Dear Visitor
The shape of this weeks news summary is a bit different. At the bottom you will find a thought provoking article from Phillip Rosenthal who heads up an organisation called Christian View Network. This would be good to read in light of the killing of Bin Laden. Much of this can be contextualised into our own country.
First of all... This Sunday...those of you who have kids in Sunday school-grades 1-7-please make sure they are in church. Chris, Pam, Richard and Aliki who have all been helping develop our children's ministry, will be doing some special things with them during the first half hour of the service. So we are reserving the first 2 pews on each side for kids and parents (Instead of at the back as normal)
There will be the usual programme for them but only at 10.30. Richard will preach for us on John 3.
Sunday at 5 resumes with a new 6 part series...Overview of the Old Testament. This week-"A birds eye view of the Old Testament"
OBAMA'S BIN LADEN VICTORY SPEECH COMPARED WITH LINCOLN AFTER CIVIL WAR
Yesterday, President Barak Obama announced to the world that the US military
had found and killed Osama Bin Laden. In celebrating this victory he
concluded "And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the
director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top
priority of our war... I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden... I
met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more
information... And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough
intelligence to take action... Today, at my direction, the United States
launched a targeted operation... After a firefight, they killed Osama bin
Laden and took custody of his body.
...But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we
set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit
of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our
citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our
sacrifices to make the world a safer place.
Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or
power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead
So, from Obama's perspective, the death of Bin Laden after a ten year hunt
proves the invincibility of America. Let us compare this with the attitude
of Abraham Lincoln after his victory in the American Civil war - a war that
ended slavery in which one million Americans lost their lives - a much
greater toll than the 'War against terror'.
On April 30, 1863, Lincoln called a national day of repentance for the sins
of America. His edict read "And whereas, it is the duty of nations as as
well as of men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to
confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured
hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize
the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all
history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:
And, in so much as we know that, by His divine law, nations, like
individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world,
may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now
desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole
People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We
have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have
grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But
we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved
us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have
vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these
blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to
feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to
the God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the
offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and
forgiveness...
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the
hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation
will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon
of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering
country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace."
http://www.quietwaters.org/abraham_lincoln_national_day_of_prayer.htm
So, after a great victory after much greater suffering, Lincoln unlike Obama
was not crediting himself, his military or the greatness of America. He was
not even focused on the victory at all. He saw the American civil war as
God's judgement on America's national sins - slavery and arrogance in
particular. The issue was not North versus South, but America versus God.
The purpose of the national repentance was to obtain God's blessing and
avoid further catastrophe. Rather than crediting the wealth of America to
their invincible national will, as does Obama, Lincoln saw prosperity as the
gift of God, but also as a danger of creating arrogance - leading to God's
judgement. On the positive side, Obama does acknowledge America as 'under
God', but is manner of doing so is rather like the current South African
constitution which fails to acknowledge God's sovereignty over South Africa,
but wants his blessing on it.
Obama's arrogant language is chillingly similar to what the Bible says about
the attitude of those who built the tower of Babel. "GE 11:4 Then they
said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the
heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over
the face of the whole earth." ... 6 The LORD said, "If as one people
speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they
plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse
their language so they will not understand each other." GE 11:8 So the LORD
scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the
city."
Was Lincoln a particularly devoted religious Christian? Not actually. But
he shared a general Biblical Christian worldview and that impacted his
politics. Until about a hundred years ago, just about all Christians
believed in the sovereignty of God over nations. What Lincoln said was
accepted truth. But today those who live as if this was true are a minority.
We must acknowledge and commend the bravery of the soldiers who found Bin
Laden and be grateful to all who fight terrorism. Nevertheless, we must
also remember that God is sovereignly in control of everything including our
enemies and including terrorists and Bin Laden. To win the war against
terror, we need God's help. We need as communities and nations to examine
ourselves corporately to see how we might have offended God, which may get
in the way of his helping us. We should remember when about ten years ago
Cape Town was subject to a series of Islamic terrorist attacks. (Actually
they terrorised other muslims more than they terrorised anyone else in an
effort to intimidate to get support). Cape Town Christians held a day of
prayer in which a meeting of 50 000 people prayed for an end to the
terrorism. Shortly afterward, the police managed to break the terrorist
network and the attacks stopped. The police did a good job, but wouldn't
have succeeded without God's help.
If America wants God's continued help in the war on terror, they need to
follow Lincoln's attitude of humble reverence to God and not the boasting of
Obama.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Rosenthal
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