Judgment Magnet (Thank Our State Department)

This week Hillary Clinton our intrepid Secretary of State found her way to Myanmar or Burma as it was formerly called. This mountain nation, neighbor toTibet and carrier of the old spice road to China is placed almost out of time. A backwards country oppressed by both the Chinese and its own mad dictators it attracts no one and offers the world nothing. For reasons nearly unfathomable Hillary chose to go there and humiliate both herself and our nation. 

 I saw the state department photo of her baptizing the Buddha at the national showpiece Shedagon Pagoda. News reports state that Hillary went barefoot in respect to Buddhist tradition and offered flowers in front of the Gold Buddha. Going barefoot was a nice touch – sort of like Moses at the burning bush, “Remove your sandals from your feet Moses for this is hallowed ground.” By her symbolic naked feet she agreed that this ground in Burma belongs to the Buddhist god Baal-zebub and that the God of Moses can take a hike (barefoot of course). It was a graphic rejection of Christian covenant and a hard slap in the face to the living God and Christendom in general.

 As our national representative Hillary has the opportunity to attract either the blessings or cursing of the real God who is jealous for His name. We have placed her there and she represents us before God and men even if she hates that God. All government is covenantal and that is the way covenants work. Her wicked behavior will fall to our chastisement. And yes, God does still discipline the nations. He has not changed.

 Ms. Clintons’ baptizing of the Buddha was particularly egregious. Christian doctrine teaches us to baptize our own with water. It also teaches that our God baptizes us with the Holy Spirit. Admittedly, it is a bit difficult to figure what Hillary thought she would accomplish by this act of blasphemy. What exactly does it mean when the creature baptizes the god? Certainly the baptizer is greater than the baptized, that is a given. The one who baptizes confers a blessing on the one who is baptized. What blessing she was attempting to confer on Buddha is conjecture I suppose but the clarity of the act, the rejection of the Biblical God and truth is crystal clear. We cannot see her soul but we can view her actions. Her actions are blasphemous and are the kind of behavior that brings the judgments of God on nations. Given that I live in the nation that sent her, I am not very happy about what she did.

 Since I often write about God’s law and the Christian nation some of my readers may wonder how I think about this kind of sin, or how we can even know if what she did was a sin. It was. Christ did fulfill (not abolish – He told us that He did not come to abolish the law ) the laws of ceremony and sacrifice. His moral law and civil law remain to be obeyed. That would include not worshipping, honoring, or bowing down to idols. Honoring an idol is a sin against the Lord. In Hillary’s case it is a sin against our nation as well.

 The Christian books of the Kings include numerous records of kings who abandoned the God of Israel to chase other gods. The number of stories are too numerous to recount here but it is accurate to say that the Lord hated and punished that behavior consistently. At times when judgment was delayed we are often given a reason in the text as to why God was slow to act. Sometimes He was keeping a promise to a former king (David in particular). A concise word as to how God thinks about idolatry can be found in Deuteronomy 12:29-32 “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess them and dwell in their land, beware that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I may do likewise?’ You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.”

 This then is God’s wisdom for us and our nation. In 1 Kings 15 we find the story of the good King Asa who “removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made a horrid image as an Asherah.”  This is the perfect example for our nation. The higher civil authority above Ms. Clinton needs to remove our “queen mother” Hillary from her post and appoint a more faithful person. That would be the ideal Christian response. May God save our country and return our hope.

 Don Schanzenbach  12-4-11

The American Hope Project.