How Radical Islam Created the US Marines
A lot of prayer is taking place this year. There’s also been a huge uptick in Islamic terrorism.
On June 29, I stood with thousands on the Washington State Capitol lawn to repent and pray as a part of Franklin Graham’s Decision 2016 tour of all fifty state capitals. On July 3, I had the privilege of leading my home church in the Call2Fall movement. July 10 is another day of coordinated special prayer for America.
And then comes Together 2016 on July 16 where hundreds of thousands will gather on the Washington, D.C. These calls to prayer focus on unity, repentance, and petitioning heaven to restore His protective blessings.
But did you know that after the American Great Awakening (1730s-40s) and Revolutionary War (1770s-80s)–a time of increased prayer–the threat of radical Islam actually created the US Marines?
Here’s the untold story.
I know that the crescendo of prayer now taking place in America begins with individual humility, repentance, salvation and “turning from our wicked ways.” But the final aspect of 2 Chronicles 7:14 talks about God “healing the land”–which most certainly involves His divine protection and favor.
If you have a little time and want to watch the best video on radical Islam you’ve ever seen, pause for a moment and click here. The video is called “The True Threat of Islam in Fourteen Minutes.”
Then, ponder for a moment how the prayers of the 18th century actually led to the creation of the US Marines and halted the dangers of radical Islam in the time of our Founding Fathers.
Here’s the brief story.
“At the height of the 18th century, Muslim pirates (the “Barbary Pirates”) were the terror of the Mediterranean and a large area of the North Atlantic. They attacked every ship in sight, and held the crews for exorbitant ransoms. Those taken hostage were subjected to barbaric treatment and wrote heart-breaking letters home, begging their government and family members to pay whatever their Muslim captors demanded.”
“These extortionists of the high seas represented the North African Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers – collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast – and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American Republic.”
“Before the Revolutionary War, U.S. merchant ships had been under the protection of Great Britain. When the U.S. declared its independence and entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France. However, once the war was won, America had to protect its own fleets. Thus, the birth of the U.S. Navy.”
“Beginning in 1784, 17 years before he would become president, Thomas Jefferson became America’s Minister to France. That same year, the U.S.Congress sought to appease its Muslim adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations who paid bribes to the Barbary States rather than engaging them in war.”
“In July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured American ships, and the leader of Algiers demanded an unheard-of ransom of $60,000. It was a plain and simple case of extortion, and Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to any further payments. Instead, he proposed to Congress the formation of a coalition of allied nations who together could force the Islamic states into peace. A disinterested Congress decided to pay the ransom.”
“In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain to ask by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved American citizens, and why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.”
“The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja answered that Islam “was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran that all nations who would not acknowledge their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who was slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
“Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence on non-Muslim nations, as well as the objections of many notable American leaders, including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and would only further embolden the enemy, for the following fifteen years the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages.”
“This payment in ransom and tribute amounted to over 20 percent of the United States government annual revenues in 1800.”
“Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of their prophet and their god, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply. America had a tradition of religious tolerance. In fact Jefferson, himself, had co-authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen. A religion based on supremacy, whose Koran not only condoned but mandated violence against unbelievers, was unacceptable to him.”
“Shortly after his being sworn in as the third President of the United States in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli sent him a note demanding the immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for every year forthcoming. That changed everything.”
“Jefferson let the Pasha know, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his demand. The Pasha responded by cutting down the flagpole at the American consulate and declared war on the United States. Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers immediately followed suit.”
“Jefferson, until now, had been against America raising a naval force for anything beyond coastal defense, but, having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic thuggery for long enough, decided that it was finally time to meet force with force.”
“He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean and taught the Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson he hoped they would never forget. Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. ships to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli and to ’cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify'”.
“When President Thomas Jefferson saw there was no negotiating with Muslims, he formed what is the now the Marines (sea going soldiers). They had been originally commissioned in 1798 by President John Adams but never used in this manner.”
These Marines were attached to U. S. Merchant vessels. When the Muslims attacked U.S. merchant vessels they were repulsed by armed soldiers. Then the Marines followed the Muslims back to their villages and killed every man, woman, and child in the village.”
“It didn’t take long for the Muslims to leave U.S. Merchant vessels alone. English and French merchant vessels started running up our flag when entering the Mediterranean to secure safe travel.”
“The bravery of the U.S. Marine Corps in these wars led to the line “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn, and they would forever be known as “leathernecks” for the leather collars of their uniforms, designed to prevent their heads from being cut off by the Muslim when boarding enemy ships.”
“When Algiers and Tunis, who were both accustomed to American cowardice and acquiescence, saw the newly independent United States had both the will and the right to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli.”
“President Jefferson’s greatest fear was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to the United States.”
It’s now back-in a time period in which the Western World has turned away the God who gave them liberty.
May God hear our prayers in the 21st century, forgive our sins, and raise up a new force of brave men and women to deter and destroy evil as happened three hundred years ago.
Are You Part of the Call2Fall?
I have prayed for a spiritual and moral awakening in America for over forty years. Why? Because I believe that a great reformation of the world’s leading nation would make a profound and positive impact on fulfilling the Great Commission in this generation.
Also–it’s happened before–three times actually. And each time revival came to America, a surge of spiritual life sent waves of blessing all over the world.
Are you a part of the Call2Fall?
Here’s America’s revival history:
The First Great Awakening – It began in the 1730’s in New England and lasted for over a decade. One-fifth of the Colonies committed their lives to Christ and the moral steel to build a new nation was born. Our founding fathers were children of the America’s first great spiritual gusher.
The Evangelical Revival took place in the early 19th century centering in camp meetings in the “western” frontier. Thousands of people renewed their faith in God with much supernatural phenomenon. This was the mega-church movement of the time, and greatly aided America’s continental development and missionary advance around the world.
The Great Revival – It began after the Stock Market Crash of 1857 and lasted through the Civil War. Over 60% of the Confederate Army gave their lives to Christ during the awakening–and following the war’s end and the abolition of slavery, the largest missions movement up-until-that-time was launched. The Student Volunteer Movement sent 100,000 missionaries world-wide between 1880 and 1930. Many of them were women (because 600,000 men had died in the War Between the States).
There have been other moves of God in the 20th century including the Pentecostal Revival, the charismatic movement, and the rise of evangelicalism–including the national and spiritual renewal during the Reagan years.
But there has not been a great awakening for over one hundred and fifty years.
By American standards, we’re overdue. Will 2016 be the year that God visits us once again?
Only he knows–and he usually doesn’t tell. He just “sets his people praying” and comes in power when we meet the conditions of humbling ourselves, seeking his face, and turning away from sin (2 Chronicles 7:14).
That’s what the Call2Fall is all about.
On Sunday, July 3, 2016, millions of Christians in the United States will fall to their knees in repentance and prayer and ask God to do in our hearts and nation what no man or government can accomplish. I have been working with the Call 2 Fall for seven years and and encourage you to talk to your pastor or priest and make sure your congregation participates.
Here is the vision for Call2Fall.
“We’re asking churches as an act of humility, on behalf of the church first and the nation second, to get on our knees and cry out to God on July 3,” said Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins, who is spearheading the initiative. “On July 4 we celebrate our independence, and it’s our desire on July 53to declare our dependence upon God as a people and as a nation.”
Perkins hopes to see millions of Christians in scores of thousands of churches nationwide kneel in prayer for three to five minutes this coming Sunday before Independence Day, and he is urging pastors to register their congregations at the Call2Fall Web site. Perkins noted that the prayer call is not to advance public policy, but to see spiritual renewal.
“I think the church is coming to a point where we’re coming to the end of our own devices and we’re looking to God for the prescription of what it will take to turn this nation around,” Perkins said. “And I think we can’t come to God on our terms, we have to go to Him on His terms, and He’s made it very clear [in 2 Chronicles 7:14] … that we are to humble ourselves before Him and seek Him and turn from our wicked ways—and that’s not the nation, that’s the church. So I’m very encouraged that if the church will take this challenge, take the call to fall, that God will move in this nation.”
Although other movements have called Christians to prayer and repentance, the Call2Fall uses Independence Day as a touch point for addressing the Church’s need to seek God for national renewal.
“We feel deeply and passionately that if something is not done quickly, we really could lose our whole country,” says Pastor Larry Stockstill. “As Paul Revere woke up the nation to the invasion of the British, we’re waking up the nation to the invasion of the demonic powers that are pulling us away from God.”
“There really isn’t a new political agenda we can pull out of the hat or any other form of medicine for America,” Stockstill added. “It’s only prayer and fasting.”
Another Call2Fall supporter, Dr. Richard Land, notes that great revival movements typically start with fasting and prayer, and he expects Southern Baptists to be very receptive to the prayer effort. “We are similarly convinced that the only real answer for America is spiritual renewal and revival that must start with those that claim the name of Christ,” Land said. “We believe that as Christians we have failed to live in a way that would be as pleasing to the Lord as we would hope, and we need to repent of that and humble ourselves, and we need to seek His face and seek His guidance and direction for ourselves, for our churches and for our country.
“I think that the Holy Spirit is leading different segments of the Lord’s kingdom in a very similar direction to call for the revival that our hearts yearn for.”
African American pastor Wellington Boone says the nation is at a point of repentance or humiliation. “I know that I’d rather be voluntarily humble than to be humbled by God,” said Boone, who leads a national network of churches.
“Our nation is seeing some judgment, and the men of God have to stand up and say what’s necessary to get God to turn for us instead of turn against us,” Boone added.
Stockstill, who helped New Life Church address a sex and drug scandal involving its pastor, Ted Haggard, in 2006, said the call to repentance begins first with pastors, whom he said are often failing to offer moral leadership in the nation. He said churchgoers, too, have drifted into carnality, prayerlessness and compromise.
“[Christians must] decry our own failures, our own sins, our own loss of influence to the nation and ask God to restore first pastors, then churches and then our nation into revival,” Stockstill said.
Another supporter, Bishop Harry Jackson of the High Impact Leadership Coalition comments:
“This is not an anti-Obama or anti-administration movement. Every president needs the power and wisdom of God in order to take our rightful position in the world and appropriately administer justice and represent not only the nation but the world in God’s name. … I am just expectant that we’re going to see something dramatic happen. Not through demonstration, not through political action … but the spiritual dimension, God awakening and quickening the hearts of our people, causing them to be revived by His grace.”
However, Jackson said religious liberty will be in jeopardy without a significant cultural shift. “We need to recognize that if we do not violently—in terms of spiritual violence, not physical violence—violently, aggressively seek God in these spiritual things, we are going to be the Christian community and oppressed people, discriminated against and put down by this culture,” he said. “But God has ordained that we turn this around. I believe we’re going to see America changed.”
Real change. Spiritual and moral change. That’s what we need in 2016.
Just thirteen days following the Call2Fall, hundreds of thousands of believers will converge on the Washington Mall for Together 2016: Re-set, another special day of prayer for revival in America.
The Call2Fall is the heart cry of primarily older leaders in the Church. Together 2016 is a vision of the younger generation to “re-set” our nation back to seeking and honoring God.
July 30, 2016 is also the 60th anniversary of our national motto: In God We Trust. There is a movement underway to saturate the nation with “window decals” as an expression of the American identity and our true hope for the future. You can get your window decals here.
America’s fourth great awakening is upon the heart of God. Let’s prepare ourselves. Let’s pray individually and in small groups. Let’s fall to our knees on July 3. Let’s converge on the nation’s capital on July 16.
Let’s not ask God to bless America. Let’s change our hearts and lives so that we can be a blessing to Him in reaching the world for Jesus Christ.
Transgenderism is a Cruel Lie
“So God created man in his own image. In the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
If I were the devil, I doubt I could think up a more insane or destructive hoax than the idea that human beings can choose the gender of their choice.
But that’s now the “lie of the year” in American education, and even becoming standard fare in grade school curriculums in places like Washington State.
You determine your gender, your identity. Not God. Not your created biology. You are the master of the universe and can be anything you want.
But here’s the truth: trangenderism is a cruel lie.
This all exploded when the current US administration sent a directive to the schools in America stating they needed to protect the rights of transgender students. Boys could use girl’s bathrooms and vice versa. Boys who “thought” they were girls could shower in the girl’s locker rooms.
The directive erupted into the national consciousness when the city of Charlotte spoke up against the guidelines while liberal CEO’s and entertainers threatened to boycott North Carolina over “transgender discrimination.”
Let’s dissect the rhetoric and listen to some voices of sanity–starting with the One who really understands.
God
Look at the Bible verse above once again. “God created them male and female.” To get the full context, read Genesis 1:23 through and end of chapter 2. This beautiful story of the origins of man centers around the Loving God creating two complimentary human beings, purposely designed to physically join together (marry) to enjoy, create and perpetuate life.
Maleness and femaleness are by design. They are as fixed as the earth is round and orbits the sun. No amount of fibbing to yourself that “you know better” can change the facts. Your identity begins with your creation and becomes complete when you are born again via God’s Spirit through salvation in Christ.
Yes, some women are strong women. Some men are sensitive men. But they’re still men and women, made in the image of God and find their true identify in Christ’s redeeming love.
Dr. Paul Mahugh
The distinguished service professor at John Hopkins University and former psychiatrist-in-chief at John Hopkins Hospital says that transgenderism and sex-reassignment surgery is a “mental illness” and that enabling it is tantamount to “collaborating with madness.”
“We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure and ultimately prevent it… After the early major research was concluded, we at Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Department eventually concluded that human sexual identity is mostly built into our constitution by the genes we inherit and the embryogenesis we undergo…We psychiatrists would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia.”
The Bible calls “fixing your mind” repentance and faith.
Walt Heyer
Listen to the sobering counsel of a man who once bought the transgender lie.
“As someone who underwent surgery from male to female and lived as a female for eight years before returning to live as a man, I know firsthand what it’s like to be a transgender person–and how misguided it is to think one can change gender through hormones and surgery.”
“What has arisen is a new breed emerging among young people that falls outside the purview of the LGBT: the gender nonconformists. Gender nonconformists, who constitute a miniscule fraction of society, want to be allowed to designate gender on a fluid basis, based on their feelings at the moment.”
“I call this group ‘gender defiant’ because they protest against the definition of fixed gender identities of male and female…The gender defiant group doesn’t want to conform, comply, or identify with traditional gender norms of male and female. They want to have gender fluidity, flowing freely from one gender to another, by the hour or day, as they feel like it.”
“Under the cover of the LGBT, the anti-gender faction and its supporters are using the North Carolina bathroom bill to light a fuse to blow up factual gender definitions. [President Obama] does not grasp the biological fact that genders are not fluid, but fixed: male and female.”
“One fact will remain, no matter how deep in the tank Obama goes for the gender nonconformists: gender cannot be changed. Biological gender remains fixed no matter how many cross-gender hormones are taken or cosmetic surgeries are performed. No law can change the genetic and biblical truth of God’s design.”
Roger Severino
The director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation wrote an article on the transgender bathroom debate in the Chicago schools. You can read it here.
He says, “Put concretely, boys now have the ‘right’ to undress in the girl’s locker room before gym class so long as they say they would feel more comfortable doing so. Kids and teens have many things to worry about as they grow up into adulthood and get an education. But having to deal with people of the opposite sex in their bathrooms and showers shouldn’t be one of them.”
Pat Robertson
I worked with the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the 700 Club some years ago. He has this issue right when he questions:
“Why does the Justice Department get involved? Why does the federal government come in with the mandates? I mean what in the world is this? It’s the constant driving of the agenda of anti-Christian bias. We’re going to destroy any semblance of the Christian morality that exists in our country, and our government is going to be at the forefront of it.”
Erick Erickson
Now one of my favorite pundits who puts his faith before politics:
“The left tells us that sex and gender are two different things. The law, in other words, refers to what one is born as, not what one through mental issues decides he is.”
“Make no mistake about this, the issue of transgenderism, which affects only three tenths of one percent of the nation, is just the cover for this new front in the culture war. Really, what is at stake here is reality itself. If the left can convince courts and the American people that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, they can convince you that right is wrong, wrong is right, up is down, down is up, and anything else they can get a judge to decide.”
Matt Barber
A constitutional lawyer and founder of Barbwire takes aim at President Obama and his education department:
“What we really need to worry about is the dignity and innocence and purity of young girls who are being placed in harm’s way by this lawless edict…This president knows that what he is doing is lawless. He knows that at best it is disingenuous; at worst, completely dishonest. Transgenders suffer from a mental disorder called ‘gender dysphoria’.”
“With this president, it makes you wonder about his own mental health. The fact that he is so delusional that he would push this through. He is either delusional, or it’s pure evil. I think it’s more sinister than just a president suffering from a mental illness and a delusion.”
Glenn T. Stanton
The director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family lectures on college campuses about issues of gender and sexuality. He begins his talks by saying:
“My primary premise is that humanity exists as male and female; they are different; and they need each other.” For this, he’s routinely greeted with boos, sarcastic laughter, even hissing.
But the actual research in anthropology shows that Gender Studies professors are wrong — as Stanton explained in an Family Research Council lecture called “The Scientific Objectivity and Universality of Gender Difference.”
“Cross-cultural research shows that certain male-female differences are universal to virtually every human society. It even shows that in more advanced countries — where, because of greater wealth, men and women have greater freedom to structure their lives as they choose — gender differences actually grow more pronounced than they are in more primitive societies. And despite politically correct scorn for the ‘gender binary,’ no third (or fourth, or fifth) sex has been discovered.”
Yours Truly
I was tempted to give this article a number of titles. One of the choices was “Forcing Atheism on the Public Schools.” Sexual confusion, including transgenderism, is the sexual creed of the religion of atheism.
Another possible title was, “Time to Flee the Public Schools.” With the American federal government turning atheistic (liberal, secular, leftist, progressive are all pseudonyms), it’s time for followers of Christ to flee the system that wants to destroy your kids’ faith, sexuality and worldview.
The transgender bathroom issue is really a battle of worldviews. The forces of atheism, inspired by Satan, are desperately trying to destroy the image of Christ and his ways in the Western World–especially through education and government edicts. This deception is cruel because identity and sexuality are crucial to happiness in this life and hope in the next. They are central to your God-given destiny.
What should we do about it?
Know and fight for the truth. Lovingly share your faith with those who are wavering. Remove your children from the public schools. Rejoice that you are fearfully and wonderfully made as a man or woman–in Christ.
And speak out against the cruel lie of transgenderism.
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