"Und wenn morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch mein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen."
"And if the world should end tomorrow, I would still plant my sapling apple tree today."
Blessed Dr. Martin Luther
Our oldest boy was about a year old when I came across this quote. I was with a friend from work in a CD store in Mannheim, Germany. He bought me a CD by Reinhard Mey called "Mein Apfelbaeumchen" or "My little apple tree" as a belated gift for the birth of our first child. Mey wrote the song for his daughter - it is actually more about fatherhood than his daughter - and to my joy I found the above quote by our beloved Dr. Luther on the back of the CD cover.
No the quote isn't scripture, but it has become one of my favorite "patristic" quotes in a way - maybe if I was Pr. Weedon, I would call it the "Old Lutheran Quote of the Day." It is truly a sentiment that trusts in God to order and direct all things, even when all appears lost.
We teeter on the edge of once again having a pro-abortion President in office. This brings the threat of more pro-abort justices to the nation's highest court. The nation has expressed its will and it has by some slim margain embraced the culture of death in its most hideous form - the destruction of life in the womb.
Where is hope? Will hearts remain hard and unchangeable?
In Christ we find our hope and our dear Luther gives us these words that could only come from the mouth of one who has the Gospel - plant your apple tree, even though all seems hopeless.
Jon Townsend
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3 comments:
This is more than just a rabidly pro-abortion President. This is a President who is a sock puppet of Islamosacists and the Weather Underground, two groups that have banded together for the express purpose of destroying America.
May we awaken to whatever it is we have done, as individuals and collectively, to deserve what is to come. Because it ain't gonna be pretty.
Where were all the pro-life voters? Maybe they were never born because "pro-life" Christians have been using artificial contraception for going on 80 years and with a vengeance for the past 40 years.
How many pro-life voters would there be by now had "pro-life" Christians not used contraception during the past several decades and reared the children conceived as a result to believe the word of God that children are a blessing and, what follows as night follows day from that Scriptural teaching, that limiting one's family size shows profound lack of faith in the veracity of His word.
Read again Erich's quote from That Hideous Strength:
"Sir," said Merlin, "know well that she has done in Logres [England] a thing of which no less sorrow shall come than came of the stroke that Balinus struck. For, Sir, it was the purpose of God that she and her lord should between them have begotten a child by whom the enemies should have been put out of Logres for a thousand years."
Perhaps it was "the purpose of God" that Christians "should . . . have begotten . . . child[ren] by whom the [the scourge of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, etc.] should have been put out of [the United States]. But, instead, we have proven to be like Jane.
If we want to end abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and a host of other horrors, then instead of spending our time politicking, perhaps we should be spending it conceiving and rearing children in the faith. If we put first things first (i.e., demonstrating our trust in our Lord by obeying Him), then all these things (i.e., ending the culture of death) will be added unto us.
Very good point, Greg, and a very good application of Merlin's comment about Jane. Thanks.
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