Where Are America’s Prophets and Shepherds?
The independence from excessive rule by the British monarchy we celebrated this week came at the high cost of commitment and personal sacrifice. The freedom we have been blessed to enjoy and share has never been as fully experienced by any other nation. We are about to lose our independence to dependence on an all-powerful, all-consuming nanny state. Where are the prophets and pastors who will point us to the Good Shepherd, who will lead our nation back to still waters and green pasture?
The prophet Isaiah opens his book referencing the nation of Israel as weighed down with iniquity—an offspring of evildoers who have abandoned the Lord and turned away from Him. The verses revealed the “head is sick” (a reference to leadership) and the “heart is faint” (a reference to relationship, especially with God).The productive fields have been devoured, and devastation is prevailing, which is an indication of economic decline. The only hope remains for a remnant to lead the necessary return to God.
God says to His people, when they multiply their prayers, “He will not listen because your hands are covered with blood.” In verses that follow He promises forgiveness and grace so mighty that even “scarlet sins become white as snow and those that are red like crimson become like wool.” There is reassurance that God will bless His people and even indicates what every Old Testament prophet promised: If we will return to God, He will forgive us and restore the years of productivity. As Joel said, He will make up for the years the devouring locusts have eaten. Isaiah said, “If you return, you will eat the good fruit of the land.” God is anxious to bless us. This is the reason He led Israel from Egyptian bondage into the Promised Land that was flowing with milk and honey, along with bountiful fruitfulness.
God has always wanted a family of faith to bless in order that through them, He could bless the nations of the world. He also made it clear in the Old and New Testament, and confirmed by Jesus Christ, that we would witness kingdoms in conflict. We are to represent the kingdom of light, love and truth, and we are to do so faithfully and fearlessly, continuing the emphasis of Isaiah and the theme carried by all the prophets. Isaiah, beholding the Lord, began the spiritual renewal and awakening by saying, “Woe is me!” (not “Woe are all the others!”). He dealt with his own need and then answered with a clear commitment, “Here am I, send me.”
God told him that the journey would be tough and the majority of people would not listen. This was reaffirmed when Jesus said, “Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it.” The fact that people clench their fists in the face of a holy God or turn from God to trust in another source like Pharaoh, Caesar, or our own federal government does not lessen our responsibility to lift up a standard.
I find myself asking often, “Where are the prophets and shepherds who will stand and proclaim God’s uncompromising truth in His abounding love? Where are the shepherds who will gladly lay down their lives for the sheep? As the Old Testament prophets said, the shepherds have been replaced by hirelings. Isaiah even made the statement that they are “dumb dogs unable to bark.”1 Jeremiah rebuked the shepherds for offering false peace and healing brokenness superficially so there is no repentance and real peace. Isaiah again re-emphasized why prayers are not answered. In the 59th chapter, he said our iniquities have separated us from our God and hidden His face from us. Our hands are defiled with blood—fingers with iniquity and lips speaking falsehood. He went on to say the people’s feet run to evil—they hasten to shed innocent blood.
In our nation over 50 million babies have been aborted in the wombs of their mothers. Even now, national laws are being passed not only to condone same-sex marriage, but to penalize you if you don’t make abortion and early-abortion pills available, which will be funded by the American people.
I admire every pastor and priest who is standing up and speaking out. Our close friend Dr. Tony Evans, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, joined other pastors and leaders—along with many in the black community—to protest same-sex marriage, which our nation’s leader said he endorses because of the Golden Rule passage found in Matthew 19: “Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.”
Evans told National Public Radio after the president made his public statement, “The Bible is clear…Sexual relationships are to be between men and women within the context of marriage. That’s not only related to the issue of homosexuality, but adultery, or fornication or bestiality. All of that is proscribed in the Bible.”
Tony Evans boldly holds up the kingdom of God as our present-day agenda. We are not to compromise that commission for any political party, candidate, or person. This compassionate pastor is a bridge-builder, and at the same time, he’s raising up the dikes necessary to stop the furious flood of evil threatening to destroy our nation.
Another one of my friends whom I greatly admire made bold statements this week at Irving Bible Church here in the DFW Metroplex. As he preached about “kingdoms clashing,” Pastor Andy McQuitty stated in reference to the evil agenda prevailing in the kingdom of this present world:
“One of the most pernicious of those agendas is the devaluation of the sanctity of human life through abortion on demand and the diminishment of the church’s ability to defend unborn human life in the womb. Most people don’t know it yet, but that evil agenda is built in to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which…was declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and is thus the law of our land.
“Did you know that under PP-ACA children get free sex counseling, contraceptives, and abortion pills without parental consent?” McQuitty asked.
“…that you must pay for life-saving drugs, but life-ending drugs like abortion-inducing pills and contraceptives are free?
“…that this law was crafted with the help of Planned Parenthood and contains a gag rule forbidding insurance companies and employers from revealing if health plans include an abortion premium until you enroll?
“…that this law doesn’t just cover abortion-inducing drugs in most states—but all elective abortions?
“…that some plans under this law take money straight out of your paycheck and put it in an abortion-on-demand fund that could fund 2 million abortions a year? And that fines will be directly assessed when you file your tax returns if you refuse to comply?2
Pastor McQuitty continued: “Nancy Pelosi famously said we needed to pass this law so we could find out what’s in it. Well, now we know. In the Trojan horse of health care is the evil agenda of death for millions of unborn children. PP-ACA is a law that takes America from the already terrible reality of allowing and accepting the killing of our unborn children to the horrible reality of taxing every citizen to finance the killing of our unborn children.”
Thank God for pastors and shepherds like Andy McQuitty. He not only won a recent battle against deadly Stage 4 cancer, but he’s trying to help us win the battle against the very soul of our nation. In San Diego, Skyline Church pastor Jim Garlow’s wife is fighting cancer, and at the same time he has been fighting for the future of our great nation. Thank God there are many other preachers and priests, such as Cardinal Dolan and Father Jonathan Morris, along with teachers like Ravi Zacharias, who with the late Chuck Colson and other diverse faith leaders helped inspire the desire to write and sign the Manhattan Declaration. Betty and I continually praise God for our fearless, Spirit-filled pastor at Gateway Church, Robert Morris.
All of the speakers and those who will lead in prayer at the DFW “Under God: INDIVISIBLE” conference are standing boldly against the rising tide of evil and excessive intrusive federal government. The meeting will be held on Friday, July 27, at High Point Church in Arlington, Texas. Please make plans to join us. You can register now at dfw.undergodindivisible.org.
The enemy of faith and freedom has viciously attacked all attempts to unite the family of faith. If he succeeds, he will win the battle for the future of this nation, and we will lose the blessed freedoms we have enjoyed as the direct result of our very diverse founders coming together in pursuit of God and in supernatural harmony to give us a great foundation. Let’s not lose the blessings our freedom has made possible and that our armed service members are even today giving their lives to protect and preserve.
Remember, the fact is, it’s not merely liberal or conservative; Democrat or Republican; left or right. It has now often boiled down to right or wrong. May God forgive us and raise up prophets, preachers and shepherds today who will take a stand. I am praying for the day when people of faith, along with concerned Americans, will again declare our independence and stand together, united by the principles we all know in our hearts are right and true: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
1Is. 56:10, NAS
2For more details about ObamaCare and its mandates, visit www.alliancedefensefund.org/obamacare.
This article was written by James Robison
19 comments:
Dear Christian, this is true of many of our church leaders, church goers, and many others. However, I can assure you of our prophets and sheperds, NO. Our prophets and sheperds are indeed at this very day risking, suffering, contending and loving God through Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit right now. Many are being refined, many are yet at work, many. So, please remember the Gospel to pray in love for those who are indeed at work, in union, in prayer and indeed suffering greatly yet not stopping a single iota of a bit.
Where are the prophets and shepherds who will stand and proclaim God’s uncompromising truth in His abounding love? That is a very good question. The apostles of Christ were under the most trying circumstances …imprisonment, stoning, and death. They knew sacrifice and suffering. By their lives and deaths these men demonstrated that what they were teaching was the truth! These men deported themselves as men who knew what they were talking about. They deported themselves as men who were under tremendous conviction. No one can account for the changed attitude of these men, for their restored hope, for their renewed courage, for their long lives of toil and sacrifice.
There was no financial gain; there was no social prestige; there was no political power to come as a result of their preaching about Jesus. The only prospect that they had insofar as human rewards were concerned was the prospect of peril and persecution, of imprisonment and death. Yet all these apostles went out and preached.
In the large churches today there are few unsaved people in attendance. Christians who don’t even try to relate to the unchurched in the community. Leaders and lay people alike are too busy to spend time trying to reach the unsaved.
In Corinth during the first century. Most of the people who turned to the Lord were people who had been known as fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, and thieves before finding forgiveness and life in Christ (1 Cor. 6:9-11). The sad truth is that all too often the churches today are NOT carrying on that pattern of reaching out with the good news of Christ as the early church did. In fact, most modern churches are failing to reach either the rich or the poor, the educated or the uneducated. While enjoying one another, they are NOT reaching those who still are as we once were, without Christ.
Our prophets and shepherds are silent because they are not willing to risk imprisonment and suffer for teaching the truth.
I can’t wait to share this article – and im going to re-read it myself. Awesome truths and a clarion warning to the church. We have “got to” pray. Thank you- and GOD bless.
Have you ever considered that by definition, a true prophet probably would not pass the “Your comment has been queued for moderation by site administrators and will be published after approval” test?
See http://www.inthatdayteachings.com .
I feel led to post the following information, not to scare or discourage anyone, but to get a slight glimpse of what our government has and is turning into.
Make no mistake, the “government” is taking very pointed aim at Christians.
As always, the wording in their documents compares Christians to Islamic fundamentalists. There is no comparison between these two religions and anyone who says otherwise is committing blasphemy, plain and simple.
We’ve seen people publicly reprimanded for going against Islamic beliefs and that certainly isn’t the case with Christianity. Two examples are the push to have Sharia Law enforced in our legal system and the forcing of a Muslim center near Ground Zero in New York City. Remember the pastor who burned the Q’uran? Similar outrage is not seen when people burn the American flag or the Bible.
It’s always the Christians that are being told to go away and keep quiet, that WE’RE infringing on the rights of others. The reason our nation is in the state it’s in is that we tolerate being talked at and treated like criminals.
Look no further than Egypt to see the infiltration of Muslims – now into the presidency there (and here, too, actually) – to get a handle on what is happening. Also look at how many Christians have suffered at their hands in the Middle East.
Over and over, it is the rights of other religious beliefs that our government has upheld, often at the expense of ours.
A January 2012 Department of Homeland Security report gives an ‘in your face’ description of what the government really thinks of us.
Just like the Patriot Act, the mentioning of Islamic terrorists is merely a pacifier; a catch-phrase to get people to go along with the plan.
But as we found out, the Patriot Act is in reality largely aimed at the American public not Islamic terrorists. We see this through the TSA at airports, drone bases being built across the nation and Threat Fusion Centers across the country that gather and hold data on American citizens. If anyone is doubting this or thinks it’s kooky, ask why we need such an elaborate terrorism prevention system when we have completely open borders.
All of this information can be Googled and found to be reported in mainstream news. No, it’s not kooky. What is kooky is the number of people walking around in the dark.
http://start.umd.edu/start/publications/research_briefs/LaFree_Bersani_HotSpotsOfUSTerrorism.pdf
Page 12 of the report (link to full report above) reads as follows:
Detailed information on each category of ideological motivation can be found in the Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism-United States report compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (Miller, Smarick, and Simone, 2011). Briefly, the report describes each category as follows:
Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.
And again:
Religious: groups that seek to smite the purported enemies of God and other evildoers, impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists), forcibly insert religion into the political sphere (e.g., those who seek to politicize religion, such as Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists), and/or bring about Armageddon (apocalyptic millenarian cults; 2010: 17). For example, Jewish Direct Action, Mormon extremist, Jamaat-al-Fuqra, and Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) are included in this category.
Terrorism
The definition of terrorism used by the GTD is: the threatened or actual use of illegal force by non-state actors, in order to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal, through fear, coercion or intimidation.3
It is a shame that in America, any of this needs to be said. I pray people snap out of their deceptions and see just how far down the road we are.
WOW. How true! I am speechless…almost… I would also add “same-sex marriage” to the list of battles we need to be fighting. And then proclaim, “not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord!” God help us!
What passes for Christianity today is an anemic, spineless, diluted substitute without convictions or principle. What America needs is real Christianity! The kind of Christianity that changed the course of history. The kind of Christianity that changed the face of Europe. The kind of Christianity that propelled the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Patriots to shake off the bands of tyranny and establish this great country called America. Christianity of old quenched the flames of oppression, lit the fires of freedom, and led two continents out of the darkness of paganism.
Today’s Christianity cannot even rid the nation of legal abortion …but it has GREAT PROGRAMS and GREAT MUSIC, in a GREAT WORSHIP CENTER, with a GREAT PASTOR, that tells GREAT STORIES and GREAT JOKES, to a GREAT CROWD.
Isaiah 1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!
AMEN—————– AND———————-AMEN THANK YOU JAMES, FOR ALWAYS GIVING US A RUTTER!!!
Amen James! The good news is the true prophets of God are out there right now being made ready through the fires of God in their lives. They will soon come out with a word directly from God’s throne. They are nobody’s in the present religious heirarchy but hell fears them. In fact, I believe the demons number one assignment at this time in history is to destroy these humble servants of the Lord before they are sent out. Their message will be one of refining fire, turning a rebellious church in this nation back to the Blesser. They’re release will be in the most difficult times that are soon coming. Praise the name of the Lord!
Try looking at http://www.inthatdayteachings.com . True prophets are not going to acquiesce much.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/60-days-in-prison-and-a-12180-for-hosting-a-home-bible-study-in-arizona
“Down in Phoenix, Arizona a man has been sentenced to 60 days in prison and has been fined $12,180 for hosting a Bible study in his home…
…In addition, the assistant city prosecutor is asking the court to ‘revoke his probation and convert it into a 2 1/2 year jail sentence’ since he continues to hold worship gatherings on his property despite court orders.”
I don’t see many pastors or priests in my community standing up for what is right. They may be preaching it within the church walls, but they need to be pressing the issues in the media. All of the churchs must unite as one if we have even a glimpse of turning our country around. Meet in streets just as John & Charles Wesley did. We need a Third Great Awakening!
DEAR PASTOR JAMES,
I THANK GOD EVERY DAY FOR YOU AND YOUR MINISTRY TO THE AMERICAN CHURCH.IT HELPS ME TO HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.WE ALL NEED TO PRAY :
1)ABSTINENCE OF POWERFUL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CENTRALIZATION;
2)FOR A “NEW AWAKENING” IN AMERICA AND CANADA EMPOWERED BY THE FRUIT & LOVE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT;
3)ASK EVERY CONGRESSMAN AND SENATOR THEIR STAND ON FREEDOM, FAITH AND THE RIGHTS AND PROTECTION OF LIFE AND THE FAMILY;
AND LASTLY,
4)EVERY PASTOR SHOULD SHOW THEIR YOUNG PEOPLE AND OLDER FOLKS THE BRILLIANT FILM BY GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKAEBEE ENTITLED, “THE GIFT OF LIFE.”
All comments are reviewed before posting. Otherwise, there would be over 500 spam messages promoting gambling, sex-enhancing drugs, offshore pharmacies, and pornographic websites…and that’s just in the past week. That would be disgusting and irresponsible. Therefore, all comments are reviewed before posting.
-editor