AN EDITORIAL COMMENT AT THE EASTER SEASON: A few
issues ago we suggested that an appropriate verse from the Bible, the Word
of God, for the times in which we live is II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people,
which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray and
seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from
heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." That promise,
spoken more than 3,000 years ago, is the word of eternal, almighty God,
and is as true today as the day it was first spoken. Now out of the more than
31,000 verses in the Bible, we offer these verses for this Easter season;
from Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-4, "For I delivered unto you first of all that
which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day
according to the scriptures." It is that timeless event, unprecedented in all
history, that we remember and celebrate on Sunday. It is the eternal fact of
the risen Christ that sets the Christian faith apart from all others. Abraham,
the founder of the Jewish faith remains in his grave; Mohammad, the founder
of the Islam faith remains in his grave; Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon
faith, remains in his grave; so also with Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and
of Hinduism, the third largest of the world's religions, with no specific founder.
It is the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes Christianity
the supreme faith of all time. On this Sunday let us greet one another with the
traditional Easter greeting: "He is risen." And the response: "He is risen indeed."
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IT IS ALMOST AS IF THE NEWS OF THE WORLD - WARS,
EARTHQUAKES, TORNADOES, PROTESTS AND RIOTS,
UNEMPLOYMENT AND GASOLINE PRICES - HAVE
DEFLECTED ATTENTION FROM EASTER
Here we are in the middle of Holy Week, which began with Palm Sunday,
commemorating Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There throngs of people
welcomed Him, shouting "Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel," spreading
their garments in the streets for the animal that He was riding to walk upon, and
waving palm branches in His honor.
Think back just a few days. This year was Palm Sunday a special event in your
church ... in your community? Or did the turmoil shaking our world cause you
to focus your attention elsewhere?
After that day of welcome and praise for Him ... five days later He was dead,
crucified and buried. Today we observe that day as "Good Friday."
But three days after the sadness and sorrow of the day of crucifixion there is
always the glorious morn of Easter -- Resurrection Sunday -- and we can say
with Paul, "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits
of them that slept ... in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Cor. 15:20,22)
And that is not, in the words of Mr. Obama, "an obscure verse."
But current events are not the problems facing Christians elsewhere.
We are all familiar with the persecution Christians face in so many parts of
Muslim world, as the followers of Islam destroy Christian churches, attack
Christian believers, and kill -- even behead -- followers of Jesus Christ, simply
because their religion instructs them to kill all infidels. In Egypt, Muslims have
gained a foothold in the new "democracy" we encouraged them to develop,
and persecution of Christians has drastically increased. And in Iraq, where we
forced upon them a form of "democracy," almost all the nation's Christians
have fled to more safe places. But those examples are just part of the familiar
story in Muslim countries. Yet 6 out of the top 10 recipients of U.S. economic
aid are Muslim dominant nations.
But it isn't just in Muslim countries that Christians are being attacked.
These news stories were noted in a quick survey during the past week ...they
are just a few examples of the ongoing persecution of Christians in India today.
Karnataka – Police on April 10 arrested a pastor and other Christians of the
New India Church in Mysore after some 25 Hindu extremists attacked their
Sunday service. New Delhi – A mob of about 150 Hindu extremists on April 9
attacked a Christian meeting in East Delhi, beating Christians with clubs and
stones, including women and children. Madhya Pradesh – An enraged mob
of Hindu extremists on April 7 stormed into the prayer meeting of a Christian
Assembly house church shouting anti-Christian slogans. Karnataka -- Four
Christians, including a police constable, were beaten on April 1 in Madikeri
district on allegations of “religious conversion abetment,” as if conversion were
illegal in India. And there are more. . .
At this Easter season our prayers should be in behalf of our fellow Christians.
throughout the world who are not free to worship our risen Lord, and who are
suffering severe persecution -- often death -- for their faith in Him.
And prayer is a very real and urgent challenge for Christians to meet.
We have previously reminded American Christians of the National Day of
Prayer, Thursday, May 5. This year there is this encouraging news; we all
remember that in April of 2010, District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that the
National Day of Prayer, established by Congress in 1952 and proclaimed by
every President since Harry Truman, amounted to an unconstitutional call for
religious action on the part of the government. But just last week, a three-
judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that
decision, and ruled that the National Day of Prayer did not violate our
constitution. Let us, as the American people, utilize this day to pray for our
nation and the Christian cause throughout the world. And remember also our
weekly count-down to Election Day, 2012 -- there are now just 566 days
until Nov. 6, 2012, during which we should pray for our nation, its leaders,
and for God's direction as we vote to restore our nation to what it should be.
Again, this week, we remind you of "What Others Are Saying" . . .
Jack Kinsella (Editor, Omega Letter): "We have this problem of
discerning whether Obama is a brilliant strategist playing six moves
ahead of everyone else – or if he is the most incompetent buffoon ever
trusted with the keys to the nuclear football."
Michelle Bachman: "I have gotten things wrong that I have said in
the past, but when it comes to credibility, I think the President's
credibility is far worse than any other public official's."
Heritage Foundation: "Since his presidency began, Barack Obama
has proven that what he cannot do very well for himself or for the
nation is provide even a modicum of leadership on out-of-control
government spending."
Ehud Barak (Israeli Defense Minister): “We are facing a diplomatic-
political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that
will peak in September.” (He was speaking of the Palestinian Authority
plan to advance the UN resolution which would make the State of Palestine
a UN member, holding territory including the West Bank, Gaza and East
Jerusalem.)
Mike Evans (Jerusalem Prayer Team): "An Islamic Revolution is
sweeping the Middle East today. It has already overthrown the
governments of Tunisia and Egypt. Open warfare has broken out in
Libya, and the revolt is spreading like wildfire, threatening to topple
the leaders of Syria, Jordan and Bahrain as well. Why did no one know
that this was coming and speak out?" (And he points out a quote from a
book he wrote in 2007: "An Islamic revolution is spreading and is on
the brink of becoming America's greatest threat since the Civil War.")
The "One Liners" that everyone enjoys were not easy to find . . .
Sammy Benoit, reflecting on why Peter Orszag, Mr. Obama's Director of
Management and Budget, quit: "Instead of hope and change, Orszag
found teeth and talons."
David Martin, Media Research Center: "A media willing to distort the
truth to curry favor with a liberal administration is a dangerous thing."
And here are this week's random "Afterthoughts" . . .
A simple quiz about two items much in the news this week: We have
heard about the 7 instances the past few days where air traffic controllers
have fallen asleep on the job. And we have seen the video of Vice President
Joe Biden falling asleep during President Obama's speech on the national
debt. This is the quiz question: Which poses the greater danger for America
and the American people?
A week later, they're still talking about Obama's national debt speech.
Heritage Foundation: "Now, in the 9th inning, the same president who
handed his mantle of leadership to a "fiscal commission" has responded
to the call for reform by doing what he knows best – slinging arrows
with a partisan, poison-tipped speech, proposing higher taxes and
slashing America's defense spending to dangerously low levels."
Mark Baisley (defense-intelligence company CEO): "When President Obama
delivered his “Framework for Deficit Reduction” speech on Wednesday,
I kept thinking that America was being treated to the slickest example of
bait-and-switch since the Music Man came to River City."
In that speech, either the teleprompter or Mr. Obama prevaricated.
Mr. Obama said “We believe in the words of the first Republican president,
Abraham Lincoln, ‘Through government we should do together what we
cannot do for ourselves as well.’” Apparently he thinks no one is smart
enough to check up on him. Here is the actual quote from Abraham Lincoln,
and yes, by some definitions, he was the first Republican president: “The
legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people
whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well
do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that
the people can individually do as well for themselves, government
ought not to interfere.” It's that old credibility problem again. The Obama
version doesn't really say what Lincoln said.
In case you wonder where Mr. Obama gets his governing ideas . . .
Three issues ago (March 30) we pointed out how Mr. Obama's "Safe
Schools Czar," Kevin Jennings, (a practicing homosexual), aims to get
every school to teach a pro-homosexual curriculum. This past week he
got a big assist -- the California State Senate appoved a bill mandating the
instruction of "gay history in social studies lessons" in schools in the state.
Given California's Democrat Liberal government, the bill is likely to become
law. But these ideas did not originate with Obama or Jennings. Note these
quotes: "Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it
in his hands and to whom it is aimed." -- Josef Stalin; "The education
of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a
mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." -- Karl
Marx; "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have
sown will never be uprooted." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin; "The ruling
class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway
the emotions of the masses." -- Albert Einstein; and one of our greatest
presidents also recognized the truth of this approach: "The philosophy of
the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow."
-- Abraham Lincoln
There is always the question remaining: Is America a Christian nation?
Mr. Obama keeps insisting it is not -- ignoring the fact that 80%, or more, of
our population claims to be Christian. And there are those cynics, presumably
atheists, who claim the Founding Fathers were not Christians and did not
intend for America to be Christian. Looking back to the early days of our
nation, we recall the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French
historian, to whom is attributed the phrase: "If America ever ceases to be
good, she will cease to be great." In 1835 he wrote: "The Americans
combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their
minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the
other...In the United States...Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly
established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it." But
even earlier, in 1754, in a booklet for immigrants to learn about a new nation,
Ben Franklin wrote about America: "Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity
rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country
without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an
Infidel. And the Divine Being seems...pleased to favor the whole country."
It would seem more logical to accept the opinions of men who were here at
that time, than those of modern-day cynics, trying to be politically correct.
Our Founding Fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson, with whom
Democrats claim kinship, spoke often about national indebtedness.
"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our
own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of
the public moneys." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1808
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public
debt as the greatest danger to be feared." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1816
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income,
growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the
employment of the pruning knife." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1821
