Ecclesiastes 12:10

  Bastille Day is the French equivalent of Independence Day.  It commemorates the anniversary of Storming of the Bastille on July 14 th , 1789, the start of the French Revolution.  The Bastille had long been a symbol of tyranny as a place for the imprisonment of people without trial, but when it was stormed it only contained seven prisoners.   One was a deranged Irishman who believed himself to be both God and Julius Caesar.  In addition, there was another so-called ‘lunatic’, four forgers, and the Comte de Solages – an aristocrat who had been imprisoned at the request of his own family for allegedly committing incest.  While the cry was for freedom, the Bastille was not attacked in order to free these prisoners.  It had much more to do with the gunpowder from the Bastille’s stores to use in the 28,000 muskets they had taken earlier that day [1] .   Today, there are those that cry for Christian to arms.  It may be to rally aroun...

  During the Civil war a Union Soldier  was shot in the arm. His captain saw he was wounded and barked out an order, “Gimme your gun, private and get to the rear! ” The private handed over his rifle and ran north seeking safety. But after a few hundred yards he came upon another skirmish. So he ran east and found himself in another part of the battle. Then he ran west, but encountered more fight there. Finally, he ran back to the front lines shouting to the Captain, “ Gimmie back my rifle. There ain’t no rear to this battle nowhere!       The battle Christians face is a similar one to that which the private was in. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8-11, “ We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.  For we who live are a...