[Vision2020] [Bulk] Re: Fantasy vs. Reality Fourth Installment

[heirdoug at netscape.net]

Imprecatory Prayer: The Intercessor’s Elephant Gun
By Doug Giles

Saturday, July 3, 2004

I hate to ruin your light summer beach reading, but America and much of 
the world are still in deep yogurt when it comes to the war on terror. 
As much as post-moderns want everyone to sing ‘We are the World’ in 
some all-religion-encompassing global hand-hold and just move on, I’m 
afraid radical Islam is not going to be a part of pomo’s desired 
altruistic music video.

Radical Islam is incorrigible, period. So? face it and embrace it. We 
are not going to convert or appease these cats. We have nothing they 
want. There is nothing to negotiate. They want us exterminated. Capisce?

That said, what do we, Christians in particular, do when faced with an 
implacable radical enemy? Just sit around sing ‘Kum Ba Yah’ and hope 
these bad guys will leave us alone? That’s what a lot of five-watt 
light bulb, spiritually neutered believers are doing. Just sittin’ 
around’ hopin’ and wishin’ or worse yet, ignoring the viable millennial 
threat of militant Islam. I, for one, will not take a passive stance 
against this aggressive enemy. You cannot be lame and win this game 
with these guys. So, as a Christian, I suggest the following?

One: Back President Bush and his aggressive armed attitude against 
terrorists and terror supporting nations. Make that the main focal 
point for your vote during the next election. Picture this when you 
step into the voting booth this November: some fluctuating, 
:wait-on-the-U.N.’ type of guy in the Oval Office while one of Osama’s 
droogies is arming a nuclear suitcase in your back yard. Take that 
image with you to the polls.

Two: Push for cinching our borders tighter than a fat guy's belt after 
an ‘All-You-Can-Eat’ beef rib blow out at Tony Roma’s.

Three: Aggressively support the rooting out of the multitudinous 
terrorist cells that are concocting their villainous crap in our very 
own cul de sacs.

Four: Make it ridiculously impossible for a pro-radical Islamic 
professor to pee in one of our university’s bathrooms, much less teach 
in one of our classrooms. And finally, most importantly,

Five: As people of faith, dust off and use what’s afforded to the 
believer within the Old and New Testaments, namely the imprecatory 
prayers.

What is an imprecatory prayer?

It is a prayer asking God to crush a clear enemy of His, an enemy which 
is an aggressive adversary of freedom and peace loving people. Yes, Mr. 
and Mrs. Precious Moments Figurine Collector, the Bible is filled with 
maledictions prayed by saints and speedily answered by God against 
violently impenitent enemies of liberty and righteousness. Here are a 
couple examples:

‘Break the teeth in their mouths, O God; tear out, O Lord, the fangs of 
the lions! Let them vanish like water that flows away; when they draw 
the bow, let their arrows be blunted. Like a slug melting away as it 
moves along, like a still born child, may they not see the sun’ The 
righteous will be glad when they bathe their feet in the blood of the 
wicked.’ Psalm 58.6-10.

‘Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. May 
their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents. 
For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you 
hurt. Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your 
salvation. May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be 
listed with the righteous.’ Psalm 69.24-28.

Given the soft-focused, effeminate condition of evangelicalism, I’ll 
bet the great majority of Christians have never even heard of an 
imprecatory prayer, much less prayed one. More than likely, the above 
God-inspired texts aren’t on their refrigerator scripture magnets 
either. I’ll go a step further and venture to guess that the majority 
of evangelical and Catholic clergy don’t even know what an imprecatory 
prayer is and have probably never taught on them or prayed them from 
the pulpit (Please investigate and report back to me.)

If my assumption regarding your typical congregation and clergy is 
true, then this is sad, unbiblical and a prime reason why militant 
Islam continues to march on. We are not using the spiritual big guns of 
imprecatory prayer against the beast of militant Islam.

My ClashPoint is this: Most religious people are familiar with Christ 
telling us to ‘bless our enemies’ in prayer and to ‘love our enemies.’ 
We should do both. But seldom to never do we hear about ‘the other’ 
prayers for our enemies, prayers to be prayed when our enemies become 
gun-, bomb- and airplane- wielding idiots. Yes, there comes a time when 
the intercessors’ gloves must come off and enough is enough and we pray 
the ‘not so nice prayers.’ It's simple: when our enemies move from 
being foes who have personally wronged us, or have made fun of our bad 
comb-over, or have flamed us in a TBN chat room, to becoming jihadic 
death jockeys wanting to eradicate our memory from the earth, then it 
is time to stop praying the ‘Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep’ stuff and 
start asking God to thwart and stamp out these bug eyed terrorists who 
want to hijack the planet and make it conform to their jacked up view 
of ‘life.’

So’ start tossing imprecatory prayers heavenward and watch what God 
does to militant implacable Islam. The celestial spanking of terrorists 
is no big deal for God. And our prayers could save thousands of our 
soldiers’ lives, our citizens’ lives and the lives of innocent, 
moderate Muslims and others who get caught in the freak boys’ 
villainous crossfire.

Let us pray.

* Author's note: Of the 150 psalms contained in the Bible’s prayer 
book, i.e., the Psalms, 104 are imprecations. Hello! Also, these psalms 
are to be sung and read, unedited, during the worship service 
(Ephesians 5.19). For an irrefutable book on this hot topic, check out 
James Adams’s work War Psalms of the Prince of Peace. In the mean time, 
here’s a short list of imprecatory psalms: Psalm 5, 7, 9, 10, 17, 25, 
28, 31, 35, 40, 41, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 63, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 79, 83, 
94, 104, and 109.

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