Rememberance Day- Lest We Forget...

When I was young I always honoured rememberance day because it was very improtant to my grandpa. He was also my pastor and a man I loved dearly. He always tried to stress to the young people how men and women died for freedom and what a valuable thing freedom is. It was hard for us to see then; we had always just been free.
Today rememberance day is more significant to me. It is a day where I am thankful; thankful that someone would die for me and my children. Thankful that I live in a country where I can freely worship Jesus. Thankful for a country that is relatively peaceful. At the same time it is a day where I mourn the contrast. Gone are my days of ignorant bliss. All I want is to be happy and healthy and raise my family and love Jesus. But I know things about the world now and I can never go back. People are growing evil and violent and perverse and it has gotten too close to home. Now there is a new kind of war to fight and I realize it recquires my life.
I read a story about the "Montreal Massacre" entitled, "The Men Who Ran Away". A lone gunmen came to an engineering class and ordered the 50 men present to leave the classroom, leaving 14 women at the mercy of the gunmen. It is said that those 50 men meekly filed out....the women were shot at. Some died, some were wounded. Those men could've taken him out. They had a chance to prevent a massacre and they "meekly filed out" in order to preserve their own lives. Our society has adopeted that meekness. We see tragedy, enslavement and abuse and we turn a blind eye. We think we are protecting ourselves by doing nothing, all the while violence is creeping closer to our doors, peeking in our front windows. You can close your curtains but it does not go away. "Evil prevails when good men do nothing".
Every day our freedom to worship God is being challenged, from daily exchanges to the highest levels of government. Most of the church sits idly by; dumbed down by their anti-religious sentiments. There are no standards, no disciplines, you do whatever feels right to you. And if sleeping feels good then we sleep. While our foundations crumble down around us, while the poor are begging at our door, while children are being sold for sex in our cities, while our freedoms are being taken, we sleep.
John McCrae wrote this poem "In Flander's Fields", in 1915 during the war:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

It is said that his dying words were, "If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep".

In response to his poem Moina Michael wrote, "We Shall Keep the Faith":

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

Have we learned the lesson taught in Flander's fields?

The other night I was at a friends and we watched the film "Fields of Mudan". It is the story of a very young Asian girl who is forced into modern day slavery by a child brothel owner. The only solace she finds is through the memory of her Mother and the promise that she would one day find Mudan and take her away to America. She also develops a friendship with another young brothel girl. I can't say don't watch it, but I'm warning you that it will rip your guts out. For me it is a horror film. I myself have a young daughter approximately Mudan's age and when I saw Mudan on the screen my young daughter was staring back at me through her eyes. I left my friends house feeling as though I had been to a funeral. I wept and wept because that movie is some little girls true story and it could be happening in my own city. I also burned, my heart on fire with righteous indignation. Church of God listen to what God would have me say:
I tremble with righteous anger. Sword in hand, I make ready. The Lord of hosts sounds the battle cry. Who will take up arms and join this fight for justice? Awake o' numb ones. Open your eyes to the world around! A cry sounds for justice! There is blood in the streets. There is blood on our hands. We think we can wipe it off on a rag as though it's something that can wash away. It is something that can only be "done" away with; their blood will only be silent when something is done. Awake Church of Almighty God! Awake bride of Christ! If you remain asleep the consequences will be born for generations. I saw a picture of men and women roaming the streets, they were all grey and looked like death. They were ravenously seeking for something to prey on. Same perversity as in Sodom and Gomorrah. There is much to lose if we do not stand up against this! After the Lord showed me this, I tried to sleep, but I still didn't have peace. I got up and went in to kiss my girls and pray over them. I found them all fast asleep, but what was odd was they were wearing white wedding dresses; dress up clothes that I hadn't seen for months. I smiled and went back to bed and God said it symbolized hope and the Church of Christ. In her book "Marked", Faytene Kryskow quotes from Revelation 19 where it talks about the bride being ready, clothed in fine linen which is the righteous acts of the saints. She says, "the church that is truly washed clean will arise and clothe herself with a response and that response is...doing righteous acts." There is a parable found in Matthew 25:1-12. It is about ten virgins awaiting their bridegroom: 5 of them are ready when he comes and 5 of them are not. Wake up! Clothe yourself. You are the hope, you are the salt of the earth. You know who you are.