Reader Chris W. sends this in as "the worst prayer of all time." I'm inclined to agree. Check this invocation offered before a McCain campaign stop in Iowa yesterday by a local divine:
"I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god--whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah--that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons," said the minister delivering it. "And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and election day."
Shorter Iowa Pastor: Come on, Yahweh, what are you, a man or a mouse?
Who was it who said, "Do not put the Lord thy God to the test?" Under what circumstances did he say it? Ahem (especially see points 8 and 9 in the list).
If it weren't so pathetic, this would be funny. Anyway, for the record, the McCain campaign gently tried to distance themselves from this pastor's kookery. The more this campaign drags out, the more fondly McCain must be thinking of his time in Hanoi.
(By the way, readers, I don't know about you, but I can't see this blog on the new design. I keep getting "Error 404" messages. I know some of you are able to see it because I can see on the Movable Type administrator's page that you're posting comments. Maybe it's a Mac thing. The Beliefnet web elves are trying to work this out. Thanks for your patience.)
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I as a brown skinned american man wish that this great united states in the people no matter what color the skin or religion or what you name may be. Grow up and move on. lets all be human beings and not worry about things like skin color or anything that deals with race. We are one of Gods greatest creations and we are all the same. God Bless You all.
This "prayer" is not representative of Iowa nor is that newspaper "independent."
The Bible was, of course, translated into Arabic before it was into English (before there was an English language), and 4-5 centuries before the appearance of Islam.
I'm not willing to accept that "of course" without further evidence. Was there a standardized written form of Arabic before the appearance of Islam? Aramaic, yes; but Arabic? I have always read that, whatever else the Koran may have done, it essentially marks the birth of literary Arabic.
A friend of a friend received these prophetic visions:
In 1996 God told me that He was taking His hand of protection off of America and He was sending His punishment on it and it could not be avoided. God told me to stop praying for America because He was not listening to prayers for America because it was dead and it would take years to actually cease to exist as it was drawn up.
Also in 1996 God informed me of the hit to America in September 2001, that deaths around the world would continue to rise, that war would start, and the deaths by water in 2004.*
In 2006 God told me that spiritual boot camp was over. The world situation would begin its final preparation for the new world order to come. God used the symbol of a very large cauldron with a lid on it boiling over an open fire. In 2006 the pot was put on the fire and all the ingredients were placed in the cauldron, and the fire was lit. In 2007 the water came up to boiling and situations around the world and especially in America would worsen. In 2008 the lid would start to rattle and by the end of 2008 it would be obvious to all that across the board America was dead and rotting away. In 2009 the lid blows off.
America's punishment by God was and has been on hold just for the Bush Presidency. After Bush it could come at any time. To backtrack a little, the upcoming civil war was also shown to me back in 1996. I wrote you a private e-mail that the seeds were already sown sometime around 2001-2003. I obviously cannot remember exactly. The war had a chance of being avoided at one time, but that chance is gone.
I also told you that the U.N. and the new world order (represented by the Tranzis) would not allow us to win. I have watched and listened closely to info on this war. Last night on Fox on the Huckabee show, my mother tells me there seemed to be a consensus opinion that a revolution was needed.
The main point is that God's Wrath is soon to be poured out on America. The church as you now know it will no longer exist in a few years. God's timeline is on track and the world too will know His wrath as told in Revelation. The only thing standing in the way of the new world order is America and specifically the American Constitution.
God's word says He starts with His House when He begins to shake all creation and those who persevere get to go home. This indicates to me in personal experience and interpretation that those who believe they are going to be raptured out before all this happens are in for a great big surprise and testing of faith.
As for the specifics of God's Wrath on America and exactly how it will manifest itself I do not know. Just know that you will know it when you see it. As always take what you need and leave the rest.
* [Confirmed by the person to have been this:] "The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The earthquake was caused by subduction and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing more than 225,000 people in eleven countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand were hardest hit."
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Crazy? True? You and I will know the answer sometime next year.
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? 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."
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