A LESSON FROM A LOST CAUSE

Events of the past provide great lessons for those willing to heed them. The following bit of history could be especially beneficial to the Lord's church here in America.  On Sept 19-20, 1863 two titan armies met in deadly combat at Chickamauga, Georgia.  The Confederate troops were  led by Gen. Braxton Bragg; the Union warriors, by Gen. William Rosecrans.  The bloody battle cost the South 18,000 men killed or wounded; the North 16,000. At the end of the second day, the Yanks yielded and hastily withdrew to nearby Chattanooga, TN. Gen. Rosecrans reported, "We have met with a serious disaster...(the) enemy overwhelmed us." (Bruce Catton, Never Call Retreat, 1965, p. 250).

Had the victorious Rebs pursued the routed Federals they almost surely would have driven them out of that theater of the war.  The Southern generals, however, took a different route. "The atmosphere around Bragg's headquarters was murky with fault finding; and the hard things Bragg was saying about his principle lieutenants were matched if not surpassed, by the hard things they
were saying about him" (Ibid. p. 253). Reports had it that there was striving between Gens. Longstreet and Bragg about who would received the public credit for the victory.  In contrast, in the Federal camp, Gen. Grant and the other officers, "simply refused to blame Gen. Rosecrans...they remembered his personal bravery...and the encouragement he had given them"
(Ibid, p. 258).

While the Confederate officers bickered, the opposition regrouped, replenished and resupplied  their ranks and prepared for another battle. The battle of Chattanooga was next fought and the Union troops prevailed.  With their triumph at Missionary Ridge, "the victorious Federal troops capered, and yelled, flourishing captured battle flags, straddling captured cannon, ‘completely and frantically drunk with excitement'" (Ibid, p. 265). "The gate that the Confederacy had opened at Chickamauga had been shut, once and for all..." All the good opportunities were gone forever" (Ibid. p. 261).  You know the rest of the story. The South lost the war.  All that is left are historical markers on silent battle fields; silent witnesses to a lost cause.

Our Christian soldiers swept the field against sin and error from 1900-1960. Rather than celebrate the victory by pressing onward to rout the forces of evil, many of our leaders turned their sights on each other.  Some forty years of internal bickering and fighting have done what armies of aliens could not.  Factions and division have multiplied.  Growth has been stymied,  good works have languished.  Young disciples have been confused and alienated. While our troops spent powder and shot on each other, Satan made significant inroads into our borders. Congregations have been subverted; some schools have been captured. Our arsenal of available resources for battle has been depleted. Significant numbers of our troops have become discouraged and abandoned the field. Paul warned, "if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another" (Gal. 5:15).
                                          
Unless there is a wholesome change of thinking and practice by our preachers, there is a good possibility that our future will be like that of the Confederacy. Splendid old church buildings will be left standing vacant here and there as historical markers, reminding passers by of a Cause, lost because of leaders who fell into bickering with each other and failed to press the battle against he real enemy.  I think it was Santana who said, "He that does not learn the lessons of history is doomed to repeat the mistakes of history."