A Table in the Presence. By: Lt. Carey Cash

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Anyone read this book?


It is definately on my to read list! Chaplain Carey Cash tells a wonderful account of his experiences.
Recently, I heard a fantastic speech by Chaplain Carey Cash about his experience in the Iraq War and the the miracles he witnessed. He talked about how the hand of God was ever so amazingly present in protecting the troops during some heavy attacks, while he was Chaplain for them.

What an intense account he gave in his speech! I thought I just have to read the book and find that audio file! So I looked on the internet hoping I would find the audio file for that speech he gave to the students at Liberty college. but I couldn't find it. All I found were articles on him. Here's one of them:


In the Aftermath of Iraq: Soldiers Now Living for ChristJanet Chismar
Senior Editor for Faith

It’s been a year since war broke out in Iraq, and countless lives have been forever altered. Families lost loved ones, soldiers surrendered limbs, political power changed hands … and Satan failed to capture hundreds of souls. Men and women who wrestled with the God thing just last March now follow the Lord as the commander-in-chief of their lives.

“I baptized 49 men as new Christians before we even stepped foot in Iraq,†says Lt. Carey Cash, a U.S. Navy chaplain assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment in Operation Iraqi Freedom. “We had about 160 by the war’s end either baptized or renew their faith and make significant steps in their walk with Christ.â€Â


Marching headlong into a barrage of bullets and rocket-propelled grenades, Cash’s unitâ€â€the most highly decorated regiment in Marine historyâ€â€found itself in the middle of the battle for Baghdad last April. “We were tasked with the mission to go into the heart of the city to take one of Saddam’s palaces on the Tigris River,†says Cash, “and also to take a mosque because it was believed that Saddam Hussein himself was in there. Those two firefights on the way to the palace and the mosque were two of the most intense of the war.â€Â

But for 40 days prior, the battalion fought a different battle – in the wilderness. “When we got to Kuwait, we were there for six weeks in the desert before we even crossed the border into combat in Iraq,†Cash explains. “It was uncanny because we literally were there for 40 days in the wilderness."

During that 40-day stretch, the men began to feel the weight of being far from home ... away from their usual fast food, Internet environment. “We were out there with a lot of time to think,†says Cash. “Granted, we were doing a lot of training, but there was a lot of time to ponder what we were about to go do.â€Â

Just that element alone – the drumbeat of war, seeing the oil wells of Iraq on the horizon, realizing they were in a dangerous place – began to flush out the most important issues in the soldiers’ lives.

Cash recalls: “I heard a man once say, and I shared this when I was there, ‘Danger distills the vital.’ And that’s exactly what I saw. It was the vital issues that mattered. It was our family and it was faith – It was ‘Who is God?’ and ‘If in fact I am called to give my life, am I prepared to meet the Lord?’â€Â

It was then, according to Cash, that the spiritual war began. Men began to realize, “Hey, I am going into war and I really need the Lord. I need to know that my eternity is secure.†That soul-searching started in Kuwait, but once we got into Iraq and the fighting began, there were so many different types of events that turned men to God. While they may have been chaotic and even at times, very saddening, looking back you can see the hand of God and how He was using those events to bring men closer to Himself.â€Â


Dealing With Death

On March 21, 2003, the 1st Battalion experienced the war’s first “KIA†or man “killed in action.†Second Lieutenant Shane Childers was fatally shot just 12 hours after the invasion began. “What was so significant about that moment,†Cash reflects, “is that even though you expect there are going to be casualties going into war, when it’s one of your own, and when it’s a lieutenant so loved by his men, it’s more profound. Immediately to have lost a lieutenant was very difficult for all of us to deal with.â€Â

Yet, looking back, Cash discovered that of the 49 men he baptized, about three quarters were from one platoon – that of Shane Childers. God obviously used his death for a greater good.

On the flip side of the killing equation, many soldiers struggled with pulling the trigger. “Although Marines and soldiers are trained to kill,†says Cash, “every one of them at some level had to reconcile the fact that ‘I am going into an environment where I may have to put a man in my sight and pull the trigger.’ So the question becomes, as a chaplain, how do you deal with that? Obviously, killing is killing and it’s never the course of action that you want to take, yet we know there’s a place for a just war. “

Cash approached the issue by looking to the Bible. When men would ask him those sorts of questions – and he even held an impromptu class – they looked at passages indicating God gives government, and thus the military, a place in His plan for bringing order, security and peace to the world.

According to Cash, Romans chapter 13 teaches that "government does not bear the sword in vain," meaning there is a place for the use of aggressive force if it is to protect the innocent, to right a wrong.

“For me as a chaplain,†says Cash, “I appreciated the many Marines who struggled with this issue because I think we all do. To be human is to struggle with it. Yet I tried to gently guide them to what I believe was a comforting and a reassuring answer from the scripture that says, ‘Hey, it’s not just a necessary evil to go to war, but there are times when it is actually the right thing to do. It is good, it is noble, it is just.’

“The men who bled on the shores of Normandy, the men who bled on the shores of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, they were saving the free world. And it’s upon their shoulders that we stand. If you can communicate to Marines that they are following a tradition of heroism and bravery, I think it’s easier for them to deal with killing.â€Â


Lessons for the Chaplain

Although he spent most of the war teaching and encouraging others, the chaplain also learned a few lessons in Iraq. On a personal level, he gained a new appreciation for his family. “There were moments when we all questioned, ‘What on earth am I doing here in the most dangerous place in the world?’ I have a wife and five children. They’re all 9 and under, and I love them dearly and desperately wanted to come back.

“But I think the implicit message is that our lives are not our own and wherever God sends us, if we are in His perfect will, it may not be the safest place in the world, but it is the best place in the world to be."

Cash remembers standing next to a fellow Christian Marine in the battalion. It was the middle of the war. “We had seen death, we had seen poverty, we had seen ruination – and I remember commenting, ‘What a horrible place to be’ and yet both of us simultaneously adding, ‘There is no other place in the world that I would rather be than right here, because this is where God wants me.’â€Â

Being in God’s will no matter where that takes us is the most important thing we could ever strive to do, Cash points out. “For me, I talked a lot about that, I preached on it as a pastor, but it took on a whole new meaning and life of its own when I actually went across the border into Iraq.â€Â

As the war progressed and Cash began to see young men coming to Christ, he realized a more important lesson was being taught. “We began to see that God had not just called us there to depose a ruthless tyrant, and He had, but there were other reasons.

“He had not just called us there to protect the Iraqi people and to protect our borders from weapons of mass destruction, but He had brought these men there in order to reveal Himself to them for the first time.â€Â

According to Cash, “one of the most profound lessons that we all learned is that nations rise and nations fall, wars come and wars go, kingdoms are built and kingdoms crumble, but the purpose of God never ever changes. It is to bring young men and women to a saving knowledge of His son Jesus Christ. And if it takes a war to bring a man to the point where he realizes his need, then Amen to the Lord.â€Â

Cash’s last baptism was that of a young Marine, right in the palace of Saddam Hussein. "This man, he had run from God all his life and God brought him to a place where he had to call out, and he did. And God was there and He saved him.

“This war will be history one day,†Cash adds, “but Godâ€âs purpose still remains. Whether it is through a war, or a marriage that is foundering, or a financial crisis, God’s purpose for us is to know the joy of a saving relationship with his son Jesus.â€Â

In his new book, A Table in the Presence, Lt. Carey Cash reveals how Marines, fighting in a land scarred with ruination, bloodshed and desperation, learned that they and their comrades were not alone and that God would meet them right where they wereâ€â€on the front lines. Arriving in stores April 7, A Table in the Presence is published by W Publishing Group, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/1252501.html?view=print

 

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Here's and interview I found of Chaplain Carey Cash with Pat Robertson. It's a bit more detailed than the previous article I posted here.


An excerpt from the interview:
"I began visiting the men, in the last few hours before we crossed the line of departure. They all had their rifles, they had their ammunition, they had all their gear, they had all their training, but in the last moments what all of us needed was something that far transcended anything that training could provide. When I went and visited them, and their eyes met with mine, it was as if we all knew why I was there. We needed to call on God."

Lt. Carey Cash
author, "A Table in the Presence"



INTERVIEW
Angels Watching Over Us: A Military Chaplain's Account of Miracles in Iraq
April 8, 2004
CBN.com –

As coalition forces charged into enemy territory on their mission to liberate Iraq a year ago, a different liberation was taking place in the hearts of many of the soldiers.
Lieutenant Carey Cash, chaplain to the First Battalion, 5th Marine regiment, part of the first ground force to enter Iraq, says there is no doubt that God was with them. In his new book, "A Table in the Presence," Cash gives his first-hand account of how God was not only moving in the hearts of the troops, but miraculously shielded them from the massive array of weapons poised to stop them.

During what former Lt. Col. Oliver North called the worst day of fighting for U.S. Marines, the first battalion, the most highly decorated Marines in U.S. history, suffered just one casualty. Something Cash calls an absolute miracle.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, Lieutenant Carey Cash has written a book about his experiences called, from the 23rd Psalm, "A Table in the Presence." And he's here to talk about the miraculous way God intervened on behalf of his soldiers. Good to have you with us.

LT. CAREY CASH: Thank you.

ROBERTSON: What happened? You jumped off from Kuwait into Iraq. What happened that was really miraculous? There was a time that the troops that you were serving were pinned down and in danger of all being annihilated. What happened miraculous?

CASH: On April 10th, our battalion was given orders to seize the presidential palace on the Tigris River. And we went into the center of that city, not realizing that about a thousand Fedayeen were waiting for us. And at four in the morning, in the dark, they literally unleashed all their fury. It became essentially a nine-hour ambush, from urban fighting, close quarters. The results of which should have yielded untold casualties and many, many Marines dead. Just because of the sheer volume of fire, we suspected anywhere from a 1,000 to 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades were shot at the lead elements of our convoy. When I got to the palace the next day and began to talk to the Marines, and go and visit them - and we did lose one man - what I saw was not a battalion licking its wounds and overwhelmed with the fight they had just endured. But literally it looked like I'd come upon a group of men who had walked through the Red Sea. Over and over the stories kept coming out to me, and I would realize the debt that I had, to begin to record these… 'Chaplain, let me tell you what God did for me; Chaplain, the angels that we have been talking about for weeks, preceding this war, shielded me and protected me.' It was amazing.

ROBERTSON: Did they see the angels or did they just know they were there?

CASH: I didn't talk to any Marines who said they saw an angel. But what they did share was that rocket-propelled grenades would come at them, and literally curve in mid-air and go around them. Untold Marines shared with me that rockets would come and literally dive down as if batted by some unseen hand. We had one rocket go through a Humvee passenger-side window, and explode in the compartment. Without a doubt, it should have killed every man in that vehicle. And yet when the explosion came through, it blew out the front of the windshield, and so it exploded out instead of in, and not a single man was injured. And over and over, the accounts of that day were so tremendous, that I realized I had stumbled upon something amazing.

ROBERTSON: Did your people pray? I've heard of a unit in World War II that recited the 91st Psalm, over and over again. Was there special prayer, special confession of God's presence?

CASH: Absolutely, yes. Psalm 91, which is known as the Soldier's Psalm, became very instrumental in the days leading up to that war, even during the war. Joshua 1:9, "Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous? Be not afraid. Be not dismayed, for I will be with you wherever you go." This became, literally, God's word to us, to remember that we are not going through this alone.

ROBERTSON: It is almost a cliché - there are no atheists in foxholes - what is the faith of those guys? When you go in a battle like that. They wanted to know God. There weren't many of them that were turning away from God?

CASH: No. It is interesting, when I began visiting the men, the last few hours before we crossed the line of departure. They all had their rifles, they had their ammunition, they had all their gear, they had all their training, but in the last moments what all of us needed was something that far transcended anything that training could provide. When I went and visited them, and their eyes met with mine, it was as if we all knew why I was there. We needed to call on God. We were joining a host of warriors, for millennium before battles, who have called out upon the only One who could provide for them and protect them.

ROBERTSON: Amazing stories. Were there others? You mentioned going into Baghdad. Were there other examples of the protection of God that you saw?

CASH: Absolutely. When we crossed in the line of departure, we immediately met a section of Iraqi tanks that we had not suspected would be there. In fact, intelligence had not confirmed or reported their presence. We came across the border, it was in the dark, their turrets were leveled, we were exposed, we were at a point of what is called critical vulnerability, and their main guns never fired on us. They were fully manned by Iraqi soldiers and the company commander told me, after the fight, about that incident. He said, 'Chaplain, if their main guns had fired, all it would have taken is one round to hit one of our armored personnel carriers and 20-30 marines would have been dead in an instant.' And what I recall after hearing that is remembering back to the countless letters I had received from churches across the nations, saying we are praying specifically that when you cross that border, God would restrain and confuse the enemy. And the fact that those tanks didn't fire and that 3,000 enemy soldiers surrendered en masse and in concert, tells me that God answered those prayers of the people back here in the United States.

ROBERTSON: This again is probably redundant, but what is the morale of those troops? It must be tremendous.

CASH: The morale is good. The training is good, their leadership is determined, but if I could say, the thing I am most concerned about is the morale of our people back here and in the churches. I think that the churches prayed for our men during the major hostilities. But we have to remember that now, more than ever, we need to pray for those men. We need to send them letters. It was like life, getting letters on the front line from churches saying we are praying for you. We are praying this psalm for you, we are remembering you daily in our Bible studies. Churches and Christians all across our country need to remember that this war is still ongoing, and they need to send letter and care packages. We need to adopt battalions, like we did during the war, and lift these men up daily to God.

ROBERTSON: It may not be a bad thing to do that right now. I think, ladies and gentlemen, we had the faces of hundreds - thousands, of these men, and we prayed for them every day as the battle was going on. Now you say, hostilities are over, but they are not over. There are Marines being killed every single day over there. I will ask Chaplain Lt. Carey Cash if he'd lead us in prayer. Would you pray for these men and women? We'll join with you all across America.

CASH: Let's pray. Heavenly Father, You promised us that you are a God who is able to deliver us. Lord, so often when the events of our world become dark, we fail to remember that truth. I would pray right now, a special anointing on our men and women in Iraq, who are on the front lines and witnessing death and destruction, and witnessing a world in upheaval, that they would know beyond a shadow of a doubt, as we speak, the awesome power and presence of Almighty God. I pray, oh Lord, that this time would be a time in their life that, if they haven't, they would draw closer to the heart of Jesus Christ. And that you would raise up a nation of prayer warriors to intercede every day on their behalf. To go to the throne room so that we might lift these men up, and they would accomplish their just cause, and they would be protected and shielded, and ultimately that they would know the saving love of their Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. We commit them unto your care and keeping in Jesus' name, amen.

ROBERTSON: Lieutenant Cash has written a book called "A Table in the Presence." If you want to hear some thrilling stories of how God intervened, how the angels were there to protect these brave men and women going into battle, it is a tremendous experience. Thank you so much for being with us. God bless you.

CASH: Thank you for having me. My pleasure.



http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/040407e.asp?option=print