“Trampling Of The Vintage” When Jesus asked if He would find faith in the earth on His return, He was not expecting an answer. He already knew the answer. The question was to awaken and stir each of us to the enormous challenges we are facing. I believe He was looking down through the ages to the apostasy of the Church and, seeing its collapse, He was grieving. He knew the answer before He asked the question. He knew, they simply would not believe... Jesus was always asking questions, even of the little children, in parables of teaching. He did not speak at all except to say something profound, something worth remembering. He was the faithful Master teacher whose example many humble men have tried through the ages to follow. By God’s Grace, more than a few have succeeded in leading the way for others. To God’s grief, more than a few have failed to hold steady and stay the course… The flesh is not always willing to take up its Cross and surrender all to Jesus Christ…and so we will never know for sure, until we stand before Him in our spirit, just where we stood with Him in our flesh... I began my own formal education at the age of six in a two-room schoolhouse in a small country community in southern West Virginia. It was 1938. There was electricity but there was no indoor plumbing. We had out-houses and an outdoor water pump. The two rooms each had a Ben Franklin stove that kept the classrooms warm, a welcome shelter after walking a mile in the winter snows to get there. Dressed as warm as possible in a woolen snow suit and hood, my face was covered against the cold, all but my eyes, with a large handkerchief tied behind my head. I was so wrapped up it was an effort to walk, especially against the wind, and I looked like an elfin bandit. My third-grade neighbor escorted me to school and home again...she was two years older than me, a BIG girl while I was just a little girl, and I was assured I was safe with her… The following year I moved to a college town with indoor plumbing and a school with different rooms for different grades. I remember printing my name with the year 1939 on my second-grade papers. I remember other things too - standing at attention beside my desk, with my arm extended toward the American Flag for the pledge of allegiance, followed by the Lord's Prayer, followed by one verse of My Country Tis of Thee or America The Beautiful. For the first fifteen minutes of every day, in every classroom of every grade, and in every season of the calendar, pledge to God and Country could be heard across the sidewalks of main street. It grew somewhat louder, perhaps more robust, after December 7, 1941... Children are extremely impressionable and unashamedly loyal, and a good teacher will never quench their expressions of love… I was nine years old in December 1941 and it was during this time we learned the meaning of patriotism and we learned about faith... How sad the children of today grow up so quickly they do not have time to be children, to be patriots, to pray for their country and their brothers and sisters...how sad they cannot even pledge allegiance to the flag of their country...or sing a song of love for their country. ...There are some things that tolerance should not tolerate. ...There are some things political correctness should not be allowed to touch. ...There are some things sacred in the heart of a child that should never be messed with... For another twenty-six years the children of America grew strong in spirit and in faith. Quickly, as did their forebears, they learned the difference between right and wrong, they knew the dangers of telling a lie and disobeying their parents. They knew the consequences of playing the sneak and they dared not defy the teacher with the disciplinary ruler in her hand... Then it was 1964, the year they trampled our young vines and crushed our tender grapes... The Bible tells us that, at His Second Coming, Christ will return in the Glory of His sovereign authority, wearing a white robe dipped in the blood of His enemies (Rev. 19:13). Babylon the Great will have just been destroyed (Rev. 18) and He still wields the sword of the battle. With it He will “smite the nations; and He shall rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God (Rev. 19:15).” Those that trample our young vines to destroy them will know the trampling of the Lord on that day, if they are still alive and if they do not repent... It all began in the turbulent ‘60s when atheist Madeline Murray O’Hare attacked our Constitutional right to pray in public schools. This was followed by the revolution for women's rights, followed by the sexual revolution. And of course, there were the hippies, the flower children, Elvis, pot and the Beetles... John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960 and assassinated in 1963. The U.S. Supreme Court broke faith with the Church in 1964. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated in 1968, and on July 20, 1969, following a decade of space race with the Russians, Neil Armstrong stepped from the Apollo to touchdown on the moon's surface taking, "one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind." It makes one dizzy to remember the decade of the '60s. It was a decade of great achievements but it was also the beginning of America's moral and spiritual decline... When prayer was denied in school, then in the workplace, then in any public buildings or on the street, violence became uncontrollable and today we hear of children murdering parents, parents murdering children, husbands killing pregnant wives and mixed up kids killing classmates with assault weapons. Drugs are available even if prayer is not, and thousands of young and precious lives have been lost to its poison. With the sexual revolution, homosexuals began to come out of the closet and bring the epidemic AIDS to the nations of the world. We did not learn our lesson with the rapid spread of AIDS. We should have isolated the carriers. Now a new strain of staphylococcus, resistant to known antibiotics, has emerged to claim another generation of countless numbers of victims. Unfortunately, countless innocents will fall victim with them… Yes - I call them victims - for they have believed the lie of the enemy and been trapped and nurtured in that lie. We hate the lie and the sin but we love the sinner for we are all beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God. It grieves us to see them turn away from the truth that could set them free. Still, we warn them… Whether by plague or by the sword...the Lord’s trampling is at hand... Then the ‘70s emerged and the U.S. Supreme Court again defied the American majority and legalized abortion. It was 1973 and Roe v. Wade divided America more surely than a sword can divide the marrow from the bone. For thirty-five years we have been a divided nation, engaged in a battle the Supreme Court knows can never be won or lost in the street. The trampling of the Supreme Court in 1964 and again in 1973 were only the beginnings of our woes as a nation. Again and again they have ruled against the sacred right to life, of marriage, of the inalienable rights of men of faith while the inalienable rights of men of wickedness have prospered. These rulings spawned the liberals, then the radical liberals. Today we have such hatred and resentment within the liberal circles they have wearied of fighting the evangelicals, and have started fighting each other… Remember when God brought confusion into the camps of Israel’s enemies? They turned on each other and slew their own people… If someone asks you, “What divided this nation?” you can truthfully reply, “The Supreme Court trampled our vineyards and crushed our tender grapes…” The division is always about abortion – it is the culture of life versus the culture of death. The liberal town criers are now reaching out to add an anti-war chant to their cause, calling for the cessation of the Iraq war and the killing of our young men and women, but we do not hear them crying out to stop the killing of babies… The cry to stop the war is simply a banner for them to wave with fervor against the patriot conservatives (to world applause)…an easy and acceptable avenue for venting their anger with us. They want a real fight – you can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices - but they are too cowardly to get into the ring without their hair stylists and put up their carefully manicured dukes. They rant and rave against our Christian rights, they try to legislate shackles that will silence the truth, but we do not hear them ranting and raving against the killing of babies… And now, the Supreme Court has become hostage to the monster they have created, held fast by their own shackles and chains, unable and unsure how to undo the thing and not sure they even want to try. The UN wants us to bow to their authority. The EU wants us to bow to their authority. Canada and Mexico want us to merge with them. These one-world cheerleaders don’t really love us. They just want our taxes, our wealth, our resources and our vast lands. Otherwise they will simply isolate us. It’s blackmail, pure and simple… The nations of this world will no longer follow us, but then we no longer offer a straight and narrow course. How can we find our way through our own dark corridors when the light grows dimmer every day? How can the blind lead the blind without both falling into the ditch? These blind leaders of the blind are traitors. There are in-your-face five-pointed stars bearing the occult goats of mendes on Hillary Clinton’s American Flag on her campaign website – look and see – and that longhorn salute you see the leaders around the world giving to one another? That’s the sign of brotherhood – the brotherhood of darkness…whether it represents the goat of mendes, the fraternity of skull and bones, the Club of Rome or whatever, these signers are proclaiming their loyalty to the angel of darkness… The sum of the matter is: the betrayal of America and all Americans is already signed and sealed. America – land of the free and home of the brave - held hostage by nine black-robed justices that could bind our wounds today and loose our shackles if they would just peek through the eyes of the little children they voted to kill. They have allowed them to be killed in their mothers’ wombs before they could learn to say the pledge of allegiance, before they could learn to sing God Bless America or recite the Lord’s Prayer. They killed them before they could become loyal to the land, a patriot for freedom, a child of faith… They killed them for no other reason than their mothers didn’t want them – even though there were thousands of barren women who would have taken them in a minute. Aborting mothers are lied to – you are told you have a right to do whatever you want with your own body. The Supreme Court surrendered to the same false logic. Part of that is true – you do have a right to do what you want – WITH YOUR OWN BODY! But you have no right to trample someone else’s body – especially that of an innocent, helpless, living and growing child… It is time to stop trampling our national vintage, the most valuable resource we have. Children are the heritage of the Lord and the blessed promise of our future. God opens the wombs and God closes the wombs of whole nations, so the conception of one or of thousands is never an accident. In addition, we are warned by Jesus that we dare not despise even one of these little ones for their angels do always behold the face of the Father which is in Heaven ( Matt. 18:10). If you think having an abortion is no big deal – if you think the fetus within you isn’t really a child – if you think God is not engaged in your pregnancy, then I challenge you to seek and find the One who makes the bones of a child to grow in its mother’s womb (Ecclesiastes 11:5). It is enough that a helpless babe in the womb is often attacked by the dark forces that seek to weaken or maim its development, but when its own mother rises up against it, it has no other mercy and protection in this world to draw upon. The screams of a repeatedly slashed and bloody child are silent to the ears of this world but not to the ears of Heaven. They are screams of terror under the knife, and except you relent and repent, you will hear those screams for all eternity – not because your sin is worse than any other, but because you rejected the forgiveness and healing of the Savior, the only begotten Son of God, the only One that can save you and reunite you with your child. You will hear them because you trusted the wiles of men more than you trusted the unconditional love of God… The enemies and traitors of America have grown strong, but God is stronger still. They kill our children to weaken our nation, but God is stronger still. They think to enslave us but he whom the Lord has set free is free indeed. We must not forget who we are and whose we are. We must go to bed at night and awaken in the morning with the assurance and the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of the Father. His praise must be continually in our mouth and we must trust Him with all our heart and soul and mind. We must lean on Him as never before and - in our trembling - we must repent of the gross sins of this nation and we must do it today… Joan Krempel
|