Larry Lilly Live
Add text
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Berean Baptist Church of Terre Haute
  • Journal December 2019
  • Journal November 2019
  • Journal October 2019
  • Journal September 2019
  • Journal August 2019
  • Journal July 2019
  • Journal May 2019
  • Journal April 2019
  • Journal February 2019
  • Journal January 2019
  • Journal December 2018
  • Journal October 2018
  • Journal September 2018
  • Journal August 2018
  • Journal June 2018
  • Journal April 2018
  • Journal March 2018
  • Journal February 2018
  • Journal December 2017
  • Journal November 2017
  • Journal October 2017
  • Journal September 2017
  • Journal August 2017
  • Journal July 2017
  • Journal June 2017
  • Journal May 2017
  • Journal April 2017
  • Journal March 2017
  • Journal February 2017
  • Journal January 2017
  • Journal December 2016
  • Journal October 2016
  • Journal Sept 2016
  • Journal August 2016
  • Journal July 2016
  • Journal June 2016
  • Journal May 2016
  • Journal April 2016
  • Journal March 2016
  • Journal February 2016
  • Journal November 2015
  • Journal October 2015
  • Journal September 2015
  • Journal August 2015
  • Journal July 2015
  • Journal June 2015
  • Journal May 2015
  • Journal April 2015
  • Journal March 2015
  • Journal February 2015
  • Journal January 2015
  • Outrageous Forgiveness
  • Making it Thru The Holidays
  • About Walls, Pope & Trump
  • Sunday at Berean 2/19/2017
  • Prison Ministry Update
  • Journal November 2018
    • Amazing Grace Booklet
  • Untitled
  • Blog
  • Blog
  • Blog
  • Blog

General Lee's Hand Extended at Gettysburg

7/2/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
General Lee’s Hand Extended at Gettysburg     

A Union veteran of the Battle of Gettysburg, A.L. Long, tells a gripping story of how bitterly he hated the South. He recounts of being wounded, and near death. As he lay on the ground, not far from Cemetery Ridge, on July 3, 1863, the last day of the battle, he saw General Lee and a few of his officers ride by. He gathered all his strength and shouted as loud as he could, “Hurrah for the Union.” General Lee heard him and dismounted, and walked to him. Long says, “He extended his hand toward me, grasped mine firmly and looking straight into my eyes said, ‘My son, I hope you will soon be well.” If I live a thousand years I will never forget the look on General Lee’s face.”

Musing on this the thought came to me Will we who know Christ ever forget His compassion and grace for us? Not only at Calvary, but the moment He reached down His hand for us and lifted us from life’s sinking sand?

  Compassion, grace, forgiveness comes with understanding. General Lee is one of the most unusual men in all of history. His love for Christ is legendary. His practice of being a hand of Christ to others is something modern people should know and emulate.

How different the life of Christians will be when we get over the pain of different ideas and reach out to wounded Christians as they lay bleeding upon life’s many battlefields.

Copyright © 2013 Larry Lilly


2 Comments
David link
7/2/2013 01:26:33 pm

Thank you for sharing this Dr. Lilly. We seem to have a knack for "shooting our wounded". It is high time that we become the hand of Christ stretched out; whether up or down, to others. Thanks for extending the hand of Christ down to me when it was so deeply needed.

Reply
Oral Deckard link
7/2/2013 01:27:16 pm

"Hurrah for the Union!" That had to be uttered with the expectation that it would be the last thing he uttered.

Revenge was commonly sought, and exacted. General Lee had just lost thousands of men, the battle, and the momentum of the war, and shouting a taunt at that moment to rub his nose in it, while laying on the ground helpless and within easy striking distance, was surely not done with an expectation that the enemy would be bigger about it than he.

But the reaction he got went against what he expected. It went against the natural human inclination. The reaction was unnatural. It consisted of turning the other cheek, returning good for evil, and showing grace, unmerited favor, when no such was required.

Had General Lee been an average man we would never have heard this story. But instead the taunter carried with him the rest of his life an image of what grace looked like.

And as Dr. Lilly has pointed out, we each have our own similar example, where, like with Mr. Long, the natural expectation would be what we deserve, death and hell. But instead we find grace, free for the asking, from One brutalized to death for nothing he did wrong, but for what we did.

Mr. Long recognized it, understood it, and appreciated it. But do we ?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly