THE EMMAUS WALK:

We all saw how ineffectual the U.S. Federal Government is in the midst of a national emergency such as Hurricane Katrina's assault on the coast and its aftermath. The Federal Government was far more efficient at the turn of the century, when San Francisco was destroyed by the great earthquake. Help was there in a matter of hours--not days and weeks! This is what Secular Humanism has done to us--our government is set in a kind of concrete, unable to act when it would be most vital for it to do so!

It was CHRISTIAN ministries and churches, Mayor Nagin of New Orleans, that were first on the site of your destroyed city, pouring out tons of food, water, supplies, even rescue operations! Did you ever thank any of them for the tremendous help they gave thousands in the city and thousands more outside it?

Now it seems hopeless at first sight, when secular humanists are in so much control of our society that we are made sitting ducks where our enemies are concerned. What can one person do to stop our arch-enemies from destroying us and our country? Our nation is in such disarray, morally, spiritually, and politically. We cannot even unite to fight the terrorists, who are using Iraq as a base of operations. That base will soon shift to our own streets and malls and cities, as we pull out our troops. The terrorists have said so themselves, that they are pleased by the prospect of our giving up and pulling out of Iraq, and we know that they will bring the war to us--and then crush us completely with the suitcase bombs!

We must know that our government and military (and certainly not our Congress) cannot protect us (we have seen it in case after case of national emergency). We must turn to God alone. The only hope we have is God--in this time of peril. It seems impossible, however, to be of any influence. This nation is too big, too divided, for one person to affect. How can we help bring a turn-around in America, in our lives, in our relationship to God, that will bring God's forgiveness and His aid in saving us and our country? It just seems altogether impossible! Impossible! The darkness is too great to penetrate or drive back! Right? Do I strike a chord somewhere in somebody who is concerned about this entire situation? National security is just one aspect--it is all connected to our moral and spiritual, backslidden state as a Christian people and a formerly Christian nation.

Actually, let us think soberly, biblically, about this crisis. One person can be a majority, in God's eyes. He doesn't look at crises the way we do--one person who is so little compared to overwhelming numbers and overwhelmingly great circumstances. He is God--He is the Biggest "Component" in the universal equation. With Him, you, or I, have the winning number, not the other eight million entrants in the lottery. Our number with God making divine arithmetic with us: 1 (God who is Number 1, plus one--you or I). 1 plus 1 is ordinarily just 2 (which will cause no change in this natural world probably), but when the first 1 is God--that is as good as an infinite number on your side! Look at the Bible! It is full of crises where one person, with God as Number 1 in that person's life and prayers, turned entire nations back from destruction and going over the cliff! Deborah, Moses, Gideon, Elijah, David, Daniel...and they weren't considered important, either. They weren't always known, either. Gideon declared he was the least person in a family in a clan that was least in his tribe--but God went to him and called him "mighty champion." If we choose unbelief and distrust of God, we will say, "God you can't save this nation through me--I am too small, too average, too something or other, for You too use!" That is wrong thinking! That will never please God. God delights in using small, average, insignificant people like you and me. Then He gets the glory from what is accomplished through us! He doesn't get much glory through using Nobel Prize Laureates, or Presidents, or big-shots of any kind. He gets tremendous glory, as the Bible states over and over, from using insignificant vessels such as you and me.

In fact, He PREFERS to use people like you and me! Yes, he prefers to use us over the so-called great people of the world. So let us be willing to obey Him--even if it is a small task in our eyes. A small rudder turns a mighty ocean-liner! It is hidden away underwater, but without it the mighty liner would run out of control and dash itself on the rocks and everything would be destroyed. Let us be the little rudder that turns the mighty ocean-liner of America. Though our prayers, examples, witness of Jesus, and our support of what is our Judaeo-Christian heritage in America, we can turn our doomed ship of state away from disaster. Let no one, particularly our fellow Christians, discourage us in the least. We don't answer for their lives and their decisions to give up in overwhelming situations. We answer only for our own lives and decisions. Let us go on--with God--who is the Majority over every other majority--and so we cannot lose! We cannot lose--no matter what it looks like. We simply cannot lose. The Bible is the testimony, of person after person, mostly insignificant and powerless, who won great victories by simply trusting God and turning to him in every situation of life, great and small. Let us turn to him in the small things now, and then He can use in the great issues too.

Faithfulness to Him will be rewarded. He is that kind of God. If we prove ourselves by obedience to Him, He can use us to go and speak to kings and parliaments and congresses and presidents and generals and terrorist leaders--and they will listen and do what we say they should do! We have that potential in us--if only we will obey now in the small things he has given us to do. We can start today, we can start now. Will you? Will I? It is our individual choice.