They Shall Not Learn War Anymore

 

It's good to be here with you, a lot of people were praying for me, I didn't even go to Africa and I got sick this week! I wasn't sure I was going to be able to speak, but thankfully I was able to heal up enough and avoid enough of the people to make it through here. Hopefully I'll slow down, my wife always tells me to slow down which is something I never used to do as a young man but over the years I've learned that it does help when you slow down and speak clearly. My first time that I realized I spoke too fast was watching the sign language person down here, giving up! They're moving their arms so frantically and finally they quit and I realized I had a problem!

I was working on a couple sermons, I was going to give a new one but I didn't quite finish it, I've been trying to practice it with my voice, I probably only had a few thousand words that I'd be able to give before I lost it, so my wife said I should give a sermon I've given before, so a couple of you may have heard this, if you have, that's fine, if not, you can do like I do and you can learn more from it or sleep through it, your choice! I often enjoy hearing a sermon a second time because I don't have to take notes, it's more fun just to listen and I've reached the point where I have to either see you or my notes, so I choose my notes!

I titled this sermon, They Shall Not Learn War Anymore; I gave it at the Feast site. In Micah 4:3 there is a scripture that you all just heard just a month ago I'm sure. He said:

Micah 4:3 – He shall judge among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

We just celebrated, last month, that Feast, a time to rejoice, we in a sense, had a physical Millennium, painted for us to envision in the future when Christ returns and rules for a thousand years. To get there we have trials to overcome, we need to develop our love of God and our love for each other. It's funny to me, after so many years in the Church, starting out in the earliest ages that I can remember, hearing about the Millennium, I always wanted to play with the lion and play with the wolf, the bear, the lamb and the snake, all the insects and it took me several years after baptism and I finally realized, I mean I knew it mechanically but I realized that playing with those things really wouldn't make any difference for me because, the same for you, if you're baptized, your preparation is now because you'll be a spirit being when that happens. If a lion bites you, it won't make much difference. And if you get stung, it won't hurt. So in a sense our millennium really is each Feast that we have every year and the lives we live right now, learning to obey God and His way, fighting a tougher battle than those that we'll have when the Millennium is here and there's no Satan, and he's bound.

All of this is part of not learning war anymore, we have to learn to rejoice and practice God's way now and we're given opportunities to learn now, different kinds of opportunities. Sometimes the opportunities  seem more like trials than they are opportunities and today I want to talk about one opportunity that Michelle and I had that lasted for a couple years. My wife had always told me when we were married, because her parents were health nuts, they were never in the Church but they always did kind of the Jack Lalanne routine and juiced all the juices and exercised and walked etc. And so she said, we'll never have to take care of them. Well the moral of the story is most nevers – never say never, because about four years ago Michelle's father had a stroke and with that stroke he lost half of his body, the function of it, and with that he could no longer do the things he was doing. It was pretty much medical malpractice in one sense because he'd been out cleaning his gutters and mowing his yard and doing things, he was 80 years old but he perpetually painted his house and I think he just started on one end and worked his way around and just kept going.

It was in July and he got dehydrated, came down and passed out in the kitchen and when he passed out they called the ambulance and he went to the hospital and his heartbeat was only 48 beats and so they decided he needed a pacemaker, so they put a pacemaker in and didn't realize his heartbeat had been 48 the last 25 years, that was his working heart rate. They didn't thin his blood and a month later a blood clot developed and lodged in his brain and gave him a massive stroke. Well they were trying to take care of him up in Pennsylvania where he was and none of the family could really do very much so Michelle and I offered to take care of him for six months. Well six months went on for a lot longer than we intended, we brought him down and we tried to help him as much as we could. With all stories you tell, it's more the way you tell them can make a difference, but the way you see them and the way you work with them and the way you deal with it means more than anything else. It's important how you react to a given situation. Philippians 4:8 – Mr. Aust gave a bible study on that when he said:

Phil. 4:8 – Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of a good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

And it does help. Victor Frankel wrote a book, he was a Holocaust survivor, he stayed in one of the death camps longer than I think anybody else there, he wrote a book about it, The Search for Meaning, in which he talked about how he used his mind to control how he reacted. He couldn't control what was being done to him, but he could control his reaction to how it was being done. And indeed, he did survive.

 It's interesting, because in the two years we took care of Michelle's dad, it was a major ordeal, if you haven't done it, you have no idea what kind of ordeal it is, some of you think you do, some of you actually do know, having done so. At the Feast in Bushkill, we spent some time with the Buchholz's who have spent a lifetime taking care of their son who was born 21 years ago, I know it well because he and his wife and Michelle and I were in the same birthing class and our daughter was born about a week before his with the same doctor. And the doctor made a mistake with the forceps and broke his neck and so they had 21 years to take care of their son, very difficult. I saw Carol Wilson this week too, she knows what it's like to go through this kind of trauma. You really don't know what it's like until you've gone through it, but you also learn a lot of lessons that you never would think you would learn until you do. When you think of what Christ went through for us, particularly in Hebrews 5:8, when you think about what Christ had to do and you wonder.

Heb. 5:8 – Though He were a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

He learned through suffering, at the same time Christ speaks of joy. An anomaly for me when I was younger, wondering how can you have joy when He said, My joy I leave with you. In John 15:11 He says:

John 15:11 – "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy might remain in you, that your joy might be full."

When you think of the persecution the apostles went through, how do you see joy in sacrifice, joy in trial? Well you know there is a blessing in the future, you know that God rewards those who do these things, but you learn a lot of things right now and how to deal with life. When you do something like this there are scriptures that come to mind that you don't necessarily think about, things that you want to do, things that need doing to keep your attitude right, to make you really want the kingdom, to be able to heal people, to relieve people's misery. And other scriptures like Philippians 2:3 where it says:

Phil. 2:3 – Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem each other better than themselves. When you take care of others, that's what you're doing, you're helping.

And truly you understand foot washing when you care for someone else, when you care for a paralyzed person who can't wash themselves, can't take care of themselves; it's more than a ritual. We don't really know everything that's gone into someone else's life; we don't know what makes them what they are. With Michelle's father, I learned a great deal. Although we had been married 33-34 years at the time, when we took him in. It was interesting in those 34 years he had never ever told me a war story, I knew he had been in World War II but he had never told me anything about it. But it was interesting because the stroke affected his mind in different ways and the past became very vivid and he began to tell me some of the things that happened to him in World War II, things that seemed incredible. He was never called by God, he is not in the Church, he will be eventually, in the kingdom, I'm sure when God calls him, although he's still alive right now, he doesn't have the capacity right now I imagine, to be called at this time. But so many spiritual things came to mind to me and to Michelle as we took care of him. All these stories he told seemed so incredible that I wondered about the veracity of these stories, were they true? I mean they were incredible and it was interesting because we were trying to get help for him from the Veterans and they said, well go get the people he served with to write letters for him. Well he was 84 years old; it's kind of hard to find anybody to verify the things he did. So we went to the archives to look up the records, to prove the various things he went through. So we proved these things from the memorials. It was a sacrifice to be in the war, to be willing to die, any young man who would enlist has to be willing to face that. Romans 12:1 we're told, because we're in a spiritual war, it's a similar concept, and Paul writes:

Rom. 12:1 – I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Do you really believe the promises enough that God gives, to step out on faith? Is the cause that you are living for, worth dying for? Is it worth being a living sacrifice? Ted Gemon, Michelle's father, had a real sense of duty to his country. He joined at age 17; he didn't have to enlist at that age, with his two older brothers. He joined what would become, to prove out to be the most elite unit of World War II, the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne. It was a great deal he thought, he got an extra $50 a month because he'd be jumping from airplanes and it was hazard pay, besides he wasn't that concerned because all the men joining were saying they would be home by Christmas, the war will be over, we'll be done. He didn't fully know the hazard that he was going to go through, neither did the men with him, I'm sure, he didn't know that the 101st Airborne would be the only division awarded the Distinguished Unit citation as a whole division. The first time in the history of the United States that a division was honored as such. So Ted became a paratrooper, dropped from planes at night, landing who knows where, a hundred pound backpack on, another 75 pounds strapped to your leg with ammunition, the interesting thing with him is that he couldn't swim! Had a hard time imagining joining a paratrooping group and dropping in places where there are lots of lakes and not knowing how to swim, especially with a 150-175 pounds strapped to you.

When I think of my baptism, I didn't really know how heavy a pack I'd be carrying, I didn't know what would be strapped to my leg but I knew that I had to trust and obey. When I signed up, was I scared? No, not really, like young Ted Gemon who had enlisted, hey, it was a great deal – salvation, eternal life, I didn't want to miss any of that! It's a wonderful opportunity, besides I could be a spirit being, it was a good deal, just keep ten simple commandments! You break them, you repent, someone else pays the price and you'll be home by…anyone remember 1975?! But scared? At times of testing I have been scared believe it or not, would God always be there? You know actually, cognitively, yes but how is God going to save me this time? What's going to happen? Would I always recognize what He's doing to me and do my duty no matter what, no matter where I was dropped and I've been dropped in a lot of places, places I never expected at baptism, in over fifty countries where you don't know the language, you don't know the people, you haven't been there before but you have things to do and you do them and you pray and you ask God for help and He helps but you don't know when He's going to do that, and you trust Him. Would you follow orders and trust Him as your Commander?

Ted Gemon's first duty was Normandy; he was part of the Normandy invasion. 101st was to be dropped behind enemy lines, they were basically considered an expendable unit because they were trying to pull the Germans away from the actual land invasions with the ships. As he was flying in the plane and the bombs were being shot up in the air and there was shrapnel all over and the plane he saw next to them got shot out of the air and dropped and his plane had bullet holes riveted through it, a couple guys had been hit in the leg and couldn't jump but they pulled the green light on the plane for the men to jump, they hadn't reached the target yet but the captain was afraid the plane was coming down and so they were going about 50 mph faster than they were supposed to when all the men were jumping out of the plane. As he jumped out, his bag was ripped off his leg, as most of the men were because it was just going too fast and the rope broke. So he started down, as he went down, the gunshot was all around him, he was scared, not because he thought he'd be hit by the gunshot, what really scared him were the tracer bullets, because every 15th round or so from the ground fire was a tracer bullet and the parachutes were made of silk, if a tracer bullet hit your silk, it caught on fire. A couple of his friends were hit with tracers and they dropped like a rock because their parachute caught fire and it scared him. But he managed to land, when he hit he landed in water which I'm sure terrorized him as well, except it was more swamp than anything so it was only a little below his waist. So he began his ascent, trying to get to his group and as he walked in the middle of the night trying to find his locations and bearings to join Company H, which was his company, he heard some noise and he pulled his gun out to shoot, he was going to fire but something in the light made him realize he didn't think it was an enemy, so he yelled out something in English and sure enough, it was another American who didn't use his clicker because he had clicked his little clicker and all the people who have read anything about the war, when they started they gave them these little crickets they called them, that would click and if you were part of the friend, you would click back. There was no click when he clicked so he was going to shoot but he stopped and there was another young boy, 18 like him, scared, too scared to even click his cricket. So together they marched on and finally joined their companies, what was left of them anyway. It was interesting that the first person he almost killed wasn't an enemy at all, but a friend, a fellow American. Sadly the Germans caught on and they could take their rifle bolts and pull it back and forth and make the same sound and a lot of the Allies were killed because they'd click their cricket and thought they had friendly and stood up and got shot.

We can mistake people trying to help us for the enemy as well, it happens in this life. We might not take to someone being your brother's keeper, we get angry at each other at times and we see people as an enemy who aren't our enemy, they're our friends in reality. But there is a real enemy that we face.            II Corinthians 11, if you'd turn there, Verse 13, we read of the enemy around us that does try to deceive us.

II Cor. 11:13-15 – For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.   

Satan knows our crickets; he counterfeits them to harm us. Are we close enough to God to see the truth or will we buy into the deception that this whole world is deceived? Somehow Ted Gemon didn't shoot his comrade, he figured it out and they marched together until they joined his Company H, headed by Lt. Wiersbowski. His Company was ordered to take a section of land that was held down by machine gun fire, had mine fields around it and as they marched to take out this section, a couple of men were blown up and the Lieutenant was shot. So Ted Gemon took his Lieutenant, ran up and grabbed him and put him over his shoulder and drug him back to safety, amidst the fire and managed to sit there and kind of help nurse him back a little bit. Wiersbowski had orders to take that hill because it was crucial, if he didn't take it, it would mean other men would die and so he ordered young Ted Gemon, he said, "Ted, you're lucky, take it out." So Ted Gemon, having already seen a couple men blown up, ran through the mine field and took out the pill box, he survived. Somehow he did it, he was put in for a silver star for saving his Lieutenant, but he didn't do it for the reward, he did it because it was the right thing to do. He was scared but it was his duty and it was the right thing.

I don't know why God protected him, maybe it was chance, maybe not, but his sense of duty was admirable. Do we have the same sense of duty to God in what He asks us to do spiritually? Do we obey Him even when it seems hopeless, when it seems like we don't have to? Does our cause let us cast aside fear and doubt? As it has others. We read Hebrews 11 with all the people we have before us, in Hebrews 12:1, a verse I read quite often because it's helped me through so many things, where he says:

Heb. 12:1 – Seeing we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Sin does beset us; we have to run the race, patiently, sometimes for years. The race is often a lot of little things; it's usually not one big trial, everybody wants to slay Goliath and prove themselves to God but it's not the big things that make us who we are. In my life it's been a series of little things over 58 years, little things that don't mean much, people don't notice, doesn't make any difference whether they do but they add up.

Are you too important to do the little things? Turn again to Romans 12 if you would. Because you have to have a sense of spiritual duty that transcends human ability, that's why we are a living sacrifice, that's why it is our reasonable service as Romans 12:1 says.

Rom. 12:2-3 – Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable will of God. Have you proven that? For I say through the grace given to me, to every many that's among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according as God as dealt to every man the measure of faith.

God deals out faith to each of us as we serve Him, as we obey Him. At baptism we get that seed and we plant it and it grows and through these little things we go through, that seed grows and blossoms and we get a greater measure of faith and greater. What is our measure of faith? Is the cause worth it to you? Again, do you believe the promise enough to step out in faith? All the years I traveled with Mr. Armstrong, I never really knew what I was doing, too many countries, too many protocols, too many rules, too many things. Yet all I would say when he would ask me if everything was set was, Yes sir. Then I'd go pray, because if God didn't want it, it wouldn't happen.

Do you pick yourself up after any trauma or trial you go through and are you ready for the next one? From Normandy, the 101st's next mission was Carentan. In June of 1944, it was interesting because I sat with Michelle's father when he started telling me these stories and we watched Band of Brothers and as he watched it, it was fascinating to me because he narrated it ahead of the narrator and we came to Carentan he said, Oh, that's Purple Heart Lane, next in the film it said, "The soldiers knew this as Purple Heart Lane!" It was interesting because Colonel Cole of San Antonio was leading a group and he saw that the whole unit was running out of ammunition and yet they had to take Carentan because it was a crossroad – if they didn't take the hill and secure it for reinforcements, they would all die and yet, again, running low on ammunition, what was he to do? But it was critical to the invasion, so instead of hunkering down to safety with a few rounds, he gathered 750 men, 750 – it was interesting because he had them fix their bayonets, and they charged the hill, all 750 men, right straight into the stronghold of the enemy, they took the hill. At the end of the charge, only 125 men were left standing. Ted Gemon was one of those.

From the archives I'll read – "The Purple Heart Airborne Museum will be located at the northern side of Carentan in the field where the 101st Airborne Division first Medal of Honor recipient, Lt. Col. Robert Cole led his heroic bayonet charge of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Division."

I asked Ted Gemon why he survived, I expected him to say luck, because that's what most people tend to say. But he said no, training. Training? What training? Your basic training? No, basic training was too quick. His father John Gemon had been in World War I, he saw World War II coming. All through high school in the teen years, his father taught the three boys how to use a bayonet. How trained are we for the challenges ahead? Turn to II Timothy 3. I never taught my son to use a bayonet, my dad never taught me how to use a bayonet  but yet I have been taught, as I've taught my son, because the battle we fight is every bit as bad as the Battle of Carentan. We fight charging, our ammunition is the Word of God and our faith in Him. The old know and the young will find out that they'll be challenges, sometimes extreme challenges, the past will get you through, the history and the experiences that you had will help you.

II Tim. 3:12 – Yes, all that will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived…our generation is probably the worst…but continue you in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. You and I have been taught many things from the only true source, God's Word.

V. 15 – And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

That's why God tells us to train our children diligently, not just train them but diligently train them because there are episodes like this in life that you really need to understand God's word fully. I'm very thankful for the twelve years I had at Imperial because we memorized most of the bible. Having the bible class every day of your life, five days a week and the Sabbath services meant a great deal, you learn a lot and as we know:

V. 16 – All scripture IS given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness. I would also add, in faith, because the examples help us. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Ted Gemon's training saved him at Carentan; our training will allow Christ to save us. Training prepares you for the next challenge and I always pray, God please let this be my test and not my preparation for one because they always get worse, because you're getting sharpened, you're getting razed, you're getting brought up to a bigger challenge and the challenges do get tougher. Ted Gemon's next assignment was Market Gardens. September 1944, the invasion of Holland took place and the Allies were trying to break in. From World War II database, I'll read this:

"The plan called Operation Market-Garden was for the largest airborne drop in military history. Three allied divisions would be involved, the U.S. Army 101st Airborne would drop at Eindhoven and take the canal crossing at Veghel. The canal road was also known as hell's highway. The Airborne Unit had suffered heavily at the Normandy campaign and were reorganizing in their camps in England when the orders came down. They had returned in early August after forty days of fighting. Some 40% of their members would never leave the Normandy coast or Carentan, resting in Allied cemeteries. On September 26, Montgomery ordered the 101st Airborne to break out of Arnhem and rejoin the allied lines to the south. Out of 10,000 men dropped into Arnhem, only 2300 came out. 1400 were dead and over 6,000 were prisoners. It truly was hell's highway."

It was in Market-Gardens that the second Congressional Medal of Honor of the war was given out. It was interesting a young scout named Joe Mann, he was a sharp shooter with his Company and he had been up in the lines trying to clear out the way for men to be able to advance and he'd been hit- hit in both arms and both legs, he really wasn't able to do a whole lot now but the men drug him back to the trench, to the foxholes that they had dug and they were going to take him back to the medics because he needed help, but he said "No, wrap my arms, and wrap my legs, I'll stand watch overnight because tomorrow you are going to have to charge the German enforcements," and he said, "I want you to get some sleep as much as possible." So instead of going back to the medical facility, he stayed up that night. Well as it turned out the next morning, the Germans attacked them, so instead of them charging, the Germans were charging at them and they were throwing grenades in and one of the grenades landed next to Joe Mann. No one else in the hole could get to it and it would have killed them all so Joe Mann said, "I'll take it" and rolled over on the grenade and died. Now you may wonder why I tell you the story of Joe Mann and what it has to do with Ted Gemon. Well the reason I tell it is because Ted Gemon was in the foxhole with Joe Mann, Joe Mann saved his life.

It was an interesting story to have him tell me and you think of John 15:12, what did Christ say?

John 15:12 – "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatsoever I command you."

Christ is our friend; He laid down His life for us, just like Joe Mann laid down his life for my father-in-law. Something you don't see every day. I had heard the story growing up, I'd read about it in books and here 35 years later I find out that my wife's father was in the foxhole. At that point he talked about the next day and he kind of broke down because I thought he was thinking about Joe Mann but he wasn't really because the next day he was made squad leader because the other squad leader had died and so he had his best friend in the hole with him, someone who had gone through basic training and survived Normandy and survived Carentan with him and as he sat there, his buddy couldn't stand not knowing what was going on so he kept sticking his head up out of the foxhole and Ted Gemon said, "No, don't do it, stay down." He said, "I want to see if they're throwing things in." He said, "Don't, if they throw something in the hole, we'll throw it out, don't go up." But he kept popping up anyway. Finally as he jumped up one time to look, Ted Gemon lunged over and grabbed him, as he grabbed him a snipers bullet went through the head of his best friend and he died in his arms. That kind of broke up Ted Gemon, I could tell as he told it to me that he could hardly hold back tears, to have his best friend die in his arms and I understood some of the things about Michelle's father at that point, he was a good man, I could talk to him, but there were times when he was distant and I realized with episodes like that, it plays on you and you can't really understand what someone has gone through and the fact that he suppressed all of those memories and would never talk about them.

Do you ever feel like and ask yourself a question which I think is a question he asked himself at the time his friend died, Why me? Why me? Acts 12, if you'll turn there, because others I'm sure have asked that same question – I have at different times in my life, why me? James the brother of John had been beheaded and I'm sure Peter was wondering.

Acts 12:2-4 – And he…that is, Herod…killed James the brother of John with the sword and because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. These were the Days of Unleavened Bread. When he had apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Passover to bring him forth to the people.

V. 5 – Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains; and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And behold the angel of the Lord came to him and a light shined in the prison and he smote Peter on the side and raised him up and said, "Arise quickly," his chains fell off his hands. And Peter was freed.

And I'm sure Peter thought, why me? Why didn't He do this for James? I'm sure he thought he was going to die. He realized, yes, Christ died, James died, he could die. If you've ever thought, "why me," you're not alone because others have felt the same way.

Good deeds and character often come out in warfare, some are recognized, some are not. Do we allow God's spirit to bring our deeds out in our spiritual warfare? Do we take the hits for other people? Do we make others look good or do our egos get in the way, that we want to look good, do we want position or power? Does pride and vanity get in the way? We all like to look good.

One of my stories that I want to tell Mr. Armstrong when I see him again…Mr. Armstrong always wanted me to be there with him working, I don't know how he ever expected me to get anything done because he always wanted me with him, but I had to learn how to work with him, as anyone does who works in a job and he'd always have me sit in the chair next to him and he'd type and I could sit in that chair and he always wanted me to read what he had written after he was done, and since that was his bad eye, I knew he couldn't see me if I got up and left so when he would type, I would go into my office off to the side and do some work and I would listen because the Smith Corona had that little bell, type type type type ding, you know and I'd count the dings as I was working and then I'd run back and sit in the chair when he got to the bottom of the page and he wouldn't know that I had left and the reason this made me so sad when I came in this time was because a few weeks earlier, actually about  a year earlier, I was reading some of his writing and I was reading it rather slowly because when he typed he only typed with two fingers and he'd missed keys and probably about 40-50% of the keys would be wrong and so when you're reading something that's kind of hieroglyphics, you tend to read slower and one day he asked me why I was reading so slow and I said, "Well Mr. Armstrong, you miss a lot of the keys," and he said, "Let me see that," and he'd grab the paper, he took his magnifying glass and he got really upset with himself and he said, "I am absolutely worthless, I should die, I'm not any good anymore, I can't even type, I can't hit the keys and that's the only thing I'm good for, I should just die." And I realized at that point in time that I couldn't read the way that I had been reading, that I had to make him look better and more efficient and I started memorizing the keys he missed because there would always be one or two keys and if you know the keyboard, you know where it is and the m's were n's and the l's were semi-colons and different things like that, something that you might have trouble reading I began to learn to read, just like a foreign language, he actually thought his typing got better!

Well the reason I was upset when I ran in this time to sit in the red chair and be ready to read it because he was reaching up to pull the paper out and I noticed that he had run out of cartridge in his ribbon on the third line! So there was nothing on the paper and as he pulled it out and hands it to me, he said, "This is some of the best stuff I've ever written!" And I'm beginning to wonder how I'm going to explain this one, because if he couldn't see missed keys, how would he feel if he didn't know there was anything written on the paper? And so as I started reading the first couple of lines slowly and there was a little bit of dirt imprint on the third line so I could read that one and I noticed the heavy bond paper with the light through the window, I could roll it in the light and I could see the imprint of the keys lightly, so I managed to read the whole paper…part way through he said, "You're reading really slow today," and I said, "Yes, I'm having a bad day!" Didn't tell him there wasn't anything there to read, managed to get to the bottom of the paper and it was lunch time, I thought this is great, I'll put a ribbon in, retype it, he'll go to lunch and we had some students coming at lunch because for a couple years we had students go to China for a project and they'd bought him a Cloisonné Vase and wanted to present it to him, so I brought them into his office and they presented the vase to him and he'd talk to him and they told him a little bit about the trip and then he told them…it was lunch time and I thought he was going to go and he said, "No, Aaron, get that sheet I wrote, I want them to hear what you just read!" And he's bragging on this writing and I went and got the sheet, but the problem was, where I sat the students were on this side and he was over here and I had to tilt the paper toward the students to get the light right and they're wondering what's so brilliant about three lines of paper and then I read the three lines and then I kept reading and that really surprised the students, you could see them kind of talking to each other because there was nothing there to be read and they thought the force was with me! And it was a little easier to read because I'd read it before, I knew where he was going and we finished and he went to lunch – I'm going to tell him that story someday because I didn't want to discourage him.

But you have to make others look better, that's our job, to help each other. See Satan takes the strong and makes them weak; God takes the weak and makes them strong. The way to look better is to help people up with you. For Satan it's a matter of if you drag everybody else down, you look taller. Our good deeds have to come; God's spirit working in us has to help us esteem others better than ourselves. Do we ever get tired? Yes. Do you ever want to quit? Of course, its work, it's difficult.

Ted Gemon was exhausted after Normandy and Carentan; you'd think that was enough for one man but his next stop was the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. Yet, from the record, "The seizure of the harbor at Antwerp with the encirclement and destruction of Allied armies required the German Army mechanized forces to use the roadways in order to maintain the speed of the offensive. All seven main roads in the Ardennes Mountains converged on the small town of Bastogne. Control of the crossroads of Bastogne was vital to the Germans to speed up the advance and improve the resupply of the German columns, as the poor weather conditions made cross country travel difficult. The battle lasted from mid-December 1944 to January 1945.  The 501st was the first to fight at Bastogne when one of its battalions ran into the enemy near Neffe, a few kilometers outside of Bastogne. Thus began the heroic defense of Bastogne in which the 501st gave up not one foot of ground, and in which the division, and its comrades in arms, stopped cold everything the Germans could throw at them, it ruined Hitler's offensive time table and eventually won the 101st Airborne the first Presidential Unit Citation ever awarded to a full division.

All seven highways leading to Bastogne were cut by German forces by noon of December 21, and by nightfall the conglomeration of airborne and armored infantry forces were recognized by both sides as being surrounded. The American soldiers were outnumbered and lacking in cold weather gear, lacking in ammunition, lacking in food, lacking in medical supplies, and in leadership (as many officers, including the 101st's commander, Major General Maxwell Taylor, were elsewhere). Due to some of the worst winter weather in years, the surrounded U.S. forces could not be resupplied by air nor was tactical air support available to them.  The most famous quote from the battle came from the 101st's acting commander, Brigadier General McAuliffe. When confronted with a written request from German General Luttwitz for surrender of Bastogne, he simply replied ‘NUTS.' After the battle, the newspaper referred to the division as the ‘battered bastards of Bastogne'."

I asked her dad about Bastogne, he said Bastogne was hell, he said it was cold, it was freezing cold, he said it was scary, he said we were there with our summer uniforms on, we didn't have supplies, we didn't have food, we'd hear planes coming by to drop supplies and they did drop things, most of it went to the enemy. He said he was afraid, not necessarily of the shrapnel from the bullets, but they were shooting the canons into the trees and the trees burst and the trees would fall. Some of his friends were hit with the trees, he was hit in the leg, he got a wound there, in fact he got his Purple Heart because of his injury at Bastogne, he'd been hit several times but during World War II, he didn't go to the hospital and get it reported, he didn't get a Purple Heart, so when he was in the Veterans, they asked him, where were you injured? He said, here and there's a scar there with shrapnel, here is scar here and here. Finally, the only place he got a Purple Heart for was his leg and there's no scar! But it was terribly sad, fear all the time and the freezing temperature, waiting for supplies, he wondered, would they ever come? They'd hear the air support; they felt alone, totally alone. It was here that his unit, for the most part, lost their toes because trench foot set in with the freezing and it was interesting because her dad still had his toes and I wondered. They wanted to amputate them, he told me, when he went into the hospital after Bastogne and he wouldn't let them, he tried to stop them. And I asked him, why didn't you lose your toes? Why did you survive Bastogne? Again, I thought he would say luck. He didn't say luck, he said, "Socks." I said, "Socks?" He said, "Yes, they saved my feet." He had gotten a care package from home right before Bastogne, before they were sent into Market-Gardens, and in that care package from his mom, she'd sent two pair of wool socks. He was the only one in his unit to have wool socks and they saved his feet.

Do you feel alone? Others have. Turn to II Kings 6:8. Other people feel like they're alone too, but God's always there with you. Interesting story…the king of Syria, in II Kings 6:8, he was at war against Israel and Israel had a lot of wars going on around them, the Promised Land that they had to take.

II Kings 6:8-10 – But the King of Syria took counsel with his servant s saying, "In such and such a place shall be my camps." The man of God sent to the king of Israel saying, "Beware that you don't pass through this place for there the Syrians are come down." And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him, and they stayed in there, not once or twice. Every time the Syrians moved, Israel knew where they were going.

V. 11-12 – There the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing and he called his servants and said to them, "Will you not show me which one of you is for the king of Israel?" Who is the traitor in here, whose telling him and you'd probably think that. And one of the servants said, "Not so my lord; but Elisha the prophet that is in Israel tells the king of Israel the words which you speak in your bedchamber!" Well the kings going to take care of this!

V. 13-15 – He said, "Go and spy where he is that I may send and fetch him." And it was told him, "Behold he is in Dothan." Small little village, not hardly a town. Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great host and they came by night and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold the host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, "Alas, my master! How shall we do?"

Now if you're the servant, what are you thinking right now? Hey, every night, every day for the last weeks God's told you where the Syrians are, where the Syrians are, where the Syrians are, why didn't He tell you they were coming here? I mean wouldn't you be thinking that? That's what I'd be thinking, why didn't they tell you so they could save us? We've been saving the King of Israel all this time and he didn't tell us, what are we going to do?

V. 16 – And he answered, "Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." And I'm sure the young man was thinking, Are you kidding, this is Dothan, this is the little village, kind of like Big Sandy was, nobody's here, what do you mean, who's with us?

V. 17 – And Elisha prayed and said, "Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Do we see the chariots around us? Do you close your eyes and picture the heavenly hosts? Ones in this room, ones outside, ones watching, they're there, do we see them? Do we see God's hand helping us with those hosts? It's not the big things, do we know that God will supply our needs? That when we hear the planes coming, that it's God, we'll get the help we need.

Certainly Ted Gemon waited for help and occasionally some supplies did land and they did get some help, minimal but enough, sometimes that's what He gives us, minimal but enough. So how did he survive? He survived because of socks; he'd gotten that care package from home. Sometimes it's another person that gives us comfort, a kind word, a small gift, a pair of socks, to speak of, a small scripture that might carry you through, scriptures like Romans 8:28, that all things work together to the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. We've all thought of that scripture I'm sure a number of times. And every day that I washed and cleaned Michelle's dad and saw his feet and saw his toes, his curled misshaped toes, one of them was black and dark, but he still had his toenails, they were real thick because of the trench foot, hard to cut, hard to take care of, but every time I saw them I remembered Bastogne and the price he paid for our country, for our freedom. Turn to John 20 if you would, because every time I did that I also saw Christ washing the disciple's feet and the price that He paid for you and for me and I thought of doubting Thomas because it's easy for me to see his feet as I was washing him.

John 20:24 – But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came….the first time they saw Him. The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Except I see His hands, the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of those nails and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days, His disciples were within and Thomas was with them. He was here this time. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut and stood in the midst of them and said, "Peace be unto you." Christ just showed up, didn't open the door, didn't come through it, just showed up. Amazing, I'm sure they all stood there in awe again. And Thomas, standing there (because He looks over at Thomas in verse 27).

V. 27 – And He says to him, "Thomas, reach here your finger…I heard you Thomas, I heard what you said…behold My hands, reach hither your hand and thrust it into My side, be not faithless, but believing. I'll give you what you ask for Thomas, believe. And Thomas answered Him and said, "My Lord and My God." He recognized his lack of faith, and we have some of that too.  And Christ made the statement:

V. 29 – "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."

You and I are blessed, we haven't seen Him, with our mind's eye perhaps, but we believed. And seeing is believing, it does remind us, but we should be able to believe without seeing.

If this wasn't enough for the 101st Airborne, they were now ordered into Germany. Ted Gemon's next challenge was not being shot at, not freezing, not starving; it was here that Ted Gemon was on a scouting patrol when his little squad found one of the death camps. He'd seen enough of death but this made had made him sick. They tried to free these people and feed them, but they found that as they fed them they were throwing up, sick and dying, they couldn't eat, it made them sick, they couldn't digest food, they were simply too weak, but they still clung to their liberators, they begged them for help, but there were only a few of them, more troops were coming.

We are spiritual soldiers as well, trying to liberate and help Christ liberate this world, that's what our training is for, for our job in the future. I think of Zechariah 8:23, I'm only going to read the one verse there, you can write it in your notes.

Zech. 8:23 – "Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of all nations, even take hold of the skirt of him that's a Jew, saying, "We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.""

Those people yearn for physical food and for freedom, people will come to you for spiritual food, spiritual freedom. Ted Gemon didn't do any of these things for reward, he didn't do it for the five Bronze Star's he got, the Purple Hearts, the Medal of France, the Medal of Holland, Medal of Austria, number of other medals that he lists when we go through the record, he did it because true heroes do things that are required of them, they don't brag about them, they seldom even talk about them, they're a lot of fakes out there that will tell you things that didn't really happen, embellish them, people that want to make themselves a spiritual hero, you can't do that. Simon Magus wanted that when he said, Give me the power, when he saw the laying on of hands, they got the holy spirit, he wanted that power and he offered money for it. There have always been people like that, who want to be seen, that want to have power, but for self-aggrandizement. It can't be for selfish reasons, Christ didn't teach that. What did He teach? Matthew 6, He shows us how our attitude should be when we do good deeds. When we fight our spiritual battles and our wars:

Matt. 6:1 – "Take heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. When you do your alms, don't sound the trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do, they do it in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have the glory of men. And I say, they have their reward. You want to do your alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing."

V. 17 – "When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that you appear not to fast, but your Father which sees it in secret, when He sees it in secret, He will reward you openly." God knows what you do; He knows where your treasure is.

V. 19 – "Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt, where thieves cannot break in and do not steal. Where your treasure is, there is your heart also." Where your duty lies, where your actions are.

It may seem like Ted Gemon was a giant, indeed he was a hero, from the standpoint of what war hero's they talk about, but he never considered himself a hero, the men who were heroes considered the ones who died, who didn't come back, the true heroes. But like all heroes too, he had some weaknesses, all men have weaknesses. Weaknesses come out in war as well, that's why God tests us, to strengthen those areas. Besides not being able to swim, which I consider a great weakness if you're a paratrooper, Ted Gemon was a sleepwalker! Sleepwalking in a time of war is not a good thing! He told me when he was in Holland, he woke up next to a windmill at 2:00 in the morning, he wasn't with his men and he recognized that he was between the enemy on one side and his friends on the other but he couldn't go back, either way, he'd be shot. So he sat there all night, waiting and waiting until daylight so that he could yell and be seen and join his company.

We can go forward or we can go back and sometimes we have to analyze, because we live in a world of compromise, a world that wants you to see things in different ways and sometimes we feel like we may get shot no matter which way we turn. How many times do our weaknesses and our humanity, making heroes of men instead of Christ, put us in the middle? Because when you make heroes of men, they do make mistakes. You have to know where Christ wants us to be.

It's interesting, because as I told you, we went to the Veterans Administration to try and get help for him, because it was costly and time consuming and difficult, and we went to the Veterans Administration like so many people go in to get a free handout and so you'd get a "Yeah, sure get in line" type of thing. We gave them his numbers and his discharge papers and it was interesting to see the reaction of the Veterans Administration when they pulled up his record. There are so many people out there, like the John Kerry's – remember his election where he had the three purple hearts because he had a blood blister on his foot and I mean anything that bled he got a Purple Heart for! And they weren't so sure that he didn't shoot himself for one of them. So there are a lot of people there trying to get handouts that didn't really do that much. But it was interesting, when they looked and saw what he did, they would go, "Wow!" And they'd take him from the back of the line and bring him up to the front and they'd say, "Wow, he's one of them." There are so few of them, there were not very many of them that returned, only 20% of his group, replacements and the original company made it back. And as we worked with the Veterans, it was interesting, even though they had so much respect for him, there were some things they couldn't do because in trying to get help for him from the stroke, and if you want help from the Veterans you have to prove that the injuries were caused from the war and a stroke fifty years after a war doesn't really, you can't prove the war caused his stroke, which it didn't actually. And they were talking about, because of the shrapnel in the head and various things there that he could, and they said, Well we don't doubt that he was hit in the head and hit there and hit that, but the only Purple Heart was his leg. He said, If it's not written in the book, it didn't happen, now we don't doubt that it happened, but it didn't happen, if it's not in the book – it didn't happen. And there were people there that tried to get things because it wasn't in the book, it didn't happen.

There's a book that we want to be written in as well, turn to Revelation 17, because God has books that He keeps.

Rev. 17:8 – "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the Book of Life, from the foundation of the world. And when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

V. 14 – "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful."

Rev. 20:12 – I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the Book of Life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.

Many names will be written in those books, many people, even at the end of the Millennium will be written in the book, will become spirit beings, but only a few are written in the front of the book, only a few are Christ's elite core, His 101st, His first fruits, His Medal of Honor recipients.

Rev. 20:6 – Blessed is he that has part in the first resurrection…

That's the resurrection you and I face if we repent, if we overcome, if we meet the battles and the challenges. What will be the reaction to us when people see us as spirit beings? I suppose people will light up when they see you and they'll want to ask you questions, how did you survive? It won't be luck, and you can teach them how to get into the Book of Life and they'll want to learn. Some will learn, some will not we know, because we know that there are some who won't be written in the Book, that will choose to fight God. But we have our chance now to overcome, to learn not to learn war. Spiritual warfare, in our mind. We learn a lot through service and sacrifice, through suffering and you can learn it from your suffering and from other's. You have to know, just like Christ, though He were a Son, He learned by the things He suffered. He learned obedience by the things He suffered. We can learn obedience, we can grow. When you fail, it's because you fail, God says He doesn't try us beyond what we are able, so if you fail, you could have been stronger, you could have made it, you didn't have to give up.

Every morning and every night that I had to help my father-in-law with things that were not of his choosing or mine, the tasks were tedious, many were unpleasant, some pay other people to do it, some people refuse to do it. If you take that road you miss out on lessons of life, lessons of foot washing, lessons of Christ's death and His life. I tried to give her father dignity as I took care of him, I'd try to cover some of the messes, because he didn't want to be there, didn't want to do those things, I'd take him on the patio in his wheelchair and let him hold the hose with his arm that did work, to water the plants or to rinse off things as I washed them. Odd jobs – I'd take him to Home Depot, he liked to build things so I'd take him to places and try to give him some comfort…because we're all in the same boat, there but for the grace of God could go anyone of us. Lessons and that you do those things that are unpleasant, that are difficult and some that may even seem impossible, you have to see it as an honor, not a punishment. Christ – it was an honor for Him to die for us, it should be an honor for us to live for Him.

And our spiritual war is not a punishment, but an honor, a little at a time, because you see, each of us has our Normandy's, each of us are dropped places that we don't know where we're going to land, we don't necessarily want to be. We all have our Carentan's where we may charge the enemy without physical bullets; we don't know where or how we're going to go through it. We have our Market-Garden's where others courage and taking a grenade may save us to go on, or stories in the bible may come into play, to give you strength and hope, where your story, my story, may help someone else. We all have our Bastogne's where it seems we're alone with the enemy and the elements and all we have is a pair of socks to save us – our bibles are our pair of socks, our prayers and God's promise to comfort us and we find ourselves finding and trying to liberate others with the truth in a world that's held captive by Satan, where many don't even know they're lost and need to be spoon fed and don't even want it. We have our sleepwalking to windmills, the things that we have to overcome so that we can make it through our war. And maybe no one but God knows the war that you fought, but that's what's important, because He's the only one that counts, He and His Son know. And whether you live or you die, you can win, because He's helping you and we can help each other. Paul writes in Philippians 4:9:

Phil. 4:9 – Those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do and the God of peace shall be with you.

The God of peace, God who doesn't want war and fighting. You see it's more than just not learning war anymore, the physical killing you can stop with force, outside force cannot stop hatred, that's why Christ magnified the law from "don't kill" to "don't hate." In the spiritual plane, the mind and the heart are critical, where we must not learn war anymore is in here and in here (heart and mind). To control anger, to control our tongues, control slander, control thoughts of evil, thoughts of anger. When we are spirit beings you'll have a power that comes with eternal life, you must be in total control of that power because to think it is to do it, when you can travel at the speed of thought.

Do you want to be in God's Book of Life? Then you have to control your mind. It's sad when you see people, and those of you who have been in the Church for a long time and have known, we've gone through lots of trauma, lots of division, people leaving, people leaving for different reasons, people that have lost their chance for salvation and only God knows, but you pray that they never had God's spirit and they will have a Millennium ahead. God is the judge, thankfully. When I see people saying things and doing things and I pray for them because I don't want anyone to lose their salvation, there's a lot of anger out there and you know Satan is going to be cast down to the earth, I think he may have been, because the world is angry and even in the Church there is a lot of anger, it shouldn't be. But we have to control our minds, we want to be in that Book, you do, I do, I want you there, I'm sure you want me there; each of us has to pray and help each other. But there's only one way to be in the book, trust God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and to remember, you can't do it alone – and you're not alone. Trust God, you have to really trust God to be able to be in the Book. It's interesting because Paul gave the key in Philippians 4:13:

Phil. 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

That's the only true Hero that came down and lived a perfect life that you can emulate in every aspect and through Him we are strengthened to go through those battles. In Him alone you and I can, with our mind and with our heart and with our soul, truly come to the point where we can say, we shall not learn war anymore.