Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

This is what the Lord says:
“For three sins of Gaza,
    even for four, I will not relent.
Because she took captive whole communities
    and sold them to Edom,
I will send fire on the walls of Gaza
    that will consume her fortresses.
I will destroy the king of Ashdod
    and the one who holds the scepter in Ashkelon.
I will turn my hand against Ekron,
    till the last of the Philistines are dead,”
says the Sovereign Lord.

• Amos 1:6-8

“Surely the eyes of the Sovereign Lord
    are on the sinful kingdom.
I will destroy it
    from the face of the earth.
Yet I will not totally destroy
    the descendants of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will give the command,
    and I will shake the people of Israel
    among all the nations
as grain is shaken in a sieve,
    and not a pebble will reach the ground.
All the sinners among my people
    will die by the sword,
all those who say,
    ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’

• Amos 9:8-10

This little bit of writing may not seem that “happy” but it can be if we repent and turn to God.

When we studied the minor prophets in our Sunday school class, we read the first Scripture, and I said that the people must have been cheering.  God was going to destroy their enemies at last.  Then Amos gets to the second Scripture and the people are still cheering, but a few heard enough to realize God was not just stopping with Israel’s enemies.  Israel would fall also.

Immediately after the curse upon Israel is a promise that a remnant would be restored.

But many have a near religious fervor when it comes to the USA.  “America!  Love it or leave it!!!”  Maybe I should leave.  We have strayed from God, and God will bring His wrath upon this nation.  We are not perfect as individuals and especially not perfect as a nation.  And if our leaders, that the people elect (whether the elections of rigged or not)… if our leaders do not turn to God and repent, there will be no stone left that is not destroyed in our various government buildings.

I grew up as a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout learning the different oaths that started with “On my honor, I will do my duty to God and my country …”  We no longer have honor.  We scoff at duty.  We ignore God.

I became an ROTC candidate.  Unlike those at West Point who had to memorize MacArthur’s farewell address, we just studied it.  It is a wonderful speech.  It fills you with many emotions.  It ends as follows:

“But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point.  Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you.  But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.
I bid you farewell.”

• Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Farewell Speech to the Cadets at West Point

What is missing?

If we do not return to God, this nation will not stand.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.