LESSONS FROM HAITI - Part Four

Christians will never lose their heavenly identity and certificates

One of the sad consequences of Haiti earthquake is the ‘loss of identity.’
"We've lost our identity. I don't exist," cried Antoine Rene, a 35-year-old accountant, whose entire life and official documents were lost in his ruined home and who was leading his wife away to seek shelter with relatives.

Certificates, Diplomas, all kinds of identity cards, papers and documents lie buried by debris and rubbles, or burnt by fires.

A man can lose his identity in this world and become an unknown, unidentifiable person.

It happened during the slavery period. Men and women suddenly got uprooted by slave raiders and got planted where they became mere properties. They were given new names by their masters. They had to forget their previous languages, customs, cultures, rank, titles, and styles of life and learnt alien ones.

Natural disasters – storm, earthquake, flood etc. – do result in loss of identity. A somebody can suddenly become a nobody.

But, thank God, it is not so in heaven. The names of those who have genuinely accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior by faith are written in God’s family register, the Book of Life.

This Book of Life is safe in the Father’s holy shelf. Natural disaster cannot touch it and our God-given Certificate of Second Birth, Certificates of Approval, and Certificates of Good Works.

In fact, in heaven, there is no fear of not being recognized. Every heavenly being already knows us – who we are, what we are doing for the Father on earth and what relationship we have with the Father.

If all we work hard in this world to get is the worldly certificates, credentials and testimonials, then we must be prepared for eternal loss.

Worldly riches are undependable
1Timothy 6:17
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy

The widespread devastation and extensive damage caused by 2010 Haiti earthquake bears out the uncertainty, undependability and insecurity of worldly riches - as buildings and materials worth inestimable amount of dollars got destroyed in seconds.

All hospitals in the capital suffered demolition.

Air, sea, and land transport facilities; communication systems; Presidential Palace were severely damaged.

Buildings of the finance ministry, the ministry of education, the ministry of public works, the ministry of communication and culture, the Palace of Justice, the Superior Normal School, the National School of Administration, the Institut Aimé Césaire, the National Assembly, control tower at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport and the Port-au-Prince seaport were demolished.

Valuable artworks were destroyed as museums and art galleries were extensively damaged.

The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) at Christopher Hotel and offices of the World Bank were destroyed.

The building housing the offices of Citibank and Hôtel Montana in Port-au-Prince, collapsed. The manufacturing facilities of clothing industry, which accounts for two-thirds of Haiti's exports, suffered structural damage.

Most of Port-au-Prince's municipal government buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the City Hall

Only God can tell exactly the huge amount of cash, bonds and precious metals that are now buried in the rubbles of houses, offices and financial institutions.

What is going to happen to the owners of those things in which they have put their confidence, now?

That is why the Word of the Creator of the universe warns us against putting our confidence in uncertain riches.

Nothing is more uncertain than the wealth of this world. Many have had much of it one day and been stripped of all the next. For riches are not for ever Proverbs 27:24; For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven. Proverbs 23:5.

The Bible warns, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal Mat. 6:19.

It is in heaven that our treasures and wealth are guaranteed eternal safety.

We lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven as we serve God wholeheartedly with our time, money, materials and energies.

LESSONS FROM HAITI - Part Three

No man is an Island

‘No man is an island entire of itself; ever man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main’ John Donne.

“This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share,” President Obama said, speaking in the White House diplomatic reception room concerning the Haiti earthquake.

A time of crisis and natural disaster like the Haiti earthquake makes the world wake up with a start to the realization that no nation is an island entire of itself… that we all belong to one another.

It is pleasing to see the nations of the world rushing down to Haiti to help the people, brushing aside political differences, forgetting pet ‘isms,’ and becoming blind to racial dissimilarity.

As soon as the world heard about the catastrophe, many countries responded to the appeals for help, launched fund-raising efforts, and sent search and rescue teams – without waiting to debate in the lawmakers palaces and in the newspapers how much their help would cost and if they stood to gain anything from the their actions.

The neighboring Dominican Republic immediately sent thirty-nine trucks carrying canned food, ten mobile kitchens and one hundred and ten cooks capable of producing 100,000 meals per day. It also sent eight mobile medical units along with 36 doctors including orthopaedic specialists, traumatologists, anaesthetists, and surgeons. Towns in the eastern Dominican Republic began to prepare for tens of thousands of refugees. The hospitals in Dominican Republic were made available for Haiti refugee in need of medical help, and the airport opened to receive aid that would be distributed to Haiti.

Help came from Iceland within twenty-four hours of the earthquake. From the Middle East, the government of Qatar sent C-17, a strategic transport aircraft, loaded with 50 tonnes of urgent relief materials. With these reliefs materials came twenty-six members from the Qatari armed forces, the internal security force (Lekhwiya), police force and the Hamad Medical Corporation, to set up a field hospital and provide assistance in Port-au-Prince and other affected areas in Haiti.

A rescue team was sent by the Israel Defense Forces' Home Front Command. They established a field hospital which included specialized facilities to treat children, the elderly, and women in labor near the United Nations building in Port-au-Prince.

Canada brought in light engineering equipment, drills, the jaws of life, anything that could be carried portably.

Colombia rescue workers arrived just in time to pull a child from the rubble. The Chileans sent doctors. Sri Lanka sent security. The French assembled a clinic where parents had dug for a trapped child unsuccessfully for days. Canada brought in the big guns -- a Navy ship and Army helicopter with engineers and supplies.

The United States flew in C130s with supplies that would assist the Canadians in making Jacmel's airport the center of the rescue efforts to southern provinces not touched by the aid sent to Port-au-Prince. The supercarrier USS Carl Vinson arrived at maximum possible speed on 15 January with 600,000 emergency food rations, 100,000 ten-litre water containers, and an enhanced wing of 19 helicopters; 130,000 litres of drinking water were transferred to shore on the first day.

The helicopter carrier USS Bataan sailed with three large dock landing ships and two survey/salvage vessels, to create a "sea base" for the rescue effort. They were joined by the French Navy vessel Francis Garnier on 16 January, the same day the hospital ship USNS Comfort and guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill left for Haiti. Another large French vessel was later ordered to Haiti, the amphibious transport dock Siroco.

British search and rescue teams arrived in Léogane, the town at the epicentre of the quake, on 17 January.

UN forces patrolled the streets of Port-au-Prince. The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters was activated, allowing satellite imagery of affected regions to be shared with rescue and aid organisations. Members of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook spread messages and pleas to send help.
Seeing people from different countries working together – and not bombing one another – as a team, makes one feel happy. A U.S. mobile air traffic control tower was moved to Haiti by a Russian transport plane. Cuban doctors worked side by side with doctors from ‘anti-Castro’ countries.

God makes all this possible because He is a good God. The devil, on the contrary, is a bad devil. If he had his way, the Haitians would rot under some rubbles or die of lack of medical treatment or of starvation.

If countries with different political doctrines and other one hundred and one differences could work together to help one of them in need, in a world suffering from the devil’s evil system, one can only imagine what the world will be like when the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, takes over the direct leadership of the world, as King of kings, after the battle of Armageddon.

After the battle of Armageddon in which the Lord will prove His victorious omnipotence to the anti-Christ and his soldiers, the King of kings will begin to reign in the Holy City of heavenly Jerusalem – for one thousand years (Revelation 16: 12-16; Revelation 19:19-20; Isaiah 60:10-17; Isaiah 62:3).
His ministers and governors and kings, who will be ruling with Him, are those who have followed Him faithfully on earth, doing His will, suffering for His name’s sake (2Tim. 2:12; Rev. 20:6).

Christ’s kingdom will be characterized by unprecedented peace and righteousness. People of all nations of the world will become as one. War and natural disasters will become a thing of the past. The original curse will be removed and there will be prosperity like the world as never seen (Isaiah 32:1; Isaiah 9:7; Psalm 72:1,2; Zech.9:10-12; Micah 4:2,3).

Even the animal creations will share in the peace and joy of Christ’s kingdom. They will lose their ferociousness and the fiercest of them will become as tame and gentle as lamb. (Isaiah 62:25; Rom 8:19-22; Isaiah 35:1-2).

LESSONS FROM HAITI - Part Two

Nothing can separate God’s people from Their God

Rom. 8:35, 39

35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

39. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the middle of the chaos and horror of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, songs of praises began to rise up to God. The devil had expected curses and blasphemies to be rising steadily up to the throne of God.

People sang hymns and songs of praises as they gathered outside tents and on lawn chairs, in the middle of empty streets, in the midst of the dead and heart-breaking damages. One phrase in Creole could be heard repeatedly both inside and outside the hospital walls: “Beni Swa Leternel. Blessed be the Lord.”

If the devil had thought this catastrophe would drive God’s people away in droves from their Lord, he had another think coming.

One of the beautiful lessons taught by the Haiti earthquake is that nothing, however bad, will be able to separate the heart of God’s genuine people from their loving Lord.

This is a fact that has been giving the devil a migraine since sin allowed him to break through into this world and usurp the control of it.

He had assumed, when he caused the first man to fall, that all people of the world would reject their Creator and follow him in his rebellion against the Most High.

If every human being would reject God and follow him – the devil – he would have his sweet revenge. Then he could deride God as a loser and bungler worthy of nothing but contempt.

But if only one human being – just only one human being – refused to be separated from God, the Evil One would not achieve his aim.

He almost achieved his objective during the time of Noah.

Genesis 6

5. And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

You see, the Evil One managed to get most of the people of the pre-flood period to follow him.

Most. But not all.

There was this problem again! Most people of the world were following him, but not all!

There was the righteous Noah who would not follow him. You can imagine how bad the Bad One must have felt to be thwarted when the achievement of his life-long aim was within sight.

It had always being like this for Satan. He had always failed to get that one last man who would have made him shout in glee:

“Do you see that God? All your men are now mine. Everyone of the dust creatures you value is now mine. Admit it, God, you are a loser! Hand it over to me, Creator of man, I am the winner of this ageless war!”

But he would never be able to rightly say this while that last man is still out of kingdom. Until every man of the world is bowing to him, saying, “You are the one we recognize as our Lord,” the devil will continue to a failure.

But to the devil’s disappointment, at every age, an Abel, an Enoch, a Noah, a Job, an Abraham, a Peter, a Paul, a Girolamo Savonarola, a Martin Luther… always emerged just when he began to think, “This time, at last, victory is certain. I have almost got all these dust creatures into my kingdom.”

Only people who do not really love God allow themselves to be pulled out of the Way to heaven by hardship, disaster, problems and danger. Those who really love the Lord cleaves to Him in spite of every evil thing the devil throws at them (Acts 11:23).

Friend, whatever the case may be, don’t allow yourself to be separated from Jesus, your loving Friend. Don’t give up following the Lord. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t quit serving the Lord. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. Heb 13:5;Mat. 28:20; Isaiah 41:10.

Please, click here to read my book, Don’t Be Discouraged OR visit http://www.ucevam.com/dbd.html

Raphael Oye Taiwo

www.ucevam.com