What Are We Here for Anyway?

Maybe this is just a fond daydream of my own but I have a vision of the Church as potentially able to be a real powerhouse in the world while as a matter of melancholy fact it's acting like anything but.  Could't we exert ourselvs to that level once in a while?  

It's our job, isn't it?  Or is it?  I mean to save America, to prevail with god for whatever is needed to roll back our national sins and get something back of the original Christian nature of America.  Yes it was once a Christian nation.  Even though the big name framers weren't Christians they were soaked in the culture of Christianity at least and their work drew heavily on it.  But the people of America were for the most part genuinely Christian in those early years, and that is what shaped the culture that brought down blessings from God.  Yes, slavery but we did away with it and things were getting better, and even those who held slaves often knew it was wrong an d were tryijg to figure out the bst way to end the practice without destroying the fabric of life, whioch yes, could have happened because the salves were not prepared for the kijind of life they d have to adjust to without a lot of preparation and that had to be thought out.  But that's another whole subjwect.

What I'm thinking of now is that the Church needs to wake up as Voddie Baucham calls the nation to do, wake up and realize the power we have available to ys if only we seek it with determination and ...  and self sacrifice.

There's the rub.  Self sacrifice.  I think that's what we are called to.  Ands down through history there have been Christians who did put their own lives on the cross in order to accomplish sometng for God and for the world.  Revivals come out of such a frame of ind.  Social movements for the benefit of the disadvantaged come out of that state of mind.  Missions across the world come out of that state of mind.   And why couldn't a great concerted effot to sae America be our objective this time and move us to the level of self sacrifice necessary to bring it about?

I mean things like fasting yes, whenever and wherever a particular individual is upp to it, and everyone has his own limits for that, but also giving up things like television shows in order to paray for an hour.  Learning how to pray for proteracted periods is something we could all try to do, it's ot easy, it does have to be learned.  I think of old time Pentecostsals in particular who seemed to be able to prayey for hours on end or until they felt the burden lift from tghem and knew theyir prayers were heard.  I've nwevr had that experience but I'v always wished I could have it and I'm in awe of those who have had it.  Tbey feel the burden, tjhey have the strength to keep praying about that burden for however long it takes until they are then able to feel it lift.  It sounds simple but impossible at the same time.  But if there is anyone who could do that for America he should do it now.  I'm using the generic masculine by the way because thomas Sowell gave a nice argument in favor of it and I've felt so awkward with all the other solutions, they just sound illiterate and they are confusing.  There was never any problem for me back int he saday when I had to read my female self into the masculine and it's a made up problem.  Anyway if you dislike it sorry it's correct English and I'm going back to it.

Fervent protracted prayer.  Maybe special prayer meetings but frequent ones, none of this once a week stuff, something every day at least needs to be done if we want to prevail with God and actually accomplish something for the saving of America.  The only weay we could win the midterm elections ifis if we pray, repent, confess sins and denounce the sins of America, and pray pray pray.  Otherwise the elections will just play out as they always do, on the basis of the worst in human endeavor as it has  been going fot the last few years.

If whole churches could stay late and pray tohether that would be one way to do it.  There are many ways to do it.  If every good church in America did something to get God to hear us and act to save the nation, that would be the best of all possible thigs.  EVERY church in the nation that has a right to be called a church, that teaches the truth rather than some compromised worldly gobbledygiiok.  If they wake up and join in great but otherwise let them die out while the solid churches ower up and cry out to God and neer let Him rest until He saves America.

I daydream about his sort of thing quite a bit even though I miyself don't have the energy for it a oit of the time.  I've had my moments but sustained dedication no, but that's why we need a lot of us doing it, to support each other in prayer along with everything else we're prayering for.    

I think that's what the Church is for.  I think that's why we're here.  To do our utmost, to a self sacrificial level, to bring God's righteousness down into this world and like salt stop the spread of corruption and likgke light bring truth into the darkness.  It takes commitment, it takes exertion, it takes sacrifice.   I wish for it, I pray for it, I wish I myself were better at it.

faithswindow@mail.com

Daniel ate "no pleasant food" for three weeks as he was praying for understanding of God's plan for His peopele as the Babylonian capitivity was coming to an end.  That was his fast. There are all kinds of ways to fast, cutting out specific foods, or cutting out whole meals, or going a day or more, it's all a matter of what you are able to do.  And of course giving up ordinary pastimes and recreations is anogther way to fast.  

When David's first son by Bathsheba was born the infant was sickly to the point of death and David prayed every day on his face without eating until the baby finally died.  In those days I think a daily fast meant not eating until after sundown and then he'd eat so it wasn't a complete fast for every moment of the week the baby continued to lifve.  He was under God's judgmetn for his sin wqith Bathsheba and he prayed that god might spare his son.  Sometimes God would, in this case He didn't.  David knew everteless that whe would see the child when hehimself went to be with the Lord.

Listen to Voddi Baucham's wonderful sermon on God's judgmetn of America.  

Later:  I keep wanting to get across that this is a huge task we're facing, not some everyday prayer request or even everyday political problem.  America has been accumulating sin against God for decades at least and we are up to our ears in it if not quite over our heads, thouigh maybe we are that too, metaphors like that should probably be avoided.  Anyeay,  I think of all the sins we've been accumulating since the Sixties, and I don't see that the Church has ever done much if anything about them.  We ight them when they are looming , we see them coming and we muster energy to defeat them at the polls, but that's the problem, although we may also pray our main efforts are political.  The real job of the Church which is to work with God to defeat the forces of darkness in this worklk is hardly ever exercised to the level it could be if we only recognized that that is our calling and that God would stren gthen us for it if we set ourselves to realize it.  

I aLWAYS PICTUR all THE GOOD CHURCHES INVOLVED IN THIS, BUT OF COURSE     A QW KNOQ DEOM THE STORY  of Gideon if nowehre else in God's word, God can work with small numbers to accomplish great things, and may actually prefer it.  But here we are and the wmore the better it seems to me if only the churches would get the message and see the need and work to engage each opther in the project and set ourselves wqith a new passion to be he saly and light we are called to and push out the corruption while establishing God's righteousness in the land.   It could be done, yes really it could be done, we have the power of God at our disposal you know, we just have to make the commitment and not give up.

Voddie Baucham Judmgnet on America

 For a few weeks I've written a blog post from time to time on the nation's being under God's judmgnet despite all the good things that GTrump is doing and that if we don't deal with this basic fact everything we get by way of political blessings is fragile and can't stand for long.  Trump is a great belssing but petrhaps he is also a distraction from what Christians should be doing if we want to save America.

So I wrote the previous post, another rather brief call to Christians to seek God as our only help for our pllitical mess.  Then I decided to see if anyone else was talking about the nation's being under judgment and found Voddie Baucham.  The only one I found was Voddie Baucham.  Seems to me some of our vbest voices are coming from black men these days.  

First I saw him interviewed and he talks about what a great nation iAmerica is, lbessed by God in so many ways and the one solid voice for God in the world. DESPITE the fact that we are under God's judgment.  And then I found his whole sermon on that topic.  America Wake Up, God's Warning to the Trump Era.    I can't see well enough to put up the URL but I think it can be found by seraching on Voddie Baucham and God's judgment on America and similar terms.  It's a great sermon,  a really really great sermon and everybody should listen to it through tot the end, bugt mostly of course Christains who are the only onces whoul should be expected to understand it as it should be understood.  Nevertheless as he says many of the churches are compromised and may not get it either.

Yes indeed, wake up America.  Trump is doing things we want him to do but he can't save us when God is against us.  In fact he may e mostly a distraction from what we need to be doing.  We need to be addressing the sins of the nation, repenting for our own part in them, fopr our lack of action against them, praying for htem to be reversed and for the nation to be saved.    

He names the two I keep naming though of course there are hundreds to be confessed and rependeted of.  But abortion and the destrution of marriage are the two big ones these days, through many contecxtrs, gay marriage being a huge one, but also divorce and sexual freedom that ignores marriage altogether, or cohabitation without mrraieage, lots of ways marriage has been tracshed in America in recent decades.   God will not lift His judgment on the nation until these things are dealt with.  It doesn't matter what Trump does, who we vote for or anything political.  We can't do anything God doesn't allow us to do, it's all in His hands, and ewhebter good is happening now cannot possibly last as long as the nation is so ddeeplhy ired in legal supporty of offenses against Him.  

Ye  Yes we've legally validated sins against God.  And at the same time stifled His voice on phony legal grounds as well.  

Yes indeed, wake up America.  Go hear Voddie Baucham all the way through.

faithswindow@mail.com

Losing Our Country

 Yes, Mark Levin, I'm afraid you are right, we definitely are losing this best of all nations, yes we don't seem to have the will to do what it would take to save it, yes the Islamists are taking over and we are passive in the facte of it, yes yes yesm, I'm afraid so.   

But why?  All you have is people power, what the Bible calls "the arm of the flesh" while God is left out in the shadows somewhere.   But why are we  so weak?  Why are the Islamists getting power over us?  Because the nation is under God's judgment.  hristians at least should know this ut often even Christians don't think along these lines.   

When God gave Israel the Law, His Law, He told them He was giving them the choice of blessing or cursing, life or death.  Therefore schoose life, he said.  Obedience brings life, proserity, safety from enemies, peace with neighbors;  disobedience brings many evils which are sketched out in both Levirtius and Deutreronomy.  TRo be ruled over by those who hate you is the one that keeps reverberating in my head, but the list of curses runs the gamut of every kind of loss, loss of sterrength, loss of prosperity, economic failures, I think even harsh weather although that isn't spelled out there atthat I remeber, all these tornados we are having, the heavy winter that just pastsed, wildfires.  Hardly eanybody even prays against these things any more that I know of, but then I may not be in the right place to know about that.

The rise of Islam over us is definitely God's judgment.  After nine eleven you'd have expected Islam to fall into disrepute but instead it's only risen in the esteem of some Americans and gained power in the country through even the election of Islamists to Congress of all things.  As I recall there was a time when they were forgbidden to hold public office but then that was rescinded and now they can and can exert their hatred of America from within our own government.  

We can decry this all we want, we can make as much effort as we are up to against it, to spread the word, to get people out to vote in the Midstrerms, but as Mark L:evin says, we  really don't have the will for it, do we?   EWven Christians don'e have the will for it and we are the ones who should know enough babout how God works to be in a position to call on Him and work through Him and not depend on our own weak flesh.  I don't know how many churches are dedicating themselves to praying for the country, I hope many, but what4ever it is, it isn't enough.   Some churches even won't support a political stance at all on the idea that their job is o preach the gospel and nothing more, not to get involved in politics.  Makes me wonder what they think it means to be asaalt and light in the world.

It could be that we are too far under judgment to be able to change cthings now anyway, but we don't know that and surely we should try.  How can you plreach the gospel in a country dominated by people who hate Christianity anyway?  Should we just sit back and let it come to that?  Sure, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and it's a powerful scenario when it happens, but why invite it when we've gbeen given a country in which we've had the freedom to poreach it withouit bloodshed?  Of course we've been losing that for some decades now too, anyhbody noticed?  But we just go about our business as if the nation weren't falling down around us.

So what's needed?  At least  prayer by every true Christian is needed, and a lot of prayer, prayer that includes repentance for our owsn sins and confession of the sins of the nation which is the reason we are unde God's judgmetn.  We may not be able to do much about those sins right now but we need at least to express the will to do somethig about them.  How is it that we have a law that allows two men or two women to live together calling themselves husband and wife?  That's just one egregeious offense against God that needs to be pushed back.  Praying against it is the only place I know of to start.   And of course abortion.  It's no longer A NATIONAL LAW BUT EVEN AS IT'S GONE BACK TOT EH STATES THERE HAVE BEEN MORE ABORTIONS THAN EVER AND THOSE COUNT AAGAINST THE NATION TOO, MILIONS OF MURDERED HUMAN BEINGS CRYING OUT TO gOD FROM THE GROUND.       j  What's needed is lots of prayer by every true Christain.

I've often wondered if our having given up on the requriement for women to dcover our heads in church is a reason God has not given us a revival in a long long time.  I don't count thyeye charismatic "revivals" as revivals, I mean a real Holy Spirit inspired revival.  Nobody much talks about the head covering.  If it's bropught up it's dismissed as legalism.  It's awfully clear that whether Paul's arguments for it make a lot of sense to us, and some of them are pretty hard to understand, that nevertheless I see no doubty that he meant we are to cover our heads.  Some thing where he said at the end of that passage, if there is contention we hae no such rule means he took it all back after sixteen verses of srgugment for it but I find that pretty lame, and the fact taht the churches all rquired women to cover our heads in church for two thousand years ought to be enough of an argument against such reasoning.  Just the fact that we gave it up in the sixties or thereabouts ought to e reason enough to recognize that it was the wrong thing to do.  I've go to awhole blog on it if anybody wants to see some of the arguemtns.

So it might be that we should cover our heads for this prayer, for this prayer for the wountry.  Perhaps it would make a diffedrence.  And we can pray for revival at the same time.  Badly badly do we need revival in this country.  Real Revival, the kind they had in Wales at the turn of the twentieth centry or in the Hebrides in the forties.  I think the one in Saskatchewan in the seventies wewas a real revival.  I don't know if they were dovering their heads then or not, but the ccount of it given in an interview with Pastor McCled that may still be on You BTUbe makes it wound like a true Holy SPirit revival.  It wasn't in the US, but Canada and I think that was the last one on the continent.    They started out with people signing up to pray for fiteen minute periods around the clock, each member of t3h congregation signing up for a particular fifteen minute period.  They didn't think they could pray any longer than that b tut they did at least manage to et all the time slots covered.  It's a possible plan a church could follow to get things rolling.

It may be too late no matter what we do, but we have to do something.

faithswindow@mail.com

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