A Bigoted Prophet, A Wicked City and The Judgment of God

The book of Jonah is very interesting for several reasons.  First, it is about the mercy and grace of God shown to an evil and wicked nation.  Second, it is about how God can change the heart of a man to do what he is called to do.  And third, it is about a nation turning to God and finding mercy.

The story starts with the LORD calling Jonah to go warn the city of Nineveh that God would destroy them in forty days.  What is interesting is that Jonah was hoping that Nineveh would not repent and that God would destroy them.  Here is a man that did not take along a song evangelist, he did not have a team go ahead before him and prepare the people, he did not give an altar call, and he did not have them pray the sinner’s prayer, or ask God to save them.  He didn’t even taken an offering or sell his latest book.  Why? Because he did not want converts, he wanted Nineveh destroyed.  Jonah was counting on God to keep his word.

The problem was the people believed the message and called a fast and put on sackcloth and sat on the ashes.  Nothing in the entire city was allowed to eat or drink water and they were to call upon God and turn from their wicked ways with the hope that God might withdraw his judgment and that they be spared.

God in his mercy and grace heard the prayers of the people and he spared them his judgment.  The entire city was humbled before God and prayed and sought forgiveness.  This pagan nation pleaded for mercy and God granted it to them.

The second interesting part of this story is how God changed the heart of a bigoted prophet to save a nation he want destroyed.  Nineveh was an enemy of Israel.  Nineveh was the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire  located on the Tigris River in northern Iraq, opposite the modern city of Mosul.  (Interesting that the same feelings Jonah had for those who are today’s Iraqis, is the same feeling modern Israel holds today.  Some things never change.)

Look at Jonah.  Jonah was a racist, a hyper-nationalist. He did not want to go to Nineveh because he knew God would have mercy on his enemies. He did not want their repentance; he wanted their doom. Quite contrary to the spirit of Jesus, he did not have good will toward his enemies. He was not about to bless those who used to curse him. He was a hard liner, and God was too soft. So he goes outside the city to sulk.

Jonah has missed the message of God’s grace and mercy.  God loves to show mercy and that we his people should "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God" Micah 6:8. And it's implied in the very word "mercy" that no racial or ethnic or national barriers can disqualify a person from God's love and our love.

We never find out if God actual changed the heart of Jonah to accept the salvation of Nineveh.  But Nineveh was spared for a few years.

About 100 years later, the next generation had abandoned the Lord and fallen back into tremendous evil, violence, bloodshed, lies, sorcery and other wickedness. In the Old Testament book of Nahum, we read that the Lord again spoke to the people of Nineveh, this time through a different Hebrew prophet, this one named Nahum. Yet this time the people of Nineveh did not repent. They did not listen to God’s word. They did not plead for mercy. They did not turn from their wicked ways and start praying, fasting and begging God for mercy.  And mercy did not come. Instead, the judgment of God came upon the people, and in 612 B.C. the city of Nineveh was utterly destroyed.

Here is a thought.  If the wickedness of Nineveh was so great that God was going to destroy it where do we as America stand?

For several years there have been indications of God’s warning to America to repent.  Just because biblical prophets in the style of Jonah and Nahum are no longer around to interpret the warnings, does not mean that signs and wonders are not happening all about us. As a matter of fact, prophetic signs are occurring in such numbers and with such frequency that it is difficult to keep up with them.

How we respond to the many warnings God has given will determine how much time before His final judgment.  Our country has been invaded by terrorist, earthquakes are more frequent and destructive, storms are more devastating, we are suffering from drought and crop failures, our economic structure is crumbling, our political leaders are deceitful, we have sacrificed our children to wars that benefit only the rich, water is becoming a national concern, and a spirit of discontent has covered our nation.

God has promised that when He has blessed us with prosperity and we sin against Him that he will change our glory into shame. Hosea 4:7.  As we see today so many things within America that once were our pride have become our shame.  We have gone from the strongest economy in the world to the greatest debtor.  We were proud of our freedom and religious heritage.  Now those freedoms are being taken away from us on a daily basis.  America once had the greatest education system in the world now we have fallen far behind most nations.  We are fast becoming a third world nation.

Why is America faced with these problems?  Why have we lost the blessing of God?  Jeremiah might give us some insight, “Your iniquities have turned away these things (God’s blessings), and your sins have withheld good things from you.” Jeremiah 5:25.  When we turn our backs on the LORD and His Word we can no longer tell the difference between good and evil.  The LORD told Jeremiah, “. . .people are foolish, they have not known Me; they are senseless children, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to good they have no knowledge.” Jeremiah 4:22

America has been drifting down the road to apostasy for several years.  We cannot expect God to ignore judgment on America when we have removed his Word from our schools, denied our children the right to life when we abort 1.5 million each year, accept a way of life that destroys the family unit, engage in wars where millions of innocent women and children our killed for the political and monetary gains of the elite, and trample the religious rights of the citizens to worship God without government interference--now wonder God is angry with us.

So, are the natural disasters which are occurring with greater intensity just a cycle or do we have good reason to be concerned?  If the warnings of impending doom are ignored what will be our ultimate downfall? 

There are people within America who are like Jonah.  They are sitting back watching to see if God will destroy America.  These people hate America, just as Jonah hated the people of Nineveh.  They will do nothing to help America repent, they wish her destroyed.  But a lesson from the book of Jonah is the mercy and grace of God.  

Just as the people of Nineveh believed the message of destruction and called a fast and turn from their wicked ways, with the hope that God might withdraw his judgment and be spared-- America must do the same.  If not, we are a doomed nation.  We must never forget of those, whom God has given much, much will be expected.

Our nation has drifted so far from precepts of justice and mercy and walking upright before the LORD that we are face with so formidable a challenge to resolve that which can only be remedied in one way- repent and return to God.

Lying-- The American Way of Life

This past week I was asked if I would be writing about the latest ruling by the United States Supreme Court on the Affordable Health Care Act (Tax).  As I gave this some thought, the outstanding issue of this whole debate is not, is it a tax or is it good for the country or even if it follows the Constitution but the fact the American public was deceived by all three levels of government.  The President deceived the American public into accepting a lie by adamantly stating it would not be a tax.  The Congress deceived the American public into believing the poor would be helped and the middle class would not lose their medical freedoms of choice.  And this past week the Supreme Court ruled it was lawful for the government to force you to buy a product that you may not want or need.  Where will this lead down the road?  I don’t know, but it will not be good for the American citizens.

How did we get our country into this mess?  Why is it that the American public has such a difficult time in learning our elected official do not have our best interest at heart?  Every time you hear a political promise and you are feeling secure in the promise, take heed there are many deceivers among us.

Americans have allowed themselves to be distracted by the “pretty people” in politics.  Americans have been deceived by nice people with attractive personalities. Americans are attracted to the rich, famous and powerful.  These individuals are often good orators and have people flocking to hear them speak.  After all, if deceivers were repulsive they wouldn’t have a following or be able to deceive anyone.  This comes from the ultimate deceiver behind all false prophets and false teachers and corrupt leaders-- Satan. He deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden and he uses people to deceive us today.

As Americans we have learned to lie at an early age.  The first lie is to ourselves.  Why?  Because we fear that we do not have the courage to face the truth of a situation.  We have learned to lie as a way of avoiding the reality of life.  Not only have we learned to lie about the reality of life we have learned to accept the lie of others, if we feel our way of life is threatened.  In public life we lie about everything, we have become experts in hiding the real truth of our actions.  We have become so accustom to lies and the temporary delusion from our political leaders that we expect them to be dishonest.  

Paul told Timothy that “ . . . evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”  These deceivers are deceived themselves.  Political deception has long been an accepted part of the American process of government.  Political lies and deception has become so trivialized that we expect it.  However, the lies we have been told concerning the latest Supreme Court ruling has affected the lives of so many people. It is as though our leaders feel they have the right to lie to the people from whom they take their power.  These deceivers will not give up their power voluntarily but will continue to lie and deceive the people they have vowed to serve and protect.

As much as I detest the political deceit that goes on in our country there is a greater deceit in our country and that is the false-prophets, teachers and leaders within the church.  Jesus said, “Take heed that no man deceives you.”  He went on to say, “. . .that many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”  

Satan has tried to destroy the church since the beginning. His attempt to persecute the early church and murder Christians backfired miserably. He devised a more effective way to destroy the church that seems to be working quite well and many evangelicals have accepted his lies.  Just sow weeds (tares) among the wheat.  Throw in a few hypocrites and counterfeit the real thing.  Post an artificial Christian here and one there.  Infiltrate the Church with a lot of shallow, weak, empty hearted false-Christians and Satan will have deceived many.   Satan is the master deceiver.  He is an expert at persuading people to believe in something that is not true 

Beware of counterfeit Christians; beware of false prophets and false doctrines that Satan has brought into the Church. When men who are in positions of responsibility permit themselves to be led astray, as many do, by the lies of Satan, the enemy gains a great victory.  He creates dissension by using men who pretend to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  They make an effort to deceive many, by leading them to accept false teachings by giving the people the lies they want to hear.  Men and women who have a message other than Jesus Christ are false-teachers.  When self-interest such as healing, prosperity, entertainment, and feel-good religion are the main message-- beware of these deceitful people.

Our government may lie to us about health insurance, the wars being fought, the corruption they hide, the manipulation of the media but this is not an evil as great as the deceit and lies found in the leaders within the Church.  If we as a nation are to survive we must seek the TRUTH and walk in the LIGHT of Jesus Christ.  We must expose those who are the false prophets and teachers and teaching deceit and lies.  Our country will never remove the political corruption until we have removed the religious corruption.  Judgment must first begin at the House of the LORD.  

I expect evil from our government, history has proven this fact.  I know from the scriptures that there will be evil found in the Church, the tares have been sown and judgment proclaimed.  But are we going to allow  ourselves to be distracted by the “pretty people” in the church to be deceived by nice people with attractive personalities, fine clothes, the large houses, boats, jets and jewelry because they seem to be blessed of God?  Are we going to allow these individuals to robs us, lie to us and deceive us because they say what we want to hear?  It is time to repent and return to the LORD.

Death By Presidential Assassination

It is hard to believe that the American people are not protesting the White House death squad.  In fact, we are sitting by while the President of the United States of America and his aides meet every week to draw up their own death list of who they will kill next.  The President of the United States has allowed the “War on Terrorism” to push him to the point that he justifies his right to kill anyone on the earth who he defines as a terrorist—American citizens included.

This is a very old story.  Our president is not the first to have a "kill" list. There was a king who took a  walk on the roof of his house one evening, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. Someone told him she was the wife of a Hittite soldier off fighting in his army. The king had her brought to the palace and "knew her" in the Biblical way. Sometime later she sent word to the king she was going to have his baby.

The king had committed adultery with one of his soldiers’ wives and now there was going to be a child! Desperately he tried to think of a way to cover his sin. Finally he had a plan; he would bring the solider home from the battlefront and let him visit his wife. Then everyone would think he was the baby’s father. But the plan didn’t work. The solider came back to Jerusalem, but he wouldn’t go down to his house, not even after the king got him drunk. He slept with the king’s servants instead. He wouldn’t let himself enjoy being home with his wife while the other soldiers were having a hard time on the battlefield.

What could the king do now? Soon the solider would hear his wife was going to have a baby, a baby that was not his. He must never know that the king was its father!
 

The king  wrote to the leader of his army, commanding him, “Set the solider in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.” Then he had the solider take the letter back with him. When the king heard the solider  was dead he told his commander not to feel guilty. “The sword devours one as well as another.” The king treated the death as if it  had been an ordinary casualty of war.

The king was David, the woman was Bathsheba and the solider was Uriah.  Uriah made the king's "kill" list.

There is a difference between war and murder.  There are leaders who justify this as acceptable means of the fight on the “War on Terrorism”.  America has lost all sense of morality.  We no longer have morally responsible leaders.  The President of the United States has been ordering drone assassination and defending his actions since he took office.  His “War on Terror” is much like the expression the “devil made me do it.”  If, he is a “Christian", as he claims, he would know he is morally responsible for the murders of those innocent bystanders who are called “collateral damage”.  Where are the liberals who felt Bush are was a war criminal and should be impeached?  How can the liberals support a man who brags about the mass murders he has ordered?  The hit list of terrorist killed by drones has been at the cost of hundreds of civilian deaths.

I know it is difficult to know the full story of what has really happened when a drone pilot thousands of miles away targets a “terrorist”.  That pilot may have seen a small child who had all the characteristics of being a “terrorist” or a mother holding her young child who may have been hiding a bomb.  After all, US strikes are well researched so that we minimize the collateral damages.  US intelligence would never allow a strike to take place if innocent civilians were in the strike area.

As Christians we know it is immoral for our leaders to have a “kill” list.  Yet, we will justify these actions because times have changed and the enemy we are fighting is different from past wars.  If our enemy has no qualms killing women and children, or killing thousands of innocent Americans, destroying our economic stability, then we have no problem with putting them on a “kill” list.  We can justify how we act in an immoral way towards a pathological radical religious group and they should see the handwriting on the wall as we carry out our drone assassination program until every last insane “terrorist” is dead.  The ends justify the means.  Our feel our leaders are right in using every means available to give these maniacs the same death they give out to others.  We have agreed to move over to the dark side to stop evil--even if it is wrong.

As citizens of the United States of America how can we support leaders that have no qualms about killing innocent people, including men, women and children?  This action is not the exception, but the rule and they do this repeatedly, day after day, year after year. But of course, this doesn't matter-- we are making America secure. Because those we kill are, of necessity, insane religious bigots trying to impose absolute dominion over others. Even the innocent men, women and children we kill will eventually become a terrorist.  The people we kill whose names we don't know doing things we don't know for reasons we don't know is justified because they have been marked for death by our president and we trust his judgment. 

What we as America should not forget is the same president who can determine whose name is put on the “kill” list has the power to class you as a terrorist.  Our Congress has given him and any president following him, absolute power in making these choices.  He has the power to unleash death whenever and in whatever direction he chooses. The "right" to dispense death arbitrarily without due process-- the claim that the government may murder anyone it chooses, Americans included, whenever it desires is immoral and we should be concerned.  What the government can do to other they will soon be doing to us.  

There is outrage for what is happening in Syria--the president killing his own people.  As Americans we are appalled but we have given our president the same power and authority to kill those whom he deems as a terrorist to the security of our country.  We don’t seem to have a problem with this.  How long will it be before we have killing in our streets?  Keep in mind those being killed in Syria by their president our “terrorist”. 

We should never forget the history of our country where we had no problem killing thousands of American Native Indians because they would not conform to our ways.  When President Andrew Jackson gave the order to move Indians in 1838, hundreds of Indians lost their lives.  When Congress gave Jackson the power over life and death, he used the threat of death to accomplish his goals, just like our present president.  

America Christians, beware.  We could be next.

Drones-- The Oppression of America

 Proverbs 15:3

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

Soon the eyes of the government will be every place, beholding the evil and the good.

The Declaration of Independence declares the principle that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.  I have not given my consent for the government to fly spy drones over my house, my town or my state.  I don’t know of anyone in our small town that would give their consent to be spied upon by our government.  

The Constitution does not authorize the government to spy upon We the People. A government that spies upon its people breaks faith with the people violates the contract between the government and the people under which the people consent to be governed. A government that spies upon its people produces a nation of people who will mistrust its leaders. A government that spies upon its people ceases to honor the privacy of its people.  If our government has the power to invade the privacy of its people it is no longer a government deriving its power from the people.  America is quickly becoming a nation that is occupied by a government that no longer speaks for the American people. 

Americans have prided themselves on our Constitution that protects our freedoms.  The law on surveillance begins with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which states clearly that Americans' privacy may not be invaded without a warrant based on probable cause.  That was before it became accepted by the past two admirations to spy on Americans in violation of our Constitution.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.  This is what we used to have as a protection of our privacy.  With the technology of today drones can now provide our government with surveillance that has the ability to spy on the American people from a distance or within feet of our homes.  Again, this is a violation of our freedom. 

 The US Supreme Court (US v. Katz 389 US 347) has made it clear that this core privacy protection does cover government eavesdropping. As a result, all electronic surveillance by the government in the United States is illegal, unless it falls under one of a small number of precise exceptions specifically carved out in the law.  This would include drones.

Our government leaders have used the fear and threat of “terrorist” to the point that everything has become lumped into “terrorist activities” and “We the People” need protection.  However, our government has far exceeded its authority in the area of national security.  The National Security Administration (NSA) can only spy where it is explicitly granted permission to do so by statute. Citizens concerned about surveillance do not have to answer the question, "what law restricts the NSA's spying?" Rather, the government is required to supply an answer to the question "what law permits the NSA to spy?"  That was before our present president and congress changed the law.

But can we blame the government for all this need for security?  No, I think not.  As Americans we have lost the respect for each others property rights.  Maybe, this is because we no longer feel it is important to keep the commandment “Thou shall not steal”.  If as a people we can disregard the laws of God what chance is there that we will keep man’s law?

The big theft today is stealing someone’s identity.  Anytime we make a transaction we are asked for personal information, and we are given the assurance that it will not be used for any other purpose.  Then we hear on the news the number of companies hacked and information sold to individuals who use it to rob us.  We could blame it on the terrorist since companies are required to collect information due to “Know Your Customer Laws”, to prevent international terrorists from moving money or purchasing items that may be used to manufacture items to be used against us.  In fact, Homeland Security has its own you’re your customer program and it is Homeland Security just recruited Wal-Mart as a spying partner.

We have arrived at a unique moment in the history of surveillance, in a poll conducted by the Washington Post 71% of the American’s approve of surveillance.  Every day we are photographed and videotaped on the highway, at the store, the bank, the local park, every government building, schools and even in passing our neighbor’s home that have video surveillance.  What these people fail to realize is that are an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras now deployed in the United States shooting 4 billion hours of footage a week. Americans are being watched, all of us, almost everywhere.  Soon we will be watched from the sky by government controlled drones.  When will America wake up and say enough is enough?  I for one, have come to the conclusion that I would rather place my trust in the protection of the LORD rather than this present government. As the Psalmist tells us that we should  ". . .not put your trust in princes, no in a son of man, in whom there is no help.  His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; In that very day his plans perish.  Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God." Ps. 146