President

Survival: USA, President Obama, Israel

Can they all survive these perilous times?

I got to pondering that question on Tuesday of this week (ie April 6, 2010).

My conclusions?

  • I do not see how President Obama can survive to complete his first term in office.
  • Nor do I see how the United States can survive almost three more years of what it has experienced in the first year plus of the Obama Presidency.
  • About Israel, well, take man’s measuring rod and she’s doomed also.

I should remind you at this point that I am a two-separate-kingdoms Christian. I am apolitical and my comments are likewise.

I believe we are in a period of intense peril for the USA, for President Obama, and for Israel. I believe this great peril exceeds anything any of those three have experienced before (at least if we limit the scope of that comment to the modern nation-state of Israel and not historical Israel).

The course presently charted for the US will hasten its collapse or at least the collapse of her system of government (which would be catastrophic enough). I will not elaborate on why I think that.

President Obama surely has more than the usual potential assassins plotting his destruction. Again, I’ll not take the time to elaborate. I don’t see how the Secret Service can keep him safe.

Israel need only look at the radical change this week in the American nuclear posture to doubt her own survivability. The US has just declared it has taken a nuclear counterstrike off the table as a response to a non-nuclear WMD attack. If the US will not retaliate that way to such an attack on itself, why should Israel think the US will stick its neck out for her when she’s attacked with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons? Couple that with other developments of late, and Israel appears dangerously alone.

Well, I have taxes to do. And a Sunday School class to prepare to teach in the morning. And missionary reports from Mexico to get ready for tomorrow afternoon’s Mission Board meeting. And other pressing matters pressing me. I already spent too much time on this. I shall have to forego the pleasure of expanding my points.

In closing, these points:

  1. As I understand the Scriptures, Israel survives, thanks only to dramatic divine intervention.
  2. About the United States and about President Obama, I don’t know. I’m not that kind of prophet.
  3. I just don’t see how they survive another three years.
  4. I pray they do.

I call on God’s faithful people to pray that way as well.

PS: Am I going off the deep end?

PS, Jr: I’m not fearful nor paranoid. Nor am I a kook. 😉

Health Care Reform

Some questions and comments reflecting on health care reform -- #hcr --

Some comments and some questions, none of them intended to be political even though they reflect on and about a political issue:

  1. If I take health care and turn it into real he chat, I have reformed it. Too bad I didn’t improve it. Or deliver on its promise and purpose.
  2. Most of the time I forgot to pray.
  3. I am amazed to witness a political majority going against the will of the citizen majority. Now to see on what else they defy and withstand the will of the people.
  4. The bill barely got enough votes to pass. Four fewer and it would have failed. For such sweeping, generational changes…oh, never mind.
  5. I am still kinda stunned that anyone would vote for and thus put their name to legislation without at least reading it first. I’m guessing the majority of those who voted for it will eventually be surprised at something they supported.
  6. Why does it take so long to kick in? Because it really isn’t about health care. It’s about kidnapping the health issue to expand control…and test the limits of the tolerant populace.
  7. Will any court have the integrity and spine to rule against it?
  8. More alarming to me than actual passage of the bill was that they seriously and publicly considered not voting for it directly. Such a disposition bodes no good for the country nor for the rule of law. We are in greater peril than I realized heretofore.
  9. Do they know better than the people? Quite possibly.
  10. Who gets exempted from having to abide by it? And what’s the significance of that?
  11. How does it treat the most vulnerable?
  12. It’s been six days since passage of the bill and about four since President Obama signed it. As a result of this bill, who has health care now that didn’t then?
  13. What are the unintended consequences?
  14. And perhaps more importantly, what are the hidden intended consequences?
  15. And what’s with the provisions in it that have nothing to do with health care?
  16. Maybe it would have been better to take all that non-existent money and plowed it into Social Security before it finishes collapsing. Too late. Oh well.
  17. Christians, a message for you: God is the Sovereign One. That hasn’t changed. And never will. Keep your trust in Him and fear not. Set your affection on things above. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And pray.

President Roth’s SOTUS

Personal memo to each of you who voted in the 2008 US Presidential election: One at a time, you could have elected me. 😯

In an hour or so, President Obama gives his State of the Union Speech.

But what if it were President Roth (as in, I) giving the address, what could you expect?

  1. No advance copy to anyone (except my wife)
  2. No teleprompter(s)
  3. No Presidential special guests beyond former Presidents willing to attend
  4. No speech writers
  5. No partisanship
  6. No laundry list of my accomplishments or my goals
  7. “Ask what good you can do for you neighbor…then do it.”
  8. “I have asked what good I can do for you. I’ve come up with two things I can promise right now. First, I will veto any legislation that has any earmarks attached. Second, I will push hard for a reduction in income tax rates with matching reductions in federal spending.”
  9. “We have had a hard year. So did the Pilgrims. And they had a time of thanksgiving. For what are you thankful? Fellow Americans, answer the question in your own hearts. Then tell each other. Let’s cultivate a spirit of gratefulness.”
  10. “President Carter, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good things he did for the country.
  11. “President Bush 41, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good thing he did for the country.
  12. “President Clinton, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good things he did for the country.
  13. “President Bush 43, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good things he did for the country.
  14. “I reaffirm my appreciation for our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. The Almighty has blessed us beyond measure through the principles and laws established by our founding documents.”
  15. “I am grateful to be an American. We live in an exceptional country. God Himself has bestowed on us freedoms and liberty few nations have enjoyed. We have carelessly surrendered too many of those. We have brazenly abused others of them. And many we have put to good use for ourselves, our families, our communities, our country, and even our world.”
  16. “I asked you about your own thankfulness. You aren’t here to express them in this forum. But your representatives are here. So we’ll have a fifteen minute open mike period in another five minutes or so. In that time slot, Senators and Representatives with a sincere personal expression of gratefulness may have a maximum of fifteen seconds to say one thing for which they are thankful. While you’re thinking, let me tell you some things for which I’m thankful…not as President, but as Mark Roth….”

See what you missed? 🙄

You may be thankful for that also. 😉

“Just as Real and Admirable”

Frankly, I was astounded to read this earlier this morning.

Furthermore, it happened Saturday night. I didn’t learn about it till this morning. Lemme see — Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — six days later. And I don’t exactly stay isolated from the news.

Has this story been buried?

President Obama delivered an unprecedented message to the Human Rights Campaign Saturday night. Sounding more like a homosexual activist than a sitting president, Obama went well beyond his expected message of “I’m here with you” on the homosexual agenda.

“My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians — whether in the office or on the battlefield,” Obama told an estimated audience of 3,000. “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.”

Even Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese was stunned at the breadth of Obama’s statement, calling it “something quite remarkable.”

“This was a historic night when we felt the full embrace and commitment of the President of the United States,” Solmonese said in a post-speech statement. “It’s simply unprecedented.”

Sounds like the folks at Human Rights Campaign got far more hope and change than they dared expect.

Oh, America!

“Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

“If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

“But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” (Isaiah 1:10,16,19,20).

Here’s my source: Obama: Homosexual Relationships ‘Just as Real and Admirable’ as Heterosexual Marriage

The Deepening Iran Crisis

OK, so I’m a little slow…. In his article dated October 5, 2009, George Friedman of Strategic Forecasting reports:

Two major leaks occurred this weekend over the Iran matter.

In the first, The New York Times published an article reporting that staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear oversight group, had produced an unreleased report saying that Iran was much more advanced in its nuclear program than the IAEA had thought previously. According to the report, Iran now has all the data needed to design a nuclear weapon. The New York Times article added that U.S. intelligence was re-examining the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007, which had stated that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

The second leak occurred in the British paper The Sunday Times, which reported that the purpose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly publicized secret visit to Moscow on Sept. 7 was to provide the Russians with a list of Russian scientists and engineers working on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

[…]

If Netanyahu went to Moscow to deliver this intelligence to the Russians, the only surprise would have been the degree to which the Israelis had penetrated the program, not that the Russians were there. The Russian intelligence services are superbly competent, and keep track of stray nuclear scientists carefully. They would not be surprised by the charge, only by Israel’s knowledge of it.

[…]

Two conclusions can be drawn. First, the Israelis no longer need to add to their knowledge of Russian involvement; they know what they need to know. And second, the Israelis do not expect Iranian development to continue much longer; otherwise, maintaining the intelligence capability would take precedence over anything else.

It follows from this that the use of this intelligence in diplomatic confrontations with Russians and in a British newspaper serves a greater purpose than the integrity of the source system. And that means that the Israelis expect a resolution in the very near future — the only reason they would have blown their penetration of the Russian-Iranian system.

[…]

The least that can be said about this is that the Obama administration and Israel are trying to reshape the negotiations with the Iranians and Russians. The most that can be said is that the Americans and Israelis are preparing the public for war. Polls now indicate that more than 60 percent of the U.S. public now favors military action against Iran. From a political point of view, it has become easier for U.S. President Barack Obama to act than to not act. This, too, is being transmitted to the Iranians and Russians.

It is not clear to us that the Russians or Iranians are getting the message yet. They have convinced themselves that Obama is unlikely to act because he is weak at home and already has too many issues to juggle. This is a case where a reputation for being conciliatory actually increases the chances for war. But the leaks this weekend have strikingly limited the options and timelines of the United States and Israel. They also have put the spotlight on Obama at a time when he already is struggling with health care and Afghanistan. History is rarely considerate of presidential plans, and in this case, the leaks have started to force Obama’s hand.

So there you are.

If that’s going to keep you awake, you just as well read the full article, eh? Here you are: Two Leaks and the Deepening Iran Crisis

“Mark my words,
it will not be six months
before the world tests Barack Obama
like they did John Kennedy.”
—Joe Biden

Steven Anderson: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

So Pastor Steven Anderson prays for President Obama’s death, huh?

Here’s an excerpt of the above story. What Biblical commands and injunctions is this guy violating anyway?!

Pastor Steven Anderson said he and his congregation have received death threats after a controversial sermon earlier this month.

“Guns are a great deterrent,” said Anderson. “We haven’t had any violence because people know if they come down here swinging a baseball bat, we’re ready to protect ourselves.”

On August 16th, Anderson delivered a sermon titled “Why I Hate Barack Obama.”

In it, Anderson admitted he prays for the president’s death.

It is a position he reiterated Sunday.

“If you want to know how I’d like to see Obama die, I’d like him to die of natural causes,” said Anderson. “I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don’t need another holiday. I’d like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.”

Then there’s this from Fox News:

He called his message “spiritual warfare” and said he does not condone killing.

[…]

In Anderson’s controversial sermon, delivered at his Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe before Obama arrived for a speech in Phoenix earlier in the month, the pastor said he wants the president to “melt like a snail” with salt on it.

“I’m gonna pray that he dies and goes to hell when I go to bed tonight. That’s what I’m gonna pray,” he told his congregation.

So, what do you say? Which New Testament rules for Christian living is Mr. Steven Anderson disobeying?

Let’s compile a Christianity 101 lesson outline for him (and for us) on this subject. Maybe after we get something together here, I’ll post it as a separate post called “A Biblical Sermon Outline for Steven Anderson” — or something like that. And link to it at some free sermon outlines web site.

Meanwhile, I call on God’s people to pray for the President. Pray for God’s protection over President Obama and his family. Not only that, pray for God’s blessing on them.

(Just so you know, right now I can’t think of any part of President Obama’s agenda as I know it that I would call righteous. But that’s not what this post is about!)

Beaded Image

World's Largest Beaded Photo Mosaic of President Barack Obama -- August 3, 2009

People gather in front of the World’s Largest Beaded Photo Mosaic of U.S. President Barack Obama on display in front of the White House in Washington, August 3, 2009. The project, created with over 372,600 beads by 1000 fourth grade students from across the U.S., was made in honor of Obama’s 48th birthday.

Source: Yahoo! News Photos

A closer up view

Look, I don’t want to be in the Beat Up President Obama camp, OK? OK. But I still find this kind of thing disquieting, particularly when seen in the context of the last eight months or so.

Can anyone point me to a similar display for any recent US President?

If you comment, please keep it civil and respectable.

This was supposed to be posted late yesterday…and I forgot!

Above all, love God!
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