1/31/2007
TO SMITE OR NOT TO SMITE
NUMBER 175
To Smite Or Not To Smite
A long time ago I recall hearing the British preacher, Leonard Ravenhill speak of a visit to one of the great prayer warriors of an earlier time. As he entered the man’s study the man greeted him this way, “Brother Ravenhill, do you smite the nations when you pray?” This particular prayer warrior (whose name escapes me at the moment) knew the imprecatory Psalms by heart and saw them as a pattern for much of his praying.
Looking at the world today one could not be blamed if one began to do some smiting of the nations in one’s prayers. With the global reach of the homicidal sons of Allah making almost everyone nervous, the idea of doing some smiting begins to look pretty attractive.
In his book, AMERICA ALONE, The End Of The World As We Know It, Mark Steyn captures the Islamic problem with clarity and wit:
“The geopolitical scene is never stable; it's always dynamic. If the Western world decides in 2005 that it can "contain" President Sy Kottik of Wackistan indefinitely, that doesn't mean the relationship between the two parties is set in aspic. Wackistan has a higher birth rate than the West, so after forty years of "stability" there are a lot more Wackistanis and a lot fewer Frenchmen. And Wackistan has immense oil reserves, and President Kottik has used wealth of those oil reserves to fund radical schools and mosques in hitherto moderate parts of the Muslim world. And large numbers of Wackistanis have emigrated to the European Union, obliging opportunist politicians in marginal constituencies to pitch for their vote. And cheap air travel and the Internet and bank machines that take every card on the planet and the freelancing of nuclear technology mean that Wackistan's problems are no longer confined to Wackistan; for a few hundred bucks, they can be outside the Empire State Building within eight or nine hours.” P.133
Not only that but when the bomber gets here, he is not alone—Steyn continues—
“The power of the image lies in the bomber's isolation from the tide of Londoners all around him, all blissfully unaware. But, as became clear very quickly after the 2005 Tube bombings, that's not quite the world we live in. It's not black (the bomber) and white (the rest of us); there's a lot of murky shades of gray in between: the terrorist bent on devastation and destruction prowls the streets, while around him are a significant number of people urging him on, and around them a larger group of cocksure young male co-religionists gleefully celebrating mass murder, and
around them a much larger group of "moderates" who stand silent at the acts committed in their name, and around them a mesh of religious and community leaders openly inciting treason against the state, and around them another mesh of religious and community leaders who serve as apologists for the inciters, and around them a network of professional identity-group grievance-mongers adamant that they're the real victims, and around them a vast mass of elite opinion in the media and elsewhere too squeamish about ethno-cultural matters to confront reality, and around them a political establishment desperate to pretend this is just a managerial problem that can be finessed away with a few new laws and a bit of community outreach.” Page 196
The liberals who have had “free Tibet” bumper stickers on their cars for years have started replacing them with a new (but no less ineffective) sentiment, “COEXIST!” The “C” is the Islamic crescent, the “O” is the flower child upside down cross peace symbol, the “X” is the Star of David, and the “T” is the Christian cross. The only problem with this is that Islam will only coexist out of necessity until it achieves political supremacy, then the others have three choices: convert, leave the country or die.
Lest you think this sort of mentality is a Middle Eastern thing take note that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled the state prison system has failed to justify their refusal to obtain and serve special feast day meats like oxen and camel for their Muslim guests. In this cozy atmosphere, Saudi trained and funded Wahhabist prison chaplains are busy recruiting violent inmates into the religion that will allow them to go forth continuing their anti-social violence with the blessings of Allah, as long as it is against the infidels.
Meanwhile in merry England, they are rebuilding half the bathrooms in Her Majesty’s prisons because Muslim inmates have complained that the toilets face Mecca and that obliges them to ride sidesaddle, which is very uncomfortable. By the time these prisoners get out, they will be able to attend the new 70,000 seat Mosque being planned right next door to the new 80,000 seat stadium being planned for the 2012 Olympic Games.
By now you should be feeling very cross. But we need to shift gears here to another and better way. Smite the nations with your prayers if you feel called to, but balance those prayers with something very different—intercession for the lost.
In 1892 John Hyde went to India as a missionary. He founded the Punjab Prayer Union where missionaries and workers met annually to pray for the lost of India.
Here is an account from one of these meetings recorded in Praying Hyde, by Francis MCGaw,
“I saw a Punjabi brother convulsed and sobbing as if his heart would break. I went up to him and put my arms about him and said, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.’ A smile lit up his face. ‘Thank God, Sahib,’ he cried, ‘but oh, what an awful vision I have had! Thousands of souls in this land of India being carried away by the dark river of sin! They are in hell now. Oh, to snatch them from the fire before it is too late!’
“That meeting was one that will never leave my memory. It went on all night. It was a time when God's power was felt as I never had felt it before.
“God wants those who are willing to bear the burden of the souls of these millions without God to go with Jesus into Gethsemane. He wants us to do this. It is a blessed experience to feel that in some measure we can enter into the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. It brings us into a precious nearness to the Son of God. And not only this, but it is God's appointed way of bringing the lost sheep back to the fold. He is saying, 'Who will go for us, and whom shall I send?' Are you who read these words willing to be intercessors? If we are willing to put ourselves into God’s hands, then God is willing use us.”
This is a good question and a world-class challenge.
In the present world crisis, I believe there is a place for smiters in prayer but the crying need is for intercessors in prayer. It is much harder work but in the long run, the harvest will be much greater. In the end, only God can change the hearts of the Islamists who live to destroy us.
To Smite Or Not To Smite
A long time ago I recall hearing the British preacher, Leonard Ravenhill speak of a visit to one of the great prayer warriors of an earlier time. As he entered the man’s study the man greeted him this way, “Brother Ravenhill, do you smite the nations when you pray?” This particular prayer warrior (whose name escapes me at the moment) knew the imprecatory Psalms by heart and saw them as a pattern for much of his praying.
Looking at the world today one could not be blamed if one began to do some smiting of the nations in one’s prayers. With the global reach of the homicidal sons of Allah making almost everyone nervous, the idea of doing some smiting begins to look pretty attractive.
In his book, AMERICA ALONE, The End Of The World As We Know It, Mark Steyn captures the Islamic problem with clarity and wit:
“The geopolitical scene is never stable; it's always dynamic. If the Western world decides in 2005 that it can "contain" President Sy Kottik of Wackistan indefinitely, that doesn't mean the relationship between the two parties is set in aspic. Wackistan has a higher birth rate than the West, so after forty years of "stability" there are a lot more Wackistanis and a lot fewer Frenchmen. And Wackistan has immense oil reserves, and President Kottik has used wealth of those oil reserves to fund radical schools and mosques in hitherto moderate parts of the Muslim world. And large numbers of Wackistanis have emigrated to the European Union, obliging opportunist politicians in marginal constituencies to pitch for their vote. And cheap air travel and the Internet and bank machines that take every card on the planet and the freelancing of nuclear technology mean that Wackistan's problems are no longer confined to Wackistan; for a few hundred bucks, they can be outside the Empire State Building within eight or nine hours.” P.133
Not only that but when the bomber gets here, he is not alone—Steyn continues—
“The power of the image lies in the bomber's isolation from the tide of Londoners all around him, all blissfully unaware. But, as became clear very quickly after the 2005 Tube bombings, that's not quite the world we live in. It's not black (the bomber) and white (the rest of us); there's a lot of murky shades of gray in between: the terrorist bent on devastation and destruction prowls the streets, while around him are a significant number of people urging him on, and around them a larger group of cocksure young male co-religionists gleefully celebrating mass murder, and
around them a much larger group of "moderates" who stand silent at the acts committed in their name, and around them a mesh of religious and community leaders openly inciting treason against the state, and around them another mesh of religious and community leaders who serve as apologists for the inciters, and around them a network of professional identity-group grievance-mongers adamant that they're the real victims, and around them a vast mass of elite opinion in the media and elsewhere too squeamish about ethno-cultural matters to confront reality, and around them a political establishment desperate to pretend this is just a managerial problem that can be finessed away with a few new laws and a bit of community outreach.” Page 196
The liberals who have had “free Tibet” bumper stickers on their cars for years have started replacing them with a new (but no less ineffective) sentiment, “COEXIST!” The “C” is the Islamic crescent, the “O” is the flower child upside down cross peace symbol, the “X” is the Star of David, and the “T” is the Christian cross. The only problem with this is that Islam will only coexist out of necessity until it achieves political supremacy, then the others have three choices: convert, leave the country or die.
Lest you think this sort of mentality is a Middle Eastern thing take note that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled the state prison system has failed to justify their refusal to obtain and serve special feast day meats like oxen and camel for their Muslim guests. In this cozy atmosphere, Saudi trained and funded Wahhabist prison chaplains are busy recruiting violent inmates into the religion that will allow them to go forth continuing their anti-social violence with the blessings of Allah, as long as it is against the infidels.
Meanwhile in merry England, they are rebuilding half the bathrooms in Her Majesty’s prisons because Muslim inmates have complained that the toilets face Mecca and that obliges them to ride sidesaddle, which is very uncomfortable. By the time these prisoners get out, they will be able to attend the new 70,000 seat Mosque being planned right next door to the new 80,000 seat stadium being planned for the 2012 Olympic Games.
By now you should be feeling very cross. But we need to shift gears here to another and better way. Smite the nations with your prayers if you feel called to, but balance those prayers with something very different—intercession for the lost.
In 1892 John Hyde went to India as a missionary. He founded the Punjab Prayer Union where missionaries and workers met annually to pray for the lost of India.
Here is an account from one of these meetings recorded in Praying Hyde, by Francis MCGaw,
“I saw a Punjabi brother convulsed and sobbing as if his heart would break. I went up to him and put my arms about him and said, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.’ A smile lit up his face. ‘Thank God, Sahib,’ he cried, ‘but oh, what an awful vision I have had! Thousands of souls in this land of India being carried away by the dark river of sin! They are in hell now. Oh, to snatch them from the fire before it is too late!’
“That meeting was one that will never leave my memory. It went on all night. It was a time when God's power was felt as I never had felt it before.
“God wants those who are willing to bear the burden of the souls of these millions without God to go with Jesus into Gethsemane. He wants us to do this. It is a blessed experience to feel that in some measure we can enter into the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. It brings us into a precious nearness to the Son of God. And not only this, but it is God's appointed way of bringing the lost sheep back to the fold. He is saying, 'Who will go for us, and whom shall I send?' Are you who read these words willing to be intercessors? If we are willing to put ourselves into God’s hands, then God is willing use us.”
This is a good question and a world-class challenge.
In the present world crisis, I believe there is a place for smiters in prayer but the crying need is for intercessors in prayer. It is much harder work but in the long run, the harvest will be much greater. In the end, only God can change the hearts of the Islamists who live to destroy us.
1/23/2007
TO A PLACE PREPARED
#174 To A Place Prepared
On the night before he was crucified, Jesus said to his disciples,
“Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”
His Father’s home is in the very same city He later showed to the Apostle John in a vision,
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband.
“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever.’”
At 7:03 AM on Tuesday morning January sixteenth, Russell Lowell Mixter checked out of his room at the health center at Windsor Park Manor and checked in to the place prepared for him in the New Jerusalem. While his body waits for the resurrection, it will be used for the training of medical students.
Dr. Mixter’s life was long, rich and filled with service to his family, colleagues, students, friends, neighbors, and the Kingdom of God. In his late nineties, his world narrowed but his gentle, optimistic spirit expanded. He had all his wits about him to the end, almost halfway through his one hundred and first year. He never complained. He died as he had lived, quietly, wishing not to be a bother to anyone.
Joan’s father left a priceless legacy—but he always traveled light. We carried his earthly goods away in a suitcase, a plastic bin, and a shopping bag. We will miss him very much but we know that we will see him again in the place prepared for all who die in Christ.
1/04/2007
SADDAM MEETS HARRY
NUMBER 174
Saddam Meets Harry
The murderous thug who ruled Iraq with an iron hand for almost three decades is dead. On December 30, about 6 A.M. Baghdad time, Saddam Hussein was hanged for his crimes against humanity. He was convicted and sentenced for ordering the deaths of 148 men and boys in 1982 in the village of Dujail where someone had tried to assassinate him. He has much more to answer for and there will be other trials to follow, but it appears the Iraqi government decided to eliminate his possible return to power from the fantasies of the Sunnis and get on with their task of bringing some order to the chaos that threatens to engulf the country. Estimates of the murders Hussein committed or ordered to achieve and maintain his power run from 300,000 to over a million.
Hussein was not what one would call a devout Muslim. But it would be reasonable to assume the Qur’an in his hand and his prayer on the steps of the gallows might have been an attempt to get under the wire and into paradise where he would find his own crew of 70 eager virgins waiting to serve him. It is not hard to imagine his chagrin when he arrived in Sheol, the dark, dreary land of the dead, where he will cool his heels until the last day when he will stand before his Creator and answer in full for his sins, and then be cast into the lake of fire forever and ever.
If Sheol has greeters (which is probably questionable since the best scholarship suggests Hell is a very solitary place), I suspect one of them may be Harry Blackmun, the Supreme Court Judge who in this month in 1973 found in the Constitution the absolute right of every woman to have an abortion. Judge Blackmun’s discovery has been responsible for the legal murder of almost 50,000,000 babies in the womb since 1973. Blackmun died in March 1999 so he has had plenty of time to get used to the place and would make a quality greeter. His benign smile would be a nice touch for the ACLU lawyers arriving daily, full of themselves and surprised by the dismal look of their less than first class accommodations.
I can also imagine Hussein will be greatly encouraged with the thought that when the time comes to really answer for mass murder, he might well seem like a little fish standing in line behind Justice Blackmun. They will both be greatly surprised to find that the willful taking of a single innocent life is a clear violation of the 6thcommandment, something about which God’s thinking is not relative—one life is the same as a million lives as far as God is concerned.
Worldwide, 3 people die every second, 180 every minute, and nearly 11,000 every hour. It is clear from Scripture that the God whose eye is on the sparrow, is fully aware and personally interested in each one of these deaths.
“You shall not kill (murder)” is one of the commandments that still has a small place in the minds, hearts and courts of western civilization. Violation of this commandment is what Harry and Saddam have in common. Punishment for this violation is what they can both look forward to. There may not be full justice in this life but there will be full justice in the last day when the all-knowing, all-wise, all-just Creator and Judge finishes things up.
+++++++
“…it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment…”
Hebrews 9.27
Saddam Meets Harry
The murderous thug who ruled Iraq with an iron hand for almost three decades is dead. On December 30, about 6 A.M. Baghdad time, Saddam Hussein was hanged for his crimes against humanity. He was convicted and sentenced for ordering the deaths of 148 men and boys in 1982 in the village of Dujail where someone had tried to assassinate him. He has much more to answer for and there will be other trials to follow, but it appears the Iraqi government decided to eliminate his possible return to power from the fantasies of the Sunnis and get on with their task of bringing some order to the chaos that threatens to engulf the country. Estimates of the murders Hussein committed or ordered to achieve and maintain his power run from 300,000 to over a million.
Hussein was not what one would call a devout Muslim. But it would be reasonable to assume the Qur’an in his hand and his prayer on the steps of the gallows might have been an attempt to get under the wire and into paradise where he would find his own crew of 70 eager virgins waiting to serve him. It is not hard to imagine his chagrin when he arrived in Sheol, the dark, dreary land of the dead, where he will cool his heels until the last day when he will stand before his Creator and answer in full for his sins, and then be cast into the lake of fire forever and ever.
If Sheol has greeters (which is probably questionable since the best scholarship suggests Hell is a very solitary place), I suspect one of them may be Harry Blackmun, the Supreme Court Judge who in this month in 1973 found in the Constitution the absolute right of every woman to have an abortion. Judge Blackmun’s discovery has been responsible for the legal murder of almost 50,000,000 babies in the womb since 1973. Blackmun died in March 1999 so he has had plenty of time to get used to the place and would make a quality greeter. His benign smile would be a nice touch for the ACLU lawyers arriving daily, full of themselves and surprised by the dismal look of their less than first class accommodations.
I can also imagine Hussein will be greatly encouraged with the thought that when the time comes to really answer for mass murder, he might well seem like a little fish standing in line behind Justice Blackmun. They will both be greatly surprised to find that the willful taking of a single innocent life is a clear violation of the 6thcommandment, something about which God’s thinking is not relative—one life is the same as a million lives as far as God is concerned.
Worldwide, 3 people die every second, 180 every minute, and nearly 11,000 every hour. It is clear from Scripture that the God whose eye is on the sparrow, is fully aware and personally interested in each one of these deaths.
“You shall not kill (murder)” is one of the commandments that still has a small place in the minds, hearts and courts of western civilization. Violation of this commandment is what Harry and Saddam have in common. Punishment for this violation is what they can both look forward to. There may not be full justice in this life but there will be full justice in the last day when the all-knowing, all-wise, all-just Creator and Judge finishes things up.
+++++++
“…it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment…”
Hebrews 9.27
