WHAT ABOUT THE SAINTS IN NEW ORLEANS?
J. Grant Swank, Jr.
Here’s an overview about the evil in New Orleans: http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_9292.shtml
And then there’s this: http://www.out2.com/copyroom/articles.asp?StoryKey=308487
Now what about the saints in New Orleans and surrounding areas?
There were a lot of evangelicals in those neighborhoods. There were a lot of Bible-preaching pulpits in those environs. There were those who read their Scriptures every day, prayed every day, tithed and gave love offerings to their churches. There were Sunday school teachers and ministers and lay preachers as well as scores of laypersons committed to the cause of Christ.
What about the retired missionaries in those houses under water? And the little children who sang the gospel choruses? And those teens who went to youth meetings every Friday night instead of shooting up? There’s got to be said something for the clean living folk down there in the hospitable South.
After all, there were Catholic priests who remained true to their vocation. And there were ordained deacons seeing through their weekly duties. There were nuns obedient to their vows.
There were also others who belonged to no local congregation but who held to morals and ethics commendable in the American tradition of upright living. In other words, their hearts were in the right place.
What about them? Now what do we do with the saints and God and calamity and sorrow and death and flattened homes and businesses?
Well, it’s like this: we don’t live in a perfect world, though the Democrats would like to have us believe that. When the Bush administration does not perform perfectly, the Dems go into a snit. They can’t perform perfectly but they would have everyone else do so.
It’s the same with the liberal media. They report on the Bush lack of perfection at every turn. Peter Jennings and Dan Rather were masters at that. But they themselves miss the mark by a long shot when it comes to truth and fact, so much so that it’s amazing such news anchors can live with their consciences.
So we live in an imperfect world. Why? Because, according to the Bible, our first parents disobeyed God. To disobey God is no light matter. That is for certain. Yet it’s hard for mortal to get that through the stubborn head for we are balking all the way to disobedience much of the time.
Nevertheless, with an imperfect world, we have hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and fires and little babies die in their cribs and saints perish in all sorts of unfortunate situations.
Jesus said that the "rain falls on the just and the unjust."
That’s right. When a tornado storms through a village, the saints’ houses are not circumvented. They get flattened along with the stripper’s and the robber’s and all those in between.
When cancer moves through a neighborhood, it strikes the saint as well as the godless heathen. That’s the way things are down here. "The rain falls on the just and the unjust."
Therefore, when Katrina swung through the South, Katrina moved through saints’ domains as well as the evil, hell-bent souls’ dwellings. But there is a difference in all this regarding the saints and the hell-bent. It’s this: the saints believe that "all things work together for good to those who love God and are called unto His purpose." (Romans 8:28)
Therefore, the saints hold on to faith.
If the house goes, they keep the faith. If the property flattens, they keep the faith. If the father dies in the flood waters, the living keep the faith. For those who perish here on Earth, there is heaven for the saints. For the living going through trial, there is the undergirding presence of the Holy Spirit.
Now the hell-bent have no idea what all that verbiage is about. They just don’t read the language. It is foreign to them. It’s another nomenclature. That’s because, according to Saint Paul, the unspiritual cannot decipher spiritual matters. And that is so true when I read my email concerning my two posts mentioned at the start of this article.
The emails curse at me, call me stupid and hard-hearted plus more.
You see those sending those emails have no idea where I come from. They come from unbelief, having no understanding of the Bible’s hope. They know not Christ as personal Friend. They only have this material sphere to cling to.
When it’s gone, they’re gone. So they rail at me. I can take it for I’m just the messenger. It’s really God they’re angry about. They don’t like God for God calls them to morality, ethics and holy living. They don’t want that, so they rail and rant.
Now about those saints in New Orleans and environs surrounding.
They are going through the fire. They are badgered by life’s blows. They are flattened and scarred and homeless. But their God is greater than all of that and they know that. By faith they know that. And in time they will come through with their personal testimonies of how God led them through this terrible mess.
In the meantime, the hell-bent unbelieving atheists and agnostics and secularists continue to question whether or not there is a God, what kind of hell this world is that we breathe in, and why the Bush administration didn’t hold back Katrina.
So it goes, folks.
Copyright © 2005 by J. Grant Swank, Jr.
For More Information On This Story Visit: truthinconviction.us/weblog.php
Story Submitted By: joseph_swank@yahoo.com
Here’s an overview about the evil in New Orleans: http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_9292.shtml
And then there’s this: http://www.out2.com/copyroom/articles.asp?StoryKey=308487
Now what about the saints in New Orleans and surrounding areas?
There were a lot of evangelicals in those neighborhoods. There were a lot of Bible-preaching pulpits in those environs. There were those who read their Scriptures every day, prayed every day, tithed and gave love offerings to their churches. There were Sunday school teachers and ministers and lay preachers as well as scores of laypersons committed to the cause of Christ.
What about the retired missionaries in those houses under water? And the little children who sang the gospel choruses? And those teens who went to youth meetings every Friday night instead of shooting up? There’s got to be said something for the clean living folk down there in the hospitable South.
After all, there were Catholic priests who remained true to their vocation. And there were ordained deacons seeing through their weekly duties. There were nuns obedient to their vows.
There were also others who belonged to no local congregation but who held to morals and ethics commendable in the American tradition of upright living. In other words, their hearts were in the right place.
What about them? Now what do we do with the saints and God and calamity and sorrow and death and flattened homes and businesses?
Well, it’s like this: we don’t live in a perfect world, though the Democrats would like to have us believe that. When the Bush administration does not perform perfectly, the Dems go into a snit. They can’t perform perfectly but they would have everyone else do so.
It’s the same with the liberal media. They report on the Bush lack of perfection at every turn. Peter Jennings and Dan Rather were masters at that. But they themselves miss the mark by a long shot when it comes to truth and fact, so much so that it’s amazing such news anchors can live with their consciences.
So we live in an imperfect world. Why? Because, according to the Bible, our first parents disobeyed God. To disobey God is no light matter. That is for certain. Yet it’s hard for mortal to get that through the stubborn head for we are balking all the way to disobedience much of the time.
Nevertheless, with an imperfect world, we have hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and fires and little babies die in their cribs and saints perish in all sorts of unfortunate situations.
Jesus said that the "rain falls on the just and the unjust."
That’s right. When a tornado storms through a village, the saints’ houses are not circumvented. They get flattened along with the stripper’s and the robber’s and all those in between.
When cancer moves through a neighborhood, it strikes the saint as well as the godless heathen. That’s the way things are down here. "The rain falls on the just and the unjust."
Therefore, when Katrina swung through the South, Katrina moved through saints’ domains as well as the evil, hell-bent souls’ dwellings. But there is a difference in all this regarding the saints and the hell-bent. It’s this: the saints believe that "all things work together for good to those who love God and are called unto His purpose." (Romans 8:28)
Therefore, the saints hold on to faith.
If the house goes, they keep the faith. If the property flattens, they keep the faith. If the father dies in the flood waters, the living keep the faith. For those who perish here on Earth, there is heaven for the saints. For the living going through trial, there is the undergirding presence of the Holy Spirit.
Now the hell-bent have no idea what all that verbiage is about. They just don’t read the language. It is foreign to them. It’s another nomenclature. That’s because, according to Saint Paul, the unspiritual cannot decipher spiritual matters. And that is so true when I read my email concerning my two posts mentioned at the start of this article.
The emails curse at me, call me stupid and hard-hearted plus more.
You see those sending those emails have no idea where I come from. They come from unbelief, having no understanding of the Bible’s hope. They know not Christ as personal Friend. They only have this material sphere to cling to.
When it’s gone, they’re gone. So they rail at me. I can take it for I’m just the messenger. It’s really God they’re angry about. They don’t like God for God calls them to morality, ethics and holy living. They don’t want that, so they rail and rant.
Now about those saints in New Orleans and environs surrounding.
They are going through the fire. They are badgered by life’s blows. They are flattened and scarred and homeless. But their God is greater than all of that and they know that. By faith they know that. And in time they will come through with their personal testimonies of how God led them through this terrible mess.
In the meantime, the hell-bent unbelieving atheists and agnostics and secularists continue to question whether or not there is a God, what kind of hell this world is that we breathe in, and why the Bush administration didn’t hold back Katrina.
So it goes, folks.
Copyright © 2005 by J. Grant Swank, Jr.
For More Information On This Story Visit: truthinconviction.us/weblog.php
Story Submitted By: joseph_swank@yahoo.com
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