Works are filthy rags, but "faith without works is dead". I agree.
We've seen President Bush's works: a commitment to lead our nation back to its Christian roots,
By expanding the department of education so that the liberals can get their hands on our kids?
a righteous war against enemies of Christ
By giving $196 million to Fatah and making his female aids where hajibs while speaking to muslim groups tied to terrorism,?
a strong stand against perverts and God-haters here at home.
Not sure about that... the perverts and God haters feed off the government, which he has expanded faster than any Dem ever has.
I would suggest that holding up W as sent by God is a massive insult to either God's beliefs or his competency in selecting presidential candidates to fulfill his beliefs.
You have no way to know whether God has appointed Bush to lead us and protect us or to punish us and deliver us to the hands of our enemies.
Actually, we do. It's called God's Word. Read 2 Chronicles 7:14. Does the action there describe someone who actively humbles himself like President Bush? Who actively thanks and blesses the Lord like President Bush?
To accommodate you, I fired up VMware to run eSword under WinXP. The parallel passage is found in 1 Kings 9:2. Most prefer the more poetic language of the Chronicles, I think.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. - 2Ch 7:14 KJV
Even if you had an absolute assurance that these words applied to our nation, an overwhelmingly ungodly nation lost in sins of every type known to the ancients and many more of the modern era, a country that would make Sodom and Gomorrah look saintly in comparison, you have no guarantee that they are specifically applicable to Christians in modern America. Or even that portion of our population which is Jewish because they do not maintain the ancient priestly sacrifice and sanctification protocols clearly specified in the passage to fulfill the mandate and to receive the promised blessing of God.
Your problem is plucking a single verse from its context and applying it from the ancient Jews to whom it was addressed to modern Christians universally. The passage specifically addresses Solomon as king, mentions the blood sacrifices on the altar and the week of feasting after which God appeared and gave warning to keep his commandments to turn from wickedness in order to avoid being delivered into the hands of their enemies who would chasten their ungodliness and turn their hearts back to obedience. Moreover, it specifically promises a foreign captivity for disobedience, mentioning it as punishment for forsaking God's commandments. The primary thrust of God's command here was to worship Him alone, to avoid the worship of other gods.
So, to apply this verse to modern Americans (leaving aside that it was written to Jews practicing animal sacrifice under the Old Covenant), in order for us to enjoy God's blessing from this scripture, we would have to forsake other gods. And yet, the worship of other gods has actually flourished. In particular, Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in America. And our president refers to it as the Religion Of Peace™. In doing so, he blasphemes our Savior who is Himself the one and the only Prince Of Peace, one of the legitimate and exclusive titles awarded him as his due deference in scripture.
I could continue to describe how our president, in the wake of 9/11, brought a Muslim cleric before our nation in the national cathedral, thereby legitimizing that false and antichristian pagan religion based on conquest and violence and degradation and whose origins have a cursed reference in the Old Testament and, before the American people, he praised the false god of Islam and pretended that Allah (who has no son) was in some way comparable to the Trinity and worthy of respect and worship. In other words, he honored a false god before the entire nation and placed it on an official standing equal with that of Judaism and Christianity.
I'll be brief: President Bush is no Solomon. As for his devoutness as a Christian, I challenge to find a single occasion, even one, where he has ever quoted the New Testament. I could find dozens of quotes he has used or issued officially which come from the Old Testament.
It appears from the official record that President Bush knows nothing of the Good News or, at the very least, he has no interest in speaking of it before the nation.
Our president makes a lousy Theologian-In-Chief.
And you should be glad, as I am, to be so blessed by God's generosity to live under grace and not under the ancient Law from which Christ's sacrifice freed us and enfolded the Christians of the Gentile nations, together with obedient Jews, into a New Covenant, grafted into the Old.
[It has been too long since I did any Old Testament exegesis, never my strong suit. Pardon my slowness. Of course, such writing requires more care and proofreading than mere political posts.]
