History Really Does Repeat Itself

One of my favorite speeches in American history is the one given by Patrick Henry at the VA House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775. The committee that had been assembled was one that was to make a decision for the young nation on what to do about the British occupation in America. Many men there held to the delusion that the British troops and navies were scattered in the colonies and darkening the harbors along the coast for the purpose of helping America to become established. Those men had their heads in the sand, so to speak, because deep down, surely they knew the price King George III would demand for his "help". Patrick Henry, however, was not one to hold to delusions. His attempt to awaken these men, thankfully, did not fall on deaf ears completely and he did succeed in convincing the majority to go to war against the redcoats.

What I'm interested in, though, was his determination to know the truth, which would set free not only himself, but an entire nation. He played the role of a watchman for his fellow countrymen and helped them to snap out of the entrancing hold that King George's false promises held on so many. He argued, "... it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts." The allusion he makes is to the sirens in Homer's great epic poem The Odyssey. The sirens were "nymphs [who] had the power ... of charming by their song all who heard them, so that mariners were impelled to cast themselves into the sea to destruction" (2020site.org).

Last night as I watched the election returns decide fairly early in the evening that Barack Obama had won the bid for the Presidency, I saw a sea of faces gathered in Grant Park in Chicago who have already begun to listen to the song of the siren. They reminded me of the way I've often pictured the men sitting in the VA House of Burgesses trusting in the lies of King George. Hoping for a better day, longing for a stroll on the greener side of the fence. The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death. The young people have been taken hostage by "illusions of hope" and they are indulging. But what Patrick Henry told those deluded men still rings true today: "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past." We can look back to failed attempts of the hippies in the 60s for a recent and pertinent example of when a utopia was promised to the followers of the liberal movement, but the utopia turned out to be at the price of freedom. We can look back to the Bible days of the nation of Israel asking for a king. The glitz of the worldly nations who refused to allow God to lead them allured God's people to destruction and ruin and led to one thing: the loss of freedom.

The Obama family taking residence in the White House seems glitzy and exciting to many people, but they are deluded by illusions of hope. Henry said of the insidious smile of the British ministry to "Trust it not ... it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss." I am compelled to believe that we are seeing a repetition of something that has happened many times in our nation's history and in the history of other nations. Something that has not worked in any one of its attempts. God must be the one to whom we look for the answers. Not a man. Not a system of government. Not even an ideology. Henry pleaded with those men when he said, "If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left of us!"

The Bible tells us that our appeal to arms is not carnal, but spiritual. Spiritual warfare many of us have waged on numerous occasions, but from here on out, the frequency is going to be a little more constant, the fervency a little more intense, and the consequences a little more significant. Hold to your faith and drag everyone you can to come along with you. May the Holy Ghost embolden us in our hour of distinct need.

"Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! ... Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlement wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" (Henry)