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Learn From The Past
Condoleezza Rice, in a TV interview this week said in regards to Removing Civil War Monuments: 'Sanitizing History to Make You Feel Better Is a Bad Thing'
Back in the mid 1960's, some things started happening in this country to remove God. God has gradually been taken out of schools, off billboards, out of books, out of practically everything. No, it didn't happen over night, but our nation, viewed as a whole, no longer knows God. He has been sanitized. Oh, they may know "who" or "what" God is, but they don't know Him anymore.
He's barely spoken of, and if you do speak, you run the risk of stiff retaliation. Man made visual reminders or brief passages of scriptures have been removed from the design of buildings, removed from statues, removed from many public places. If God is mentioned in the movies or TV shows, His name is usually used in vain. If someone does use His name correctly, there is almost an immediate slap from the opposition.
Interestingly enough, Jesus said a couple of things. In relation to Jesus' followers, His Kingdom and His church, He said "the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (Matt 16:18). Jesus also said "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Matt 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33). Try as they might, God and His Gospel will never be removed by man. They may wipe every visible sign of Him from the face of the earth some day, but He will live on. He can't be removed from the place where He lives, in each of us.
God says we have the Old Testament "for our learning", not just a record of what mortal man did wrong, but something to keep us from going down the same wrong road again. If our recent earthly history is somehow evaporated from our history books, seems to me like we might be more prone to repeat some of those grave mistakes again and again. Satan might chose to lead society down a road we've already traveled, but if we don't recognize that, how can we avoid it? And, if you look around, that's exactly what some are doing at this very moment!
Regardless of where the masses push the issue, our past is our past, all the way back to Adam and Eve. There are serious things to learn from mistakes others have made, innumerable things to learn about God's love, His mercy, as well as His justice. Even yesterday, is now history. While we might like to forget what we did wrong yesterday, let us rather learn from it, and make tomorrow better, both in a secular way, and in our walk with our Father.
