Nov | 10 | Of Gerkins & Gurkhas

Dream Word – PREPARE

2 Samuel 21:15-17 War broke out again between the Philistines and Israel. David and his men went down to fight. David became exhausted. Ishbi-Benob, a warrior descended from Rapha, with a spear weighing nearly eight pounds and outfitted in brand-new armor, announced that he'd kill David. But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to the rescue, struck the Philistine, and killed him. (from THE MESSAGE:.)

Of Gherkins & Gurkha's

A Gherkin is a sweet little vegetable suitable for the hamburger generation.

Last night at the boxing club, a local councillor popped in to lend his support to the new endeavour. This one-legged veteran was in his seventies and had been up and working for the last 12 hours of the day, getting a petition together for an old Gurkha colleague who was sick, infirm, destitute and deserted by the Government of the country he had fought for, and in urgent need of a pension. The old soldier still had a 4 mile journey home in his electric invalid carriage, in the dark and in the rain. It was parked near the door, in the light, just in case the local teenagers vandalised it, trashed it or stole from it.

On that particular night I was preparing for a sermon series entitled: ‘War! What is it good for?’ My answer was a Biblical one and so the answer was most definitely not ‘Absolutely nothing!’ Doing some background research on the subject then, I was reading the WWII War narrative of Major General Sir John Kennedy, entitled, ‘The Business of War.’ This man served in the War Ministry for the length of WWII, being responsible to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff for all plans and operations. It’s a fascinating read concerning the background state, preparations and ambitions of the British Empire around that particular period of just 60 years ago, or if you will, just two generations ago. I was chatting about those times with a woman in her early seventies this morning and commented that this England in which we now live bore virtually no resemblance whatsoever to the one I was reading about and that I suspected that the folk who sacrificed so much during those dreadful times, even their very lives for the defence and continuance of our freedom, our culture and our country, might not have lain it all on the line so willingly for such a state as this. She agreed.

Whichever way we cut this so sad a state of affairs of our now not so great Britain, we have to say that the freedom so valiantly fought for by that most recent of warring generations, has been in the peaceful aftermath, thrown away, frittered and lost. The oh so sad evidence of this is clearly seen in a poll taken of the present younger generation, who think that Winston Churchill is either a myth, or a nodding dog that sells car insurance! How did we come to this most paupered position? Well, it seems to me that although we won the war, we most dreadfully and most definitely lost the peace. And there we have it! We lost the peace.

You see, what we thought was the end of the war, was merely the end of an expression of the war, for it did in fact continue at more vicious a pace than ever well after VE and VJ day, and the V3 rocket targets of utter destruction and total annihilation were our Christian values, especially where they were embodied in personal, sociological, institutional and ethical edifices. For those that can see then , the damage done to us after the physical hostilities had ended, is of far greater damage than any done to us during the burning Blitz.

Humanly speaking, I have to tell you that all is lost. For the church is presently like a one-legged veteran gathering a petition for a sick friend, trying to find its way home in the cold dark rain, trembling at the thought that the rubber wheels of its invalid carriage might be punctured by the sharp and ignorant teeth of politically correct and drug empowered and drunken youths. We are finished. Go home and prepare to die.

BUT GOD! Yes, BUT GOD! And I tell you that it is only those two magnificent words that get me up in a morning. BUT GOD! Yes there is hope in those two great words, so, let us leaders all make prayerful and practical ways in this current death sentence, for those two most marvellous words to be redemptivley expressed. Let us rip the heads off the nodding dogs of our sick society and pray that God might raise up to us some spiritual 'war mongers', some new Churchill's, ready, at whatever the cost, to fight the good fight once more! Now then is the time for us to pray and implore, that those troops of the Empire of The Son, who were birthed in the New World by the bloody efforts of the soldiers of the old, now long gone missionary people of these God-forsaken islands, would with all their power and might come to the aid, rescue and liberation of the old. My God, we need help from abroad and we need it now for all our sweet little vegetables will simply flavour the pattied mince meat of their own consumption. Maybe God will send in His Gurkhas? We need the Gurkha's rather than the gherkins that's for sure for a
A Gurkha is a soldier. Fierce, formidable, fanatical.

Listen: - “----- We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.".(Winston Churchill)

Pray:- Lord, from the sown seeds of the saints of old who from these islands took Your Word abroad, please send back to us the fruit of spiritual sustenance and deliverance, in Jesus name we pray, amen.