Whatever Happened to Old Fashioned Courage?

“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”  Deuteronomy 31:6

Moses was 120 years old and was very near the end of his life.  His journey through life was quite an extraordinary trip.  Brought up in Pharaoh’s palace, Moses had the finer things of life, the luxuries, education, gourmet food, and riches untold that most folks only dream about.  But all of those material blessings did not make him the man he came to be.  He ended up on the back side of the desert and met Jehovah God who presented Himself to Moses in a burning bush.  Moses was appointed by God to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt where they had been enslaved for 400 years (Exodus 3).  Generations were born and died during that time.  Thousands of God’s chosen people never new freedom.  We know the story of how God sent plagues upon the Egyptians until the final plague, that of the death of the firstborn children of the Egyptian people slain by the death angel, which motivated Pharaoh to finally let God’s people go only to pursue them and be destroyed by the Red Sea crashing back upon them (Exodus 5-14).

It took a lot of courage for Moses to do what he did.  When he knew his life was nearly over, he appointed his faithful servant Joshua to take the reins and complete the journey into the promised land.  Joshua, too, was a very courageous man who took on a difficult assignment, but, with God’s help, he and Israel were successful in claiming the land of Canaan for their own.  Both of these men faced obstacles of which the majority of people in the world have never experienced.  Of course there have been other courageous men and women who have fought against the odds yet became successful in their endeavors.  Abraham Lincoln boldly stood for freedom for all those who were slaves during that era.  John Kennedy stood against America’s enemy during the Cuban missile crisis.  I can remember that one.  It was a frightening and unsure time.  Martin Luther King fought for civil rights for African Americans, but lost his life in the process.  Ronald Reagan stood up to the communists, and the Berlin wall came down, freeing thousands of people who had been under the thumbs of tyrants.  What about those brave men and women who were aboard the plane on 9/11 who determined that they were not going to go down without a fight.  After stating, “Let’s roll”, they prevented the hijackers from crashing the plane into the White House, but they all lost their lives.  They were all heroes.

Where are the courageous men and women today?  Everyone is so fearful of offending someone, afraid of being called “racist’, thereby allowing the “woke” people to intimidate them into surrendering to lies and half-truths.  There are some who are not afraid to tell it like it is, to stand for truth and real justice, and not allow a small minority of people who control a majority of the government, universities, and corporations to bully and threaten those who do not go along with their ungodly policies.  I was thinking about when Jesus overturned the tables of the men who were selling sacrificial animals at the temple.  He drove them out with whips.  He was righteously indignant for making His Father’s house a “house of merchandise” (Matthew 21:12-13).  It is not recorded that Jesus actually hurt anyone, but He got His message across in no uncertain terms.  It has been speculated that these moneychangers were lying to the folks who had come to the temple to bring their sacrifices in order to convince the worshippers that their offerings were inferior, but they could buy better animals to sacrifice.  Of course, the moneychangers were price gouging in order to make more money.  Jesus had two reasons to be justifiably angry at them.

So what happens in the short term?  Will enough regular folks get fed up with the woke crowd and fight back mostly by disregarding the threats and intimidating words the “wokers” use to create fake crisis and other things in an attempt to keep society in a state of anxiety and disruption?  My solution is to stick with what God tells us in His word.  Believers know that even more distressing times are coming, but those who depend on the Lord will have the power to resist the onslaught of evil that has already begun.  God will give us the courage to stand for Him and keep the faith.  As Moses told Joshua and the people of Israel, God will be with us and not fail or forsake us.  He is our only hope in a world gone mad.