America, The Little Lifesaving Station,

Allegorical Tale and sermon

 

 

Once there sat a small life saving station by the sea shore of a small fishing village. The rough currents and the rocks that surrounded the opening of the port damaged or wrecked numerous ships just off the coast. The stranded and scared travelers would jump into the cold dark water and swim for their lives as their damaged ships slowly sunk beneath the raging waters of the unforgiving sea. After numerous lives that were lost to the sea, one of the villagers decided to build a lifesaving station on the coast of this small fishing village.

 

As years passed, the little lifesaving station expertly performed the job it was destined to do. Every time a ship wrecked on sea, someone from the life saving station would quickly board the lifesaving boat and row out to the rescue. Over the years, many lives were saved because of this one lone station and the valuable services they supplied. Soon, the grateful decided to show how much they appreciated the efforts of those that manned the lifesaving station.

 

Many recovered victims of the sea returned with needed material and rebuilt the little rugged station into an amazing structure. To make the station easier for the ships to see as the ships came closer to the coast, they constructed a humongous lighthouse to cast light out into the dark of the night. They raised funds to buy many better life saving boats and built showers outside the buildings for those that were dirty from their dip in the sea. They could shower and clean up before they came in brand new building. Lastly they decorated the new building with better decorations. Lastly, the call went out for more volunteers to man the life saving station and many came and gave their time.

 

Because the small village started to grow, more ships continued to venture to the shore of the small fishing village. Bigger ships came to trade and sell their goods. Because of the increased traffic in the port, more ships become damaged by the waves and rocks. Soon, the people of the fishing village decided to build more lifesaving stations to rescue the stranded travelers became lost at sea. Quickly, the coast became littered with small lifesaving stations. To pass the time when no ships wrecked, the stations started competing against each other. To see which one of the lifesaving stations were the best, they held rowing and swimming competitions when the sea was calm and still. They held membership drives to see which lifesaving station could get the most volunteers. Soon, a lot of activities developed around the life saving station.

 

In time, the now large fishing community raised enough money to remove some of the hazards in the harbor. Because of this much need work the number of ship wrecks decreased greatly. As expected, because of the lack of ship wrecks, most of the lifesaving stations decided to become beachfront social clubs. With a safe port and plenty of places to party, the community continued to grow, the people soon forgot about life saving and instead turned to parting all night. Eventually, they stopped turning on the light at the lighthouse because the harbor was not deemed unsafe. Four years later, they closed the last life saving station and forgot about rescuing the lost from the sea.

 

Unsuspectingly, a large storm came to the coast in the middle of the busy shipping season. The storm last for four long days and a great number of ships became damaged upon the remaining rocks in the harbor. However, many lives were unnecessarily lost to sea. Thinking the many lifesaving stations were still manned, they jumped into the cold unforgiving water trying to escape their impending fate. These poor valuable lives were unfortunately lost. They were lost not because all of the lifesaving stations were closed or even because they jumped into the turbulent sea. These precious lives were lost because those that had volunteered to be life savers decided to spend their time partying instead.

Today, the storm from the wrath of God is daily being revealed from heaven against our nation and world. The godlessness and wickedness of evil untruthful people have taken control of our societies as we try to imitate their displays of greed and self righteousness. However, God will hold each of us accountable for our unrighteous actions since we proclaim our national relationship to Him. The creation of the Global Economic Catastrophe can be blamed only on our willingness to chase after the forbidden things of this world, like greed, corruption, and money. Because of these unwise and unrighteous actions of this God believing country, God’s eternal power is being clearly displayed. Having been taught over the centuries from the multitudes of church buildings in our nation, we understood what is expected from our nation by the mistakes that were made by ancient and immortal Israel. Therefore, the people of America are without excuse.

Although we knew God, our national actions have neither glorified him as God nor acknowledged God as our divine creator. With our unrighteous lips, we offer thanks to him, but our actions are ineffective. Our foolish capitalistic hearts are darkened with greed, lust, deceit and other sins. Although America claims to be a wise and powerful nation, our elected leaders have been foolish and filled with pride. Although America professes our belief and love for God, our religious and spiritual leaders exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of a dead man on a piece of worthless paper. Therefore, God is daily pronouncing his judgment on our nation.

Therefore, there stands a great need for our nation to repent because the kingdom of God is at hand. Because of these and other unrighteous actions, God has given our nation over in the sinful desires of our hearts. This is why some of our leaders quickly turn to and commit sins and actions of greed. We have been fooled into exchanging the truth of God for a lie of Lucifer. We have been talked into worshiping celebrities, politicians, athletes, others and an image of a lady rather than the Creator of all of us. Because of this, God removed the protective hedge from around our nation, and our nation became overran by shameful lusts. It is now common and a right for our women to exchange the natural relationship for which they were created for unnatural ones. Likewise, many men yearn for the unnatural relationship with another man. Because the protective hand of God has been removed from around our nation, our children are inflamed with lust to commit the indecent acts and perversion of the unrighteous and lost people they are reared with.

Furthermore, since we decided that it was a waste of valuable time to acknowledge God by training our children up in the way they should go, God gave them over to a depraved mind. Because we refused to teach our children right from wrong by doing what ought not to be done, they have become wicked, evil, greedy and deprave. A large portion of our children are full of envy, strife, deceit and malice. They murder, gossip, slander and will let you know that they hate God and their parents. However, they are not to blame because they were raised by insolent, arrogant and boastful parents that invented many so called fun ways of doing evil. They were raised by parents that disobey their parents. The only examples our children had to learn from were from a senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless generation. Although we know God's righteous decree to be our brother’s keepers, America is a nation that decided to take advantage or capitalize off his fellowman. America has grown to be a nation that in spite of understanding the wages of sin is death, continues to do these very things, approve of those who practice them, and teach others in the world to commit the same sins.

 

For clarification, the statement or the use of the vernacular America is meant to refer to not only our country. The word, America, is no longer confined to the name of a country; it is an ideology or movement. To Americanize has become a common catch phrase used for years to mean to improve or change something. Since we lead the globe into this Global Economic Catastrophe, I wonder what the catch phrase means now?

Nevertheless, God is going to judge our nation more harshly than other nation because we used his name as a catch phrase for years. We wrapped God up in our religion and Americanized the meaning of being a child of God. We sold the world a false doctrine based in greed, lies and deceit. Moreover, it was all a message approved by the American people. As flawed human, we willingly allowed our government to Americanize the world. The men and women of God of this country can rightfully expect to be judged for the unrighteous actions of the government, because according to the Bible, the people will be held accountable for the action of the government by God.

 

Yes, America is on the physical and spiritual brink of collapse; however hope is alive and well. The reasons for the downfall of the economic situation in America stems heavily from the injustices done in throughout our brief history. Now the questions that remains to be answered; the questions that we need to ask are: what is our lifesaving station, America, doing? Are we doing our job as one of God’s life savers or are you just having a party instead? Will we, the people, encourage our leaders lead this nation down the path of righteousness and justice that America was founded upon? Do we do this by shouting the evident proclamations of racism, division and hatred or do we come across our dividing lines to work to better the visual and spiritual perception of our nation?

 

It was my constant prayer and continual belief that change, progress, and prosperity will return to our nation. Nevertheless, it will not come by simply changing the way America is viewed from the inside out. The needed change is a change in the way America is seen from the outside world in. This is something that the citizen of America must first put into effect. We must be willing to take control of our future and the destiny of our nation. We must come to understand that we are all in this sinking boat together. We must come together to lift America up so those that are lost in a sea of this crisis can see the light. We must again make those words ring true that calls out across the sea calling all to come to our shores. They say,

‘Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.’

—Emma Lazarus, 1883

 

(I can not take credit for this illustration. I heard the story told by my father, the late Rev. Roosevelt Leon Walker, Jr.)