Veteran's Day Blog Post

On July 2, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg, Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his regiment, the 20th Maine, was posted on the extreme left of the Federal line at Little Round Top—just in time to face Confederate General John B. Hood’s attack on the Union left flank. After fending off five attacks by Confederate troops from the 15th and 47th Alabama, most of the soldiers from Maine were down to one or two rounds.  Unknown to the Union troops, the Southern troops had lost a water detail and were nearly exhausted. Chamberlain quickly realized that he could not retreat, for that would concede the Union left to the Rebels.  He could not stay where he was, for they would be overrun by one more attack.  Chamberlain and moved half of his soldiers back until the two lines met at a right angle at a large boulder.  Realizing he couldn’t stay where he was and he couldn’t retreat, Chamberlain decided to attack. 

Under tremendous fire in the midst of the battle, Col. Chamberlain exercised unusual calm and assembled his unit commanders. He explained that the regiment’s left wing would swing around “like a barn door” until it was even with the right wing then both groups would charge down the hill. Chamberlain gave the order to “fix bayonets” LT Holman Melcher of F Company leaped forward and led the left wing around.  When the left and right wing became even, Col. Chamberlain jumped off a boulder and led the charge down the hill.  The exhausted and shattered Alabama troops broke and ran, leaving the Union left flank secure.  

While it is easy to get into hyperbole about the results of the actions a Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, we should not underestimate what may have happened for the entire battle of Gettysburg and the future of the United States if Southern forces had seized this high ground and turned the Union left flank.  A common thought is that Robert E. Lee had already lost the battle of Gettysburg on July 2, and Pickett’s Charge on July 3 was a final act in the drama

          Our nation is free because of the unparalleled courage of intrepid men like Col. Joshua Chamberlain.  The blessings of liberty are never handed to a free people; they must be purchased at the cost of tremendous sacrifice and loss of life.  Our freedom is a precious treasure handed down to us.  This Veterans’ Day, Christians best honor the brave warriors who have given us this gift by using our religious liberty to its greatest extent to share the Gospel to every person we can.

I’m Thankful for The Churches Who Led My Parents to Christ

My mother never knew her father. Raised by a single mother, she was living in Ashland, AL in 1946. Her mom, Grandmother Lewis, had moved back to Ashland from Birmingham when she lost her defense contractor job after WWII ended. 

          Country singer Miranda Lambert sings about the lack of privacy in small towns, saying, “Whether you’re late for church, or you’re stuck in jail, hey word’s gonna get around. Everybody dies famous in a small town.” In my mom’s small town, everyone certainly knew that she was the girl who didn’t know the identity of her father. 

One Sunday at First Baptist Church, Ashland, the pastor gave a public invitation to believe on Christ, and my mother came forward and gave her life to Christ. After the service, two women I will not know until I am in heaven took my mom aside in a small room off of the auditorium to give her Christian counsel. Their words were something to this effect, “We know people in this town are talking about you because you don’t know your father, but we want you to know that Jesus doesn’t see you that way.” I believe these two women were unusually sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in the counsel they gave my mom.  I am eternally thankful for a pastor who gave an invitation and two Christian women concerned to help a thirteen year old girl who came to church by herself and was the topic of town gossip.

As time goes by, my mom and dad met and got married. My dad had attended church off and on, but had never been converted to Christ. After dad completed his Air Force basic training, he went to school for aircraft mechanics at Lackland Air Force Base. A Christian layman was working as a civilian employee for the Air Force, training the young Airmen. This unknown layman invited my dad to a chili supper his church was having. At that supper, the pastor shared a brief Gospel message, and encouraged any of the men present who wanted to trust Christ to see him afterwards. My dad approached the pastor, and in the pastor’s study my dad gave his life to Christ.  Dad was transferred to Savannah soon afterwards, and was baptized at Bull Street Baptist. I do not know the name of the church in San Antonio where dad came to faith in Christ, but I am thankful for them.

Philemon 1:6 says, “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.” (ESV) This Thanksgiving, I’m especially thankful for pastors and lay members I do not know who effectively shared Christ with my parents. I deeply hope churches today will regain evangelistic concern so that more may come to know Christ.

I’m Thankful for the Churches Who Led My Parents to Christ

Every Believer is a Firstborn Child of God

Have you ever felt you were less important than other people? Have you ever thought that you were not as valuable as someone else? God doesn’t see you that way. When we believe on Christ, Romans 8:17 says we become “heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ.” Every believer has access to all the riches Christ has to give.

In Todd Chipman’s wonderful book about adoption, Until Every Child Is Home, he tells the story Doug and Virginia Webster, Christians from Canada who adopted two boys and then later gave birth to a biological daughter of their own. The two older, adopted brothers playfully teased with their younger sister, “We’re special. We were chosen! You just came along!”[1] In an interesting turn of events, all three of the Webster’s children are the firstborn in their families. Both of their adopted sons was a firstborn and their daughter is a firstborn child as well. Doug Webster said, “As it turned out, all three of our children are firstborn, which is how I think the sons and daughters of God are privileged in the gospel of the kingdom.”[2] Chipman adds, “As we partner with our local church to care for kids in crisis, we participate in God’s concern for His glory in His image bearers. Every human is unique, all are first-born to God.”[3]

Indeed, when we are saved, we become joint-heirs with Christ.  We are all first-born children in the sense that all of us get the entire inheritance of regeneration, forgiveness, grace, justification, the imputed righteousness of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s not as if some of God’s kids get more of this than others!  When we are saved, we are all first-born.  Of course, Jesus is the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15), but He saves us and makes each believer a firstborn child of God.

[1] Todd Chipman, Until Every Child Is Home: Why the Church Can and Must Care for Orphans (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019), 51.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 55. I like this illustration, but my use of it here is not meant to imply that my colleague Dr. Chipman would agree with all of my conclusions on soteriology.

The Danger of Worldliness

Sunday, July 21, 1861 saw the first major battle of the American Civil War about 25 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. at Manassas Junction, VA, also known as the battle of Bull Run.  The untried Union Army was led by Brigadier General Irvin McDowell and he opposed the Confederate Army under the command of General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.  Deadly fire raked the field of battle as .50 caliber black powder rifles used at close range wreaked carnage on the lines of finely dressed soldiers. Militarily, the battle is famous as the place where southern General Thomas Jackson earned his nom de Guerre, “Stonewall Jackson.” The battle of Bull Run was sobering and indicated that the war to end the evil of slavery would be long and bloody.

 When we think of the Civil War, we think of “blue” versus “gray.” But in this first battle at Bull Run, there was great confusion because the color of the uniforms used by each army had not yet been standardized.  Some of the Confederate soldiers were actually wearing a shade of blue and some Union soldiers were actually wearing gray.  As the battle intensified and the haze of black powder smoke descended over the landscape and hung over the field of combat, it became difficult to distinguish comrades from the enemy.  Clear and necessary distinctions between friend and foe became lost and was one factor contributing to the Union defeat. 

We too are in a battle, a spiritual fight. In the smoke and chaos of a culture at war with truth and virtue, there are times when the clear and necessary distinctions between Christians and the world are lost.  From a distance, many Christians look like the world. 1 John 2:15 warns us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Living for the Lord means we maintain clear distinctions between ourselves and those who oppose God.  The danger of worldliness is that we not only lead ourselves astray, but contribute to the defeat of others as well.

Keep Red in Preaching

On August 17, 1905, an excursion train traveling from Greenville, NC to Norfolk, VA crashed into the West Branch of the Elizabeth River, resulting in the deaths of many people. The train had failed to heed warnings that a draw bridge was open to let a tugboat pass. Like many accidents, there were many contributing factors which led to the tragedy, but one major problem was a faded “warning flag.” In that era, flags of different colors were placed along the tracks as signals to train engineers about conditions up ahead. A white flag meant all was safe ahead. A red flag was a warning of danger ahead. Railroad employees had placed a red flag along the track near the Elizabeth River to warn that the draw bridge was open and trains needed to stop. But tragically, the red flag had faded over time – the color had bleached out of it. Traveling at high rate of speed, the locomotive engineer mistook the faded red flag for a white flag: the red was gone out of it. The locomotive plunged headlong into the open bridge and tumbled into the river, resulting in the deaths of many people.

So it is with much of modern theology and preaching: the color red has gone out of it: the blood of Jesus is left out. The blood has been expunged from the pulpit and from hymnals. In 1937, Yale professor Richard Niebuhr (1894 – 1962) summarized the preaching of liberal Christianity in his book The Kingdom of God in America: A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.

1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Stay faithful to the Bible and keep the color red – the blood of Jesus Christ – at the center of our churches and pulpits.