"Wisdom"
“Wisdom”
March 10, 2014
Half a league,
half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Charge
of the Light Brigade
The Russian leader said he wanted to protect Christians[i],
in truth he needed to expand Russian territory to the south and to ports free
of ice in the winter. By the month of March,
the countries supporting an independent Ukraine and Crimea had run out of
diplomatic options. They were concerned
about the minority peoples within Crimea who would be damaged by Russian
expansionism. Russian military personnel
began to infiltrate the Crimea. So, on
March 27th and 28th, 1854, France and Great Britain
declared war on Russia.
It’s hard to believe that 160 years ago this month, the
world’s attention was turned to the same section of the world in a very similar
situation to today’s dilemma. If you
think hard enough, you did study this in high school. I am referring to the Crimean War. The very first battleground photographs were
introduced in the Crimean War. Florence
Nightingale rose to fame as “The Lady with the Lamp.” This was the horrible war, and one battle in
particular, the Battle of Balaclava, which prompted Lord Tennyson to pen his
epic poem, Charge of the Light Brigade.
As smart as man thinks he has become, the truth is that
we have a tendency to repeat mistakes in life and in history. There are several factors to lack of wisdom;
we have short memories, coupled with an arrogant pride that we know more and
are wiser than those who have preceded us.
Apathy is another issue. A lot of
us just don’t care what happens to others around the world. To be honest, we often don’t care about what
happens around the corner. We also tend
to put too much trust in those who lead.
A good example of that is the Charge of the Light Brigade. There were about 670 men who rode into the
valley of death that day. There were 278
casualties among the men and 335 horses killed in action that day. The allies were so demoralized by the battle
that day that fighting ceased. It was hardly
glorious. The leadership lesson was that
all the carnage was due to an angry commander’s flippant wave of his arm with
the command to, “prevent the enemy carrying away the guns.” Like the Battle of Balaclava, the Crimean War
was bloody and costly – 600,000 people died between October 1853 and February
1856.
Perhaps the greatest thing we can learn from both
personal history and world history is that man’s wisdom is foolishness and the
world needs the wisdom, love, mercy and grace of God.
1 Corinthians 1:25(NIV)
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”
Taken from a recent email:
What is the greatest need for Crimea?
Q.
What do you need?
A. A miracle! Please pray with us for the Lord to stop this iniquity.
Looks like Putin is winning so far and I do not see any power under the sun
that could stop him (another cold war is started already, but nobody wants
another world war). Our cry is to the power above.
God is on the throne and He has provided a great miracle already. On March 5th in the early morning Putin was about to start a massive invasion into mainland Ukraine to enthrone Yanukovich -- our bloody corrupted president on the run. The night before were the most frightful hours we ever experienced. But at the very time when Russia declared the beginning of the war at the United Nations Security Council, God struck Yanukovich with a [reportedly, rumored] deadly heart attack (this is the info that Russia is still trying to keep secret, but will not be able to do it for long) and nothing happened in the morning -- Russia drew its forces back to their bases. Isn't it a biblical-size miracle? Please continue to pray with us for such a satisfactory resolution to the ‘Crimea Crisis’ as well.
God is on the throne and He has provided a great miracle already. On March 5th in the early morning Putin was about to start a massive invasion into mainland Ukraine to enthrone Yanukovich -- our bloody corrupted president on the run. The night before were the most frightful hours we ever experienced. But at the very time when Russia declared the beginning of the war at the United Nations Security Council, God struck Yanukovich with a [reportedly, rumored] deadly heart attack (this is the info that Russia is still trying to keep secret, but will not be able to do it for long) and nothing happened in the morning -- Russia drew its forces back to their bases. Isn't it a biblical-size miracle? Please continue to pray with us for such a satisfactory resolution to the ‘Crimea Crisis’ as well.
--Detail of Franz Roubaud's panoramic painting The Siege of Sevastopol
(1904)
[i] “Syria,
for all its problems, at least has a constitution that guarantees equal
protection of citizens. Around the world, we have seen that this is essential
where Christians are a minority and are not protected. The radicals in Syria
want an Islamic constitution based on sharia law.” - http://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/march-2014/putins-olympic-controversy/
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