Seven Thoughts on the Assassination of Bin Laden

1. Assassination is not necessarily an ungodly tactic. Ehud was a righteous judge in Israel, and he was used by the Lord in the assassination of Eglon (Judg. 3:21). It is not to be condemned out of hand.
2. The biblical response to this kind of thing is not uniform. There is a sense in which we are to say that God does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11), and that would include the death of this wicked man. Yet there is another sense (not contradictory, but in paradox), in which God delights to execute judgment in the earth. As believers, we do not privilege one over the other. We long for Him to judge the nations with equity (Ps. 98:9), and this means that some people are going down. Lest anyone say that this is an Old Testament mentality, I will just say that the only time in the New Testament when the saints say Hallelujah is when they are watching the smoke ascend from the ruins of Babylon. And so how do we reconcile this love of mercy and this longing for justice? To reapply a comment of Spurgeon's, we don't. There is no need to reconcile friends. God gave us two hands, and mercy goes in one and justice in the other, and we lift them both up to God. The judge of the whole earth will do right.
3. In moments such as this, secularism leaves us bereft of any appropriate response. If there is no God above us, who trains our Seals for battle (Ps. 144:1), then we are left with two options, both of them bad. We are left without an appropriate vocabulary for our victories. Either we get a glorying in American military prowess, of the chest bumping variety, which is just obnoxious -- what Obama called spiking the football -- or we mistreat our warriors the way David did after the defeat of Absalom. But the only real alternative is to give glory to God. But that turns it into a religious war, and the secularists can't have that. So we are left with hubristic Americanism, or skulking home after the triumph. Gakk.
4. As military operations go, this one was exquisite. As PR follow-up operations go, this was a bumbling farce. Not only did Obama not spike the football, he laid it very gently on the ground and then tripped over it. Burying bin Laden at sea was nicely done, but apart from that, the management of the narrative post-assassination was the equivalent of 13 clowns tumbling out of a little car at the circus. For example, whatever could they have been thinking, deciding on the fly whether or not to release the photos?
5. A few on the hard left are being consistent, and are condemning the raid in much the same way they would have if Bush had given the order. But a large portion of the left has piped right down -- despite the fact that Obama has extended the Patriot Act, continued the practice of rendition, kept Gitmo open, kept two wars in the Middle East going while piling into a third one, and topping it all off by deploying a Dick Cheney death squad team to wax Osama. Obama . . . we hardly knew ye.
6. We have had no shortage of Monday morning quarterbacks, from me to the Archbishop of Canterbury, not necessarily in that order. But all of us who weigh in with our opinions about this, from Chomsky to Sheryl Crowe, should be prepared to answer and fundamental question about this. The question is, "By what standard?" What laws, whether of men, gods, or God, govern this kind of thing? Without an answer to this question, all opinions are just aimless yelling and gesticulating at the scene after the men of action have come and gone. One of the bummers related to the triumph of secular thought is the realization that you cannot banish transcendent standards and still have them around. This is a drag because there are times when they would be handy, like now. And so the brick house of the way things actually are just sits there, and the little piggy of realpolitik is ensconced inside, and all the pundits of the world huff, and they puff, and they blow nothing down.
7. As I have written before, we must not allow our awareness of our own sinfulness, and the fact that all of us die as a result of that sin, to flatten the distinctions between sins. There is such a thing as great evil, and to recognize the fact is not the equivalent of denying that you yourself have sinned. A man can say, with the old Puritan watching a man being taken off to be deservedly executed, "There but for the grace of God go I," without saying, "There am I, the grace of God notwithstanding." Christians should be the last people to allow the grace of God to be used as an instrument to blur moral distinctions. When Paul tells us that the magistrate does not bear the sword for nothing, but rather wields it to whack evildoers (Rom. 13:4), he does not hasten to add that the Roman cops are actually, theologically speaking, evildoers themselves and so should hasten to fall on their own swords. As I say, he does not say that.
 Doug Wilson

Jesus the socialist

OPINION: The president offers a Christmas lesson that perfectly fits his social goals | Cal Thomas

Apparently not content with his congressional majority that wishes to force Americans on a long march to healthcare disaster, President Obama has invoked the name of Jesus to broadcast his gospel of spreading the wealth around.

Speaking Monday afternoon to a group of children from the Washington, D.C., Boys and Girls Club, the president delivered a mini sermon on “why we celebrate Christmas.” He asked the children if they knew. One piped up and said, “The birth of baby Jesus.”

One can imagine the reaction of the media and other elites had a Republican president asked such a question. That Republican would have been accused of violating church-state separation and discriminating against those who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or nothing. Because the president’s Christmas lesson perfectly fit his social goals, there has been no outcry.

The president spoke of what Jesus “symbolizes for people all around the world,” which he said, “is the possibility of peace and people treating each other with respect.” And then, in the best tradition of a community organizer, the president said Jesus is about “doing something for other people.” Even the “three wise men” were invoked to support the president’s idea of wealth redistribution: “. . . [T]hese guys . . . have all this money, they’ve got all this wealth and power, and they took a long trip to a manger just to see a little baby.”

And what conclusion should be drawn from that journey? The president told the children, “. . . [I]t just shows you that because you’re powerful or you’re wealthy, that’s not what’s important. What’s important is . . . the kind of spirit you have.”

To the president, this means the spirit of government taking from the productive and giving to the nonproductive. To him, Jesus is a socialist, or perhaps an early Robin Hood. Any first-year seminarian (if the seminary is a good one) could destroy this flawed exegesis.

Jesus of Nazareth was not a symbol. Neither was He just a good teacher as some who do not fully accept His teachings about Himself like to claim. As Paul the Apostle put it, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1Timothy 1:15).

The call of Scripture is to do for other people, as we would like to have done unto us, but that call is personal, not corporate. That’s because only people can be compassionate. A government check too often brings dependence and a sense of entitlement. A personal touch builds relationships horizontally with others and vertically with God.

One upside to the current recession is that it has forced people to reconsider their priorities. To paraphrase one of the better-known lines from the film, It’s a Wonderful Life, the recession has given us a great gift: the ability to see what our lives would look like without stuff.

We still have stuff, too much in fact. Letting go of some of it has not caused people to die in the streets—despite the ludicrous claim by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that someone dies in America every 10 minutes because they lack health insurance.

Anyone young enough to have living grandparents or great-grandparents should take a few minutes this Christmas to ask them what life was like when they were growing up. How many presents did they receive? Unless they came from wealthy families, they didn’t get much by today’s standards and they were probably more satisfied than we who have more than we need.

That’s the thing about stuff: We know it doesn’t satisfy, but we gorge ourselves on it anyway hoping the marketers are right and somehow it will bring satisfaction.

What those “wise men” brought were symbols—gold, frankincense and myrrh. What they symbolized was the grandeur of the baby who would become a man and who, in the words of John the Baptist, would “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

Ponder that this Christmas and every Christmas.
World

The Fear Of God

Tony Blair was the keynote speaker at the National Prayer breakfast in February. I just read an article in The American Spectator magazine by Jonathan Aitken. Aitken reports that the former British prime minister has become a powerful advocate opposing the growth of aggressive secularism. Blair said, "I say that there are limits to humanism and beyond those limits God and only God can work," he urged his listeners to return to the fear of God because the phrase "really means obedience to God, humility before God, acceptance through God that there is something bigger, better, and more important than you. It is that humbling of man's vanity, that stirring of conscience through God's prompting, that recognition of our limitations that faith alone can bestow."

Blair is right on the money when he says that man has limits and beyond those limits only God can work. Have you recognized your limitations? He calls us to return to the fear of God, Proverbs tells us that, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." He also said that the fear of God means obedience and humility. Only by humility can you know that there is something bigger, better and more important than you. Most people live with themselves at the center of life. There are some people who have no fear of God at all they are arrogant and proud. Proverbs also tells us that,"The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor." In a room filled with politicians, sports figures and diplomats who are all seeking their own honor without humility and without the fear of God, a clear call was given that life is not about them and they need to repent or they will be brought low by a mighty God.

Ligon Duncan on How You Should Pray for President-elect Obama

We ought to commit ourselves to pray for our new President, for his wife and family, for his administration, and for the nation. We will do this, not only because of the biblical command to pray for our rulers, but because of the second greatest commandment "Love your neighbor" and what better way to love your neighbor, than to pray for his well-being. Those with the greatest moral and political differences with the President-Elect ought to ask God to engender in them, by His Spirit, genuine neighbor-love for Mr. Obama.

We will also pray for our new President because he (and we) face challenges that are not only daunting but potentially disastrous. We will pray that God will grant him wisdom. He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office. May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We will pray that God will protect this nation even as our new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We will pray that God would change President-Elect Obama's mind and heart on issues of crucial moral concern. May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light. We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office. God is sovereign, after all.

To read the whole thing click here:

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2008/11/some-initial-thoughts-on-prayi.php

Admonition by John Calvin on the Election

Let us then continue to honor the good appointment of God, which may be easily done, provided we impute to ourselves whatever evil may accompany it. Hence he teaches us here the end for which magistrates are instituted by the Lord; the happy effects of which would always appear, were not so noble and salutary an institution marred through our fault. At the same time, princes do never so far abuse their power, by harassing the good and innocent, that they do not retain in their tyranny some kind of just government: there can then be no tyranny which does not in some respects assist in consolidating the society of men.
John Calvin, commentary on Romans 13:3.

President Obama

It's very easy to forget--especially for those of us who are on the younger side--that it was only a little over 40 years ago that there were Jim Crow laws in the US. Just a generation ago, many African Americans were segregated from whites in public schools, transportation, restrooms, and restaurants.

Last night, the United States has elected a biracial man to serve as its leader.

It would be an understatement to call this a watershed cultural moment in our country's history.

No matter who you voted for--or whether you voted at all--it's important to remember that, as President, Barack Obama will have God-given authority to govern us, and that we should view him as a servant of God (Rom. 13:1, 4) to whom we should be subject (Rom. 13:1, 5; 1 Pet. 2:13-14).

• We are to pray for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
• We are to thank God for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
• We are to respect Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7).
• We are to honor Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7; 1 Pet. 2:17).

There are many qualifications to add to these exhortations but it's still important to remember that these are requirements for all Bible-believing Christians.
http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/11/president-obama.html