Isaiah 63:7 speaks of recounting...
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Isaiah 63:7 speaks of recounting the gracious deeds of the Lord. Never is the need for that more important than during hard times.
Senator John McCain tells of Christmas Eve, 1971, when he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. In previous years, there had been Christmas services for the prisoners, but they had been mere stage shows, orchestrated by the Vietnamese for propaganda purposes. But for Christmas in 1971, the prisoners had finally received permission to hold their own services. McCain had been designated chaplain by the senior P.O.W. officer.
The officer had requested a Bible from their captors, but when one was given, the guards allowed McCain to keep it only a few minutes to copy some verses, and then took it away. Using the few verses he'd copied, McCain led the service. From memory, the prisoners sang some carols. As they sang, some of the men began to cry, but not from sadness. McCain writes: "Suddenly we were 2,000 years and a half a world away in a village called Bethlehem. And neither war, nor torture, nor imprisonment, nor the centuries themselves had dimmed the hope born on that silent night so long before."
Recounting the gracious deed of the Lord in sending Jesus helped the men in those horrible conditions to be "joyful and triumphant."
Senator John McCain tells of Christmas Eve, 1971, when he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. In previous years, there had been Christmas services for the prisoners, but they had been mere stage shows, orchestrated by the Vietnamese for propaganda purposes. But for Christmas in 1971, the prisoners had finally received permission to hold their own services. McCain had been designated chaplain by the senior P.O.W. officer.
The officer had requested a Bible from their captors, but when one was given, the guards allowed McCain to keep it only a few minutes to copy some verses, and then took it away. Using the few verses he'd copied, McCain led the service. From memory, the prisoners sang some carols. As they sang, some of the men began to cry, but not from sadness. McCain writes: "Suddenly we were 2,000 years and a half a world away in a village called Bethlehem. And neither war, nor torture, nor imprisonment, nor the centuries themselves had dimmed the hope born on that silent night so long before."
Recounting the gracious deed of the Lord in sending Jesus helped the men in those horrible conditions to be "joyful and triumphant."
