As usual, my copy of The One Year Book of Christian History has an interesting entry and marginal notes from my historical research for today's date in history. I'll deal with them in the order listed in the title rather than chronologically. (Hey, indulge me!)
On this day in 1876, a Sunday by the way, Lieutenant Colonel (he was down graded after the Civil War for lack of generalships in the regular army) George Armstrong Custer and the men of the Seventh Cavalry attacked a force 10-18 times their size without proper reconnaissance, breaking the Sabbath calm in order to get annihilated at the Battle of Little Big Horn. The interesting thing is that Custer had had an evangelical conversion experience in February, 1865 at a Presbyterian Church in Michigan while on furlough and should have had more respect for the Lord's Day. Of course, he had not had a chance to read my brilliant treatise on the Civil War pointing out the failure rate of Sunday attacks...oh, well. Maybe we'll discuss the whole deal at the Marriage Feast over pizza, beer, and cigars!! (Or should that be salt pork, hard tack crackers, and O Be Joyful, the home-brew of Civil War soldiers?!!)
Now, jump forward to mid-twentieth century, just a few months before I shuffled onto this mortal coil...On this same day in 1951, a Monday, China invaded Korea to initiate the Korean War. Given the outcome of the "police action," as it came to be called at times, the Chinese fall into the right category statistically in that the success rate of attacks on Mondays is inversely proportional to that on Sundays (67% vs. 33% respectively). It seems ironic that atheistic Communists would inadvertently follow the rules of engagement in Divine historical coincidence...maybe a piece of evidence indicating God really does raise up nations and bring them down for His particular purposes, as Daniel chapter 2 says!
Now, set the Way Back Machine (tip of the hat to the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show) for the distant past...back in 474 B.C., Xerxes wrote out his proclamation giving the Jews, who were going to be attacked due to Haman's political machinations, the right not only to defend themselves but to slaughter their attackers. The Book of Esther had three "boomerangs" in it...the classic number in Jewish numerology indicating Divinity...that show God's hand in history, I think. Haman had to parade Mordecai the Jew, whom he hated and planned to kill, through the streets on the king's horse to give him honor for saving Xerxes' life. Then he and his ten sons got hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai (800 more enemies of the Jews were killed in Susa), and finally the edict mentioned above put the boomerang of vengeance on a grand scale, with 75,000 enemies killed by Jews in the provinces. (I would highly recommend the movie, A Night with the King, as an excellent portrayal of Esther, with some Hollywood thrown in, of course.)
Soooo...here it is Wednesday, June 25, 2008. You have been raised up for just such a time as this in history. You have been appointed to walk in particular works set aside for you from before the foundation of the world. Wathcha gonna do about it?
Got Psalm 32: 8, 9 prayer request?
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