The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 52 Issue: 6 - Friday, January 06, 2006
Robertson Does it Again!!
Pat Robertson has once again proved it is better to keep quiet and have people think you have nothing to say than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Some of this morning's briefing may make you angry. Bear with me long for me to make my point before flaming my email box.
Robertson used his "700 Club" program to announce that Ariel Sharon's stroke was 'punishment from God' for Sharon's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Robertson told his audience;
"God has enmity against those who, quote 'divide My land,' and I would say, woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U., the United Nations or the United States of America. God says, this land belongs to Me. You better leave it alone."
Evidently fearing he didn't sound wild-eyed enough, Robertson added that "the same thing" happened with the 1995 assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
God must be very pleased with Pat Robertson for standing in for Him to give Him a few days off. Robertson gave God several days off in 2005.
When the Dover School Board rejected a motion to teach Intelligent Design alongside evolution, Robertson pronounced judgment on them from God, saying;
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city”.
"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."
Earlier, Robertson called on his audience to join him in prayer for a new Supreme Court vacancy. (Obligingly, Justice William Rehnquist promptly died.)
He called on missionary groups aiding the tsunami victims to withhold aid unless they first converted to Christianity. And he caused an international incident by suggesting during a broadcast that the United States should sent covert teams into Venezuela to assassinate Hugo Chavez.
Assessment:
Mad at me yet? Think I am picking on Pat Robertson? Indeed, you probably agree with some or all of the sentiments reflected in the particular quotes I've highlighted.
And I'll tell you something else. On some level, so do I. In each occasion. So why am I so critical?
After all, Hal and I are looking for new jobs as a consequence of being 'too pro-Israel' and 'too anti-Muslim' for TBN. So what is up with my criticizing Robertson's statements?
Is there a difference? You bet. There is a world of difference between being an observer and being an advocate.
Apart from standing in for God and pronouncing judgment on the victims of natural disasters, (or strokes) or advocating assassination of foreign leaders, Robertson is making the enemy's case that conservative Christians are wild-eyed, irresponsible lunatics.
Type Pat Robertson's name into Google. The first three hits are to his own websites (out of 5 million plus hits). The rest bear names like "Positive Atheism's Big Scary List of Pat Robertson Quotes" and "ihatepatrobertson.com". One site bears the attractive name, "the KKKristian KKKoalition."
One intriguing story in Dateline Hollywood (page two of Google hit list) read thusly:
"Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year’s Emmy Awards.
“By choosing an avowed lesbian for this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God’s wrath,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club” on Sunday. “Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?”
Note that I said I share many of Robertson's opinions. But they aren't my opinions as a Christian. They are my carnal and political opinions. As Christians, we are admonished; "But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." (James 4:16)
My carnal, vindictive, human side agrees with Robertson that God will judge sin. It appeals to my carnal sense of irony that the Dover school board should call on Darwin and not God in the event of a natural disaster falling upon that city.
Politically, I share Robertson's hope that a vacancy might occur on the Supreme Court that might shift the majority to the right. But I wouldn't pray for someone to die in their sins to satisfy my political perspective.
I would be embarrassed to bring such a request before the same Lord that told me to pray for their salvation. That would accomplish the same thing without consigning an unsaved justice to a Christless eternity.
I also have my carnal, political views, filtered through the prism of my dual nature, that Paul called 'the body of this death' before proclaiming;
"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:24-25)
As Christians, we are called upon to be witnesses for Christ. Our primary responsibility is to show the attractiveness of a relationship with Christ is worthy of further investigation.
As observers of unfolding prophecy, we are also confronted with the paradoxical problem of being 'in' the world, but not 'of' it. As Christians, our citizenship is in heaven.
As human beings 'in' the world until then, we also have the political responsibilities of being citizens of our respective nations.
Therein lies the paradox. To find the solution to that pardox for this final generation of the Church Age, we need refer back to the FIRST generation of the Church Age for counsel;
"For if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." (Acts 5:38-39)
It isn't our place to advocate against the counsel of God, or to stand in for Him. God has a clearly ordained plan for Israel and we have His assurance, in Jesus Name, that not a sparrow falls from the sky without His knowledge.
For someone in a position of Christian leadership to pronounce, in the Name of Christ, that Ariel Sharon's stroke is a 'judgment from God' marginalizes and diminishes the Church overall.
Robertson isn't pronouncing Divine judgment, he is hurling a carnal curse, but he is doing it in the Name of Christ.
Was the tsunami a judgment from God? The flooding killed hundreds of thousands of people en masse, Jew, Gentile, Muslim and Christian alike, but primarily Muslims.
Then there was the destruction of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina breached the levees and flooded Sin City to the level of the housetops. Death and destruction were indiscriminate, affecting saint and sinner equally.
New Orleans reveled in its well-deserved nickname of 'Sin City', so it appeals to my carnal nature to see it as Divine judgment.
But that is neither my Christian nature nor Biblically accurate. (Does anybody remember the significance of the rainbow in Scripture?)
Indiscriminate judgment on the earth is forestalled until the time appointed, which is during the Tribulation Period. The Church Age is the Age of Grace, not Divine judgment.
Bible prophecy for the last days is, BY DEFINTION, a recognition that God has a preordained plan that involves the generation that will see His return.
As a carnal human being, I'd be as tickled if Hugo Chavez got whacked as I was to see Saddam toppled. But the affairs of nations are in God's Hands.
I have no business advocating somebody whack Hugo Chavez from the pulpit, so to speak. That is not my mission as a Christian. My mission as a Christian is to pray somebody will get to Hugo Chavez with the Gospel.
As Gamaliel observed, "if this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." (Acts 5:38-39)
As individual Christians in this generation, we are eyewitnesses to the unfolding of God's Divine Plan for the Age, as individual events conspire together to bring about the exact conclusion foretold by Scripture.
We are not called upon to be advocates for the assassination of unpopular world leaders, or to pronounce Divine judgement on world events in Christ's stead.
"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." (Romans 2:1)
As I noted at the outset, I expect to get flamed for beating up on Pat Robertson. I emphatically deny it. I believe Robertson and his organization have done lots of good things.
My point is not Pat Robertson. I have no personal axe to grind with him. But in these last days, our mission is to be watchmen on the wall.
Not to emulate the boy who cried wolf.
As you'll recall, by the time the wolf REALLY showed up, he had so marginalized himself that nobody heeded his call until it was too late to do anything except say, "Gee whiz!' It was true, after all."
There is a lesson in that for us all.
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