from the school, he stated: “There is a separation of colored people from white people in the United States. That separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it.”
Dr. Schweitzer’s daughter, Rhena, became a medical technician and married an American doctor, David C. Miller, who was serving at the African hospital—‘Albert Schweitzer Hospital’.
Albert Schweitzer joined Albert Einstein in warning the world of the dangers in developing nuclear weapons.
In 1952, Dr. Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He used the prize money to build a leper colony.
Schweitzer embraced a pro-life philosophy, explaining: “For months on end, I lived in a continual state of mental agitation. Without the least success I concentrated— even during my daily work at the hospital, on the real nature of the affirmation of life and of ethics. I was wandering about in a thicket where no path was to be found. I was pushing against an iron door that would not yield.
In that mental state, I had to take a long journey up the river. Lost in thought, I sat on deck of the barge, struggling to find the elementary and universal concept of the ethical that I had not discovered in any philosophy. I covered sheet after sheet with disconnected sentences merely to concentrate on the problem.
Two days passed. Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase: ‘Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben’ (‘Reverence for Life’). The iron door had yielded. The path in the thicket had become visible.”
Schweitzer’s words stand in contrast to utilitarian cultures and political party platforms advocating euthanasia, organ harvesting, honor-killings, and abortion.
You have read about the horrible things that the Nazis did when they were in power and how they showed such amazing little regard for human life. In Lutheran circles of Schweitzer, by contrast, life is regarded as something that God alone can take.
Similar to Nazis, in recent times, utilitarian governments gave hospitals financial incentives for administering experimental gene therapies, ventilator treatments and expensive pharmaceuticals, with little or no respect for conscientious objections, while refusing alternative treatments. Recently even in America, government even had schools groom children into questioning their sex and then steer them into experimental surgeries which result in higher risks of suicide.
In contrast to these utilitarian views and financially incentivized treatments, Dr. Schweitzer stated: “Ethics is nothing other than Reverence for Life. Reverence for Life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil.”
THE GLOBAL WAR ON CHRISTIANS (Random House) author John Allen stated that followers of Jesus are “indisputably the most persecuted religious body on the planet.”
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY estimates that every year 100,000 Christians, 11 every hour, die because of their faith.
After reading these tragic reports, one is challenged by a sermon of Dr. Albert Schweitzer: “Our Christianity, yours and mine, has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity someone must step in to help in Jesus’ name. “When you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night.”
After his wife died, Schweitzer continued to work in Africa till he died at the age of 90.
Overcoming innumerable difficulties, he once wrote: “One day, in my despair, I threw myself into a chair in the consulting room and groaned out: ‘What a blockhead I was to come out here to doctor savages like these!’. Whereupon his native assistant quietly remarked: ‘Yes, Doctor, here on earth you are a great blockhead, but not in heaven.'”
Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote:
“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
(“Do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but be like the holy One who called you, be holy.”)
Do you sense something in your life needs to change? Are there areas that simply aren’t working? Are you willing to say, “Lord, I want to exalt You. I’ve had enough of my own way—I want to live by Yours”?
If so, ask God to identify the areas where you’re like self-centered, and struggling rather than Christ centered and victorious. Whatever He brings to mind, acknowledge that He is right and make the decision to turn from your ways. He will show you how as you read Scripture.
As He reveals principles from His Word, apply them to your life—even when they don’t completely make sense—and trust Him to bless your obedience.
Answer all of the questions, dilemmas, and challenges you encounter with this: “Lord Jesus, what would You have me do? I want to obey You.” Not only will doing so transform your life, it will build the most wonderful, profound, and indescribable intimacy between you and the Savior.
True Texan Tales 