"At that time Berodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. And Hezekiah was attentive to them, and showed them all the house of his treasures--the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory--all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them." ... 2Kings 20:12-13

Hezekiah Invites Babylon Into the Kingdom
http://home.pacifier.com/~teaching/notlive.htm

Excerpt: "Interestingly, Hezekiah showed the Babylonians everything that was in his house, or "bayith" in Hebrew. One of the meanings of "bayith" is "on the inside", which carries the connotation of a deep personal relationship, or the type of intimate family details that one would typically not share with outsiders. In other words, Hezekiah breached his relationship with God in his attempt to impress these pagan leaders, who hailed from a nation which was known for its brutality and idolatry".


... And God said to Hezekiah by His prophet Isaiah, "Bad move"! ...


"Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, 'Hear the word of the Lord: "Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left," says the Lord.' "And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."'" Isaiah 39:5-7


The Lord gave me this word last night on my way home from work ...

Question? ...
"How does Hezekiah's rash spiritually misguided decision then, compare with any Christian today (2004) inviting in/voting for the extremist liberal candidacy of Presidential hopeful John Kerry today?


Answer! ...
If you already know that a Kerry Presidency will usher in even more killing of the unborn in the guise of medical research, and the condoning of homosexual unions/marriages, why would you as a Christian invite/vote them in? ...


If you know that if a liberal President is elected at this most crucial hour, that liberal President will stack an already abominable Supreme Court, with 3 or 4 even more liberal judges, that will legislate even more ultra liberal laws in America for the next 30 to 40 years, why would you as a Christian invite/vote them in? ...

If you already know that the Democrats main allegiance is to that of the rainbow coalition, which in the final analysis is anti-Christ, anti-Christian and anti-Church, why would you as a Christian invite/vote them in?


Saints of God, please take off the blinders ... Our inviting in the ultra left wing, liberal ideology of the Democratic Party, via a vote for John Kerry as President, is the same spiritual suicide holy Hezekiah committed Israel to when he invited in the heathen Babylonians ... A vote for John Kerry is a vote against the very Church of Christ itself!

As Elder G. Lendow of Washington D.C. so poignantly wrote in his article "The Fall of America" ... This nation with (some Christian) aid is now facing the prospect of legalized gay marriages, along with a host of other legislated left wing policies. If we fail to stand up for righteousness those same Gays will soon be knocking on the doors of the churches we serve, and demanding that we marry them. They will, as they are now in Canada, be coming into the House of God and demanding the we stop preaching the Gospel which to them is intolerant, and aided by the very laws that we have inadvertently helped to pass, seek to force us to preach their lifestyle as
acceptable. Yet we support and seek to elect the very men who promote these agenda. Shame!! On Us!!! We bring these politician into our churches and conventions to speak to God’s people, the very ones who support abortion, gay marriages and removing God from the very mainstream of our society" ... Mark the words from this man of God saints, elect Kerry for President and you will soon see the day where preachers of the Gospel will be hauled off to court for not obeying the law to marry homosexuals ... Then there is the tax exemption issue ...

Saints we all know how important money has become to Christ Church ... And while the austere prophet side of me longs to see the money changers thrown from the Church, the Church must also be aware that a liberally stacked Supreme Court will soon take away the Church's tax exemption, thereby carting off it's material treasures to Babylon!

This message is not coming to you from someone interested in either the Republican or Democratic political agenda, but from someone solely interested in a Theocratic spiritual agenda ... I am concerned about what's best for the Church, and America, via a Christ agenda ...

If you think this post the ranting of some paranoid overly God obsessed Christian, with a prophets complex, then go on ahead against all spiritual reasoning, and blindly invite/vote Babylon into the Presidency, and then watch the mounting persecution of Christ Church in America ... If you don't get now ... you will later!

" So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, 'You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways, now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.

But when they said, 'give us a king to lead us', this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him; 'Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their King. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them, but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do".

1 Samuel 8:4-9

Amen ...

And i'll bet that many a poor righteous subsequent Israelites over the centuries who had to suffer under the rule of man, due to their poor misguided fore fathers clamouring for an earthly king instead of God's theocracy, i'm sure wished that God had of struck that whole ungrateful bunch dead back then! ... But He didn't ...

So like them we in America today, have to do the best we can, with what we got ... And this isn't to say that if Bush gets in he won't make some major spiritual goof, as did so many of the Israelite kings ... But as it stands now, for me, Bush at least acknowledges himself a spiritual Israelite ... So i'll not be inviting in/voting for the Babylonian ...

PS - Of course this forum is set up so that any may comment on any topic ... But this thread is not directed at anyone whose mindset is that Christ Kingdom is no part of this world, and therefore you are no part of this world when it comes to the realm of voting ... This thread is to all saints of God who do vote, and the potential consequences associated with that vote ... i believe it the Lord's way of attempting to snap we modern day Hezekiah's out of it, before we help invite the Babylonian into the highest office in the land and have to suffer the unnecessary consequences ... Amen

Recent threads have touched on this and I wonder how those who have been here since this thread was originally posted, have changed their thinking, if at all?

I've been wanting an excuse to post Moses's prophecy from Deuteronomy 17. So here it is. It says a lot about brotherhood, Church and what in the end, Christ would die to obtain for us (I think).


[i]" When you come to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,' [b]you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses[/b]; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel."[/i] (vv 14 - 20 NKJV)


This makes me think of John 13:12 - 17

So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them..."

He IS [u]THE[/u] KING!

Hi Dorcas

The following is a part of a word (i believe) i recieved from our Lord in Jan. of 01 that stayed posted on my web site until last year when our Lord said take it down ...

[b] At this point the stench of America's wickedness toward God has caused Him to turn His face from her. Even her continuous support of Israel will not keep her from experiencing in this decade the woes already stored up. A serious decline in her ability to control other nations governmental and military policies is about to befall her. And she will become increasingly impotent in being able to manipulate the rest of the globe, because of United Nations overrules. America is also about to pay for her sins by having to endure an escalatinging barrage of serious financial, social, natural, and terroristic disasters. Unprecedented and horrific, they shall cause fear and trembling! America is about to suffer want and need, as chastisement for her immorality and greed! ... REPENT![/b]

i'm not sure if i get the gist of your entire post Dorcas, but my reasoning for placing this thread has not changed at all ... My entire reasoning then was as a nation, and more importantly as a National Government which scripture says God Himself appoints and calls them His servants to the benefit of mankind, do we really want to add even further insult and injury in the face of God by actually having a President/Congress/Supreme Court/etc. that would bend to legislate it's condoning of homosexual marriage? ... Our government condoned slavery and it eventually ripped the country apart in the "correction" known as the Civil War ... Now our Government has legislated in Legalized Abortion and by now we as a nation is guilty of slaughtering well over 50 million unborn children ... Do we really think that such a government as our own who hypocritically still claim "In God We Trust", while on the otherhand signing into law legalized murder, is not going to eventually feel the correcting hand of God? ... Some may not believe it, but i do, and i believe we're already in the throes of that correction, in unison with all the other filth that we as a supposed Christian nation flaunt in His divine face ... Let me stop!

Again i say, even with the mis-guided reasoning behind this war in Iraq, i'd rather take my chances with George Bush and the Republicans not to add on to our national sin of government sanctioned abortion, legalized homo-sexual marriage ... If homosexuals want to practice homosexuality i have no problem with that, it's their right to tho if they die unrepentant in that sin it's God's right to throw them into everlasting hell along with any other unrepentant for whatever the reason ... But governments should not be legislating the condoning of slavery, abortion, homosexual marriage, or any other such things that God hates ... Tho as i've said to many folk, rampant sexual sin seems to really bother God, and in particular tho not exclusively homosexuality ... It's the only sin where He destroyed two cities for, and would have did the entire valley had it not been for Lot's physicall weakness ...

Americas going down, it's obvious ... But i think we'd be sinking a lot faster if we had in office those that right now would be legislating nationally for a sin the God detests ... i've said this before, even tho things really look bad under Bush with this war in Iraq, i think America is enjoying a slower spiral toward the penalties we already have stored up, than the faster one we'd have if
our Government nationally condoned homosexual marriage as ok ...

That was my gist to this thread to believers, especially African American believer's who have a tendency to vote Democratic because of being more interested in their pockets than what God thinks and feels ... i for one am very concerned about what God thinks, and especially about how He feels, for as Christ said, "What good does it do a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"

My prayer is that in this time of slowed "correction" that God will use it to His glory by shaping up His Church in revival, so that we can under the power of the Holy Ghost get about the work of the King in bringing in His sheaves, so we can ship out ...

This was my primary motivation then, and it's still my primary motivation now! ... i FEAR GOD!

The only sure thing that i know about Theocracy is that with each passing second God's bringing His Kingdom closer and closer to setting it up on Earth ... Amen ...

Hi Rahman,

It was your use of the word 'theocracy' which caught my eye, as I've raised this in contrast with democracy in more than one thread - most recently, if you look, Krispy had a thread called THE FUNERAL OF FREE SPEECH (Lounge p2) in which I have a post 3rd on the last page, touching this point.

In response to what I understand of your post above, I don't think we as Christians can have it both ways. Democracy is the very opposite to theocracy. Democracy rules from without, according to the flesh; theocracy rules from within, according to the Spirit. The latter is not a political system.

I sympathise with your wanting to influence the government [i]GOD[/i] gives - and perhaps voters do (have an influence) - but, perhaps God has far more to do with governments than we realise....

I don't see a whole lot in scripture about Christians engaging with the political process. I think there's far too much we don't know about what goes on, for a Christian to be able to vote with a clear conscience, although I accept that the Lord may so direct, for His own reasons. Also, I understand some Christians feel very strongly that they [i]should[/i] vote somehow.

My thesis is simply that true theocracy - the rule of God in a heart and life - will bring about peace with one's neighbours and will do more to cause sin to cease, than any politics can.