President Obama ascended the mountain to Rev. Billy Graham’s log cabin Sunday afternoon en-route to a memorial service for miners. There was a time a man of God descended from the mountain with a word of the Lord.
So Obama came to a mountain to be prayed for. There will come a time when all the kings of the earth will come to another mountain, not for prayer, or a photo op, but to pay homage to the King.
The president had never met Graham in person, Burton told reporters, and is now the 12th White House occupant to have done so in the last 7 decades. For all those meetings and God speaking to the leaders, our country still free falls into Hell. And while 7 signifies completeness, 12 is the number of government.
“Rev. Graham has obviously been an important spiritual leader to past presidents,” White House spokesman Burton told reporters, “He’s a real treasure to our country, and the president appreciates the opportunity to visit him at his home.” There was a time “men of God” were greeted with Ki 18:17 ”when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that trouble Israel?’
All presidents need prayer. But what they all wanted most was the picture. Barack Obama’s visit to Billy Graham’s — was several years in the making. Both the preacher and the presidents had their reasons — sometimes spiritual, sometimes political, usually both — for getting together. Hopefully, they got what they came for. There was a time kings dreaded and feared the Men of God, and no man of God ever got together for a Photo Op.
Franklin Graham got uninvited to a National Day Prayer event because he called a false religion Evil, but there was the time when Eisenhower mused about recruiting Graham as a speechwriter, to help in the fight against “Godless communism.”
Now Prophets and the Kings mutually serve each other. From a skinny dip in the white house pool, while Johnson was in office, to pictures of a praying president on evangelical campaign literature, golfing with Kennedy, worship services for Nixon, marriage counseling for a post Lewinsky-Clinton, Billy Graham was a part of White House life. Were Gods purpose, His message, and His agenda really served?
We now have the leadership we deserve in the Church and in our Country – because the Church of the Living God has forgotten that Presidents serve at the pleasure of the Holy One of Israel, and we are all accountable to Him.
It is our duty to remind them.