Then James goes on to Harbinger Nine, The Prophecy, which is Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's speech given the day after 9/11, in which he too quoted Isaiah 9:10, which James so studiously denies is of any import, just as he claims none of the harbingers are really harbingers. Daschle quotes it with the same lack of understanding as Edwards would three years later, intending it to be "inspiration" for comfort.
He makes much of the fact that Cahn only quoted as far as Daschle's reading through of the verse and then his emphasizing the intent to rebuild and recover, but left out this last statement:
[Daschle] The people of America will stand together because the peoople of America have always stood together, and those of us who are privileged to serve this great nation will stand with you. God bless the people of America.[THFOF, p. 116]James italicized the last sentence as I show. And then he goes on to give this objection:
By invoking God with the intent to comfort Americans and by using the Bible (albeit wrongly), Daschle's intention was clearly not defiance of God -- it was exactly the opposite. The decision to edit out the last two sentences of the Senate majority leader's speech and the failure to at least mention them is very misleading, if not worse.How many times, and I've quoted some of them in previous posts, did God severely upbraid His people for coming to Him with prayers and sacrifices and other observances supposedly intended to honor Him while they were practicing idolatries and other sins? He denounced them for this "lip service" because they were ignoring their idolatries and sins and even God's acts of judgment against them. Surely their INTENTION was to honor God, surely they didn't INTEND to be defiant. This is a theme over and over in the Old Testament. If the Israelites' intention to honor God was not accepted by God how is it that James thinks a few words invoking God by Daschle and Edwards should be regarded as honoring God? God treated the ceremonies and sacrifices of His people pretty much as contempt of Him because of their lack of obedience. Yet James thinks a few sentimental words tossed to God by Daschle and Edwards proves they didn't have the defiant spirit of Isaiah 9:10? Again, this shows a biblical deaf ear, a complete lack of a biblical way of thinking.
Remember this is in the context of the attack on 9/11. Many want to deny that attack was God's judgment, but what explanation does that leave? Either the devil is in charge and has more power over such events than God Himself does, or it was simply the work of the terrorists and God has no power over them either. Same with natural disasters, if God isn't in charge who is? Either Nature itself or the devil, either having more power than God in that case. THAT is a REALLY dangerous world it seems to me, but that's the world you get if you deny that God is sovereign over ALL things. We can appeal to God, we can repent before God, not something we can do with either Nature or the devil.
Satan cannot do one thing without God's permission, and that is demonstrated in more than one place in scripture. Neither can Nature, neither can terrorists. There is no such thing as pure accident. We may not know the reason for a particular event but we should know that God is in control and that nothing happens without Him.
In which case there is really no other explanation for 9/11 than that God was completely in control of it and He had his reasons. He doesn't do things whimsically, He was saying something to America: We are out of His will. As God's judgments go, 9/11 was extremely mild, barely a love tap. It WAS judgment, but just a warning tap. We ignored it, so what does that mean? What choice does God have but to send MORE judgment against us? Is there another message He could have been giving?
And don't we Christians KNOW we are out of His will anyway? Why is it then that so many Christians and pastors denied that God had anything to do with 9/11? This can only be the result of some really really bad theology being taught in the churches and seminaries of this nation.
The fatuous ceremonies by that completely apostate Trinity Wall Street Church at Ground Zero are unfortunately not all that far from the mindset of true Christians across the country. What a sad thought THAT is. Their sentimental fawning over the sycamore tree root and the "Tree of Hope" they planted, as if they were symbols of better things to come for the nation, which in reality are symbols of God's judgment to anyone with a biblical sense, are all of a piece with the biblical obtuseness of Edwards and Daschle -- and yes, David James who sees it all exactly as they saw it, without the slightest sense of the true biblical meaning of it all.
IT ALSO TAKES A BIBLICAL MINDSET TO KNOW THAT EDWARDS AND DASCHLE WERE SPEAKING PROPHETICALLY
(to be continued)
