There's a story in the 19th and 20th chapters of the Old Testament book of Judges that we in America might want to consider. It records disastrous events in Israel revolving around.... an outrageous crime.... a coalition army..... and civil war. It is also very reminiscent of the Biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The crime was a murderous rape of a traveler's concubine by a mob of men, a mob that first demanded that the traveler himself come out to them to be sexually assaulted. The men of this mob were from the tribe of Benjamin The coalition is the remaining eleven tribes of Israel that form an army to bring the guilty men to justice. The tribe of Benjamin refuses to give the men over and a civil war erupts within Israel.
Israel apparently did not first seek out God's wisdom in the matter! Their own council would suffice! Instead they only asked God which tribe should lead the attack. God gave them the answer that they wanted...it was Judah, but Israel's much larger army of 400,000 men was then routed by the 26,000 men of the tribe of Benjamin! It was only on the third attack did God say that he would give victory to Israel who had already paid dearly in the loss of life while the tribe of Benjamin was eventually so devastated that from that time on they were known as the smallest of the tribes.
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The following post is from earlier this year:
The New York State School Prayer
It was a little over fifty years ago that Regents of the educational system of New York put in place this short prayer to be read in classrooms: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers and our country. Some objected to this and the ensuing case went to the Supreme Court in Engel vs. Vitale where a six to one decision was rendered in favor of the plaintiff. Potter Stewart was the only Justice in dissent. This was a landmark decision that led to other court decisions that evicted Almighty God from the classroom. We have utterly collapsed as a nation since then as we have had assassinations, a war that was lost from within as was a war on drugs, a recently politicized and politically correct national defense, economic suicide through the bailout and stimulus, rampant narcissism culminating in the monstrosity of a Facebook culture, tens of millions of legal abortions and whole professions that have utterly failed their callings; plus we have a Manchurian President put in office by others who hate America...its traditions... its belief in God and its individualism and finally marriage between a man and a woman may be co-opted by those raised in an educational system that has officially ignored if not ridiculed... God. Would it be a good idea for Christians to resurrect that prayer, to start our day with it, to close our eyes at night with it on our lips, to recite it as we read of the latest horror story in the news and to meditate upon it each and every time that we see our flag flying in front of those schools, those court houses and post offices? I think that it would, only I would add we beg thy forgiveness and mercy to "blessings."
