Suffering for Victory

Suffering for Victory

By W.H. Wood

Prepared on June 26, 1945 for Edgar Renfroe’s Memorial

“And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me.” Psalm 50:15

The day of trouble comes to every life.  What we do with trouble is a test of character.  The Lord invites every person to bring every burden to him. “Cast thy burdens upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.”  Psalm 55:22.  The Lord said “Call upon me in the day of trouble”; “Pay thy vows unto the Most High.” The Lord invites every soul to call upon Him in the time of trouble.  The Lord is at hand.  He is able to aid every soul.  He is willing to manifest all power needed for the best interest of the life.  The greatest benediction to the soul of man is the presence and power of the Lord God.  He will deliver the soul from trouble or use the burden as a blessing to that soul just as soon as all is cast upon Him. 

The Christian’s duty to his country and his duty to God go hand in hand. The critics of Jesus thought they would trap Him when they put their question to Him (Mark 12:14-17). He let them know immediately that citizenship is related to two worlds; and that the more loyal a man is to God, the better citizen he is.  Christian patriotism has ever led the way to the highest civil hopes of humanity.  Of this, our own country is a shining example.  From the beginning it was founded on the Christian faith, inspired by Christian hope, guided by Christian truth, and nurtured in prayer.  It should be a cause of profound gratitude to God that our lot has been cast in this Godly land.

There are some things we need to remind ourselves in which the hope of America does not lie:

It does not lie in her greatness of the past.  Past greatness does not guarantee future hopes.  America has been called, “The paradise of liberty,” but like Eden, she may become a paradise of fools.  While we look back upon those things that inspire for the present, we must look forward to those things that safeguard the future.  Conceit darkens wisdom. Romans 12:16 

We do well to remember the proverb:  “Pride goeth before destruction, and on haughty spirit before a fall” Proverbs 16:18. God’s warning to Edom applies to nations today: “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou sit thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.” Obadiah 1:3-4  The American eagle today needs to make wise use of its flashing eye and strong pinion.  It needs to hark to the sweep of the mighty winds that lash the wide seas, and rock the deep forest. 

It does not lie in her political leaders.  It may be said of any land:  “Woe unto thee, when thy statesmen are mere politicians.”  Although there is cause for gratitude for patriots who serve state and nation, as there is cause for regret that there are not more of them.  It would be well for praying people to put in their prayers:  “God give us men!  Men whom the lust of office does not kill; men whom the spoils of office cannot buy!”  It is the tall men, Son-crowned, who live above the fog of petty politics who are needed for troubled times, such as we face today.  The liberties purchased by our forefathers and of our sons of today are threatened by political blunders, timeservers and seekers of selfish advantage.  If America’s hope be hid, it is hid to them to whom Christian patriotism is a relic of past ages and to whom the stars and stripes have lost their significance. 

It does not lie in her wealth and culture.  We may witness Egypt; look at Babylon and Greece and Rome. Witness faded glories of the past.  History tells a tragic story of nations once wealthy sunken into decay, and their greatness only a memory.  America’s wealth is not in material things: her banks and skyscrapers, and real estate, and commerce, and oil and cattle.  Material wealth is easily swept away.  Her imperishable wealth is in her glorious traditions and incomparable history; in her Bunker Hills and Gettysburgs, and Santiagoes in her Christian ideals, and Godly institutions.  It is in her freedom of conscience and her untrammeled liberty and her untarnished name, and her unsullied patriotism, and her youth of today.  By these things nations live, without them they perish.  Though great be her material wealth, revolution could swiftly sweep it away.  Though great be her culture, if she be without God, like the culture of pagan nations of the past, with their advancement in mathematics, in astronomy, in chemistry, and engineering which the excavator’s spade is revealing. She would have to lie down in the graveyard of perished nations and pass on to the future a history that ended in folly, and a name that would be only a disappointing memory.  Only as the spiritual transcends the material do nations build permanently.  The structure is no more secure than its foundation, and progress goes no further than the vision that leads.

Where is America’s hope?  What are the elements of her enduring strength?  America’s hope is not behind her, but before her.  But that hope depends upon what stars she shall follow. 

           

The hope of America lies in her moral purity.  That the spine of society has a serious case of curvature is not easily denied.  When will we find a cure?  That is to ask:  When will the evil effects of a world at war wear off?  When will modernism cease denying inspiration of the Bible?  When will “worldly wise men” quit discrediting the glorious gospel of the blessed God, substituting “philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world” Colossians 2:8?  When will young women cease trying to outdo the standards of the half world?  When will commercialized vice cease to be popular, and immorality to be a fine art?  America has been victimized by a false teaching that morality is merely a matter of standards; that what was immoral a generation ago may be moral now; that what is below the standard today may top the standard tomorrow; that vice in one age is virtue in another; that there is no everlasting seal of virtue that may not be tampered with by opinion.  My friends, you may heat your oven with snowballs as soon as you will purify society with that sort of false philosophy.  Today, there is a belittling of Christ’s standards as unworthy of virile men, and strong nations; but rather do as you live, and live as you please.  It has produced a false philosophy namely in business - let it be understood it is the other fellow’s fault if he is not able to take care of himself; and in war, if other people have what you want and you are able to over power them, go and take it, and the result of the world is chaos.  There is but one rule of peace and prosperity, whether it be for individuals or nations and Christ laid down that rule:  “Whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Matthew 7:12

           

The hope of American lies in her sane political operations.  Political sanity calls for American idealism with its free school, separation of Church and state, adjusted differences between capital and labor: every man’s home is his castle and every man his own priest before God – face to call upon Him and to worship as conscience alone dictates.  Will America sail straight ahead, guided by the chart and compass of her liberty guaranteeing constitution; or will she be lured upon the rocks of political tyranny by siren voices of timeservers and exploiters? That communism and its sister breed of total utilitarianism that have made Europe a vast boiling cauldron are making their bid for America.  All sane people are aware and the activity of their agents and the yielding to their seductiveness of the part of some, no informed person will deny.  But our confidence in our nation is, that they will not succeed.  It was George Washington who said:  “Let only Americans be on guard.”  It was good policy in war; it is good policy in peace.  Let only true Americans guard the camps of our freedom.  Let freedom that set the stars of glory in our flag keep them there. 

           

The hope of America is in her religious integrity.  Darwinism has produced for us evolution’s cave man.  Nazism has produced the super-bigot who holds himself to be in possession of the only philosophy by which a race can grow great and perpetrate itself in greatness.  Marxism has produced the human beast that goes forth to wreck Christian civilization and bring back the dark ages to the world.  Formalism has produced religious anemia.  Modernism has robbed religion of the supernatural, set up rationalism in the place of inspiration, and has taken from God the glory and has given it to man.  For the living God, there has been set up the Gods of Gold, graft, pleasure and lust.  People become like the gods they worship; and to worship these cold, dead gods is to become cold and dead.  Religious integrity calls for the arousing of America from her religious indifference.  The churches are not being opposed in America; they are being ignored.  Worldliness saps the strength of spiritual Christianity from within and indifference ignores it from without.

My friends, shall our nation that was rocked in the cradle of prayer, and nurtured in the truth be among them?  God forbid!  I trust that this memorial service shall call us back to the altars of our fathers; back to their Christian faith that laid deep and strong the nation’s foundations and to their courage that defended it.  There to light anew those holy fires of allegiance to Jesus Christ, the only Lord and Savior, and devotion to human freedom till from the least even until the greatest of earth shall know the Lord as a personal Savior. 

As you can imagine, I was extremely curious about Edgar Renfroe.  After searching most of the day, I discovered his full name was Robert Edgar Renfroe.  He was from Rankin County, Mississippi.  

Update:

Robert Edgar Renfroe enlisted on October 27, 1942 at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. He was single and without dependents.  Private First Class Renfroe was a part of the 27th Infantry Battalion, 9th Armored Division.  He died on May 21, 1945 and is buried at Lorraine American Cemetery in St. Avold, France.  PFC Renfroe was awarded the Purple Heart.  So far, that is all the information I have about him.  A beautiful picture of his grave and other Americans buried at Lorraine American Cemetery are at the following link: 

 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=56659948