America’s Prophets: Reeds Shaken in the Wind?

Long ago a dear and wise friend warned me that in life you do not draw to yourself the kind of people you like and admire; rather you draw only those who are exactly what you are. In my lifetime I have never been able to prove that my old friends’ advice was wrong.

In politics we see a President who was weaned and tutored in the socialism of Alinsky, Ayers and Wright who now surrounds himself with Czars, cabinet members and appointees who are exactly like his mentors.

In religion Americans are about one hundred times more likely to listen to a preacher or prophet whose message is more akin to Bobby McFerrin’s “don’t worry be happy” than the “repent and be saved” of a Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell. No surprise, since the Apostle Paul did warn that in the last days men and women of the faith would apostate and “heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” (2Tim 4:3b)

We have become a nation of excuse makers, lowering the bar in every area of morality and conduct until standards have all but disappeared. Now the White House can proclaim that the laws broken, if any, in the Sestak snafu are really nothing to worry about. Under the new White House standards, or the lack of them, nothing at all is askew. If it’s true that too many cooks spoil the broth then what is the result of too many crooks? Sound mean? It is not, it is actually a question whose time has come.

Those who want answers are forced to hunt for a law enforcement agency that isn’t already predisposed to give the White House a pass. Is it a Congressional Committee or the FBI? Must America look for a new Elliot Ness and his Untouchables’ as they did in Chicago during the prohibition era? Has this administration been paying so much attention to our image abroad that it has missed the overwhelming embarrassment we are enduring at home?

Call it an administration, a regime, a gang, or anything you like the record now speaks for itself and it needs no special name. The record shows that this administration is strictly a big mess. The probation period of this administration is two years underway and calling it a mess is well beyond the realm of argument.

Those charged with upholding the Constitution and those called to preach the pure and simple gospel according to the scriptures are pretty much in the same boat. They are made to seem like the clowns who actually think there ought to be standards rather than those who are so willing to cast all our foundations to the wind.

In religion we also are too willing to attach ourselves to those who have also cast their pearls not to the swine but to the wind. Perhaps while we’re looking for a new Elliot Ness we might want to start a search for a new John the Baptist.

Christ asked the question to his generation, “… concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.” (Mt 11: 7, 8) The answer to this question is understood. John was no reed shaken in the wind as both his life and his cruel and untimely death have proven.

John was murdered by a megalomaniacal king who had John jailed for rightfully declaring that his marriage to his brother’s wife was unlawful. By today’s standards that would seem paltry. Now we are asked to believe that anyone can be married to anyone, same sex, multiple partners, and God knows what’s next.

There aren’t many John the Baptists left in America but I hope I am friend or kin to any that yet remain. I hope they are more of what I am rather than what I would want to be. Should everyone in this nation begin to adopt the morals of the Chicago mobsters I would rather stand alone and hear Christ say of me what he said of John. “But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.” (Jn 11:9)

In the mean time I will gladly stand with those who say homosexuality is still plain perversion, abortion is murder, and getting to be President of this great nation should come with a need to fully disclose birth records, school records and perhaps even a full disclosure of your definition of the word “change.”