It is a dangerous game to spit in the face of God and the United States better wake up fast.
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Friday, May 17, 2013
Wild Bill for America - America's Warning
It is a dangerous game to spit in the face of God and the United States better wake up fast.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Matt Barber - A Prayer For Sandy Hook
In light of the horrific developments in Newtown, Conn. – developments so sorrowful that no words will do – I felt it only appropriate to pull my regular column for this week. I offer, instead, the only words I can at this inexpressibly mournful time: A simple prayer. ~ Matt BarberPlease come, Lord Jesus.
Come, King Jesus.
Come soon I pray.
Yet, even still come now, Holy Spirit, until such time.
We need You.
As the banked fish gasps for that which, without, she will surely die, so too do we gasp for living water-fused crimson that flows freely from Life’s pierced side.
The people of Sandy Hook assuredly cannot endure without Your supernatural grace.
Give them grace and comfort pressed down and running over.
There are things so wicked we cannot bear.
There are things manifestly beyond our understanding. Things of which, and perhaps for our own sake, You have kept from our grasp.
Such a thing is this.
We cry out, Abba, Father!
Torrents we weep for the families of Sandy Hook.
Our souls groan for the people of Sandy Hook.
Our spirits are broken for the babes of Sandy Hook.
Hold them close, dear Alpha and Omega – the great I Am.
Comfort them.
Love them.
You are the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through You.
Show this to all who are alive in flesh but dead in spirit.
Show them Life in death and that Life is You.
Reveal Truth and Life in the Spirit despite death in the flesh.
You are the Way.
Pull near to your bosom forever the precious slain of Sandy Hook.
Let our lips say, “Oh, death, where is your sting?” – even until our hearts believe it.
There is no hope save You, oh Christ, and, save us, can You alone.
Evil triumphs, so it seems, sovereign Lord.
Do they mock You?
So they try.
But You will not be mocked.
Let us rest assured that vengeance is Yours, Christ Jesus.
Darkness consumed this man, and so he did the liar’s bidding – Satan’s work.
Cowards.
He has not escaped Your justice.
The enemy of the world will not escape Your justice.
But for Your bounty of blood, who can escape Your justice?
Yet, for those who believe, Satan’s ransom is paid in full.
Let us, even now, hear the laughter of our beloved Sandy Hook babes – hidden most high – while, at length, they play together, joyfully, at your nail-pierced feet.
Thank You, Jesus!
Thank You, Jesus, for John 1:1, which proclaims, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Thank You that the Word is with the bereaved of Sandy Hook.
Thank You, Jesus, for Matthew 11:28-30, which summons, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Oh, Christ, give rest to the most weary and burdened of Sandy Hook.
Thank You, Jesus, for Matthew 5:4, which vows, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Only You can comfort those beyond worldly comfort.
Comfort them, King Jesus, we plead.
We wait upon You, Lord Jesus.
We remain still.
Until You return, King Jesus.
And You will.
Oh, and how You will.
It is in Jesus’ name; the name of all names – the name at which demons shudder and both saints and angels rejoice – that I pray.
Amen.
Matt Barber
Monday, November 12, 2012
Matt Barber - God Will Not Be Mocked
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~ Abraham LincolnAmerica has forsaken her first love. She has finally, and fully, given herself over to a licentious Lothario with whom she has increasingly flirted since her youth. He is sin – and, notwithstanding full knowledge of who he is and what he intends, with him she has lain.
America has tasted the poisonous fruits of lust, pride, passion, and envy – sloth, frivolity, iniquity and entitlement. She has tasted of their sweet deception and found it irresistible. She has danced in the streets, intoxicated by the very poison that will be her undoing.
America has rebelled against God. She has shaken her fist at Him and arrogantly cried, “We don’t need you. We don’t want you. We know better than you. Now go away.”
And so He’s going away.
Hosea talks of judgment against the nation that “plays the harlot” before God: “Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!” (Hosea 9:12)
I grieve for my children. I grieve for America’s children. Evil won on Tuesday. An arrogant and rebellious nation has chosen, for her leader, an arrogant and rebellious man, whose arrogant and rebellious party has, as Pastor John MacArthur put it, “adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their platform.”
“This is a new day in our country,” he lamented. “Parties that used to differ on economics, now differ dramatically on issues that invade the realm of God’s law and morality.”
We have mocked God.
God will not be mocked.
“Millions of Americans looked evil in the eye and adopted it,” wrote Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver the day after the election. “Abortion, same-sex marriage and immorality carried the day.”
Indeed, evil carried the day. America has willfully chosen a Democratic platform – a Romans 1 platform – upon which to stand. We have chosen a party that thrice denied God, and then returned his name in vain – amid deafening boos – to its platform.
God will not be mocked.
America has chosen a party that demands every taxpayer be complicit in the federally funded slaughter of the pre-born. We have exalted a party that seeks to – and in many was ways has already done so – enshrine into law the celebration of sexual deviancy and mock marriage.
The haughty peoples of four states have said to God, “Marriage is as we say it is, not as you have ordered it.” And so, though removed from truth, as east is from west, they have, at the ballot box, affirmed moral disorder.
Indeed, they have invited God’s wrath. Our president has invited God’s wrath. We all, through act or omission, have invited God’s wrath.
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)Yet excuses we give.
We excuse sin. We call that which God calls an abomination, “equality.”
We call that which God calls murder, “reproductive choice.”
We call that which God calls theft, “fundamental fairness.”
We “call evil good and good evil.”
America is divided and her president the divider. The scales have tipped. The 51 percent – the takers, the God-deniers and the subversive, now outnumber the makers, the seekers of righteousness and the patriotic.
Yet, soon after the election results were announced – after several hours of deep mourning for our nation, I found myself smiling. I found myself singing praises to the Creator of the universe: Christ, the way, the truth and the life. Jesus, Y’shua, the very image of God.
Indeed, I found myself experiencing joy.
Through it all, you see, He remains sovereign. His will is being done, even when it is not our own. He is faithful, though we are not. Victory is His. We are His. And so victory is ours.
Those of us who believe needn’t win every battle – any battle – to which we are consigned. We need only remain obedient. We need only remain faithful to his Word and to his commands. We need only remember that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
Truly, though God has given over a rebellious nation to the party of Romans 1, we remain the people of Romans 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)
Still, there will be condemnation for America. Things will get far worse before they get better – if they ever get better. As individuals, we will each stand before God and give an accounting – we will all face judgment. As a nation, we can only be judged in the temporal – in the here and now.
Have we reached the point of no return? Perhaps – perhaps not.
God is faithful. He has promised: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)
Christ is faithful. He has promised: “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)
The rain is descending. The floods have come and the winds beat down on our great nation. I am thankful that our forefathers, wise men indeed, built America’s house upon Christ, the Rock.
Matt Barber
Monday, August 13, 2012
Wild Bill for America - George was Right!
George Washington said "it is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible."Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Matt Barber - Culture of Death and the Batman Shooting
Clearly, what our nation needs is more “separation of church and state.” If those obnoxious, right-wing Bible thumpers would simply quit bellowing about the need for revival – a return to the deeply held Judeo-Christian principles embraced by our Founding Fathers – America would be a much better place.Secular-humanism – that’s the ticket! We need more reliance on man and less on God.
At the time of this writing, I’m sitting just a few miles from a Century 16 theatre in Aurora, Colo., where, in the early morning hours of July 20, 2012, a deranged, fame-starved gunman shot dead at least 12 innocent people and wounded scores more at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” a Batman sequel.
One of the victims killed was a 6-year-old child. I won’t even share the gutless dirt bag’s name because that’s exactly what he wants.
I had an entirely different column prepared for this week, but, in light of this horrific event, its subject matter seemed trivial and inappropriate.
Like most decent Americans, I am sickened today – mournful in a way words cannot describe. Please join me in the coming hours, days and weeks in, yes, praying for the victims, their families and the state of our lost union.
It’s times like this when we’re reminded that, when the smoke clears, we’re left with our relationships alone: family, friends, prayer and, most importantly, a deep, childlike need for God’s love, mercy and comfort.
Still, we shouldn’t be surprised by this mass murder. In fact, if we’re honest, we’re not surprised. We’ve become almost numb to such reports – desensitized to what only a few short decades ago would have been unimaginable. Although no one is to blame for this man’s objectively evil actions but he alone, those actions are, sadly, a dreadful sign of our desperate times.
Today, children are reared in a culture that glorifies – even worships – death and violence. But brutal crimes such as this are not the cause of our culture of death; they are merely a symptom.
In an opinion piece penned for the Telegraph in 2008, columnist Jenny McCartney used a prior Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” to illustrate, in a cursory way, our rising death-culture problem. In many ways her words were eerily prophetic and sickly ironic.
“But the greatest surprise of all – even for me, after eight years spent working as a film critic,” she wrote, “has been the sustained level of intensely sadistic brutality throughout the film.”
McCartney went on to describe, in gory detail, the movie’s severely violent opening scene, lamenting that millions of parents would choose to expose their children to it. She concluded by chastising Hollywood for its complicity in an increasingly violent youth culture.
“Even since 2002, the public’s willingness to expose children to previously unthinkable levels of screen violence has soared,” she noted. “The poet WB Yeats once wrote, ‘In dreams begins responsibility,’ yet Hollywood will never take responsibility for its most brutal dreams so long as the paying public still flocks to the theatre of cruelty.”
I think McCartney was on to something but believe there’s plenty more responsibility to go around. I submit that our culture of death derives from somewhere far beyond just Hollywood. The “theatre of cruelty” spans from sea to shining sea.
Just one example, though a big one, is America’s ongoing capitulation to the horrific abortion violence carried out under cover of manmade law each day – an equally evil phenomenon.
Beneath the euphemistic banner of “reproductive choice,” hundreds of women elect to have their own babies slaughtered in the womb daily. Children – those who dodged the abortion bullet anyway – aren’t stupid; they’re just young. From this, they can only deduce that, according to our culture, human life is cheap and meaningless.
So why are we surprised when people like the “Batman killer” act accordingly?
Indeed, in our perverse society, a woman exercising her “right to choose” death for her innocent child represents “courage,” while the Batman shooter’s “choice” to kill innocent moviegoers represents cowardice. And it is. They are both acts of cowardice. The only relevant difference is the victims’ age.
Let me be clear: Am I comparing this incredibly wicked, illegal mass murder at Aurora’s Century Theatre to the incredibly wicked, legal mass murder committed at Planned Parenthoods across the country each day? Absolutely – and you can quote me on it.
But again, like the Batman murders, our nation’s 55-plus million abortion murders post Roe v. Wade are not the cause of our culture of death; they are merely a symptom. Ultimately, the cause stems from something much less complicated.
We as a nation – as a people – have turned our backs on God. We have rebelled against Him and have forgotten that it was He and He alone who gave us 200-plus years of prosperity, unprecedented in world history.
We have left Him, so why are we surprised He’s leaving us? We have said, “We don’t need you, leave us alone.”
And so He has.
Recently, Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack acknowledged at a White House briefing that he’s been praying for rain to alleviate the widespread drought plaguing our nation. “I get on my knees every day,” he admitted. “And I’m saying an extra prayer now.”
Predictably, godless “progressives” are up in arms over his statement. Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, quickly pounced, saying that Vilsack’s mere mention of prayer “sends the wrong message to distraught farmers.”
“[Praying] for rain? That’s not just government entangling itself with religion, that’s government publicly practicing it, and wallowing in superstition,” he said.
Oh, please.
In the coming days and weeks, politicians, entertainers, media-types – public figures of every stripe – will call for prayer in response to the Batman shootings. But don’t expect to hear much from the aforementioned godless “progressives.” They generally know when to shut up.
Still, prayer is only the beginning. It can’t just be superficial prayer. It can’t just be an emotional response to this horrible tragedy.
For any real national healing to occur – in order to un-ring the culture-of-death bell – we must collectively surrender. We must recommit ourselves as “one nation, under God,” to the underlying culture of life that such a commitment presupposes.
If we don’t, we’re done.
2 Chronicles 7:14 gives us hope: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”Indeed, the restoration of our land begins with you and me.
It ends with Him.
Let’s begin.
Matt Barber
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Doug Giles - Praying for This Nation Like Our Butts Depended on It
We’re pretty much past the point of no return. If you don’t believe me, read this book. We’re in trouble, folks—and on every front. Our kids will be particularly screwed.
Yep, from an economic, political, cultural and spiritual perspective, if something is not done to reverse this nation’s course (and muy pronto) then my advice to you is to start taking yoga because one has to be fairly limber, I hear, to kiss one’s own butt good-bye. Oh, and another “suggestion” would be to teach your kids Chinese, TexMex and Farsi because those’ll be the main languages of the conquered on our continent.
If things do not change both dramatically and quickly (and to be specific, amended back to our God-honoring intent and constitutional infrastructure) then this country will cease to be the greatest experiment in self governance this planet has ever seen and will morph into a godless tourist spot driven by socialists wet nursing entitlement freaks. Greece is the word.
No civilization has lasted long when there was:
Google it if you don’t believe me, as the aforementioned is well known 411 regarding formerly great nations that have devolved into tacky travel destinations.
- This kind of insane debt and spending,
- A bizarre notion of entitlement,
- A death of faith,
- A degeneration of morals,
- A collapse of civility,
- A paralysis of the will,
- A decline in native born population,
- And unopposed foreign invasion.
Hey, America: We’re not invincible. I know it looks like it, but believe it or not, there have been powerful civilizations that are now a cartoon of what they used to be, and it would be the height of hubris to think that this party will never end no matter what we do.
So, what’s a Christian to do? Well, there’s a lot the brethren can do, but to keep this column short I’m going to focus on the power of prayer for the USA. And when I say “prayer” I mean praying for our nation like you’d pray if you were wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress and had to pass through a pride of peckish lions in the Matetsi.
With the Bible as a guide I say we pull out the prayer of Jabez found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 and shout it up to heaven for God to rain His favor back down on the States.
Basically, Jabez, whose name means “pain,” didn’t let the bad hand he was dealt keep him from calling out to God for great things. And y’know what, patriots? Neither should we.
Just because we’re in real pain as a nation doesn’t mean we roll up in the fetal position and wet our red, white and blue Pampers. Oh, heck no. Instead, we must go back to our roots, become a vocal and voting threat to all politicians, bolster our commitment to God and country, and pray what old Jabez prayed—namely, to be blessed, to have increased opportunities, to have His hand be with us and to be kept from evil.
Take the next 30 days or 30 years and put your personal prayers on the back burner and do this:
And maybe, just maybe, God will stay our execution and shed His grace on us again.
- Pray to God that He would reverse this curse we’re under and leave a blessing instead.
- Pray this land of opportunity we’ve inherited would continue to be a land of opportunity.
- Pray that His mighty hand would be with us instead of against us.
- And pray that the evil which is en vogue would cease to be that which characterizes our culture and would be replaced with that which is holy, just and good.
Please check out this music video that puts the above sentiments to song.
God help us.
Doug Giles
Hear Our Prayers.ClashChurch.com. Doug Giles, Pastor.
http://clashchurch.com/ Original music from ClashChurch.com in Aventura, Fl.(DadeCo.) where Doug Giles is the Sr. Pastor. This song was crafted by Kevin Gjertsen, Clash Church's worship leader, as a prayer to God to steer our nation back to the path's of righteousness.
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