Servant of Messiah Ministries

Preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Israel – Czech Republic 1938.

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On the 65th anniversary of the UN resolution that created Israel by partitioning British-mandate Palestine into Israeli and Palestinian states, the UN voted 138 to 9, recognizing the State of Palestine as a “non-member observer State.” The Czech Republic was the only European country to vote against the measure. She had learned from her past and stated: “we strongly believe that solutions cannot be imposed from the outside because they do not work.”

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas launched his “diplomatic Intifada” against Israel from Moscow where he had sought Russian help. Palestinian officials have said that vote paved the way for Palestine to join 63 international institutions, conventions, and treaties.

On April 1st (Abib 1) at a PLO meeting in Ramallah, Abbas formally requested membership in 15 UN international organizations and international treaties for the “State of Palestine.” Going to the UN means the potential of going for an Independent State and access to the International Criminal Court.

The UN Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestine, Richard Falk, accused Israel of pushing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and creating unbearable conditions for the minority. Falk, an ethnic Jewish expert in international law stated that Israeli policies have “unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.” The UN, Arab League, and others are setting up Israel like Czechoslovakia was in 1938. The goal is division and ultimate betrayal and invasion.

Just look at the similarities:

  1. Both Czechoslovakia and Israel were supposed “artificially” created by the Allied powers following WWI. (Czechoslovakia was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and Palestine divided by the UN after WW2).
  2. Both Czechoslovakia and Israel had large minority populations from the defeated nations (Germans and Arabs).
  3. Both Czechoslovakia and Israel were islands of liberal democracy in a sea of authoritarian regimes
  4. Both Czechoslovakia and Israel were accused of mistreating their minority groups.
  5. Both Czechoslovakia and Israel made many mistakes that cost the lives of civilians on both sides of the conflict.
  6. Both Czechoslovakia and Israel were small nations. Both had a strong military.
  7. Both countries’ very existence was being threatened by German and Arab movements that derived their power from the nationalist sentiment of their people’s (the German Reich or  Arab-Islamic League)
  8. Both Germans and Arabs wanted to reclaim the “glory” of their former defeated empires and believed that they needed to correct the “injustice” that was supposedly done to them by the establishment of Czechoslovakia and Israel, respectively.
  9. Both German and Arab regimes prevented a peaceful resolution to the (manufactured) conflicts with Czechoslovakia and Israel.
  10. Sudeten Germans refused all reconciliation proposals until Czechoslovakia was forced to capitulate to British and French demands and give the Sudetenland to Germany. Israel will find herself in that position soon.
  11. Palestinians (at the instruction of Arab leaders) refuse to recognize the Jewish State while insisting on the return of 6 million Palestinian refugees into Israel proper (an act which would in effect destroy the Jewish State).
  12. In both cases Western powers were slow to understand the dynamics of the conflict. They did not see the big picture, and they gradually acquiesced to German or Arab demands with the hope of achieving “peace for our time.”

Using the poor oppressed Palestinians as the cause – the UN and others will divide and sanction and ultimately betray Israel.  As in 1938 the great powers of Britain and the USA and Europe will side with the aggressor.

Middle East – Russian gains.

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In the face of America decline and her loss of strength and reliability, Russia is emerging:

● as a vocal defender of Christianity against Muslim persecution around the world;

● as a plausible peacemaker in the Middle East, with far better relationships with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria than America has today;

● as the monopoly natural gas supplier for Germany and Austria and Ukraine  with the consent of the Franco-German axis;

● as the only country with a credible a nuclear umbrella to protect its friends and deter its enemies;

● as a country that understands the value of relatively free markets – as seen by the 14% flat tax Putin just introduced in Russia and the new economic development zone created in the Crimea.

Vladimir Putin now looks like the heir of Peter the Great, the modernizing Tsar.  He is looking to take the USA’s place as the decisive power in the Middle East. He also wants to play a big role in the next OPEC, based on shale gas and oil. Energy has been Russia’s weapon of choice, against a dependent Europe.

Putin has paid personal visits all over the Middle East and kept contacts with all the players, including the Sisi regime in Egypt, Israel, Syria’s Assad, and Saudi Arabia.

Everybody is now bidding for his support. 

Egypt

Egypt has resumed talks about the creation of a free trade zone with Russia. Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom is considering the construction of a nuclear power plant in Egypt. Egypt is already the largest importer of Russian wheat, buying one fifth of the country’s exports of this commodity.
The military deal-worth an estimated $3 billion-was reportedly signed on February 14 and includes MiG-29 fighters, air and coastal defense systems, Mi-35 attack helicopters and small arms. Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel Fattah ai-Sisi slated to be Egypt’s next president, flew to Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  The Saudis have agreed to foot the bill for the arms.

Egypt is buying the weapons from Russia, a long-time supporter of Iran and the Syrian government who are Saudi’s opponents. However the Saudis-and Egyptians do not trust America to counter Iran, so they are doing it themselves.

Iran

Iran has expanded trade and has proposed a second Russian nuclear plant at Bushehr.  Iran is the second largest OPEC oil producer, with a production of about 4 million barrels of oil a day. The country’s recoverable oil reserves are estimated at over 137 billion barrels, or 12 per cent of the world’s overall reserves.  Iran also has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, estimated at 28 trillion cubic meters.  Moscow has already proved it can bust international sanctions by concluding a $1.5 bn contract with Tehran for the purchase of half a million barrels of Iranian oil a day,  without a word of complaint from Washington.

Iran and Russia have made progress towards an oil-for-goods deal sources said would be worth up to $20 billion, which would enable Tehran to boost vital energy exports in defiance of Western sanctions, people familiar with the negotiations told Reuters. Moscow and Tehran were discussing a barter deal that would see Moscow buy up to 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil in exchange for Russian equipment and goods.

Palestine 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) launched his “diplomatic intifada” against Israel and exit from the Kerry peace initiative Thursday, Jan.23, from Moscow.  His meetings with Putin   signaled his bid for Russian backing for a Palestinian state. The Palestinian leader began his conversation with Putin by calling Russia a great power that deserved to play a more prominent role in the volatile Middle East. Russian tactics for Syria and Iran had proved effective, he said, and Moscow could perform the same function on the Israeli Palestinian track.

Abbas and Medvedev were to sign an agreement for a $1 billion natural gas project in the Gaza section of the Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom hoped to produce 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas at the site.

For the Russian leader it was a chance to show that he was several steps ahead of the game on the three hottest Middle East issues –

  • Iran’s nuclear program,
  • the Syrian civil conflict
  • Palestinian bid for statehood.

Meanwhile,  the silence from America is deafening.

Middle East – America’s losses.

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At present none of the strong actors in the Middle East look to the United States for guidance any longer. This includes Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan and Afghanistan.  The waste and failure of two wars in the Middle East has convinced the USA to withdraw.  As Rwanda taught the world, the USA has “no friends, it only has interests.”  It appears the recent domestic oil finds have changed “our interests.”

The region’s rulers have concluded that the U.S. is a country that won’t stand up for its friends, but instead lectures them about democracy, and then draws red lines it won’t honor. Many critics in the region see the United Sates as an unreliable ally that cannot be counted on if a regime is threatened internally. Instead of supporting its longtime friends in the Middle East, the United States offers lectures on democracy and talks about human rights. Worse, Washington draws red lines, then hesitates.

President Obama entered the Oval Office in January 2009.  In his inaugural address, Obama swore that the United States was now “ready to lead the world.”

The successful overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, where the United States played a leading role, has left that country in chaos. The primary beneficiaries of Gaddafi’s ouster seem to be Al-Qaeda’s affiliates in North Africa and the Sahara.

May 2009, President Obama demanded a halt to the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem….

March 2010, Obama lectured Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a politician Washington installed in office, on the corruption and administrative ineptitude of his government.  He was warned that, if he failed to act, a cut in U.S. aid would follow…

August 2011 Syrian President Bashar ignored calls for him “to step aside.” An unnamed senior administration official insisted, “We are certain Assad is on the way out….”  The United States then promised support to the rebels.  Then it backed away from supporting  the Al-Qaeda-aligned elements which appeared to dominate the rebellion.

Sept 2013 Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he would proceed with a plan to build a gas pipeline from Iran, despite objections from the U.S.  He used his speech at the United Nations to hit out against American drone strikes in his country.  Mr. Sharif also spelled out the conditions for a peace deal with Pakistani Taliban. He voiced fears that continued U.S. drone attacks would wreck his policy to negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban, a group linked to Al-Qaeda.

Jan 2014 A rejuvenated Al-Qaeda-affiliated force took control of the western Iraqi city of Fallujah, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state.  This was a crucial area that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

Egypt’s new leaders and those Egyptians who supported the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi are angry at the United States for its condemnation of the army’s actions. To offset Washington’s withholding of some military aid to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are financing an arms deal worth more than $2 billion between Cairo and Moscow.

February 4, 2014, U.S. chief negotiator with Iran Wendy Sherman conceded that the P5 + 1 agreement, failed to “shut down” Iran’s continuing development of ballistic missiles. Ms. Sherman admitted that if Iran’s nuclear program was only for peaceful purposes, the Islamic Republic “does not need” the fortified, underground enrichment center or plutonium heavy-water reactors. Yet the USA released billions of dollars to Iran which had been frozen.

Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Stephens wrote, has disparaged the administration’s dealings with Iran, and referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as “obsessive and messianic,” in his chase after a Palestinian-Israeli agreement.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, with whom Obama said he had established “bonds of trust,” claimed that America was part of a conspiracy to destabilize his Islamist government.

U.S.-Russia relations after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war were at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. The USA felt it could “reset the U.S.-Russia relationship”  by identifying common interests on which to build cooperation with the Kremlin. In 2014 Russia annexed the Crimea amid threats of consequences….

Nature abhors a vacuum and now Russia is eager to influence events in the Middle East.

Jerusalem and Rome in 2017.

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Senior Roman Catholic and Lutheran officials announced in Geneva that they would mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Oct 31st 2017 as a shared event.  The 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis, the doctrinal challenge that launched the Protestant Reformation, will be their first joint celebration.

That is only a time and times and half a times, 42 months or 3 1/2 years from now.  In Oct 1517, the year of the 95 Thesis was also a Jubilee year when Jerusalem changed hands.  She was to remain part of the Ottoman Empire for the next 400 years or 8 Jubilees until her liberation again in 1917 and again in 1967. Her next Jubilee is also 2017.

Roman Catholic, the world largest church has 1.2 billion members and make up fully one half of all Christians. Lutherans make up 75 million. David A. Barrett’s book, World Christian Encyclopedia leads us to conclude that there are 30 Roman Catholic denominations and 41 different Orthodox denominations and only 27 “Protestant” denominations and 185 “Independent” denominations. Catholics and Lutherans began seeking theological common ground since the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council which opened the Roman church to better relations with other churches. In an age of cultural pluralism, interfaith unity became acceptable and desired.

The Vatican II initiative, coupled with other major documents like the 1964 “Restoration of Unity” by Paul VI and the 1995 encyclical, “That They May Be One,” by John Paul II, outlines how Catholics would like to have one universal—Catholic—church. In the 1960s, cultural pluralism led to theological pluralism. Theological pluralism gave birth to ecumenism. Ecumenism is the promotion of religious unity among interfaith groups. To make this pluralism work, the participants had to forget the past, and they had to compromise.

In 1999 they took a major step forward by agreeing on a common view justification, the doctrine that was the core of the 16th Century dispute. The issue was the understanding of whether Christians attained eternal salvation by faith alone or also doing good works. In their joint 93 page report they agreed that each side had often ridiculed each other’s teachings in the past, sinning against the commandment against bearing false witness. The Lutheran side also confessed its shame and regret “the vicious and degrading statements that Martin Luther made against the Jews” and the persecution of Anabaptists.

With the growth of Christianity in developing countries, the secularization and the decline of the church in Western societies, many old feuds were now forgotten. The rise of Pentecostal and Charismatic moments in this century have changed the priorities of Christians, and made many of the old confessional controversies obsolete and irrelevant. The Vatican announced in 2009 that it would introduce a new church structure that would allow former Anglicans to enter into “full communion” with the Catholic Church while preserving their Anglican traditions.

Over half of the 67 Episcopal clergy who have applied for membership with the Catholic Church have been approved by the Holy See. An Episcopal church in Maryland was the first in the nation to join the Roman Catholic Church.  The members and pastor of St. Luke’s Episcopal parish in Bladensburg, Md., converted to Catholicism under a process set up by the Vatican to bring disaffected Episcopalians and Anglicans into its fold.

As society declines, the Catholic have stood by their traditional values and this will attract followers discouraged and disaffected by their compromising and secular denomination. The conclusion of the joint agreement between Lutherans and Catholics spoke of the church sharing “unity in reconciled diversity” over their issues.  The Lutheran World Federation (L.W.F) said it would hold further discussions  with other denominations to be included in those joint celebrations of the Reformation in 2017.

And while all the world see the need for Unity, the people of God squabble and bicker  among themselves.“That They May Be One,” is not just a book a Pope wrote, but the unanswered prayer of a Saviour preparing to die.  

The USA needs therapy?

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We read of the life changing after effects of a brutal rape and we see the victims predictable efforts to cope with the trauma.

1)     Her feelings are hurt, anger and there is always fear.

2)     Her relationships with men, former friends are now strained as the trauma cast shadows on their friendship. Innocence is lost and it will not be found.

3)     Her attitudes are hardened and there is now no tolerance for offenders anywhere.

4)     Her behavior is always justified, no matter how unreasonable.  She was raped and how could we understand?

5)     Her security is now paramount as she double checks the extra locks on the home and cancels certain activities that left her alone at night.

Could a nation be raped and find itself reacting as any victim?                                 

On Sept 11, 2001 nineteen men took advantage of our open free society and took down our symbols of greatness, exposing our nakedness. The shock and the death toll may have been similar to the Pearl Harbor attack, but the emotional damage and our reaction has been far greater and longer lasting.

We declared war on rapists and told the entire world – you are either with us or against us. Our normal relationships with our European allies became strained as they refused to mobilize and join our wars.

We immediately tore up the Constitution and passed the Patriot Act – marking all men as potential rapists who needed surveillance.  All banking and commerce now required identification. Our need to know has included the private communications of high value potential rapists like Pres. Merkel of Germany, Brazil’s Dilma and Mexican President Enrique Nieto.

We lashed out at Iraq and Afghanistan – and wasted 4 trillion dollars and thousands of lives punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty. Water-boarding, Enhanced Interrogation, Gitmo,  Enemy Combatant were all new words to sanitize our efforts as we abandoned our own values and ignored constitutional restraints.

We unified and militarized our law enforcement. Our vacation travel now involves long lines to get scanned, groped and fondled enduring one more ignominy after another in efforts to “be safe.”

Fourteen years later those 19 rapists are still winning their war. Their one act has been a gift that keeps on giving. Our response to 9/11 grows and grows consuming more of our liberties, killing more innocents abroad, alienating more of our friends, while consuming more of our budget. Those 19 men were effective at crippling a nation. We gave those men not only the day they took, but we have given them a growing portion of every day since….

A “Costs of War” study group brought together some two dozen academics to account for the wars’ costs that followed 9/11.  The study says an “extremely conservative” death toll is 225,000, with 365,000 wounded. U.S. dead include 6,000 troops and 2,300 contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The final tally of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan will reach at least $3.7 trillion, and could go as high as $4.4 trillion, (add 1 trillion dollars for interest costs) according to a study done by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

And to remind us of the real threat terrorism poses ….Consider your annual odds of perishing by terror compared to two alternatives:

  • Dying in a car accident:  1 in 19,000
  • Dying in a bathtub:  1 in 800,000
  • Dying in a terror attack:  1 in 3.5 million

I hope the new  Dept. of Homeland Security makes those bathtub deaths a high priority.

Nelson Mandela

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Normally I write impersonal commentaries of issues that affect the church, Israel or society at large. This one is personal. Mandela’s name was unfamiliar to me even as I grew up only a few miles from where he spent 27 years. Living in the fairest Cape and playing on its beaches we saw Robbin Island every day.  As a white child – we never heard about the “terrorists” locked up on the island. Their names like those in “Gitmo”  today, were unfamiliar to us.  I learned the truth about my country only after I left it.

NELSON MANDELA 1918-2013

1918 Born in the Eastern Cape
1943 Joined African National Congress
1956 Charged with high treason, but charges dropped after a four-year trial
1962 Arrested, convicted of incitement and leaving country without a passport, sentenced to five years in prison
1964 Charged with sabotage, sentenced to life
1990 Freed from prison
1993 Wins Nobel Peace Prize
1994 Elected first black president
1999 Steps down as leader
2001 Diagnosed with prostate cancer
2004 Retires from public life
2005 Announces his son has died of an HIV/Aids-related illness

From “Enemy of the State” to “Head of State” Nelson Mandela led a remarkable life.  He joins Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King as heroes in a struggle against legalized oppression.

With a word or a raised fist Mandela could have unleashed a race war to rival Africa’s bloodiest. Instead he oversaw the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that brought enemies together to discuss their crimes, and each found forgiveness and amnesty in the tears and hugs of their victims. Thank you “Madiba” on behalf of my family in Africa, for bringing us peace on a continent known for civil war.

These short quotes from his own speeches give us a sense of the gravity of the man, the  zeal of his conviction, and the steel of his resolve.

  • What are you going to do? Will you come along with us, or are you going to co-operate with the government in its efforts to suppress the claims and aspirations of your own people? Or are you going to remain silent and neutral in a matter of life and death to my people, to our people? For my own part I have made my choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.
  • During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

I see in him a zeal and commitment that rivaled the Apostle Paul’s. Like Paul, Mandela had this question….What are you going to do?  Like Paul, he showed us what a committed life looked like when it embraced the struggle.

Phil 3 v 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize .………..

Mandela showed us how to confront evil, suffer the long consequence of doing that, and then emerge victorious and ready to forgive the defeated.  In a world of so much injustice…perhaps that is his eternal gift.

“Thanksgiving” or “Feeding Frenzy”

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This nation has a new holiday called Black Friday.  It has slowly supplanted Thanksgiving much as the lifestyle of “Get” has replaced the lifestyle of “Give.” The holidays have been traditionally been associated with “Giving” living out that eternal truth – “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)

Giving comes with its own rewards….Liz Dunn a social psychologist showed that a people’s sense of happiness was greater when they spent relatively more on others than themselves. Dunn and colleagues found that even those with little money reported greater happiness when their proportion of spending on others, relative to the self, was greater.

Giving is birthed in Gratitude.  We can generously and freely give only when we are content with our blessings. Thanksgiving was the day set aside by Abraham Lincoln to honor the God of our provision. Puritan prayer and shared meals marked the day.

Professor Robert Emmons at U.C. Davis has shown that gratitude journaled once a week over 6-7 weeks measurably lowers depression in teens. A moment to pause at the dinner table to invite everyone to mention the things they are grateful for, would center the purpose of the event. Grateful individuals tend to take more time for acts of kindness, and this in turn gives them hope. Thankful individuals tend to be well received in schools, communities, and workplaces, creating opportunities. What is not to like?

This new holiday that is replacing Thanksgiving is aptly called Black Friday. This day means we are absent from work and we also congregate….sort of like congregations for other religious services on other major Holidays.

Like Passover/Easter holidays when there needs to be atoning blood spilled  –  in 2008 a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as the congregation surged forward tearing the doors off the hinges. Like the incense of Yom Kippur and Mass the sweet aroma of Teargas filled a Los Angeles store when a woman injured 20 people fighting for the same sale items.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday compete for this nation’s heart and it appears the earlier and earlier sales are shortening Thanksgiving. The long lines of shopping squatters who used to wait all night now gave way to major stores opening Thursday– robbing all retail workers of their Day of Thanks. It would be sad were these long lines for a food bank or soup kitchen but it is sadder still when the line is the start of a stampede to get discount junk.

This pursuit of happiness means exhaustion for a lot of Americans. This Black holiday is marked by epidemic of depression and anxiety that now defines the season. Materialism is near collapse and now thousands of psychiatrists are busy medicating younger and younger people who are bottoming out in the cathedrals of consumerism.  Black Friday will be followed by the morning hangover when the bills announce their day of reckoning. Our society built on our materialism cannot last. Who will answer when we call in our time of need?

Thanksgiving will replace Black Friday in the days ahead…..This Babylon is going down…. Rev 18v11 The world’s businessmen weep and mourn over her, because no one is buying their merchandise any more –

Then Abraham Lincoln will be our guide when he declared this day “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Let us return to the old paths ……

What Thanksgiving once was…

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By the President of the United States of America.     
A Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln 1789

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

Abraham Lincoln.

I wonder if  Lincoln had this in mind…………

Jesus’ unanswered prayers.

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John 17:20-23  “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.  

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

It has been 2000 years and that prayer of the Son – “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one” on the most intense night of his life is still only a dream.  The fantasy is compounded – because Jesus like Paul requests  “unity among his followers”  three times and that thrice unanswered prayer is Jesus only recorded personal private prayer to His Father.

Did Unity cease along with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the First Century,   or did the Gifts cease when the Unity ceased?   Yeshua the “Head of the Church”  has not been able to recreate those conditions ever since.   They gathered in one accord – the ONLY word used to describe the group on Pentecost. Over and over they are described eating meals and meeting together with one accord. God using one description, one clue to the miracle – they did it all in ONE ACCORD  –  Acts  5:12  And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch).

I  watched the “fire of complete unity” yesterday  – when the Reformed contemporary  leaders John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Steve Lawson, R.C. Sproul, Tom Pennington  warned the church about the Charismatic error in the “Strange Fire Conference.”  These men are champions of Calvinism and upholders of the 5 Solo’s of the Reformation.  Then they focused their attention to their other Reformed Brothers – fellow heirs of God – with identical teachings – who also uphold the 5 Solo’s and proceeded to discredit  John Piper and Mark Driscall.

The world got to see headlines like “Driscall crashes Convention” and tweets like “they confiscated my books.”  Satan just demonstrated what the world already knows…. that Christianity is as harmonious as the politics in Washington.  The leaders are no different.

I might suggest the next Conference be called “Korah – No Fire Needed” and rather than speaker’s only criticizing brothers and fellow heirs of God –  we actually put our faith into action – and go out and just torch each other’s sanctuaries.

The  founders of this nation are to have said  “We must all hang together, or assuredly  we shall all hang separately.” They understood what the early church practiced.  We are like the the besieged people of God  in Jerusalem in A.D. 70 who set fire to each others food stores inside that city….while the Roman armies just waited for starvation to do what their weapons could not. So what can the current 34,000 christian groups be so disagreeable about?  Well, 34,000 different things, I guess.

Meanwhile the Head of the Church just lives to intercede…..but with useless, fanciful prayers like….. I have given them the glory that You gave me, that they may be one as we are one…..

Revival is the Answer

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There are similarities between the dark times we live in now and the dawn of the First Great Awakening. The choices we see now are the same inequalities facing the workers of France and England. France dissolved into chaos and violence…while England had a moral and spiritual revival.

A corrupt and even dead church darkened most aspects of English life. The Church of England leadership was corrupt. Archbishops and bishops lived luxuriously and unashamedly negotiated better positions for themselves and their families. Economically England by now dominated the slave trade with greed leading to brutality. The industrial revolution influenced owners into adopting the same attitudes of the slavers towards the children working in the mines and cotton mills. In London between 1730 – 1750 almost 3 out of 4 children born to all classes died before their 5th birthday. England was going through its Gin Age with 1 out 6 homes owning and operating a ‘gin still’ and almost 20% of all single girls in London working as prostitutes. The sports of the day was bull baiting and cock fighting, while bare fisted boxing matches attracted 12,000 to a fight.

The climate was as ripe as France for a breakdown of social order into chaos and revolution.

But there was no revolution……There was a Great Awakening instead.  Two young men named Charles and John Wesley met George Whitefield in Bristol on April 2nd 1739. Together they started to preach to common folk in the outdoors as the churches were closed to the poor. Wesley wrote a pamphlet in which he declared that “It is the plain old Christianity that I teach.”  He ended up preaching 45,000 sermons; traveled a quarter of a million miles on horseback,  up and down and across England on roads that were often dangerous and sometimes impassable. He composed his commentary on the Bible verse by verse, wrote hundreds of letters, and a daily journal from 1735 to the year before his death in 1791; and he also wrote some of the 330 books that were published in his lifetime.

Thirteen years before the Abolition Committee was formed, Wesley wrote “Thoughts upon Slavery”, a graphic, tract denouncing this vicious horrid trade” as a national disgrace which greatly influenced Wilberforce. He kept up his attack on slavery until the end of his life, the last letter he wrote being to Wilberforce. He deplored the stupidity and futility of war, especially Britain’s war with the American colonies.

He publicly and repeatedly questioned why food was so expensive and he gave the answer: immense quantities of corn were consumed in distilling. He supported fair prices, a living wage, honest and healthy employment for all.

He never raised the dead,  but he raised a dead nation.  And when he died he left a preachers gown, a bible, and six silver spoons for his pall bearers and …………the Methodist Church that shaped all of England for hundreds of years after his death.

Wesley said, “Sloth, luxury and ungodliness are the characteristics of the English nation!”  Is this not a word for our time?

If we as the church set our mind to Revival – to examine our lives and our communities.  Rather than pray for another bailout  our prayer should be for that last Great Awakening.  Could a small outnumbered church – like Wesley awaken the conscience of a dead nation?  It is only when the situation is so beyond repair that God can do what we cannot.  My email for years has been – Ps85v6 – Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?  7 Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation!   Perhaps things are bad enough now for us recognize our need.