Saturday, November 1, 2008

Has it come to this?

I received this forward today. This is sad to me. Has it really come to this? Do we as believers really believe that stopping Senator Obama from becoming President is the same as God raising Jesus from the dead? Do we truly believe that Michelle Obama hates white people? Do we really believe that Obama is evil? Do we really believe that wearing a flag lapel somehow makes a person patriotic? Have we still not learned that Senator Obama is not a Muslim? Do we truly think that George W. Bush is a prophet without honor because the war in Iraq is a "holy war" that Americans have not accepted?

I think everyone is entitled to vote in the way they feel is best for the country. Economic plans, morality, environmental concern, abortion, the death penalty, gun control, education, and many other factors are needed to determine one's voting choice. But I am saddened if a person's choice is swayed by e-mails like this.

PRAISE GOD FOR CHARLES STANLEY
A message from Charles Stanley
I was very dismayed when recently a member of my Church said to me with great resignation that she was afraid Obama will take the presidency. These words came from someone that in the past has been a great prayer warrior. What is happening was my question??? Why are we Christians settling for the loss of our Christian heritage, not issuing a battle cry and falling to our knees and taking our country back? We allow ourselves to be stripped of the right to pray at school functions and in school, we have the Ten Commandments removed from government places and are told we cannot pray publicly or proclaim Christian principles, all the while providing public prayer places for Muslims. We allow Muslim mosques to operate in America funded by Saudi Arabia, and proclaim anti-American, anti-Christian threats and terrorism.
What in the world is going on and why are we being so apathetic? Why aren't we praying? Our God is an Almighty God who is waiting patiently for us to raise our voices to heaven to stop the tide of the anti-Christian actions in our world today. Now we have a charismatic, albeit inexperienced, candidate for president that does not respect our flag and refuses to wear one on his lapel except when it becomes politically expedient, and whose own wife and pastor that he loves profess to have strong anti-white feelings, and we sit back and say 'it is a given, we can do nothing???' There has never been a time in 2000 years that we can do nothing, never a time that we must sit back and allow the evil in men's and women's hearts to take over our world! We should be afraid, very afraid because our apathy is leading us to perdition.
It is time for all Christian Americans to raise the battle cry and take our nation back! Maybe McCain on his own cannot defeat Obama, but our God can and He will if we take to our knees in prayer and raise a mighty cry to t he heavens to 'Save us O Lord'. We have God's promises in 2 Chronicles 7:14, 'If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.' We have the power to change the course of this election and to keep a man as suspect as Barack Obama from leading our country to who knows where with his message of 'change'; a change which I fear will be away from our Christian ideals, and away from Christ, and further away from one nation under God to one nation under Allah.
We are great at passing stories and pictures around the internet but where are our prayers and prayer warriors praying to stop this tide of Barack Obama? God parted the Red Sea, Jesus was raised from the dead, and we can bring our country back to its Christian roots and stop the undermining of our country by Muslims. We can stop our country from being 'under Allah' but we must begin to pray, to pray as our country and our lives depended on it because they do. We can stop all these atrocities against God's commands that have taken root in our country through something as simple as sincere prayer, a call to God to deliver us, to forgive us our sins of apathy and to protect us from the evil that is upon us.
Okay prayer warriors, here is your challenge, start those prayer chains. Get the spiritual power working on our behalf and stop Barack Obama the proper way, by calling on our God to save us from the deception that charismatic preaching is using to lead us on the wrong path. Stop those who would take God out of our country and our government. Raise up good men to lead us and protect us. George Bush is being buffeted because he has fought a holy war against the evils that attack us ... and we should not be surprised because a prophet is not honored in his own country. But we should not rest on our laurels and allow ourselves to be taken further off the path of Christianity and to have God removed from our presence in our schools, courts, government and businesses. Invite God into the fray. Ask that His power rest upon us and give us the victory. Ask him to raise up a mighty army t o defend us and to protect our country as he did in days of old. Let us be victorious beginning NOW.
The battle is His but we must call on Him without ceasing and unite our voices and hearts in prayer and fasting. Please pass this around to all people of prayer that you know and maybe, just maybe, a more eloquent person of prayer will write something better and more inspiring and even the rocks will shout that Jesus is Lord and our Mighty God is with us and bringing the victory for us and ultimately for Him. AMEN!

8 comments:

Amber said...

"We have the power to change the course of this election and to keep a man as suspect as Barack Obama from leading our country to who knows where with his message of 'change'; a change which I fear will be away from our Christian ideals, and away from Christ, and further away from one nation under God to one nation under Allah."

Ok.....Really????? This is a little absurd!

Romi said...

Sadly, Landon I do think it's come down to this. It really confounds me that people are swayed so easily by such emails especially since it comes from a well-known Christian author and leader. Somehow that just legitmizes it all the more and makes it true. I dunno whatever happened to thinking, questioning, and testing things for ourselves and weighing it against God's Word??!! Sadly it's rhetoric like this that causes people to be divisive and have this "holy war" mentality, imho. In the long run, their words do more damage than good to each other and to Christianity as a whole.

Yet the only thing I do agree with in this email is the need for prayer, not necessarily what the author is encouraging, but instead to lift up the american people to make a wise and thought out choice for this country and also to lift up both candidates(and honestly, I still don't really know what the best choice is. Even now, after mailing in my ballot, I'm still questioning if I made the right choice...sigh!) Yet we need to keep in mind that whatever the outcome, the reality is God is a bazillion times bigger than any of this and He will bring to pass His plan, using whomever lands in the Whitehouse. That's one thing I am certain of.

Thanks again Landon for a great post! I really appreciate your blog as it continually challenges and causes me to question and see things out of my own box.

Romi said...

Oh and PS....here's a really interesting perspective from Shaun Grove's blog. I'm still processing it....But definitely check it out.
http://www.shaungroves.com/shlog/comments/help_the_church_vote_for_a_madman/

Romi said...

Okay...the whole link isn't coming up, so here are Shaun's thoughts...

10.24.08 Help The Church. Vote For A Madman.
Today, I received the millionth e-mail letting me know that if So-and-so gets elected president of the United States dogs will start sleeping with cats, Christianity will crumble, and the end of the world will begin.

All this kind of rhetoric does is make me want to blog about nothing but church history from now until election day. But I’ll resist that urge and instead tell you only one story. It’s about this guy named Nero - you may have heard of him. He was a bit of a jerk, not real fond of Christians, with some anger issues.

Nero did some sick stuff like stick Christians on poles, jab those poles into his lawn and light the bodies on fire so he could have a little light to walk by in the evening. While Nero reigned Christianity didn’t crumble and the world didn’t end.

I understand wanting to vote for someone under whom Christianity would flourish. I get that. Let me think about who that might be for a second. OK, well, because of what history teaches us about the conditions under which Christianity thrives you might want to vote for a guy or girl who will lock up our churches, strip us of our freedoms, imprison us for praying, and is a bit of a psychotic pyromaniac. That’s the kind of guy whose intolerance and brutality helped turn a Jewish cult into a major world religion.

God and His Church have never needed a president’s or Caesar’s support in order to survive. But we’re not the first nation and generation to forget this. Isaiah wrote to the Jews while they were despairing in captivity:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

[God] sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.

No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 44

Danielle said...

Thank you Romi for posting Shaun Grove's blog. Honestly, in all the insanity that is becoming this election, this is the most convicting and truthful writing I have seen on it (maybe because it's directly from the Bible!!!) Why have I become so caught up in who is the right man to vote for? I've heard people say to pray and God will lead you and direct you which way to vote. So I asked Landon, does that mean God really has an opinion or a will that states WHO to vote for? Is God a Republican or a Democrat?! And if so, then why do all these faithful servants of Christ have different opinions? Are some not listening? Or just ignoring His direction? MAYBE it's because God is not worried about WHO since his plans are not limited by our earthly ruler. "He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing." Neither Obama nor McCain is able to make America whole or moral or prosperous. Neither Obama nor McCain can singlehandedly make America anti-Christian or immoral or poverty-stricken. All of a sudden, I'm not so stressed about Tuesday =)

Romi said...

Amen, Danielle!! So glad Shaun's post resonated with you. He's one of my favorite people and bloggers and always has a lot of wisdom and humor to impart. And glad you're less stressed about Tuesday...God's got it covered!

Susan said...

I received the same email this morning & my search to verify its’ authenticity lead me to this blog site.

I do not agree with Senator Obama's ideology, or his voting record, nor what he has stood for in his "brief" political rise to "fame". I also trust that the American people are wise enough to not elect him as our next President ... but, let me ask this question.

Has anyone stopped to research the validity of this email?

Did Dr. Charles Stanley (of In Touch Ministries) author this or could it be another person named Charles Stanley? In looking over Dr. Stanley's website, I found no reference to this letter or so-called “message.”

That's the problem with our technology today ... people have become too quick to react and too slow to think.

Landon said...

Susan,

I agree with your thought on people becoming "too quick to react and too slow to think." Honestly, for me I could care less if it is from Charles Stanley or not. My issue is that I received it from a Christian in the first place. They should have recognized it as bogus & trash and never forwarded it. A person makes something real and authentic when they forward it on, because they are obviously standing behind it.

So people do need to think. Does my disgust with this equal a backlash vote for Senator Obama? No. It just means I am disappointed in a fellow believer.