Posted on 12/31/2016 5:02:22 AM PST by BlessedBeGod
The Reverend Franklin Graham will offer the invocation, benediction and several readings at the swearing-in ceremony of Donald Trump. “I think maybe God has allowed Donald Trump to win this election to protect this nation for the next few years," he said.
WASHINGTON — The Reverend Franklin Graham isn’t sure which Scripture he’ll read at the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.The evangelist and head of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse won’t get to make remarks at the event, but he will get to pick his own Bible passage, which could say a lot.
Will it be something hopeful to heal a divided nation? Something pointed about the importance of praying for leaders?
Graham was praying about that Thursday (December 29), he told RNS, the day after it was announced he is one of six clergy chosen to offer the invocation, benediction and several readings at the swearing-in ceremony.
“You want it to be meaningful not only to your president-elect, but you want it to be meaningful also to the nation,” Graham said.“I’m taking time just to pray and ask God to give me wisdom and guidance because it’s a responsibility that I take very seriously.”
This is the third inauguration Graham will have attended, he noted. The first was to assist his father Billy Graham at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1997; the second, to offer the invocation at the first inauguration of President George W. Bush in 2001.
It follows his Decision America Tour, during which he held rallies in each of the 50 U.S. state capitals to urge evangelical Christians to pray about the upcoming election and vote for candidates of any party who agree with their values.
Weeks before launching the tour, Graham announced he had resigned from the Republican Party and declared himself an independent. And he was careful to note throughout the campaign that he endorsed neither Trump, a Republican, or Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
But, he said, he got the sense “God was going to do something in our country — just from the people coming early in the day, standing in hot sun, standing in freezing cold, standing in snow, standing in rain, and they came to pray. They didn’t come to hear me. They came to pray for their nation.”
Graham has had some supportive words for Trump, noting the president-elect has surrounded himself from the start with a number of evangelical Christians in a way he said Clinton didn’t.
That included Vice President-elect Mike Pence; his choice to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson; Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.; and former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee.
“Even though Donald Trump has some rough edges, there’s something inside of him that desires the counsel of Christian men and women, and I don’t know one Christian on Hillary Clinton’s team,” he said.
Clinton has spoken openly about her United Methodist faith. And asked about her choice of running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who volunteered with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras as a young man, Graham said the Democrat had difficulty connecting with evangelical Christians in the same way because he was Catholic and because of his party’s support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
He also pointed to the list of potential Supreme Court justices the Trump campaign had released, saying, as he had before the election, “It’s not about her emails. It’s not about his bad language. It’s about the Supreme Court … and who do you trust to appoint judges that are going to be in favor of Christian liberty?”
“I think maybe God has allowed Donald Trump to win this election to protect this nation for the next few years by giving maybe an opportunity to have some good judges,” he said.
Do you think the Russians interfered with the outcome of the U.S. election or was it God?
— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) December 14, 2016
It’s not the first time Graham expressed his belief God had played a role in the results of the November election. He had tweeted earlier this month suggesting it was God, not Russia, that had interfered with the outcome.
In an interview Thursday, he said he doesn’t know if Russia hacked the election, and he doesn’t presume to know how God works. But he knows God answers prayers.
And, Graham said, “All I know is Donald Trump was supposed to lose the election,” according to projections of the results.
“For these states to go the way they did, in my opinion, I think it was the hand of God,” he said. “It wasn’t hacking. It wasn’t Wiki-leaky or whatever. It was God, in my opinion, and I believe his hand was at work, and I think he’s given Christians an opportunity.”
Nothing gets by him!
That last sentence is the critical one. We’ve been given an opportunity. Will we squander it?
Yes, He did. Praise be to God for His Blessing in this election. We have a chance.
What was God's plan when he allowed Obama to win.....twice?
[We’ve been given an opportunity. Will we squander it?]
The only way AMERICA will be great again is by humbling ourselves before GOD, seeking His face, and changing our wicked ways. Only then will GOD forgive us and heal our land.
Blessed is the nation whose GOD is the LORD.
[What was God’s plan when he allowed Obama to win.....twice?]
That’s what it took to awaken people that AMERICA is on the road to GORMORRAH.
Perhaps just to open the spiritual eyes & ears of many.
God plays a very active role, so yes. Nations have been punished by getting the king that they wanted, according to the Bible.
I love Franklin Graham. Many children of famous Christian leaders follow in their parents footsteps.
Most are just doing only that, following.
Some are great leaders in their own right. (with God’s blessing and guidance, of course)
Franklin Graham is one of those “leaders”. I believe he is truly “a man of God”.
While he quit the Republican party and publicly supported neither candidate, he obviously supported Donald Trump.
Anyone who reads the bible (I’m relatively sure that Franklin Graham does /s), knows that God uses “sinners” to do some of His most important work. Some as kings or leaders of nations.
Being a “sinner” does not disqualify Donald Trump from God’s favor and guidance in leading our nation. Just the opposite.
I agree completely with what Franklin Graham said.
“For these states to go the way they did, in my opinion, I think it was the hand of God,” he said. “It wasn’t hacking. It wasn’t Wiki-leaky or whatever. It was God, in my opinion, and I believe his hand was at work, and I think he’s given Christians an opportunity.”
Franklin Graham
:: he got the sense “God was going to do something in our country...” ::
So Graham doesn’t agree that God is omniscient? That He just looked around and said, “Oooopsie! Better get something done!”? The Creator that exists outside of time was waiting for something or someone to happen?
Why did God allow his chosen people to be captured and sent into exile more than once? Why did he allow Jerusalem's destruction in 70 A.D.? Why did he allow his Holy Son to be humiliated on a cross?
One thing that God seems to enjoy is making the impossible possible, such as taking an inexperienced, vulgar, hard-headed businessman that had both political parties and the media lined up against him and aligning the situation just right that he could win the presidency.
"Gods intervention"
He told me God would never permit that Jezebel to rule our country.
What was God’s plan when He allowed natural disaster X or human-perpetrated atrocity Y?
It’s goes without saying that, if something happened, God allowed it. Why Rev. Graham feels it necessary to restate it, I don’t know. He may to be trying to imply a deeper understanding of God’s intentions as demonstrated by this election result, but it doesn’t work for me.
I am a lapsed Catholic. I question things. This is the one thing about FR that I am not necessarily on board with.
Not an atheist, but not a blindly follower of any particular sect either. Creation of the cosmos was enough. We as individuals are responsible for our own lot in life and our ultimate survival as a race.
I’m an active Catholic, and I question things, too. One of the things I question is anyone’s contention that he knows what God intends by (fill in event).
Although, I suppose, if the Sweet Meteor of Death had impacted the election, it would have been pretty clear that God intended to destroy the earth.
"God on Trial"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5caAug5n8Zk&t=3s
Listen to this casual interview of Franklin Graham a short time after September 11, 2001
From God’s lips (through Franklin Graham) to your ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VF_0MhE54
The video is just under 11 minutes, even though it says 41:07. The rest is blank.
Worth every second of your time. You will be impressed.
Donald Trump as Moses...? Hmmm....
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