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Showing posts with the label World History

God, History and the Nations

 By Bill Muehlenberg - Posted at CultureWatch: Published September 12, 2023 Good news about rogue rulers and evil tyrants: A major problem we have as mere fallen and finite creatures is that we lack perspective. We do not see the big picture and we do not consider the long term. Christians can be just as guilty of this as non-Christians. We can too easily become overwhelmed by events going on around us. This can especially be true regarding wicked rulers and evil nations. I have been around for a while now, and I recall worrying greatly about things like the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Communism seemed to be the wave of the future back then. But of course the wall came down in 1989, and over seven decades of godless Communist rule came to an end – at least in that part of the world. And many empires have come and gone over the centuries, be they the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, and so on. Yet when we see powerful and evil nations today, it still can seem like they are

It's Just a Matter of Time

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: May he also rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. Let the nomads of the desert bow before him, and his enemies lick the dust. . . And let all kings bow down before him, all nations serve him. -Psalm 72:8-11 The battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest, most gruesome battles of World War II. The victory at Okinawa was also crucial for the United States. Once the U.S. Tenth Army landed on April 1, 1945, though the battle lasted nearly three months (ending on June 22) and though the U.S. suffered 50,000 combat casualties, including 12,500 killed or missing in action, the victory at Okinawa was merely a matter of time. The Tenth army was 541,000 strong while the Japanese 32nd army had 76,000 men and 40,000 Okinawan conscripts. The war of attrition would eventually favor the U.S. and the land the U.S. needed so badly in order to plan their invasion of Japan, was taken one yard at a time. Until Christ’s first

Pederasty and One Kingdom Theology

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None Of His Benefits: “For God is the King of all the earth. . . God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” –Psalm 47:7,8 Perhaps there has never been a more perverse, godless, and wicked time in which Jesus’ incarnation could have occurred. Pederasty was common in the Roman Empire. Older men routinely sought young boys for sex. Gymnasiums (the Greek word means naked) abounded in Rome and older men frequented the gymnasium to watch young boys compete naked in various athletic events, mainly wrestling, and choose one or two for their own sexual pleasure. While most men waited until their late twenties to marry, they could have a prostitute or slave woman as often as they wanted from the time they reached puberty. This was not considered adultery. Pederasty was not frowned upon at all. In fact most everyone believed women were inferior to men. Therefore real companionship and love could best occur between an older man and a young boy. Women

What We Can Learn from the Tet Offensive

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “. . . just as truth is in Jesus.” -Ephesians 4:21 When you read or hear about the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, what is your general assessment? If you are like most people then you view it as a major loss for the United States, an unmitigated disaster, one that yielded thousands of deaths of U.S. soldiers (we actually lost 216 men in the offensive). Our involvement in Vietnam actually began in 1954 when President Dwight Eisenhower promised aid to France after their catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu by the Communists in May, 1954. Charles De Gaulle of France warned Eisenhower not to get involved, that it would be a political quagmire. Ike did not listen. The idea was to keep the Communist Chinese out of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). Ho Chi Minh was backed by the Soviet Union and China, both of whom were seeking to overrun Indochina with their Marxist ideology. The French and the United States, put Ngo Dien Diem in

In Seventeen Minutes

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” -2 Peter 3:10 On Saturday morning, October 27, 1962 (also known as Black Saturday) I was ten years old and our family was driving from Birmingham to Oak Lawn, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) where my father was taking a new job with his company, Stockham Valves and Fittings. Most of Interstate 65 was not yet completed so the trip was much slower and we only made it to Terre Haute, Indiana by nightfall. Little did we know that on that day the world came the closest in history to a nuclear war which would have killed millions of people. The “Cuban Missile Crisis” began on Monday, October 15 (two weeks after the riot at Ole Miss about which I wrote last week) when a U-2 spy plane (they flew at 70,000 feet) had incontestable evidence of nucle

The Peace That Could Not Hold

World War I Montage - Wikipedia By Collin Hansen - Posted at The Gospel Coalition : It was supposed to be the war to end all wars. After the armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month (100 years ago Sunday on November 11, 1918), it would be known as the Great War. No one would have thought to call it World War I, because they could not fathom the even greater horrors to come just a few decades later in World War II. The peace of 1918 would not hold. Americans pay far closer attention to World War II, even though the country suffered more than 117,000 military deaths in two brief and bloody years from 1917 to 1918. Indeed, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that ended 100 years ago Sunday was by far the deadliest battle in American history, surpassing both the Battle of the Bulge and also the Normandy Invasion in World War II. Neither America, nor any other antagonists that suffered even greater losses, would ever be the same after this terrible and utterly avoidabl

War through the eyes of a child: Alice Kuik shares her memories of World War II

Alice Kuik, 3yrs. old - Image Source: Reformed Perspective By Jane Deglint - Posted at Reformed Perspective : “The horror and sacrifices of those who endured a war must be recorded and remembered. If we fail to do so, we will soon take peace for granted and exaggerate small inconveniences.” – Jan Hendrik Luiten A CHILD OF WAR My birth must have been a moment of mixed emotions for my parents. To be sure, I have every reason to believe that they were delighted with the arrival of their first-born child. However, my birth took place just three months after the German army had invaded the Netherlands. I was not born in a country where we could speak freely or go outside without worry. No, I was born in a country that was tightly controlled by an enemy. Fears and secrets were a normal part of my life. I was born a child of war. Yet, the horror of war was not unbearable for me. I endured it with acceptance and resilience. This remarkable ability to take things in stride had t