Wishing I Stand Sunday could prevail with God.

I wish I could say something really positive and supportive of the I Stand Sunday effort. I did watch it, there were many solid Christian messages preached, including the need to be bold in these days, willing to sacrifice, the importance of repentance, how it begins with the Church and is the Church's responsibility. There was also mention of revival, how God can turn a nation in a moment's time. They had an altar call and many of the pastors came forward to pray. All very moving really. I just wish I could believe it could accomplish anything.

They showed video of the business owners who have been persecuted by the gay marriage people, fined, driven out of business. I don't get why that can't already have been turned back because it's so obviously against the First Amendment. Why do we need complex legal actions in the case of a clear violation of the Constitution?  The Houston mayor withdrew her subpoenas in the face of all this uproar over it, which is great, but did the message come through to her that her action was illegal or is she just waiting for another opportunity?  If they realized it's illegal would they stop, however, or don't they care if it's illegal, all that matters is their own agenda? I suspect that in the highest places of the land they don't care if it's illegal, I'm not sure at the level of a mayor. One thing that's clear, though, is that their disqualification of a huge percentage of the signers of a petition against her "civil rights" ordinance was illegal, and she must know that.

The illegality starts in the Supreme Court that has been passing down twisted misinterpretations of the First Amendment for decades now, and slapped down the will of the people all across the nation where they have made their views of gay marriage known; but it's all accepted as if it's legal because, well, they're the Supreme Court.  With such a dysfunctional system what is anyone to do?  It makes no sense to appeal legally to a court that is clearly rotten and perverse, yet that's all anyone does or thinks possible to do.  Not that I have an alternative, except resistance, and that always works against the resistor in a tyrannical system of government.

So it's nice all these pastors got together to exhort one another to stand firm in the evil days, but I wish we'd do something to overthrow those evil illegal laws and I don't see why we can't.  Except for the force the government would bring against us of course, more lawlessness.

The call for revival is so sad it seems to me, because so futile.  Yes, of course Catholics were involved and accepted last night but we won't have revival as long as that is the case.  There are many Catholics in politics these days and some of them are great people and great Americans and great politicians.  One of them, Rick Santorum gave a filmed greeting to the group.  Another speaker mentioned Roman Catholicism in passing.  I think I could vote easily for Alan Keyes or Allen West for President, but they're both Catholics.  Then there's Ben Carson, another black man I also love as a political voice, not a Catholic but a member of another really iffy cult.  I guess I could vote for him if I could vote for the others.   Mitt Romney is a nice guy with some acceptable political views, but his cult is the weirdest one of them all. What has happened to Protestant America?

God isn't going to bless a mixed gathering of religions that has a spiritual purpose as the I Stand Sunday gathering had.  I can't say God told me so, and I can't point to really clear evidence, I'd just hope there would be enough appreciation for what the Reformation did to show the folly of it in the case of Roman Catholicism. I would also mention that there's been lots of ecumenical prayer for the nation over the last decades and especially since 9/11 and I don't think anyone can say God has smiled on any of that prayer.  I'm talking about Bush's prayer meeting in the National Cathedral right after the twin towers attack, including an RCC priest, a Muslim leader and I forget who else; and I'm also talking about yearly gatherings of ecumenical groups in the D.C. area for God to bless the nation, and what's the fruit of all that, pray tell?  How do people explain it to themselves that they pray with such good intent and such fervor and things get worse?  Surely it's obvious things have been getting worse, isn't it?  How do you explain it?  Islam is more influential and threatening than ever, growing so year by year by year since 9/11.  How do you explain that?  

And I'd mention the fact that we have so many Catholics in office too, which would make the earliest settlers of the nation weep since they came here specifically to try to head off the influence of the RCC in the new land, which had caused so much grief for Protestants in Europe. Our Catholics don't seem to be anything but good Americans, and especially the conservatives we Protestants love and support, but then we have Boehner and Pelosi inviting the Pope to speak to Congress next year and that should ring loud bells in a true Protestant's head.  They seem to have ear plugs in though.

How do you explain all that?

Has God deserted us, is that the explanation, just not hearing our prayers?  Well, many recognize that the nation is under God's judgment, but the point of the prayer meetings is to repent in the hope He'll turn back from judgment.  If we believe in an omnipotent God who is intimately involved in human affairs it seems to me that should have happened by now.  Why hasn't it?

That's what I've been thinking and praying about in recent posts, and the ecumenical effect is number one on the list that I keep coming up with to explain why we haven't had revival.  Leonard Ravenhill's passion alone through the last decades of the last century should have produced revival but nothing, silence from heaven and the continued proliferation of sin and threats to our wellbeing and corrupt politics.

I've come to think that Ravenhill may have compromised his own plea for revival with his acceptance of Roman Catholicism and of the charismatic movement.   That's my theory.  I need an explanation and that's the one that comes to mind.  And if it explains his failure to light the spark it must also explain why the wood has remained wet ever since despite efforts by many to reach God's ears.

Of course God is sovereign and we can't force Him to act, it just seems that He should have acted already in our present condition, and if He hasn't there must be a reason for it.  Of course the condition we are in includes deviations within the churches for starters, taking the word "church" to refer to any body that claims the name of Christ.  That would include "churches" that have been swayed to liberal doctrines, deny the truth of parts of the Bible, accept evolution and even in some cases abortion and gay rights and gay marriage.  Would God give us revival when there are so many "Christian" churches that hold such views?  The only revival He could give would have to change such views, but while revival reforms people I'm not sure it's ever done so to that degree.  And those are things we know from the Bible alone are violations, to be dealt with by solid Bible preaching.

Well, I've pondered a lot of the reasons in previous posts and still hope to get up a permanent Page where I try to be exhaustive though that isn't happening yet.  But here I just want to say I don't think the earnest prayers at the I Stand Sunday gathering are going to bear fruit any more than all the previous earnest prayers have done.  Something else has to happen.  There are people in the camp who have taken accursed things from Ai, that's why Ai has been able to defeat us.  That's the thought anyway.  Get rid of the accursed things, the pagan things the church has been accepting, and God may see fit to bless us after all.  Seems to me that would involve churches that have not done this denouncing those that have, making a public issue of it.

There's really not much chance churches are going to repudiate all those nice Catholics though, is there?  Or that nice lady pastor, who is also in violation of Biblical truth, no matter how good a preacher she is.  And all the other churches that have women pastors and elders, and there are many of them.  We shouldn't have to argue about what the Bible says about this, it's all too clear. 

But that's just the start of the problems.  There were calls to repentance at the I Stand Sunday gathering, though mostly personal repentance, which of course is necessary.  But we need to name the sins of the churches and repent as churches and denounce them as churches.  That's how I'm reading the problem, that's why I think we aren't having revival and can't have revival until this is done. 

I'm nobody of course, just an opinionated blogger out here in nowhere land thinking about these things.  And I'm a woman and I have no authority over anybody.  All I can do is hope that if I'm right about any of it others will pick it up and spread it and exhort the churches to it. 

Please Lord.  We SO desperately need revival.