Saturday, December 10, 2022

The Divine Wind - a Devotion for 9 December 2022, Anno Domini

  

 

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ESUS answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.  (John 3:5-8)

 

            The Holy Spirit of God is compared to a great wind whose cleansing graces are able to take down emperors and empires, as well as to conquer the hearts of stone that must capitulate at last to its beckonings of love and truth. There is a false concept of that Divine Wind that greatly deceived the Empire of Japan during the Second World War. They labelled that so-called Divine Wind as ‘Kamikazi.’ There were two great typhons that blew up centuries earlier when two great Mongol invasions were launched against Japan in 1274 and 1281 destroying the entire Mongol fleets.  These events convinced the Japanese that their goddess of the sun, Amaterasu Omikami, a Shinto goddess of the sun, had saved Japan. This deep faith in a false god led the Japanese to cherish love of country above everything else including human civilizations whose values differed from their own. This is a sentiment that must be guarded against in all nations since the Sovereignty of God overrules that of any human government.

 

            As the plight of the Japanese naval, air, and ground forces became more and more desperate in the spring of 1945, the Japanese High Command resorted to a new airborne tactic which they named after that perceived divine wind that had saved them from the Mongols those centuries earlier – the Kamikazi pilot program of suicide bombing. The misguided courage of the best and brightest of their young men were called upon to dive their aircraft into enemy ships insuring their own death as well as hundreds aboard allied battle and other surface ships. That misguided conception of a false divinity condemned Japan to utter defeat though the human sacrifice of the kamikaze pilots was glorious in the eyes of the Japanese people.

 

            The Divine Wind of the historic western nations, and many around the globe today, is not one which defends evil empires. It upholds the righteous nation and peoples and cast down the opposing forces of the ancient Foe of the Garden. As the world seems to embrace, more and more, the false gods of the ill-winds of humanism and Marxism, it will face a ruin greater by far than that which resulted in the devastation of Japan in World War Two. It is a maelstrom that draws us ever neared the abyss of the bottomless pit. Worship of the God in Heaven, not the arm of flesh, will restore the greatness and character of any nation and people.

 

            That Divine Wind of God Almighty separates the chaff from the wheat with invisible dispatch. That Wind is propelled by the Word of God to reveal its meaning and beauty in the hearts of those who seek to know truth and righteousness. By calling to our remembrance all things written in Holy Scripture concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, it provides a nourishing sustenance to our souls and an invigorating purpose of our lives. The old chaff of the worldly desires fall away as the chaff of the threshing floor fall away before the ‘winds’ of the Holy Spirit.

 

            Our God is not only older than humanity, His Presence is eternity Past, Present , and Future. He is our Maker and the husband of the Church. “5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.” Isaiah 54:5 Though we may have been a people who have fallen into a promiscuity of love with the things of the world, He will take us up, remove our unbecoming yoke, and lift our heads and hearts to a beautiful new life in forgiveness and redemption. He knows the end from the beginning, and all truth in between. Why do we reject His counsel ofttimes in preference to the false will-o'-the-wispsof the dark swamps of human philosophy and self-will. 

 

That ancient will-o-the-wisps, produced by the phosphorescence caused by gases from decaying plants in the swamps of the world, is formed by the decaying process of dead and dying plants and animals. It is not a true light, but one which leads deeper and deeper into the despair of hopelessness and, finally, claims its follower in death.

 

            Let we, and our nation, be a people who follow the pristine Light of the Holy Spirit as it draws us nearer always to Christ – the Light of the world! He will not require the sacrifice of the believer in a suicidal kamikaze destiny.

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