Just finished reading Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde by Harold Lamb (1954), one of the the boys' Sonlight Curriculum Yr 5 readers. This was a man who struck fear while he was alive in the 13th century, killing and ordering the killing of thousands. Years after his death, his name still stood for fear and his commands to conquer and vanquish, to wreak vengeance on his enemies were carried out by his sons, grandsons and generals. The word "horde" meaning a large crowd of people (n. sometimes disapproving) comes from the Mongol word "ordu".
"From the Roof of the World to far-off Baghdad the survivors lived in such fear that most of them no longer tried to protect themselves. The very sight of a nomad horseman made them helpless.
'I was on the road with seventeen other men,' one of them related. 'We saw a Tartar horseman coming up to us. He ordered us to tie up our companions - each man to bind another's arms behind his back. The others were beginning to obey him when I said to them, 'This man is alone. Let's kill him and escape.'
'They replied, 'We are too much afraid.'
''But this man will kill you,' I said.
'Still no one dared disobey the Tartar. So I killed him with a blow of my knife. Then we all ran away and saved ourselves.'" (page133)
Yes, there is a fear that paralyses: fear of men, what they can do to us, what others may say or think of us. If we seek the approval of men and their praise or honour, we will have no freedom to be truly ourselves or be truly at peace within. But there is a fear that sets us free from all other fears and lets us be ourselves.
Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 5, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Matt 5:28-31)
Psalm 112: "Praise the LORD.
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
who finds great delight in his commands.
...
He will have no fear of bad news;
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
His heart is secure, he will have no fear;
in the end he will look in triumph on his foes." (Ps 112:1,7,8)
Proverbs 9: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." (Prov 9:10)
O Lord, teach me the fear of You, to delight in obeying your word, to be able to say with Peter and the early disciples, when the crunch comes, "We must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29)
Update: Genghis Khan's mausoleum found - CNN report here.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Murder Most Foul
Murders, passion killings, assassinations, hired killings, suicide bombings, televised beheading... all these and more fill the papers and the online news daily, in this country and all over the world. How red our planet must look to God, with all the shed blood. It has been this way since the days of Adam and Eve, when Cain killed Abel, the first homicide,nay, fratricide, precedent to countless others. Now we have patricide, matricide, parricide, femicide, genocide, infanticide, suicide... and more.
Why, O God? Why do we go on hurting and killing one another?
Not too long after Jesus had been crucified, buried and resurrected, James wrote these words: "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (James 4:1-3)
And the prophet Jeremiah wrote many hundreds of years before Jesus came: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9)
He answered his question in the next verse when he quotes the Lord saying: "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."
The crux of the matter is that we're all sons of our forefathers, Adam and Eve, and we all share the same nature and heart: deceitful, desperately corrupt, covetous, selfish and murderous.
Has this or that one committed murder? Condemn him not alone. We are all as guilty. Given the same circumstances and pressures and trials, who can say that we would not have done the same or worse.
Jesus said: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders shall be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca (an Aramaic term of contempt)', is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, "You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." (Matt. 5:21-22)
Who then can stand? Lord, we need you to save us and to give us the power and teach us to love, to truly love you and one another as you have loved us.
Why, O God? Why do we go on hurting and killing one another?
Not too long after Jesus had been crucified, buried and resurrected, James wrote these words: "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (James 4:1-3)
And the prophet Jeremiah wrote many hundreds of years before Jesus came: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9)
He answered his question in the next verse when he quotes the Lord saying: "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."
The crux of the matter is that we're all sons of our forefathers, Adam and Eve, and we all share the same nature and heart: deceitful, desperately corrupt, covetous, selfish and murderous.
Has this or that one committed murder? Condemn him not alone. We are all as guilty. Given the same circumstances and pressures and trials, who can say that we would not have done the same or worse.
Jesus said: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders shall be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca (an Aramaic term of contempt)', is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, "You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." (Matt. 5:21-22)
Who then can stand? Lord, we need you to save us and to give us the power and teach us to love, to truly love you and one another as you have loved us.
Life, Death, Murder
At any one time, I’m reading several books, placed in different parts of the home. There are books in the toilet, the kitchen and in the living room. The one in the kitchen, which I read while I’m waiting for the water to boil or the food in the microwave to be done, is a G.K. Chesterton mystery by Kel Richards called “Murder in the Mummy’s Tomb”. It’s a fictitious story using the character of G.K. Chesterton and his wit and wisdom in the solving of a murder mystery.
Chesterton appears as a welcome blast of fresh air and real life after a few chapters of dry desert forgettable characters and conversations. The day after he arrives at the archaeological expedition in Egypt, the narrator, a young archaeologist named Flinders, tells him that someone has been murdered, stabbed to death, and comments, “It’s tragic.”
“Most assuredly. Murder is always tragic,” agrees Chesterton.
“A sad death,” Flinders says.
“You mistake my meaning. It is a nonsense to think of a death as tragic, since we shall all die. Life is a fatal condition. No one gets out of here alive. None of us shall escape death. No, the real tragedy is that a living man has now become a murderer.”
Then when Flinders says that it is extraordinary to think that the murderer may be a member of their expedition, Chesterton remarks that it is not strange at all, but entirely natural, in fact.
“Murder is the oldest crime of all. The inclination to murder runs in our blood. We should not be surprised that a race who will kill their God will kill each other. The truly remarkable thing is that so many of us succeed in exercising restraint and venting our homicidal passions in more innocent ways, such as kicking a doorpost or writing a poem.”
Chesterton appears as a welcome blast of fresh air and real life after a few chapters of dry desert forgettable characters and conversations. The day after he arrives at the archaeological expedition in Egypt, the narrator, a young archaeologist named Flinders, tells him that someone has been murdered, stabbed to death, and comments, “It’s tragic.”
“Most assuredly. Murder is always tragic,” agrees Chesterton.
“A sad death,” Flinders says.
“You mistake my meaning. It is a nonsense to think of a death as tragic, since we shall all die. Life is a fatal condition. No one gets out of here alive. None of us shall escape death. No, the real tragedy is that a living man has now become a murderer.”
Then when Flinders says that it is extraordinary to think that the murderer may be a member of their expedition, Chesterton remarks that it is not strange at all, but entirely natural, in fact.
“Murder is the oldest crime of all. The inclination to murder runs in our blood. We should not be surprised that a race who will kill their God will kill each other. The truly remarkable thing is that so many of us succeed in exercising restraint and venting our homicidal passions in more innocent ways, such as kicking a doorpost or writing a poem.”
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