It’s the midpoint of 2010.  Normally, a typical year surprises you by its unexpected speed - you look up, and suddenly it’s June.  You think, “where did the time go?” The surprise is normally knit to how the mundane realities of living life “pulling weeds in the heat of the day” - meaning the simplicity of the rigors of chores, bills, and other life details - make life feel like it’s creeping by sometimes.  It’s easy to forget that life is a “vapor” that rapidly diminishes and passes swiftly by.

This year, however, I haven’t felt that way.  The days are rocketing by with a speed that is, at times, overwhelming.  It’s not what I expected from this season of my life - I entered 2010 with great joy, having shed every title and position I’ve held over the years at IHOP-KC.  I had no “official” responsibilities, no official title, and as the year went on, no office space.  The year was one that was supposed to be an unofficial “sabbatical” year of me, Jesus, and the prayer room - much like it was in the early days of 2002, when I first arrived at the prayer room.

I remember those days so vividly - for the first time in my life in full-time ministry, I had no title, no responsibilities, and lots of time to enjoy God and be enjoyed by Him.  It was the most gloriously exhilarating season of my life: brand new on staff at IHOP, no one knew me, no one expected anything from me, and I could enjoy long hours in the prayer room, at teaching services on weekends, and in the word.  Of course, the “crown jewel” of that season for me was that my wife was pregnant, the IHOP staff went on a 50-day fast together, and the last 12 nights of that fast were dedicated to gathering to hear IHOP’s prophetic history - which for years we called the “Encountering Jesus” series.  I never thought I’d have a season like that again.

Of course, when I resigned from my roles at IHOP in September of last year, I was sure that I was headed for another glorious season of me n’ God.  My wife is even pregnant again! Due in September, it was almost poetic to me as I looked back to those months with fondness.  What I learned is that you can never go back - that yesterday’s season and yesterday’s encounter is what it is, what it was, and what it had to be.  It was unique and can never be recaptured or relived.  It’s not supposed to be - for in the infinite creativity and beauty of God lies a wonderful propensity to show you how different two similar seasons can be in His plan for your life.  Thus we forget what lies behind and press on towards the goal of knowing Christ Jesus - and all of the wonderful surprises He has in store for us today.

The greatest surprise of this season came on two separate dates: November 11, 2009 and January 29, 2010.  In November the Lord apprehended my with His Spirit in the most unexpected and glorious way - my testimony is below.  In January, He commissioned me in the most unexpected and glorious way.  The IHOPU Student Awakening changed my life in many ways, accelerated my life in others, and was the final means of transitioning me to the next season of my life.  I’ll always look back on these days with awestruck wonder and tender gratitude.  The Lord saved me.  He delivered me.  He filled me with joy and reset me into His purposes.  Then, in January, He began the next phase: weekends in Atlanta.  Three times a month I travel to the house of prayer in Atlanta to be with my friend, Billy Humphrey, as we lead Awakening (renewal) meetings together.  A binder thick with testimonies declares the reality of the power of God to heal and set captives free there.  It’s been glorious.

As that phase of my new season in God began I found myself teaching Romans, Kingdom of God, and the Excellencies of Christ at the Forerunner School of Ministry.  Thus my heart, wide open and tender, was being filled with the truth of His righteousness and mercy set upon me, His plans and purposes for me, and His beauty and glory apart from me.  The Holy Spirit would regularly break into our classes - once it spilled over into the class next door, and then over again into the class at the end of the hall until three-quarters of the student body was encountering the Lord in power and deliverance related to His love for us.  To be able to so fully give myself to teaching, preaching, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit is one of the most unique gifts the Lord has ever given my weak little heart, growing in His love.

Once we transitioned to summer, the first wave of over 1000 teenagers began to descend on us at our Awakening Teen Camp.  1000 more came this past weekend for our Fascinate High School Conference.  The Lord spoke clearly to me, “watch as I show you My zeal for the next generation.”  I went into the conference with great expectations, which the Lord promptly exceeded.  I cannot wait for the second conference (which will fill up fast) at the end of July.  Also waiting for me at the end of July are three other youth conferences, one here in Kansas City and two in California (southern and northern!).  It’s like, in this season, the Lord is reminding me over and over again what He has for me in the days ahead: preaching, teaching, writing, power encounters, teens, and Asians - particularly the Koreans and the Chinese.

Just today my friend Julie Meyer told me about a dream she had about me recently: that after a long season of driving in circles (with a big smile on my face), I finally had parked the car, got out, and put the keys in my pocket.  I had found a place of rest, she said, doing exactly in this season what I was supposed to be doing.  She’s exactly right - while this season is similar yet altogether unlike those months I enjoyed in 2002 with Jesus, I have never felt so content and settled into the call of God on my life.  For the Lord has brought me full circle - my place of greatest satisfaction hasn’t come from the labors of my hands, my fulfillment does not come from ministry and my impact on others; it comes from being loved and enjoyed by Jesus.  The labors that have flowed from that place of enjoyment are, in so many ways, incidental.  Important, but beside the point.  He loves me.  He enjoys me.  I am victorious and successful, right here, right now, today - and forever, because of that simple truth.

by Billy Humphrey

Something unusual has happened here at IHOP-Atlanta the last few weekends. It’s difficult to explain any encounter with the Lord. You never want to hype or overstate anything. But simultaneously you want to credibly do justice to what has happened.  As I considered how I might faithfully relate what the Lord has been doing in our midst, I was reminded of Jesus’ words to John the Baptist’s disciples, “Go and tell … the things you have seen and heard…” (Luke 7:22). So here it goes…

Last weekend we called special renewal services because we felt impressed that the Lord was moving in an unusual way. On Tuesday the same presence of God we felt the previous weekend was released in our all-staff prayer meeting. Many were encountered by the Holy Spirit, most notably the children.  The next day in our school, the classes were interrupted by the power of God. Many of the children experienced the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in profound ways.  As I went to the school building to see what was happening, I was greeted with the tangible presence of the Lord and my legs began to physically tremble.  I entered a classroom that had been overtaken by the Holy Spirit to find 20 or so 4th & 5th graders in travail with tears streaming down their faces, crying out for God to come in power and revival. It was fearsome. You can’t teach a thing like that. It was a sovereign in-breaking of the Holy Spirit.

On Friday David Sliker and Brent Steeno from IHOP-KC flew in to help lead the weekend’s meetings. That evening as we gathered there was a real sense of expectation. The room was full and you could sense the spiritual hunger. In moments the presence of God filled the place and the power of the Holy Spirit was in manifestation. Jesus was doing it again. Friday through Sunday night we experienced the same outpouring of the Holy Spirit we had experienced the previous weekend. Many were touched with the power of the Holy Spirit. Many were weeping, laughing, falling, trembling and shaking under the Spirit’s power. Many testified of physical and emotional healings.

The physical healing included healing from Mononucleosis and Hypothyroidism. A fractured ankle was instantly healed as was a broken toe and hemorrhoids.

My favorite physical healing was a lady whose eyesight was healed. I got to witness her eyesight being restored firsthand. She had received prayer on Saturday at which time her eyes began to burn but she did not have an immediate change in her vision. Our staff member encouraged her to continue to believe that she received her healing. She came back to the meeting on Sunday night with her eyes still burning.  She told me she purposely left her “coke-bottle” glasses at home, believing her healing would manifest. Toward the end of the meeting she realized that she could read the video screens. She came over to tell her testimony with her husband standing by her side. I asked her to read a paper with 12pt font at arms length. She began slowly and then read several sentences breaking down in tears as she read. She was completely healed! Her name is FAITH! Her husband and I high-fived and hugged as he confirmed that she could’ve never read that page without her glasses.

We also received multiple testimonies of emotional healing and deliverance, including deliverance from depression, self-hatred and the emotional scars from sexual abuse. Many, many experienced a dramatic refreshing and renewing in the love of God.

Another sweet testimony came from a young girl named Angel. She told us that she had not been to church very much. In fact the only church she had ever been to was one where, “You weren’t allowed to talk.” On Sunday night she walked into the house of prayer and almost immediately began to weep. She said the people were so joyful and she wanted to know what she needed to do to experience this same joy. The friend who brought her, shared the gospel with her and Angel immediately gave her life to Jesus! As I prayed for her she began to shake and weep as the presence of the Holy Spirit flowed over her. It was absolutely beautiful.

God has given us a prophetic word that He has opened a fountain of refreshing over IHOP-Atlanta and that He is changing the International House of Prayer to the International House of Presence.  I believethis is what we are experiencing right now. A fountain has been opened and living water is pouring forth.  This morning as I walked into the building I immediately felt the weighty presence of the Holy Spirit upon me. Even now as I write this blog, I sense His presence, draping me like a heavy cloak.

I don’t know how long this season of visitation will last. But I do know that we want to give the Holy Spirit as much room as possible so He can move as He pleases. Therefore, we are extending the renewal services for at least the next two weekends, the 12th – 14th and 19th – 21st. David Sliker from IHOP-KC has agreed to make trips to Atlanta to serve the Lord’s purpose in this outpouring for as long as the Lord is moving by His Spirit. All I can say is “More LORD!”

Service times are:

• Friday @ 7pm
• Saturday & Sunday @ 6pm

Please forward this blog to whomever you think is interested to know about this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Go to www.ihop-atlanta for information and directions.

by Billy Humphrey

How do I explain what happened this weekend?  It’s nearly impossible to communicate in a blog, but I will do my best.

Let me start by saying that I have a great distaste for hype or self-promotion.  I have a great value for reality and truth, especially when it comes to testifying of the works of the Lord.  I dont’ think exaggeration helps anyone. With that said, I hope what I share next stirs your hunger and faith.

This past weekend at IHOP-Atlanta we had a leadership summit with about 70 leaders from around the nation.  We were gathering to receive strategy and impartation to build the houses of prayer.  My good friend David Sliker, from IHOP-KC, has ministered with me and others in this event for the past five years. This year was different because He and I were the only speakers.

When I picked up Dave from airport Friday afternoon, he was deeply experiencing the Holy Spirit’s presence. He told me that when he woke up Friday morning he felt the Lord resting on him powerfully. That night at the summit it was evident to me that Dave was carrying a deposit from the IHOPU Student Awakening services in KC. The presence of the Lord was rich.

The next day the Lord began to deeply minister by His Spirit to the people. Dave said to me, “I think it’s going to blow up tonight.” I also felt like the Lord was building towards a climax on Saturday night. I felt led to speak on hunger for revival.  Just before the service Dave had a vision of angels holding buckets of coals of fire and wine over the building, ready to pour out the power of God on the gathering.

When I gave the altar call the leaders responded with great hunger to see a breakthrough of the power of God in their regions. When I asked the Lord to release His fire, the fire of God fell on the gathering. Many were groaning and shaking under the power of God. Dave then came up and asked the Lord to release the refreshing wine of His Spirit. Within a few moments the room was engulfed in the sweet presence of the Holy Spirit.  God coursed through the place for the next several hours. Many were weeping, laughing, falling shaking and experiencing the refreshing touch of God’s love upon their soul. We didn’t get out of there until 12:30 AM. God’s love was so real and His presence so tangible.  I didn’t get to sleep that night until after 2:30.

The scenes and experiences were so familiar. I have been in many revival & renewal services in my life. I am so thankful how God moved.  I couldn’t help but wonder if He was doing something that might be lasting.  I figured we would know if something was really happening after Sundays services.

The next morning our normal Sunday AM crowd was joined by the leadership summit crowd.  The room was full and the worship was really sweet. During worship Dave had a profound encounter with the Lord.  The Lord told him that He had opened a fountain over IHOP-Atlanta and the the Lord was going to transform the International House of Prayer into the International House of Presence. Once we prayed for the Holy Spirit to come, the same power that we experienced Saturday night manifested again all across the room.  The service went from 10:00am til about 1:30pm. God was moving.  I was filled with expectancy as to what the evening service might hold. I could feel myself beginning to believe that maybe God was up to something more than just a good weekend of services.  The risk of faith can seem so feeble.  But the Lord loves it when we dare to believe in His greatness.

You have to understand, I REALLY LOVE a move of the Spirit of God. But I am also exceedingly jealous for the real deal. I don’t want to call every spark a bonfire. I seriously petitioned the Lord as to what He had in store for us.  Could it be that God was opening a fountain of refreshing here in Atlanta?

Suffice to say, last night’s service was amazing.  The power of God broke upon us in waves. The Holy Spirit blew through the house of prayer as many were drunk in the Spirit and refreshed in the love of God.  15-20 people were instantly healed of various sicknesses and infirmities. When I left at 12:30AM, 25 – 30 people were still here. Most were on the floor, drunk in the spirit, overwhelmed with the Presence of God.

At some point during the meeting I felt the Lord invite me to call additional meetings to make room for the fountain of the Lord to continue to flow and refresh us.  Dave and our senior leadership team were unanimous that we should continue the meetings. Therefore we are going to hold more renewal services this weekend at IHOP-Atlanta. Dave has agreed to fly back to Atlanta this weekend to help serve what the Lord is doing here.

Service Times are:

• Friday, Feb 5th @7pm
• Saturday, Feb 6th @ 6pm
• Sunday, Feb 7th @ 6pm.

As I am writing this the Lord’s presence is resting upon me.  I am so hungry for an outbreak of the Holy Spirit in Atlanta.  If you are hungry for a move of God in your life I want to invite you to join us this weekend. Who knows what God will do.  I know this, my faith is stirred to see an outbreak of God’s power engulf and overwhelm our city and nation. I want to engage with whatever the Lord is doing unto this end.

We don’t know if we will continue past this weekend, we just want to show up with hunger and ask the Holy Spirit to come. Come join us.

Would you forward this blog to those you know that might be interested.  I believe God wants to open up a fountain of refreshing and turn it into a river of fire that will birth revival and reformation.

In other words, it struck me later that I had spent much time and energy asking God for something I didn’t really believe would come.

Even when I first walked into the auditorium at 3 PM, I was unsure of what was happening - and whether or not it was for me. I felt a strange pang of loneliness - it was as if I had walked into someone else’s party, uninvited.  It was as if everyone else was having fun, but I didn’t know how to join in, who to talk to, or where to stand.  It was a critical moment for me - a sudden crucible that had caught me completely off-guard: a holy “pop-quiz” that I desperately wanted to pass.  I could feel the temptation to sit in the back, spectate, and analyze; yet there was a competing twinge of desire to jump in and swim with the rest of the students.  Pride, hunger, desire, and all of the other silly little emotions and thoughts that seem meaningful in the moment - and are ultimately exposed as petty in hindsight - struck my heart and mind as I calculated my next move.

Wes Hall, the provost of the bible school, was on the platform leading the meeting.  Yet it was that exact moment that he walked off the stage for a quick break - and walked right past me.  I stopped him.  ”Wes!” I shouted above the noise of worship, prayer, and the various other cries and shouts of this particular kind of meeting, “Would you pray for me?”  He laid his hand on my chest as a few others joined him.  His prayer was prophetic - spot-on prophetic.  I didn’t feel much in regards to an increase of the presence of God, just a sudden surge of permission to join in the festivities.  Yet, it was significant: my heart was unlocking.  I sat and agreed with every prayer and proclamation spoken from the platform: every call for repentance, every issue, every time someone said, “say this with me”, every time someone asked for a response.  I said yes every time as I called my family and urged them to get to the auditorium, quickly.  The room was filling up.

As the time went on, I felt my heart getting lighter and lighter.  I felt surges of joy, playfulness, freedom, and exhilaration that I had not felt in quite some time.  I realized in a moment how dry and barren I had been - and how willing I had been to make peace with my barrenness.  My wife said it well: you a rarely aware of how dry you are until the Lord gives you a drink.  I Also realized that I had been okay with living without the presence and the fullness of the Spirit of God in my life - every area of my life - and how awful that truth was.  I had settled into a rut that was killing my heart and leading me into a broken-down place of burnout and depression, content to imagine that breakthrough was decades away and that I could grind my way to it.  It was time to adopt a new mindset: in the days of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, breakthroughs and victories (small and large) were now seconds away for me and anyone else hungry enough to stand, wait, and ask.

Where did I lose my playfulness? When did I lose the joy of my salvation? In my zeal to be a faithful servant and diligent shepherd, I had said “yes” to a path that was far below the dreams of God for my life.  I had traded down to lay hold of attainable dreams within a limited context of what I could imagine, yet throughout that season my heart longed to be free of the cage I had placed around it.  It was in January that the pain began to become unbearable.  Still, I managed to find creative ways to cope as I strategized my way forward out of pain and into joy.  It was in September that I realized that all of my plans involved some amazing solution falling into place…in the future.  None of my plans involved laying hold of life, freedom, breakthrough, and joy…today.  I needed to be re-introduced to the immediacy of God, or, as others call it, the “suddenly” of God.

The awestruck anticipation of the “suddenly” of God and the infinite possibilities of what He can do in the next few seconds of a believer’s life was something that had gripped my heart in the early days of my journey as an intercessor.  Yet, over the past few years, I had spent so much time considering the future that I had lost a real and vibrant connection with the present.  In fact, I had a conversation with my friend Stuart Greaves  at 1 PM that day (two hours before I made my way over to the FSM Auditorium) in which I declared, “Breakthrough may come today - but my hopes are knit to the one that is coming just before the return of Christ.”  With joy and much laughter, I repented for my self-deceptive statement at 9 PM that evening during the meeting.

The Lord, in His kindness, re-connected today and tomorrow for me in my mind and heart.  Oh! The great distance between what I say and preach and what is actually true on an emotional level within my soul.  Yet in the great kindness of God - and His kindness has never been more tangible and palpable than these last six weeks - He came when I least expected it and delivered me just in the nick of time.

Things really began to explode in me when I began to pray and minister to the students at the altar.  For the first time in my life, I was overwhelmed by the thick, weighty presence of the Holy Spirit in a way that was wholly unique to anything I had ever experienced.  I grabbed my friends, Brian Kim and Jesse Engle, and confessed to them that I was drunk in the Holy Spirit.  I was filled with the Holy Spirit in a fresh way that caused everything within me to come alive.  I had experienced different measures and variations of being filled with the Spirit (as a life-long charismatic believer) - but I had never been intoxicated with His presence like I was on that day.

Since then, that experience has multiplied and expanded.  The Spirit of God and the beauty of Jesus are the first things on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last things on my mind when I go to bed at night.  I cannot imagine settling for less than what I am experiencing in God during these past few weeks; I feel as if my testimony changes and improves each day.  As the days have gone on, I must report that I have only felt the presence of God increase and intensify - and the testimonies and activity of the Holy Spirit in our midst seems to confirm this.  At random times during the day, I will suddenly be overwhelmed by the presence of God or surprised by His activity.  I have become, at times, almost unrecognizable in joy and wild abandon by even my close friends.  My marriage and family life is better than any time I can recall.  My family joins me at the meetings every night from 5 PM to midnight - we have adjusted our entire lives to be in the midst of what God is doing.

Thanks be to God! One of my favorite titles for Jesus has always been “The Living One” from Revelation chapter one.  That title has never been more alive within my soul than these days.  I am struck with new joy over the future as well - for the apple tree is sweet and His fruit is incomparable today; and my future involves a banqueting table of endless pleasure and delight at His right hand in which everything I am experiencing will be multiplied beyond my wildest imagination.  His banner, or His leadership over my life, is truly about love and producing love in my heart beyond anything I could offer Him myself.  My own works seem all the more futile, and His work and His leadership seems all the more glorious.  Oh! that every believer could experience the fullness of the Living One! (Ephesians 3:16-19)

David Sliker, December 18th, 2009

“You may not check this thing anymore, and I know you said not to “hold you to it” later, but I think it would be lovely if you kept up this site and your writing. Working on a computer all day in the marketplace, it’s helpful to read something of substance rather than another journal article which proves the impoverished state of our national health and then attempts to come up with a scheme of man to somehow make it better, when really all this country needs, Christian and non-believer alike, is the reality of the Savior. 

So yeah, I like to come here to read a little bit of truth on my breaks, so if you feel so lead, keep up the writing.“

Well, every once in a while, I do check this thing.  In fact, I think about it often - this little journal represents years of expressing my heart and reaching for God through writing in a way that is critically knit to how I am wired by my Creator.  What I am never sure of is how to navigate that internal longing to write with the other areas and avenues that I’ve signed up for (some desired, some not).  What touches my heart, however, is that many of you also “check this thing” and have encouraged me to write more.  I so appreciate the kindness (and the hunger for God)!  Honestly, I wasn’t sure anyone was poking there head in here because of my negligence.

Part of my challenge recently is how to navigate other writing that I need to be doing - and am struggling to stay on top of.  I have overlooked and neglected other writing assignments that have real deadlines.  I am sure that, however, part of my struggle with writing elsewhere is that I have simply gotten out of the habit of writing.  That’s bad! Secondly, I have been working through other material in other contexts that don’t necessarily translate to what I have done in the past here.  For example, this morning I am wrestling with how to teach and communicate the attributes of God to teenagers.  How do I take the language of A.W. Tozer, Charnock, Pink, etc. accessible to a generation of young people that have largely disconnected from the importance of the infinitude of God?

A final aspect of writing I have had a difficult time with is the transition that our culture has made in communicating ideas.  I am many things, but as of today I am not succinct.  I was made for Tozer, not Twitter.  Thus I found, for a while, that every time I wanted to venture into this place to write I found myself mostly thinking about writing about writing (as I am doing here, ironically).  If the blog format was a challenge for me, how much more is the twitterfied world that has quickly outpaced the blog world a mystifying reality?  There are two camps related to this kind of thing: the “pro-Twitter” world and the “anti-Twitter world”.  I am on neither team.  I appreciate the manner in which the twitter reality forces precision and presses writers to summarize and assimilate key ideas quickly.  Twitter is a glorious place for preachers, and often writers are bugged by preachers in the same manner that they are bugged by Twitter.

The blog format was an early preview of what was to come in regards to internet communication.  When I first started engaging in this format, in fact, the number one complaint I received was related to my writing style.  I refused to post the short, quick, extemporaneous commentaries that populated the internet.  I wasn’t writing to a format, I was simply expressing my heart while sharpening and pushing myself to write better.  I’m still figuring it out.  I know a few things: I’m not skilled enough to post the quick-hit articles and sentences that many can produce and I’m not interested in the personality driven asides that attract so many to blogs and creates so much twitter traffic.   That so many of you have commented and wondered where my little musings have been encourages me to keep pressing for what I do, in the way that I do it.

So, as long as you don’t mind me writing when I can and as long as you don’t mind me practicing my craft on you, I’ll still pop in here every so often.  Not to build a following - but to hone and sharpen a part of myself that needs the glorious repetition an ongoing journal provides.  Thanks to Sarah for the sweet note.  I checked.

David

 This is the first of five podcasts we’ve done to get ready for the upcoming Fascinate High School Conference.  Each of the first four hits one of our four core messages to teenagers: identity, intimacy, intercession, and impact.  Up first: Jesse Engle and a conversation about identity and it’s importance in establishing us to lay hold of the other three core messages.

Up next (coming soon), Mike and I talk about intimacy and why we love the Fascinate conference.David

“Science Trumps Ideology, Except When It Doesn’t 

On Tuesday the Times surprised no one by editorializing in favor of President Obama’s order liberalizing the regulations for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research:

Mr. Obama also pledged on Monday to base his administration’s policy decisions on sound science, undistorted by politics or ideology. He ordered his science office to develop a plan for all government agencies to achieve that goal.  Such a pledge should be unnecessary. Unfortunately, for eight years, former President George W. Bush did just the opposite. He chose scientific advisory committees based on ideology rather than expertise. His political appointees aggressively ignored, distorted or suppressed scientific findings to promote a political agenda or curry favor with big business.

The characterization of the stem-cell restrictions as a bow to “ideology” over science is inaccurate.  The objections to the use of embryonic stem cells - agree with them or not - are ethical, not ideological, in character.

In any case, today, in an editorial on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the Times shows just how seriously it takes the commitment to science over ideology.  The Times urges Salazar “not to forget the wolf”: 

The Interior Department’s scientists say that wolf populations are healthy enough, and state protections strong enough, to take the animal off the endangered species list in Montana and Idaho. We do not share their confidence in the states. De-listing allows for some hunting, and hunters in both places are itching to start firing away. Mr. Salazar should be ready to restore protections the instant the long-term survival of the species seems at risk.

The Times view, then, is that science should trump ideology when the Times disagrees with the ideology, but ideology should trump science when the Times agrees with the ideology.”  

- Wall Street Journal Online, March 12th, 2009 

- American Thinker, March 11th, 2009  

This March, at a “Passion for Jesus” conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance. 

The call for “vengeance” also made me giggle a bit.  Lou as the leader of a goth movement calling for vengeance - makes sense to me.  

David 

Well, much to my surprise, our p.r. firm loved the press release as is.  So, in an unexpected turn of events, the early draft became the final draft instantaneously.  The p.r. firm didn’t change much - they shortened the opening paragraph and added a phrase (that I asked them to remove - because it was dorky, not because it was controversial) before punching up the end a little bit.  Hopefully, if you see it somewhere printed over the next week, you’ll appreciate the minor addition they made.  Or not.

As things currently stand, however, they have blasted the press release out to wherever public relatations firms blast out press releases.  I don’t really know how any of that works, but I do know that, supposedly, the Wall Street Journal has shown interest thus far.  We shall see.  Either way, it was an interesting experiment in “social press releasing” with all of you - and the glory for me is that, for now, only Lou’s name is on the document.  He’s already done one radio interview related to it (yesterday, can’t remember the show).

Meanwhile, I get to stay in my cave and fast and pray.  So back to the cave I go.

David

This past week, the editors and publishers of Newsweek magazine made an unfortunate decision to brazenly relegate the vast majority of American citizens who believe in the traditional, biblical view of marriage to, quoting its Editor-in-Chief Jon Meacham, “intellectual bankruptcy”.  Newsweek’s attempt to simultaneously tear down the veracity and relevance of the holy scriptures while appealing to those same scriptures to build its case for homosexual marriage is not in and of itself a shocking act.  The intellectual dishonesty of these writers and editors is clearly on display in their work and the statements they have made surrounding their work.  Thus, we are neither afraid of nor troubled by their submission to the national conversation on this issue. 

No – what we are troubled by is the confidence that a failing institution had in publishing such a seemingly bold statement.  Newsweek’s economic struggles and loss of subscribers have been well-documented as of late; in taking this stand, Jon Meacham in particular seemed overconfident that he and his constituency are on the winning side of history.  In the long view of history, the very scriptures that Newsweek magazine looked to trivialize in their article prove who is ultimately on the “winning side” of this argument.  As our friend Jim Garlow has said repeatedly, the Bible ends with a wedding.  The manner in which the Bible comes to a glorious conclusion demonstrates the sanctity by which our Creator holds this most sacred of unions.  The Apostle Paul spoke of this institution and the manner in which a healthy, vibrant marriage between one man and one woman has continually served as a metaphor for God’s relationship with His people in Ephesians 5:25-33, a passage that Lisa Miller, the author of the Newsweek cover essay conspicuously overlooked in her research. 

Some have asked why we care so much about this issue, and why we are taking such a bold stand to oppose homosexual marriage in America.  It is because we hold the institution of marriage in such high regard related to its sacredness to our God; yet we also recognize that this very sacredness has left the institution of marriage open to assault from its very beginnings, going back to a garden thousands of years ago.  The culmination of this assault on marriage, according to the prophetic scriptures that describe the days ahead, is to try to eliminate this institution altogether (1 Timothy 4:3).  The current zeal to redefine marriage is the latest stage of this assault.  The strategy of those who are looking to redefine marriage is two-fold: to first frame homosexuality as a racial issue rather than a moral issue and then to establish rights for homosexuals as the true moral issue of our day.  Thus there is more than the biblical definition of marriage at stake – but the very definition of what is sin versus what is righteous before our Creator. 

Therefore what is troubling is clear: not that Newsweek magazine is taking the “lead” in defining both morality and marriage in America; again, an organization struggling for its financial survival rarely has the stomach for such risks – no, it is troubling that they feel confident that the majority of America agrees with their stance and their definitions of marriage and morality.  If this is true then our nation has taken a dramatic and unfortunate turn that has devastating consequences for American culture in the days to come.  For if sexual orientation and desire can be classified under the framework of “race” – if we define desires in a manner beyond what our Creator intended without any scientific evidence that such proclivities are genetic – then we open up a proverbial “Pandora’s Box” for such an argument to be applied to all manner of desires under the false mask of “genetics” or the “Creator’s design”.  We pray that the vast majority of Americans that have continued to hold the line on what is marriage, what is moral, and what is so clearly part of the created order and the Creator’s design will stand fast against this blatant assault on truth. 

As such, we are asking all who desire to stand for truth and righteousness to say, “No!” to Newsweek magazine’s attempt to reframe and reshape scripture for their own self-seeking purposes and to immediately cancel their subscriptions.  The American people have a historic opportunity to show Newsweek magazine that its arrogant overconfidence in gauging the opinions of the people is greatly misplaced.  

It’s about 33-50 words too long, and a few of the phrases need too much explanation / clarification to hold up - but it gives you a better grasp of what is on our minds related to this week’s Newsweek cover essay.

What do you think?

David 

On this matter, however, I want to do more than “write down a thought or two” - I want to declare war on a magazine that has so blatantly declared war on me.  I have never, in my life, seen a more obvious attempt by a mainstream news magazine to delineate between “us” (the right thinking, clear minded media type) and “them” (the neanderthal bitterly clinging to religion and guns) as I saw this week in Newsweek magazine.  From the first line, “Let’s try for a minute to take religious conservatives at their word…” (emphasis mine; meaning, I’m not a member of whatever club spawned this article) to the Editor’s note: “Let the letters and emails come.”  

As a religious conservative, I’ve now seen a mainstream magazine feel safe enough with its constituency economically to “take me on.”  This does not make its ideas or presentations bold, noble, or heroic - mainstream media are hardly capable of such financial risks - no, this means that it (the editors and publisher) believes that the ideas presented are safe for publication; controversial yes, but economically safe - and that its views are the new social norm for the day.  I think, sadly, that they are right.  

And this answers the comment that I haven’t responded to yet - the one that asked me why, when it comes to issues like gay marriage, do I care?  I care because of precisely what I just articulated - the redefinition of social norms under the banner of civil rights, which is a dishonest and intellectually inferior position masquerading as a just and noble cause.  Once that redefinition takes place, and the lines that were once clear are at once redrawn, the future for my children suddenly takes a darker turn; for the precedent set in these arguments is one we will be hearing again, I can assure you.  I have to end here - but this isn’t the last of what’s on my mind related to what I consider one of the most ominous signs of our time that I’ve seen in quite a while.  

David 

The old-school “blog” felt like the older-school barber shop.  

Of course, I’ve never approached blogging that way.  When I posted my first articles here a couple of years ago, most of the comments that came back were, “Wow, like your stuff - but it’s so long!” and, “Man, you break the blogging rules - try breaking up your posts into shorter nuggets!”  What few anticipated then was that the desire for “short” was knit to the desire for on-the-fly ideas and snippets that could be assimilated quickly - if at all.  Thus the general phase-out of “blogging” as the primary 2.0 format by which people socialize and engage in conversation on the web - hello, Facebook and Twitter!  

Most people crave touch points and relational “handles” by which to grasp and connect, even in small ways, with people they have various amounts of affection for.  The quick “hit” of a tweet or a status update scratches the itch of feeling like you grasp the flow of someone’s life without having to do the work of actually engaging them in dialogue.  It gives us a way to scratch the voyeuristic craving that blogs initially fed at some level.  Blogs were the web version of the reality show - Facebook and Twitter have brought the show to the next phase because of the speed and pace at which both feed the 24/7 desire of the human mind and heart to be engaged in something quasi-informational and relational.

The blogs that still remain as influential, the ones that have stayed relevant, are the ones that were never designed to be a running diary or provide a short-burst of a conversation topic.  The ones that remain are those whose only currency is the provision of ideas and the exploration  of concepts that one could not typically make apart from a collaborative effort.  That’s just a fancy way, of course, to say that the blogs that are still going strong “bring something to the table” that most could not provide on their own: insight, perspective, information, or opinion that helps fuel the trafficking of ideas. 

This is not, however, an apologetic for the blogging medium or is it really meant to offer perspective on the future of blogging in general.  To be honest, I have never cared about the “trend”, nor have I looked to capitalize on anything related to the blogging genre.  It took me a while to warm up to this format - until I discovered what a helpful resource it could be for me to exercise my writing muscles and really write things people cared to read.  Coming off of the publication of End Times Simplified in 2005, it was clear to me that I had to grow as a writer. 

Thus it is with far more confidence that I shape Signs of the Times as I labor for clarity and readability.  I have three years of regular writing under my belt, and the process of engaging with folks on the other side of these articles has really helped me shape and craft my ideas and bursts of inspiration.  I’ve been able to explore ideas that I normally don’t have an avenue to express - particularly in the political realm, though, of course, that part of my life is changing a bit.  Though I have been an infrequent visitor lately, I am reaffirming my love of this medium as a place to craft and express the many things that are churning within me.     

All of this flowed from my own musings on the process of writing, and how much I think about this space - even when the articles and postings are scarce.  Here on this site, if an idea makes it to the proverbial page it is because I’ve really thought it through and felt enough about the concept or idea to get it out there.  Every once in a while I will be informational, but that has always been reluctantly on my part.  Every once in a while I will be humorous, but really I have found that my voice is strongest here when I am being earnest, forthright, and sober in my approach.  Here, I am a watchman - not a satirist.  

This has been my approach - stew on an idea, think it through, and if it has “life” on it then write it down and see what happens; if not, set it aside.  This has led to less frequent posting, longer posts, a less “conventional” web voice - all of which has surely cost me a little bit in terms of readership.  Again, I haven’t really cared for that line of thinking anyways.  I’ve only and always wanted to, in this space, express my longings and observations about God, His word, and the times in which we live (hence the name and the tagline).  I will continue to do so.

I write this mostly for those who are newer who haven’t been following as long as some of you that have been tracking here for a little while.  Hopefully, this will help you get to know me a little better and follow along related to the “why” behind the “what”.  As one who has always been fascinated by “process” and how things work, this was also a mostly personal, self-analytical, and probably too self-important glance at what I’m doing here.  I hope it served its purpose.

Signing up again to write, 

David 

Now that I’m a free man, I plan on exercising that freedom to write some things and answer some comments.  There’s a lot on the ol’ mind besides researching genocide statistics over the past 100 years, I can assure you.  You’ll have to get the handout to connect with the last sentence, but other than that, happy snow, Kansas City friends!

David

“She should tell the media that she apologizes and she’ll do her next interview inside an abortion clinic.”

I’m not linking to it, because chances are you’ve already seen it or could easily find it yourself.  But the thought of Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, the Huffington Post, et al watching that same interview at an abortion clinic does kind of discourage me.  Mostly because I know that there is no chance of any of that group being more thrown off by the death of a baby - and that the death of a turkey is far more gruesome to them.  We are seriously upside down, and in need of divine intervention, I think.

Here is another quote that interested me:

“Killing is what happens on farms. Seriously. I’m saying this as a farmer.

City people think that farms are “where life happens.” Nonsense. Farming is about killing stuff. I don’t even raise livestock or poultry and I have to kill stuff.

I can get crops to grow by simply putting seed in the ground. The rest of my job is to kill, kill, kill. Kill weeds. Kill insect pests. Kill vertebrate pests. Whether by herbicide, pesticides, shooting, trapping, stomping, you name it — I spend far more time killing than I do making something grow. Mother nature takes care of the growing. I have to remove the competition. There have been days when I’ve trapped 50+ pocket gophers and shot 100 ground squirrels - before lunch. They needed killing, and the next day, more of them were killed because they needed killing. At other times, I’ve shot dozens of jackrabbits at night and flung them out into the sagebrush for coyotes to eat.

And none of that starts in with helping neighbors slaughter steers, lambs, chickens, etc.

That’s farming: killing. Lots of it.

Want to know why this nonsense is ‘news’?

Because an increasingly large cohort of America in the lower 48 (and  probably Hawaii) are … They have no clue where their food comes  from, they don’t hunt, they don’t fish, so they get to act all high and mighty about scenes like this.

In Alaska, they have critters that consider humans food. Absent high  powered rifles, humans are not at the apex of the food chain in Alaska. That will tend to give people a different perspective than the silk pantywaists in the lower 48.”

It made me think about the agrarian reality of the New Testament world and the astonishingly large number of agricultural metaphors and analogies Jesus used for His audiences.  Before anyone points the finger at the “liberal silk pantywaist” guy out there, how connected are we as believers to the manner in which the Bible uses those farming metaphors relating to our life, and the coming Kingdom, particularly related to the return of Jesus? How connected are we to the Jesus whose garments are stained red in Isaiah 63 and Revelation 19?

The Jews of the intertestamental period (between the Old and New Testaments) had no trouble envisioning a God that would avenge Himself on behalf of Israel in a fairly, well, violent manner.  That Jesus that kills is a strange, foriegn concept to most believers today - and a concept that is mostly scorned and mocked by the so-called “radical atheists”.  The reaction of the people to Sarah Palin being around death and slaughter makes me shudder when I think of the far more controversial and terrifying events that surround the Second Coming of Jesus.

They will hate Him.  They despise Sarah Palin, and she isn’t really that controversial.  The Jesus that is returning to overthrow the nations is a Man that hardly anyone comprehends - and fewer still will ally themselves with and truly love with affectionate loyalty.  Now I know why , of the peoples of the nations, none will be found standing with Him when He comes in Isaiah 63.

David

But I have to confess, the upcoming thing I am most excited about (theology dork that I be) is the new course I am teaching at IHOPU - The Kingdom of God.  My plan is to systematically break down the Kingdom of God in the law, the prophets, the gospels, the epistles, and beyond to get the clearest picture I can regarding the kingdom that God desires to establish fully (and forcefully, at His return) on the earth.  What will it look like when “the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ”?  Oh, the joy of finding out in a way that sets my heart, my mind, and my strength on serving His purposes related to that one goal.

I say this to hint that I am sure that some of my Kingdom of God stuff will leak out onto this space.  Just warning you now.

David

“The California Supreme Court Wednesday decided to hear arguments concerning the legality of Proposition 8, which amended the state Constitution to restore marriage to what it was before the California Supreme Court engaged in legal adventurism by creating a right to gay marriage.

The arguments made are pretty thin gruel, and turn on a technical question of whether the change should be an amendment, which can be passed (as Prop. 8 was) by a majority vote of the people after collecting enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, or whether it is such a drastic change that it needed to go through the more arduous process of constitutional revision. Deep down, some of the lawyers making these arguments had to find it ironic to argue that the state Constitution could not be modified to change the right to marriage through the formal amendment process, including the approval of a majority of voters, but that it could be done by four judges who changed the law by their own fiat. The case law is pretty strongly against those challenging Prop. 8, enough so that I think even the California Supreme Court will have trouble legislating . . . oops, I mean carefully legally reasoning their way to the conclusion that Prop. 8 is unlawful.

Enter Geoff Stone. Before the Court opted to hear the case, he suggested that there was really a much bigger constitutional issue at play here: the separation of church and state. He finds that Proposition 8 “enact[s] into law a particular religious belief.” For Stone, religion is the only explanation for the law: “Indeed, despite invocations of tradition, morality and family values, it seems clear that the only honest explanation for Proposition 8 is religion.” His proof: polling data which shows that evangelicals and weekly church attenders favored Prop. 8 by large margins, while non-Christians and non-church attenders opposed it. While he concedes that courts are loathe to intervene in these cases, it is clear that he thinks they should.  Indeed, to allow these kind of laws is “un-American”, as he explains with perfect tone-deaf deftness: “Indeed, regardless of whether courts can intervene in this context, it is as un-American to violate the separation of church and state by using the power of the state to impose our religious beliefs on others as it is to use the power of the state to impose our discriminatory views of race, religion or gender on others.”

Where to begin? Should we talk about the fact that a traditional head of the police powers of the state are morals, which often were derived from the religious sentiments of the people? Should we discuss the role of religious law like the Decalogue in shaping much of American law? Should we dispute the correlation between religious voters and religious enactments, noting that weekly church attenders also vote overwhelmingly for other things that Geoff Stone no doubt despises, like Republican party presidential candidates? Should we dispute the premise that “only” religion explains the outcome in the election, and that people of very different religious faiths and no faith at all reached the same conclusion in voting for Prop. 8? No, to do so gives Stone too much credit. His arguments don’t even qualify as reasonable fringe in establishment clause jurisprudence.

One might wish to dismiss his blog post simply as a poorly thought out whim made on a Sunday afternoon, after church bells in Hyde Park’s somehow triggered dementia. But alas, Stone has a track record of these absurdly anti-religious rants to allow such a kind explanation. As Bench Memos readers will recall, he previously asserted that the court’s decision upholding the federal partial-birth abortion statute was a result of a new Catholic majority on the Court. My old friend Ed Whelan made easy work of his argument here, here, here, here, here, and here.

What then becomes obvious is that it is Stone who is acting with religious fervor by attempting to impose his religious, or if you prefer, irreligious beliefs or morality on the public square. The First Amendment was not intended to prohibit religious participation in political life, and it certainly does not mandate that only the morals of the non-church-attenders are constitutionally permissible bases of legislation. But it is not suitable to claim that arguments like Stone’s are “un-American,” to borrow his line. They are simply foolish.”

- by Robert Alt

Point being, while it has been a while since I’ve last written anything here (Lou’s open letter doesn’t really count), the main reason is knit to a project that I’ve been working on with a team of IHOP-KC leaders: we are producing some key documents for the Onething Conference that are often asked for and will hopefully be helpful in catalyzing our little slice of the prayer movement.  The documents are as follows:

1.  The “150 End-Time chapters” - our goal is to produce a document that puts, in your hands, the most definitive document we can produce related to the 150 chapters in the bible that discuss the end of the age.  There have been about a dozen of us breaking down and analyzing the chapters so that we can present them in a helpful, concise, and precise manner.  It’s the first of hopefully three documents that lay out all of the end-time passages in the Bible.  What’s you’ll find with this document, however, is that for the first round only those passages that constitute 51% or more of the chapter count as an actual “chapter”.  Thus many end-time passages that are of great importance (say, the four in the book of Ephesians) won’t make the “cut” this time around.  A second document that is a bit broader is hopefully forthcoming, preceding the final, comprehensive document down the road.

2.  Book of Revelation outline and “study bible” - this is the project that I personally have spent the most hours on (as well as many, many others) - discussion groups and think tanks devoted to the purpose of producing the most understandable, straightforward, simple and clear outline of the book of Revelation that we have ever produced.  This is such a huge project that we are shutting down all of our afternoon breakouts this year at the Onething Conference so that Mike can systematically go through the book of Revelation and stare at, with 10-12,000 young adults, the “battle plan” of Jesus to fully and forcefully recapture the earth from the hands of wicked and unrighteous men.

3.  “Signs of the Times” handout - no, it’s not my upcoming book, but it is the “prequel” that will help me finish it.  In the same manner that we are convening think-tanks and discussion groups to produce the Revelation outline with our main leaders and their teams, we are working on producing a helpful 10-page document that will lay out the current context of the end-times and where we are in the grand plan of God to bring about the fulfillment of the book of Revelation.  Honestly, the “Signs of the Times” book is one of the most difficult projects I’ve taken on - so I’m happy to have help and work as a team.  Hopefully, this project will be the “boost” I’ve needed to finish the book.  Of course, as we’ve seen over the past few months, can a book like this ever be finished when signposts emerge around us daily?

So, with that, I’m going to still try to sneak in some random thoughts as they strike me over the next few weeks leading up to Onething.  Thanks for reading.

David

To The Black Church in America:

Since 1776 this great country has been a beacon of light to the rest of humanity in demonstrating the divinely allocated value of each and every human individual.  Though America has struggled to ensure freedom for every people, her enduring attitude  “liberty for all” has prevailed at least in measure to every race, gender, and creed.  Our country was securely built on foundational truths that, though at times have been wanting in application, have remained our countries basic societal and moral cornerstones.  Thomas Jefferson articulated these basic values in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  It is this credo that has driven this nation to the heights of glory and power it currently resides in. The Constitution that governs this nation was founded on the belief that no man’s freedom can come at the cost of another and all men deserve to live free of repressive edicts, fear of death, and tyrannical oppression.

With this freedom in mind, forty-five years ago on August 28 a great prophet Martin Luther King trumpeted the sound of “I HAVE A DREAM” in front of thousands gathered at the mall in Washington D.C.   It was from King’s resounding voice that hope was re-kindled in the hearts of a people who for years had been bound by oppressive chains of racial segregation and bigotry. They stood on that day in the shadow of the great memorial of President Lincoln in which is engraved the words of the Gettysburg Address: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” This dream spoke of by King was a dream carved out of the bloody backs and sweaty brow of slave ancestors; it was a dream re-birthed out of the thousands of dead soldiers bodies that littered the killing fields of Antietam, Gettysburg, Manassas; and it was a dream forged from the sweltering heat of poverty, segregation, and racism.

Abraham Lincoln, a man well versed in the scriptures, most certainly drew his inspiration from Numbers 35:33,  “So you shall not pollute the land where you are, for blood defiles the land and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it except by the blood of him who shed it” as well as Genesis 9:5-6 “ Surely for your life blood I will demand a reckoning… Whoever sheds mans blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man.” Lincoln came to understand that the Civil War was God’s divine discipline upon a people and a nation who refused to live according to God’s laws. Lincoln was aware that the Civil War was a day of reckoning for the horrific injustice of slavery and the shedding of innocent blood done in the name of economic gain and racial oppression.   If what Lincoln came to conclude was true and if 600,000 men died on the battlefields of the Civil War for the blood of slavery, what will it mean if God brings a day of reckoning for the shed blood of conservatively 48 million aborted babies since Roe v. Wade 1973?

The dark shadow of abortion stretches itself across the moral fabric of our nation.  Since the landmark case Roe v. Wade in 1973, yearly the blood of up to 1.3 million babies has been spilled upon American soil.  Undermining the basic foundational moral and societal cornerstones laid in both scripture and by our founding fathers, abortion strikes against the very life of our nation.  A living, moving, feeling, and breathing child being abducted from the womb is not a “side-line” socio-political issue. We are talking about the murder of a child- a child who is just as “human” as the African American slave one hundred and fifty years ago working the cotton fields.

John Noonan, Professor of Law at the University of California says it this way, “Once or twice in a century an issue arises…So far reaching in its consequences and so deep in its foundations that it calls every person to take a stand.”   In past times the forced removal of Native American Tribes from their homes was such an issue but very few took their stand.  Slavery was such an issue, and the civil rights movement carried this kind of moral gravity.  Undoubtedly there were many issues during the days prior to the Civil War that pressed upon the nation but God was bringing one issue to a divine apex. Based on whatever side you took in that day history now stands in judgment of you.  And so it will be another forty years from now.  History will stand in judgment of a nation that appallingly aborted its own children and assigned millions of her women to live lives plagued with shame, regret and devastated relationships.

This is not the end: the ready access to abortion now is fueling the worldwide proliferation of human sex trafficking in which women are kidnapped and forced to have sex with men 10-20 times a night.  When these women become pregnant, they are then compelled to abort their children in order to remain economically useful.    How is this for fruit of the feminist cause célèbre?  We have ended up enslaving our own daughters!  We are unleashing a sexual insanity into the earth in epic proportions and abortion is the atomic bomb that has cleared the way for the gradual destruction of our nation’s moral values.  This is not just a social issue; this is the shedding of innocent blood.  Blood affects the spiritual realm and fuels the demonization of a whole culture.

In the scriptures the shedding on innocent blood is the ultimate crime, a crime that God would not pardon.  2 Kings 24:4 records that God removed Judah out of his sight because of the sin of Manasseh, “because of the innocent blood that he had shed, for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon.”  Brothers and sisters, a great turn has been taking place in America on the ideology of Abortion.  Movies are shouting adoption is a better answer than abortion.  The movie Horton Hears A Who prophesies to millions that, “a person’s a person no matter how small.”  Judges have been appointed in the US Supreme Court and the lower courts that are now ruling against partial birth abortion and agreeing that a child in the womb is a unique human life.  Today we live in the shadow of possibly the most defining election in American history, and lamentably as I write this, millions of believers of Jesus are being courted by a mans charisma rather than his voting record.  Senator Obama stated publicly, “35 years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade its never been more important to protect a women’s right to choose…Through my career, I have been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice and have consistently had 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL pro-choice America.”  We have come to an Elijah v. Jezebel showdown in which America will choose LIFE or DEATH.  And the church, called to be the prophetic conscience of a nation, melts away like snow in the summer heat awash in moral relativism.

As in the days of slavery and in the days of segregation, it was the moral blindness and silence of the church, even her involvement in the national sin, that caused generations after to wonder, how could a nation built on such godly foundations drift so far?  The moral confusion within the church today over the issue of abortion is strangely reminiscent of a mindset that existed within the church in the midst of segregation and slavery.  I believe as the church we have come to a defining moment in American history. In our repentance we may prayerfully see an end to the decrees of death legalized in Roe v. Wade and a new movement of adoption and compassion spring forth from the church of America.  Likewise, if we fail to respond to the crisis of bloodshed within our nation and continue to waiver between two opinions, we may very well go through the fires of an ordeal that will shake this nation to its knees.

I believe that this election will literally be the churches’ choice between life and death and that it all comes down to this one singular issue.  We can no longer  “reason the issue away” as if it was just progressive maternal healthcare.   2008 is not entirely unlike 1858, the year that the Supreme Court of America ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that the slave was not a person but was property.  Three years later, in 1861, the Civil War was unleashed and men went into battle singing, “Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Coming Of The Lord, He is Trampling Out The Vintage Where The Grapes of Wrath are Stored, He Has Loosed The Fateful Lightning Of His Terrible Swift Sword, His Truth Is Marching On.” Though they may not have known it, they were prophesying the judgments of the Lord against the bloodshed of slavery.  God is not mocked, what you sow you will reap America. For 150 years after Dred Scott, Roe v. Wade now flies its bloody banner over America and it has yet to see what the reckoning looks like.

A group of young people who have been standing for four years in front of the Supreme Court pleading the cause of the unborn with LIFE tape over there mouths were given a dream.  In the dream, they were going from court room to court room to court room which then lead to a long hallway and entered into a large court room and there God was preparing to bring His own court case against Roe v. Wade and in the dream the name of that court was Appomattox Court House.   Appomattox is where God finished His court case against Dred Scott.  Because Americas courts did not deal with slavery in its own halls of justice God took it to the Appomattox Court House where General Lee of the South surrendered to General Grant of the North.  This was after 600,000 men’s blood was poured out on the battlefield of the Civil War as the full payment for the blood shed of slavery.  Brothers and sisters, what will Appomattox Court House look like if America doesn’t deal with Roe v. Wade in her own courts.

Part 2 below.

by Lou Engle

On September 15th 1963, 2 weeks after the “I Have A Dream” speech, a bomb exploded in Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church and 4 young black girls were killed.   Martin Luther King was shattered with grief. What was equally heart rending as the atrocity was the appalling silence of the white majority.  The white church either did not care or no one in it was willing to challenge the heavy politically correct atmosphere of racism that hung over those dark days.  In his eulogy King called the girls, “Heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity whose deaths tell us to work passionately and unceasingly to make the American dream a reality. “Then he declared, “they did not die in vain, God still has a way of wringing good out of evil.  History is proved again and again that unearned suffering is redemptive.  The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force that will bring new light to this city.”

Today we affirm mightily that those girls deaths were not in vain.  Today, a black man, Barak Obama has moved the nation running as a candidate for President.  On November 4th, millions of black men and women can vote in America and for this we rejoice.  But to my black brothers and sisters I am constrained to ask, was the innocent blood of those precious girls in Birmingham of any other biological makeup than the innocent blood of 4,000 babies (Psalms 106:37-38) who today was spilled in abortion clinics across America, 35% of which are Black American?  Are not these little ones as much, “heroines of a holy crusade for freedom in human dignity as those 4 little girls?”  And will not their innocent blood serve as a redemptive force that will bring new light to this dark nation?  Or will the blood of these babies be the target of another “generation of oppression” who demand sexual freedoms at the expense and suffering of the most marginalized voiceless people group in America, the unborn? If the blood of these unborn human babies is a redemptive force (and they are human beings if we indeed believe the scriptures we preach), then does not the deafening silence of the mass of black and white pulpits over this great human tragedy weigh heavy against our people on the eternal scales of justice?

Was it wrong that Martin Luther King was disappointed with the white church in Birmingham? No, a million times no!  Then will it be wrong to say that I am deeply disappointed with the Black American church whose voice is virtually silent amidst this holocaust and in the whirlwind of this presidential election.  I will never know the pain of your past, your experience of poverty, or your history of lynching, but I am convinced that the “promised land” will not be found in some political “messiah” that promises change.  In a speech before Planned Parenthood immediately after the Supreme Court had righteously upheld a ban on partial birth abortion, Senator Obama declared that the first thing he would do as president would be the drafting of the Freedom Of Choice Act.  This act would virtually remove every restriction from every abortion procedure from conception to birth and could possibly even permit live birth abortions.  In his speech Obama went on to say “ we know that a woman’s right to make a decision about how many children she wants and when – without government interference is one of the most fundamental freedoms we have in this country.”  Where did this fundamental right to abort our children spring from?  Not from our forefathers and certainly not the scriptures.  But here again the ancient lie asserts itself just as it did in the days of our constitutional forefathers.  They refused to include the black slave in the ancient credo “liberty for all.”  They built their freedoms on the bloody backs of slaves and now we demand our freedoms on the dismembered limbs of our children.   Can we by conscience make alliance with this ideological and political throne?  In Matthew 23 Jesus cries out “Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites because you build the tombs of the prophets, (like we have done with the Abraham Lincoln Memorial and numerous memorials to Martin Luther King) and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say, if we had lived in the days of our fathers we would not had been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.  Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.  Fill up then the measure of your fathers guilt.” (Matthew 23:29-32) The modern day equivalent to this scripture would be ——- If one honors Abraham Lincoln and agrees with his quotes engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial, “…Till every drop of blood drawn by lash must be repaid by that drawn by the sword…” and then supports and votes for a man and a system that legalizes the shedding of blood of babies, then truly this one accuses himself before the very words of Jesus and agrees with the masters indictment, “Pharisee and hypocrite.” In your silence and in effect acceptance of abortion, and now in your voting you become like the sons of the white slave bosses and slave traders and the silent white church of America who enslaved and murdered the black race.

I write these things not with a vindictive spirit, I only ask that you prayerfully listen to my argument.  I have prayed for 5 years for the Black American Church to lead us into a national healing for that is your redemptive gift.  I have wept in intercession in Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham.  I have walked the Trail of Tears.  The Lord has shown us that abortion is connected to the ongoing injustices to the Black and Native Americans.  Now is the time to forgive us and unite against this holocaust of abortion.  Today I take courage and am filled with hope as I see a new company of black voices arising in America who are raising their voice against abortion declaring that the dream cannot live as long as we kill our children and wound our women.  These are the new black prophets who carry forgiveness in their hearts like Martin Luther King toward those who have oppressed them who hold holiness of heart as a life standard, and in whom prayer is their breath. They are calling their people out of the fog of political alliances into the bright shining light of that ancient prophetic promise, “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers unless I come and strike the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6)  The turning of the fathers to the children is the remedy to the curse, not the raising up of a charismatic leader.  Church of America, abortion is the complete antithesis to Malachi’s divine remedy.

Again to my black brothers and sisters, in California black leaders have raised their voice to ban same-sex marriage that was legalized this year by four judges who over-ruled the will of the people.  I thank God for your faithful stand on the Word.  But when you vote for Barak Obama you are aligning yourself with one who has stated firmly that he will appoint judges who will legally affirm the gay agenda.  By doing so you actually contradict your own moral stand and you throw open the door to a flood immoral rulings that will affect not just your children but also the generations to come in America.

Some of the black church may say while reading this “What Shall We Do?”  Forgive the white people, the US Government, and the white church for its lack of care for the poor and its racism.  If you forgive you will receive redemptive authority like no other people group to lead this nation into the sunlit future of revival and reformation.  Take up your prophetic calling again and lead the nation into true justice.  Demand the defunding of Planned Parenthood.  Expose her racist root springing from Margaret Sanger who targeted the black race for extinction.  We must disarm her authority of immorality and take the millions of her death dollars and turn it into a stream of life to the inner cities. We must raise up massive mentoring programs across the nation and the church must lead the coming movement of adoption. Lets launch prayer and fasting movements that can alone challenge the spiritual darkness over our inner cities.  We must proliferate crisis pregnancy centers and pregnant mothers homes.  Then let us with one voice Black, White, Latino, and Asian, as was the dream of MLK, lift up a mighty chorus of fasting and prayer for God’s divine intervention in America.  More than change, we need God’s mercy for the shedding of innocent blood.  Let the dream go on for the binding of the wounds of our racial division and for the ending of abortion that together we may see another Azusa Street revival that was birthed by that great black prophet William Seymour.  Black church of America lead us into another great move of justice and into another Great Awakening in America.

Lou