We all know the facts and/or the legend of “The Siege of the Alamo” in San Antonio, Texas in late February and early March of 1836. A pitifully small number of Texans (or “Texians”) and American volunteers (about 180 men) determined to defend a small mission church called the “Alamo” that they had previously captured from its small Mexican garrison, fortified it, and eventually resisted a vastly superior enemy force—the Mexican Army under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (1794-1876) for “13 days of glory”. The Commander of the Alamo’s defenders, young Lt. Colonel William Travis, age 26, realizing that his situation by early March, 1836 was virtually hopeless, vowed to defend the Alamo to the end. Gathering the remaining defenders on March 5, 1836, Travis, according to the “Legend of the Alamo”, gave a short talk to his ragged and battle-weary men.
According to Mike Cox, writing in TexasEscapes.com, the story of the ‘Siege of the Alamo’ has gone down in history, although what parts are ‘facts’ and what are ‘legend’ may forever remain conjectural. Cox wrote: “(Travis) gathered his fellow defenders that Saturday afternoon and gave them a speech. ‘We must die,’ he began. ‘Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save our lives, but to choose the manner of our death.’ He saw three possibilities: Surrender and summary execution, trying to fight their way out only to be “butchered” by Mexican lancers, or ‘remain in this fort…resist every assault, and sell our lives as dearly as possible.’ Then, with a flourish, Travis drew his sword and slowly marked a line in the dirt.”
This is the point that the legend was born, for Travis was reported by only one possible surviving witness—Louis Rose, a French soldier of fortune who declined to ‘cross the line’ and who escaped through the Mexican lines, (surviving to 1850 and telling this story—although some sources claim that two men declined to “cross the line”) to have declared: “Those prepared to give their lives in freedom’s cause, come over to me!” And all except that one, or possibly two—DID! Obviously each defender knew that it was a death sentence to step across that line, but still they did. These heroic patriots, by their valiant sacrifice on March 6, 1836, bought time that Sam Houston needed to raise his military force, and ultimately the struggle for the independence of The Republic of Texas was won.
We who value freedom should honor the valor of these men who fought and died to bring liberty to The Republic of Texas. They were from all over the U.S. at the time, and a few were from other countries. In their ranks were a few slaves who fought beside their masters and perished with them. A small number of slaves and the wives and children of the Alamo’s defenders survived the battle and were spared by General Santa Anna. The most well known of the Alamo defenders were:
- Lt. Colonel William B. Travis (1809-1836)—Commander of the Army of Texas Independence at the Alamo;
- Colonel Davy Crockett (1786-1836)—Former Congressman from the State of Tennessee;
- Colonel Jim Bowie (ca. 1796-1836)—Large landowner and designer of the famous “Bowie knife”;
- Micajah Autrie (1793-1836)—A veteran of The War of 1812;
- 2nd Lieut. James Bonham (1807-1836)—Leader of a group of Alabama militia.
All Americans should know—but obviously we all don’t know—that the price to maintain our freedom is “eternal vigilance”, and MORE. If history teaches anything, it is that the price of political and religious freedom is often paid with the blood of patriots and Christians (who should be patriots) who have dared to step across their own personal “line”, telling the enemies of freedom and God: THIS FAR AND NO FARTHER! Today we who call ourselves Christians and patriots find ourselves in a quandary not entirely of our own making. If we are real born again Christians who have given our hearts and lives to our LORD and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, our eternal destiny is secure. Still, we who love our country, despite its many imperfections, and who want to preserve, to the best of our abilities, the freedoms passed to us by our forefathers and mothers, find ourselves torn between the heavenly and the profane. How much should we concern ourselves with this world—with this wonderful yet imperfect country that fewer and fewer Americans claim to love—since we are here for such a brief time over the span of eternity?
Should we, as Christians, be so “Heavenly minded” that we are of no earthly good, or should we devote our entire efforts as patriots to the realm of politics and continue the endless struggle to pass some heritage of freedom to our descendants as we await Christ’s return? The Biblical Book of Romans seems to teach that a balance is required. We are instructed to be good citizens and give honor and obedience to those in government who are put in positions of authority over us. (With the disclaimer, of course, as I have previously written in “Romans 13: Are Americans Being Deceived For Lack of Knowledge?”—published on Feb. 3, 2020 by The Times Examiner—that our honor and obedience be given only to the extent that those in authority over us are themselves OBEDIENT to our ultimate governmental authority in the U.S.--- our Federal Constitution).
How can we as Christians, or Christian Patriots, be only “in the world” yet not concern ourselves with the often unspiritual processes of preserving our crumbling civilization against the attacks of the infidel barbarians both within and without our gates (and I’m NOT speaking solely of the Islamic pestilence within our midst). How can we, as Christians and/or patriots, ignore the increasing and freedom degrading encroachments by our Federal government, and particularly by the totally Marxist and America-hating United Nations Organization, against our constitutional liberties? Do we need the wisdom of Solomon to solve our national problems? Probably not (considering how many “wives” and concubines he had, I question his wisdom). What we do need, without any doubt, is a return to the “intestinal fortitude” of earlier times on the part of Christians and patriots of today. As Gen. George Patton might have said: WE NEED GUTS!
It seems to me that recent generations of Americans have been departing from the “basics” of being good citizens and maintaining a humane and safe country. We have let Supreme Court decisions of questionable constitutionality tear apart the fabric of our society with little more than a whimper of protest, while we beg Congress to pass laws to overturn bad decisions by the Supreme Court. We as Christians have remained virtually silent as the Supreme Court, abetted by the American Civil Liberties Union, rips our Christian and patriotic heritage from our government controlled schools, from various governmental bodies, and even from our workplaces. We as Christians have believed the lies of the leftwing ACLU, the scurrilous and anti-Christian/anti-conservative Southern Poverty Law Center, and other enemies of Western Civilization, that the U.S. was not founded originally as a Christian oriented nation, and that our Founders were mostly deists or were not Christians at all. We gullible Christians have believed the LIES that our federal Constitution requires a “separation” of Christianity from our entire governmental and educational structures and, indeed, from virtually all public places. We as Christians have believed the MYTH that our Founders required a “wall of separation” between church and state, when nothing could be further from the truth, for NO such words exist in our Federal Constitution, and have only been “discovered” in past decades to exist therein by certain despicable men in black robes.
Because we as Americans and Christians have passively accepted these lies propagated by the enemies of faith and freedom, we are witnessing the increasingly rapid deterioration of our culture, almost, in the minds of many, beyond the point of redemption. We Christians—you and I—have turned our eyes away—we’ve let fear and apathy and incorrect Biblical preaching control us, and WE allowed this to happen. And please don’t try to deny my accusations—you know they are TRUE! We meet in our churches—we eat in our churches—and we RETREAT from the enemies of God and freedom in our churches. We sit in our pews and pray for our country and its leaders (if we even do that), but many of us refuse to take an active role in our political processes; we’re too timid to work on exposing the lies of the progressive enemies of liberty and our Christian faith (that’s “too worldly”), and we fearfully retreat from the battle to win the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans and Christians, afraid to tell the unsaved about God’s Plan of Salvation (that’s “too personal”), and reluctant to be considered as “fear mongers” or “extremists” or “conspiracy theorists” (that’s “too controversial”) by telling our fellow Americans about the grave threats to our Constitutional liberties that are becoming more serious with each passing year.
Last January, my daughter and I spent the entire weekend at the “RockTheRed.USA’s first upstate S.C. “Tea Party Coalition” convention. Several hundred patriots from all over were in attendance—patriotic white folks and black folks, men, women, teens—all determined to listen to the many speakers and be motivated into concerted action. The speakers and their dedication to our mutual liberties were inspirational, but many of us asked ourselves: “Where are all of the thousands of other upstate S.C. patriots and CHRISTIANS who should have been at the convention?” Apparently many stayed home to attend to more “important” activities, such as watching football games, cleaning their homes, shopping, etc. Learning about how to help other patriots in the preservation of our freedoms was not very important to them, sad to say. Pressley Stutts, Chairman of Rock the Red USA reminded all the attendees that “our mission is to educate, motivate, and activate patriotic Americans across the land who love our country and the principles for which our Forefathers fought and died. We all need to be involved in saving our republic from those who are intent on rewriting our great history, usurping our God-given rights and systematically dismantling our liberty”. Indeed we ALL do need to be involved in this freedom-preserving process, but so few of us really are!
It seems to me that we as a nation of free people are doing what we appear to do best: We are “resting on our laurels” (i.e. sitting on our hands), always believing that we are “invincible”, with vast oceans on both sides and a mighty military force to protect us. But now most of us, awaking from our decades long stupor, realize that vast oceans are no impediment to determined enemies like The Peoples’ Republic of China and The Russian Federation, who have flooded our nation with their spies and our increasingly anti-American colleges and universities with high-paying “students”—i.e. spies in training, and that our southern border with the failed “narco-State” of Mexico is an open invitation to Islamic and Marxist terrorists and to hordes of pan-handling unwanted invaders from all over this planet, vast numbers of BOTH having already infiltrated themselves into all areas of our nation, bringing disease and their demands to be supported by hard-pressed Americans, and that our basically “home grown” communist terrorists—AntiFa and Black Lives Matter—are rampaging almost with impunity throughout this nation, aided and abetted by other so-called Americans who support, and are members of, The Klan of New Bolsheviks (i.e. the Democrat Party).
Hatred of Christianity and Christians, and to a similar extent of Jews and Judaism, is increasing swiftly throughout much of the world, and especially here in the U.S., a nation which once prided itself on its strong support of religious liberty and the freedom to worship as one chose, and do so in peace! As difficult as it is for some religious people to accept, physical persecution of Christians, similar to what the Jews of Europe experienced (and are increasingly experiencing again) for most of the 20th century, is not far in our national future if we continue on our present course as a nation, and particularly if the scurrilous and Marxist-dominated Democrat Party assumes control of our entire federal government in the upcoming national election in November. We see this strident anti-Christianity already making inroads among the American population, increasing exponentially as we admit an ever-growing number of anti-Christian, anti-Jewish followers of the Satanic cult of Islam into our midst, which is the same as voluntarily injecting oneself with cancer cells and then denying that anything “bad” will happen.
I began this article by referring to the “line in the sand” that the desperate yet valiant defenders of The Alamo were asked to step across back in 1836. As difficult as it might be for Americans to accept, we who consider ourselves to be Christians, or at least God-fearing patriots and defenders of our Constitution, have just about arrived at the moment in time when WE are being asked to “cross over our own line” and figuratively, or perhaps soon literally, declare to ourselves, to our friends and family, to our countrymen, that WE will not allow the enemies of God, family, country, and freedom to win this battle we are in with them without one courageous struggle and determined resistance. To paraphrase an old saying, “the enemies of God and country may win out over freedom loving patriots for a time, but they’ll know they’ve been in one humongous struggle”!
Of course, we as Christian Patriots need to do what our Heavenly Father told us to do long ago, in 11 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people (i.e. Christians) who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from THEIR wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive THEIR sin and will heal their land.” Our God is telling His people—Christians—US—to turn from OUR sins (our wicked ways) before He will heal our land. It appears to me that that verse is GOD’S “LINE IN THE SAND” that Christians and Christian Patriots must “step across” before we have any hope of saving our deteriorating freedoms. Christians and those who love liberty have known these words for centuries, but we mostly ignore them until some national calamity threatens. Well, many Americans believe that calamity, mostly of our own making, is just about on us. Will Christians and Christian Patriots have the “guts” to step across God’s “line” in confidence and faith , or will we continue to cower in fear and “pray about it”? Each one of us must make our own choice, so make yours soon!
