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.”
HE sure did!
Inauguration Speaker Franklin Graham: God Allowed Donald Trump to Win
Not only allowed. Ordained it. That's not always a good thing for a nation.
won’t get to make remarks at the event, but he will get to pick his own Bible passage, which could say a lot.
Isaiah 10?
What’s happened that God didn’t allow?
Absolutely.
God created the universe, allowing the laws of physics to prevail therein. Though, being God, He has the ability to influence their direction.
It’s been true in my life, where I could easily have taken the lesser of two paths. Though it took me years to realize that, I thoroughly believe God was there.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
The entire election process screams Divine orchestration.
What are the odds, what are the odds, puns upon puns, absurdities upon absurdities.
Like the Purim account... no mention of God in the literal text, but it becomes obvious that He is all over the place directing the seemingly random events.
A man named Trump trumps the Establishment, overriding and superseding politics as usual just because he is who he is: a guy who builds literal towers of substance (not shaky political towers of graft and influence peddling).
And not only that, his name is plastered across these buildings. Really quite the in-your-face beatdown to those whose power structure is all an illusion. Everybody in the land knows Donald Trump. From the towers, from TV.
The Established order is being pummeled from on high. It does not stand a chance.
"In this thou shalt know that I am the LORD"
Purim was about a physical threat; Chanukah spiritual. Unlike the holidays set forth from the Torah of Moses, these specifically pertain to Jews.
This entire narrative (including that UN Resolution of desolation) is a merge of the two, for the whole House of Israel.
The American embassy (US soil) in Jerusalem makes the name of Jerusalem a literal statement of the reality on the ground: the USA in the midst of JerUSAlem.
Just goes to show that God reveals His intentions in overt, comical ways that are way more literal than people might ever suspect.
Puns are the lowest form of humor. They can be quite cringeworthy even. What a fitting place, then, for God to display His majesty and mysterious methods in plain sight. 'Cause... who's going to look there? :)
Timing is everything. Just ask a comedian.
There are NO coincidences!
LOL!
See Psalm 2.
God has a sense of humor, and laughs at the machinations of the wicked.
Very nicely put. Saved me the trouble.
Happy New Year, FRiend! I’m sure there will be many events of various kinds.
I took the wrong path for years. I was known for taking the wrong path, even though I was raised to take the ‘right path’. One screw up after another until I realized it was less ‘painful ‘ to ‘do the right thing’. Did God have a hand in it? I don’t know. Perhaps.
I did have an interesting time taking the wrong path.....it is part of who I am. I wouldn’t do those things again but sometimes revel in the memories.
Not I, but for He who rescued me.
When I was about 20 I was the night manager at a single-screen movie theater (c. 1968). On NYEve Gone with the Wind's rerelease was playing to a packed house, 800 folk. The movie was scheduled to end at 11:55 and I had a party to attend, so the last thing I wanted was for all those people to hang around in the lobby making merry at midnight--GO HOME! So, about 11:30 I opened all the lobby doors and it soon got down to 40° inside. It ended, they beat it, I closed up and got to the party at 12:30--and, because I had missed all the celebrating at midnight, all the girls lined up and each gave me a Happy New Year's kiss!!!
It's all been downhill from there since...
To expose the mindless, spineless Republicans, who cowered in every corner of this nation, and allowed a stranger to rule over US. You think the Republican establishment gives a hoot about the illegal invasion... Honesty, is a commodity bought and sold based on each person's bias. Thank goodness, God keeps the only record that counts for eternity. Nobody cons Him.
**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.**
Mainly abandoning the practice of abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception and embryonic stem cell research.
https://soldierservant.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/billy-graham-endorsed-hillary-clinton-for-president/
I was very suspect of the Graham name in politics... I am not a fan of Billy Graham, it is my opinion, his spreading grace over the sex pervert bjClinton was from the devil not The Creator.
Yes, and God allowed Hussein to seize power.
He is sovereign.
[Mainly abandoning the practice of abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception and embryonic stem cell research.]
Also, putting other gods before Him and profaning His name.
LOL! We were up rather late last night watching “The Big Sleep,” so it’s likely we’ll shut down early.
Also, it allows the natural consequences of their decisions to play out before everyone. People can then experience for themselves why God’s Word in the Bible says what it does. When people rebel....there’s hell to pay. Thinking people turn/return to God.
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