3 posts tagged “election '08”

6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

Samuel's Warning Against Kings

10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

The Lord Grants Israel's Request

19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” 21 And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. 22 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

...abortion was a bad idea?

...the "Hippocratic Oath" meant what it said, and the doctors taking the oath meant to keep the oath:

     "I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

     "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a (an abortifacient) to cause an abortion."?

...America believed in a representative government, with God-given and state-protected "inalienable" rights, with three branches of government with limited power?

...America believed in capitalism, individual rights, and 'liberty and justice for all'?

...we fought for the right to freely assemble, freely speak, freely worship, and freely bear arms to protect ourselves against a tryannous government (can you picture King George III asking Sam or John Adams for $700 billion to bail him out of his war debt?!)?

...we believed that Marxism was a stupid idea, because we knew world history, and knew it's NEVER WORKED?!?!??

...we had a country that we were proud of, and proud to pass on to our kids?

...we had a true conservative running for office that actually had a chance of winning?

Me neither, it's been so long.

--JMH

Who on Earth is "Dagon," you say?  I Kings 5 relates the tale of the fall of Dagon, an idol and false god of the Phillistines.  When the Ark of the Covenant is stolen by the Phillistines, enemies of God's people, it's placed in the house of worship next to Dagon.  The next morn, poor ol' Phillistines walked in and said, "Dag' gone!" because their idol was cast down, on its face, before the Ark of the Covenant.  They re-erected the piece of glorified furniture, only to find the next morning it had fallen again.  This time, it was shattered in pieces before the Lord.

Message?  "I am a jealous God, you will have no other gods before me!  There is no other god like me."

Fast forward to Jeremiah's book of Lamentations.  What does this have to do with idolatry?  Amongst many other sins, idolatry was one that Israel had wrestled with from the start, despite many warnings from the Lord.  See this in Jeremiah 1:16, amongst other places.  Israel forsook the Lord, and replaced His glory with lies, idols who were deaf, mute and helpless, and the prophet laments the situation when the Lord visits their iniquity with fierce justice.  He says this in 4:17 of Lamentations:

"Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save."

Tonight, we watched the debate between McCain and Obama, two giants of the American faith.  I call it the "American faith" because, to hear the various talking heads (including many Christian ministries on the religious A.M. radio stations), we are facing so many challenges as a nation that we're hoping for a savior to arise out of the ballot box. 

We wait, and like Israel before us, we watch vainly for help, watching for a nation which cannot save.  We heard from both aisles how the next president promised to save the economy, how universal healthcare was a "right" according to Sen. O, even how we as Americans were going to save the planet with our greenhouse gas policies (both sides buying the garbage of global warming, or "chicken little says pay Unkie Sam more taxe$").

My friends, to quote Sen. McCain, my friends: our nation cannot save us.  Obama and McCain will not solve our problems, either with their fine-sounding rhetoric, nor their experience as POW's, nor their foreign policies (however congenial and friendly such policies may seem).

Our nation, if it be Dagon, must fall on its face before the Lord if any change will happen that we can approve of.  Our nation, either under a Marxist regime or under a "less bigger" government under the moderate/maverick McCain, will not save us.  Dagon fell before the face of the Lord and shattered.  What will we do?

What was that thing that Jesus did in the temple again?  Oh, yeah.  Chastised the money exchangers and those swindlers who turned His Father's house, our Father's house, into a den of robbers.  I believe Jesus also called His house back to what it should've been doing:  so don't put your trust (or worries) in the money.  Place your hope (and fears) in the God who saves. 

Dagon fell before the Lord, vanquished.  Let's do the same, on behalf of our nation, and wait on the Lord for salvation.  Like Dagon: America can't save us.

--JMH