Crisis in Egypt: The Prayerful View
Things are unraveling in Egypt. There are protests and riots across the country. 100 plus people are dead, 2,000 are injured, the Cabinet has resigned and the airport is packed with people trying to get out. The army has been restrained so far, and ultimately may be the deciding factor in the outcome.
Today, hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets demanding a change in government.
So how should we view this brewing tempest? What is our best lens for understanding what is happening in Egypt and the Middle East?
There are many perspectives you can take on world events. You can see them through humanitarian or compassionate eyes–the suffering people, the problems, the injustices. You can also look at them through political eyes–which parties are involved and who might be noteworthy of praise or blame. Or you can analyze current events through an historical lens.
I believe the most important way to look at history unfolding is through the eyes of prayer–which elevates us to a higher viewpoint. As we pray for world events, and seek his face about what is happening and what we can do, God can give us insights into what is really taking place on the ground.
Intercessors often have the best vantage point.
They’re closest to the One who knows.
One of our YWAM leaders, Mark Anderson is in the Middle East (Malta) this week leading a regional missions conference named the Call2All. Here is his call to prayer as the drama unfolded:
“Today is also the beginning of our Middle East Congress here in Malta. Many of our attendees are stranded in Egypt and can’t get out, while others are stuck here in Malta and unable to get back to their families. Thieves and looters are using these protests as an opportunity to act out in violence and to destroy businesses. Military troops are out patrolling the streets in an attempt to keep the peace.”
“We must all pray. Many of you have ministries that you can call on to intercede at this very important time. What happens in Egypt will dramatically affect the whole Middle East. Please pray for everyone involved in our congress to have God’s wisdom and for their families to be secure. Let’s ask God to supernaturally intervene in such a way that large numbers of Egyptians will put their trust in Him. May Jesus be revealed in the midst of this situation!”
Before we explore the “prayer view” of the Egyptian conflict, it might be helpful to look through the other lenses that can enlighten us. First, the political angle that has a number of key players.
Hosni Mubarak
As far as tyrants go, Mubarak is not the worst of the worst–but a dictator is a dictator.
Egypt has been governed for centuries by numerous strong-armed leaders. In ancient days they were called Pharoahs. Today they’re called “presidents for life”–and there really isn’t much difference except the absence of slavery.
Hosni Mubarak, dubbed ‘the Pharaoh’ for his 30-year iron rule, is said to have amassed a fortune of forty billion dollars for his family at the expense of the Egyptian people. He is eighty-two years old, and his half-Welsh wife Suzanne and sons Gamal and Alaa are seen in Egypt as symbols of nepotism and corruption with properties and business interests worldwide, including London. Mubarak is a secular Muslim who’s ruled the nation for three decades.
Critics say the closest their sons have got to ordinary Egyptians was when they were driven past them in limousines. Both sons have been linked to arms-dealing.
Mubarak has survived at least six assassination attempts and fears have also been growing that he plans to groom the more political Gamal to inherit the throne.
This is one reason why the people are rioting. They’re tired of corruption and strong-armed control. I believe there is a genuine desire for liberty and change.
The Muslim Brotherhood
While analysts ask who or what is behind the sustained protests in Egypt, one group is now seeking political legitimacy. Technically banned under Egypt’s constitution that forbids religious based parties, the Muslim Brotherhood is now throwing its support behind Mohammed el Baradei as an opposition leader.
But many fear that if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak goes, the real replacement will be either the Muslim Brotherhood itself, or an Islamic fundamentalist group. El Baradei insisted on Sunday talk shows that the fear was unwarranted.
“This is total bogus that the Muslim Brotherhood are religiously conservative,” El Baradei told ABC’s “This Week.” “They are no way extremists. They are no way using violence.”
But critics point out that the Brotherhood, which was established in Egypt in the 1920’s, is synonymous with political Islam which supports the use of Islamic law known as Sharia.
“Right now the Arab Republic of Egypt does not impose Islamic law in its fullness,” Rob Spencer, the head of Jihad Watch told FOX News. “The Muslim Brotherhood wants to change that.”
Among the brotherhood’s graduates: Al Qaeda’s number two leader, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri who was imprisoned for three years on weapons charges following President Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981, Hamas, the terror network behind suicide bombings and rocket attacks in Israel, and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, whose goal is the destruction of Israel.
Walid Phares, who is a terrorism analyst for FOX News, has studied the Muslim Brotherhood. Phares says its history shows that the group is not secular and not moderate.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is the mothership for the jihadi ideologies and thinking. And therefore one can say today’s Al Qaeda, and today many other jihadists, are off shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is the key religious/political entity that could exploit the crisis in Egypt.
But another political entity is also involved.
The Obama Administration
America has a major role to play in he stability of the Middle East. We are the ones who protect the survival of Israel, and much of that protection has been hinged to peace accords we brokered between Egypt and Israel.
Barack Obama and the current US administration on now on the hot seat to guard the peace. Redstate.com describes Obama’s role this way:
“Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as ‘the president who lost Iran,’ which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who “lost” Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America’s alliances in the Middle East crumbled.”
“The superficial circumstances are similar. In both cases, a United States in financial crisis and after failed wars loses global influence under a leftist president whose good intentions are interpreted abroad as expressions of weakness. The results are reflected in the fall of regimes that were dependent on their relationship with Washington for survival, or in a change in their orientation, as with Ankara.”
“America’s general weakness clearly affects its friends. But unlike Carter, who preached human rights even when it hurt allies, Obama sat on the fence and exercised caution. He neither embraced despised leaders nor evangelized for political freedom, for fear of undermining stability.”
The Heritage also believes that current administration policies are contributing to the instability of the Middle East. Here is their perspective:
“The Obama Administration has been slow to embrace calls for liberty in Egypt is completely consistent with the Obama Doctrine as applied in the Middle East. When the Iranian people rose against the regime in Tehran in the wake of a disputed national election, Obama offered virtually no support for the cries for freedom. He was too committed to his engagement strategy with the Iranian regime, believing his “charm offensive” would be enough to deter them from pursuing nuclear weapons.”
“Those efforts have completely failed. Nevertheless, the ‘playing nice initiative’ with Tehran fell flat. Today, the regime is more aggressive than ever—backing a terrorist takeover of the government in Lebanon, snubbing Western nuclear negotiators, and promoting an Islamist agenda across the region.”
“As Elliott Abrams, who coordinated the Bush Administration’s Middle East policy at the National Security Council, wrote in The Washington Post: ‘This has been the greatest failure of policy and imagination in the administration’s approach: Looking at the world map, it sees states and their rulers, but has forgotten the millions of people suffering under and beginning to rebel against those rulers. “Engagement” has not been the problem, but rather the administration’s insistence on engaging with regimes rather than with the people trying to survive under them.’
Barack Obama, for good or for ill, may be the ultimate player in Egypt’s immediate future.
But now back to prayer–with a little historical perspective.
I have been reading through the entire Bible once each year for the past thirty-nine years. Interestingly, my daily readings this week found me in Exodus where the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt, God raise up a reluctant Moses as a deliverer, the Egyptian gods were humiliated by the true God, and many people feared the Lord because of his loving redemption.
My reading made today’s news seem quite relevant. Egyptian strongman. People desire liberty (“Let my people Go!”) Chaos in the nation. A battle between evil forces and good. In the end, the people of God are set free.
Circumstances are very different today–but I see some parallels. The battle for the Middle East is really a titanic struggle between the forces of Satan and God’s desires for salvation. There are actually a number of possible outcomes to this political, yet spiritual battle:
- The people’s revolt produces a moderate secular democracy that leads to freedom and greater opportunities in Egypt and other Muslim nations.
- The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies use the circumstances for a radical jihadist take-over that makes Egypt more resemble Iran.
- The “consent of the governed” leads to greater freedom in Egypt and the ascendancy and leadership of the Coptic Church which makes up a sizable minority in the nation (20%). Egypt becomes a secular/Christian democracy that is a light to other Muslim societies. They too can be set free.
God is doing an amazing work in many Muslim nations today. They appear ready to cast off their religious chains and yearn for a freedom that can only be found in Christ (or Christian principles of government).
History walks a fine tightrope. Egypt could lunge into tyranny, or Egypt could rise to greatness. Will it be increasing freedom–via the Spirit of Christ–or increased tyranny through anarchy or jihadists?
Our prayers may determine history on this one.
Pray for Egypt–that God would work his wonders, destroy the false gods, and “let his people go” into the new-found freedom of faith in the Savior of the entire world.
Repealing Obamacare
A few days ago, the newly elected U.S. House of Representatives honored the will of the people by voting to repeal Obamacare. I am grateful for their courage and thank them for sticking to their convictions and the wishes of the American electorate.
Obamacare was arguably the worst piece of major legislation ever passed in the United States. It was a corrupt, brazen take-over of nearly one-sixth of the American economy, a job killer, a massive deficit creator, and just plain stupid.
Kudos to the House for “change we can believe in.”
Now the battle will go on in the Senate and be one of the pivotal issues of the 2012 election.
The following article by Redstate.com is the best summary I’ve seen on the importance of ending Obamacare and what we need to do make our health care system the best in the world.
It boils down to this…..RB
Repeal Obamacare. Them Let’s Do Something Really Radical…Try Freedom
Government is (and always has been) the problem, not the solution.
Redstate – 12-17-10
ObamaCare. No, it’s not dead. Not even close. Yet…there is some hope on the horizon that the foray into enslaving America in a government-dictated insurance scheme may yet be repealed, outlawed, or just thrown into the ash heap of really, really bad ideas.
The reason for this post is very simple: First, we need to recognize that government is the problem with America’s health care costs, not the solution. Second, we need to start coming up with some fresh and bold ideas in the eventuality that we can slay the beast of government-run healthcare once and for all. Even if ObamaCare is repealed in House, unless there are 67 senators who can be dragged away from the altar of closed-market health care to override a presidential veto, 2013 is the earliest ObamaCare can be aborted—but then what?
As a small business owner who just got hit with a $3600 insurance premium hike for 2011 and who will be paying (at a minimum) $177,500 over the next ten years just for the “privilege” of having one family covered with insurance, you can be assured that my points are more than mere rhetorical ones. If I had my druthers, I would have a catastrophic-only plan that covers emergencies and life-threatening illnesses, and pay the rest out of pocket. I’d probably save well over $125,000 in the next ten years with a plan like that—if one existed.
The problem is, a plan like that doesn’t exist…can’t exist. Why? The government bureaucrats won’t allow it. In our state, there are, by law (or regulation), only three types of insurance, provided by three insurers. It is a closed market scheme. In addition, let’s just say (for the sake of discussion) that a plan like that did exist in the next state over and I wanted to purchase it. I couldn’t do that either—because the government bureaucrats have created an artificial wall that won’t allow insurance to be bought across state lines. You see, in this simple and real small-business example, already government is the problem—and we’re paying the price.
Last year, when Nancy Pelosi went on her lunatic rant about insurance carriers being “immoral”, it was the epitome of hypocrisy—sort of like the Devil calling demons evil for doing what their master taught them to do. (Too harsh?…What is it then, if not evil, for those who purposely unleash a disease to also claim to be the cure?) People who claim that insurance companies have monopolies don’t realize that it is Congress that created the monopolies to begin with. That is why Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, and the rest of their kind, have been so disingenuous in shoving ObamaCare up America’s rectum.
Like a healthy person going for a checkup, and going home with herpes, America has been gamed, lied to, and tricked into believing that health care is incompatible with a free market—lied to by the very people who claim to have the cure. Democrats and their union coaches have become nothing more (or better) than snake oil salesmen.
Yes, the cost of health care has risen exponentially for years. Health care costs have destroyed incomes, cost American jobs, caused strikes, and bankrupted companies. But it’s not due to a lack of government, it’s because of too much government. It hasn’t been the fault of the free market, as the socialist union bosses and the Marxist Democrats claim, it has been because it has not been a free market. If America wants to blame anyone, we should blame those who have been controlling and gaming the system—the bureaucrats and their union bosses—who now claim that more bureaucracy is the cure.
So, before we continue talking about “how government should fix health care,” perhaps it’s time we recognize how government caused it to be broken in the first place. Let’s begin looking at the true reason why the cost structure has been so blown out of alignment. And, then, perhaps more will understand why we need to tell government to get out of the way—now!
Last year, as the heated rhetoric of the health care debate was raging all across America, John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that provided some market-based alternatives to the monstrous big-government scheme that has become ObamaCare. While Mackey’s piece was brief, the Left’s reaction to it was extreme.
Immediately, the attack dogs from the unions launched a nationwide boycott of Whole Foods, Mackey was attacked personally, and the Left screamed hysterically. To see the Left’s ridiculous reaction indicated that they felt threatened by Mackey’s ideas—which meant they were probably pretty good ideas. While you can read the entire Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare here–and it is worth reading in its entirety, below is the main thrust of Mackey’s ideas:
Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
While there are likely other ideas that are out there, Mackey’s ideas serve as a good starting point for debate and discussion as to what we will “replace” ObamaCare with, if we can ever get to that point. However, if we are not serious about coming up with solutions that truly reflect a market-based system, as opposed to a government run bureaucracy, there is no point in trying to repeal ObamaCare. If politicians on the Right think they can replace big bureaucracy with little bureaucracy, it will fix nothing, we’ll be right back where we were two years ago, and we’re wasting our time.
In healthcare, as in all other areas of life, we can either choose freedom and a free market, or we can choose to be our brother’s’ keeper—and he our keeper—but you can’t have both. Freedom is incompatible with a government bureaucracy making life and death decisions. And, in healthcare, we can’t just be against ObamaCare, and not be for something to replace it.
The question is, can we take the steps to beat the bureaucrats back? And, if so, then what?
We Must Not Give Up the Fight for Life
It’s easy to be discouraged over the fight against abortion in America. Since our nation made it legal on January 22, 1973, some fifty million Americans have died on the altar of sexual liberation.
That’s a horrific number–and after a decade of a declining abortion rate, the most recent statistics show that the trend is ticking up. We are cruelly killing, in the name of choice, 1.2 million of the most vulnerable among us.
Many of you–like our family–have prayed, participated in marches for life, or gotten involved in crisis counseling and adoption ministries. Yet, after almost forty years, we have very little to show for it. I feel like those who fought against the evil of slavery for many decades, and didn’t see a change.
But then something happened in the 1860s, and the slaves were set free.
In 2011, is there hope on the horizon for ending the abortion holocaust?
When I was in our nation’s capital a week ago, I met with some leaders that are on the forefront of the abortion fight. One of them participated in 24/7 prayer near the Supreme Court for months leading up to the 2008 election. They, like me, were believing that a John McCain election could possibly tip the balance of our highest court in the direction of reversing Roe. vs. Wade.
They were agonizingly disappointed when Barack Obama was elected president. He brought into office the most blatantly pro-abortion Administration that the United States has ever seen.
The prayer warriors were dejected.
Had God not heard their prayers?
It’s easy for all of us to be dejected–especially if you live on the Left Coast (west coast). California is the number one abortion-friendly state in the nation and Washington is number two. Oregon clocks in at number six and Hawaii is number four. It’s very sobering to look at the chart of where states rank in their support of abortion. I encourage you to open this page, find your state, and use it in your prayers. On the chart, “A” is bad (pro-abortion) and “F” is good (pro-life).
But on to the good news.
Then a year went by and an interesting poll came out. At the end of 2009, the national consensus on abortion had changed seven percentage points–across all demographic lines. For the first time in history, more than fifty percent of Americans believed that abortion was morally wrong.
Their prayers had not been in vain. They hadn’t influenced the election, but God had used them to change the hearts of millions of Americans.
My pro-life friends now tell me that victory in the abortion holocaust could be on the horizon. More people are praying than ever before. The tide has changed on the issue. Most Americans now see that we must go back to a culture of life in this nation.
That’s why I marched in Olympia, Washington this morning in our state’s pro-life event. There were nearly 10,000 people. It’s also why hundreds of thousands will march this week in Washington, D.C. as well–as I did with my family back in the 1980s. Just like the anti-slavery movements of the 19th century, we must have the determination and faith to never quit fighting for truth and the unborn.
I don’t know if it will take another Civil War to get this issue right (as it did slavery), but if it does, it will be worth it. On the other hand, because American opinions are changing, it might only take one more election and then one more appointment of a Supreme Court justice.
That’s how close we are to victory.
My dedicated friends believe that by 2013, that victory could be achieved.
We must not give up the fight for life.
This year a new book on the evil of abortion called Unplanned will hit the book shelves of America. It’s written by former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson and explains her conversion from pro-choice activist to pro-life advocate as she watched an abortion being performed live on an ultrasound.
Here’s the chilling scene in the book that changed Abby’s life. It’s one of the most powerful statements for life that I have ever read:
“At first, the baby didn’t seem aware of the cannula (the suction tube that will eventually rip the bay to pieces). It gently probed the baby’s side, and for a quick second I felt relief. Of course, I thought. The fetus doesn’t feel pain. I had reassured countless women of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.”
“The next movement was the sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed its side, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling. And then the doctor’s voice broke through, startling me.”
“’Beam me up, Scotty,’ he said lightheartedly to the nurse. He was telling her to turn on the suction — in an abortion the suction isn’t turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place.”
“I had a sudden urge to yell, “Stop!” To shake the woman and say, ‘Look at what is happening to your baby! Wake up! Hurry! Stop them!'”
“But even as I thought those words, I looked at my own hand holding the probe. I was one of “them” performing this act. My eyes shot back to the screen again. The cannula was already being rotated by the doctor, and now I could see the tiny body violently twisting with it. For the briefest moment the baby looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone. And the uterus was empty. Totally empty.”
One book reviewer made these observations about the liiterary power of Unplanned:
“If you are able, I encourage you to read the whole thing. I have to confess to you that I almost was not. The horror that Johnson describes is almost unfathomable, accentuated by the cruelty and insensitivity of the conscienceless monsters cracking jokes as they watched the death of a tiny human unfold live before them.”
“Perversely, the most shocking aspect of this particular story is its mundanity. It occurs every single day in the United States, over three thousand times a day, and has for almost four decades. The only thing that sets this particular abortion apart is that a person possessed of a conscience and some measure of writing skill happened to be present and witness it on ultrasound. Every day, including today, probably several dozen times during the course of the time it takes you to read this article, this horror is repeated in America and no one is present who cares to chronicle it in a book about the way it changed their life. Tens of millions of times since 1973 this has occurred in this country under the color and protection of law.”
“The only way to ensure justice in a society is for the law to recognize that all humans are humans, and therefore entitled to equal protection under the law. Whenever the law takes the position that certain humans (be it slaves or those physically located within a womb) are not in fact humans at all, it is certain that moral outrages will follow, and that other moral outrages will be perpetrated to protect the unjust status quo, and that sooner or later, the conscience of America, however long dormant, will collide with those moral outrages.”
“It is at these times we remember why it is that we participate in this fight even though it wears on us from day to day; why it is that we continue to watch news shows that infuriate us, donate money to candidates that would otherwise be put towards our own retirements, and take time away from our families to pound the pavements, man the phone banks, and get out the word. This is why we ”fight,” if it is still permissible to use such terms to describe battles fought with the ballot box. And it is also why we reject the empty calls for “truce” and silence from those who have hardened their heart to the ugliness, for we know that there can be no truce with unrepentant evil – there can only be victory or defeat. And for the sake of the country we love, we refuse to accept defeat.”
To these words of courage and outrage, I heartily say AMEN.
Please pray that Abby Johnson’s Unplanned will convince more Americans to alter their view on abortion. Pray that mothers and fathers who killed their own children will become broken and repentant; Pray that the churches of America will not become complacent or silent about the number one moral issue of the 20th and 21st centuries.
I believe that victory is at hand in the abortion battle.
We must not give up the fight for life.