Heaven Bound

   President Barack Hussein Obama

“The Lord, has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure your show yourself pure, but, to the *crooked you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble, but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.”  Psalm 18:24-27

 * crooked as defined in the hebrew greek lexicon as perverse, deceitful, false, a man of fraudulent speech – http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H6141&t=KJV

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On April 9, President Obama addressed the nation from the Rose Garden offering his condolences to the families and friends of the miners who lost their lives in the West Virginia mining accident.  President Obama began his remarks stating that he wished to say a few words about the tragedy in West Virginia, but, then chose to precede those remarks with news of the retirement of Chief Justice John Paul Stevens.  It seemed a bit odd to me, that someone who wished to publicly express condolences which would mean so much, to so many, would preface those remarks with the rather mundane subject of a retirement.  Then, when the President finally gets around to expressing his condolences, he does so with little change in tone of voice or facial expression from his previous remarks, and, also, cannot resist the opportunity to boast about his days in the Senate and what he had done to improve mine safety.   

When he had completed his condolences, he quoted from Psalm 18:28.  “You O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” 

 What you may not know, though, unless you looked it up, like I did, are the verses which precede it.  The verses which I quoted above.  Verses which I believe though not spoken by the President, were subtly indicated by the events which happened in and around the President as he spoke.  If you have seen the video of the President’s speech, you know what I am talking about, if not, take a look at it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrAki0RThfE

As you look at the video, at about the 5:52 marker, you will hear the latch to the door behind President Obama click open and apparently swing open of its own accord.  This happens just about the time President Obama finishes telling the story of the young miner who had left a note for his baby daughter in case he was killed in the mine and taken to heaven.   Then, as he continues to speak, he mentions praying for the souls of those whose lives had been lost, but, just as he is about to mention the word pray, the door suddenly slams shut.  President Obama flinches ever so slightly at the slamming of the door and continues speaking until he finally ends what he is saying by quoting from Psalm 18:26.  Strangely though as he is quoting from the Psalm, a cloud passes over head momentarily shadowing the porch on which he is standing in darkness just as he is speaking of darkness, and then returning it to light, when he says light.

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I first saw the video at New Wineskins when I returned home from Bible Study late Monday night.  It was about 9:30 p.m. and I hadn’t read Ultra Guy’s latest post and wanted to do so before I went to bed.  After watching the video, I thought, wow!  It was really incredible and I made a mental note to remember to tell my daughter about it the next morning.  So the next morning, while I was driving to work, (hands-free, of course!) I called her for our usual “before I start” work chat and told her about the video.  Amazingly, by the time I had finished, she was just bursting to tell me about the dream she had the previous night which was very similar to what I had just related to her, a dream she said, which woke her up at about 12:30 a.m. (West Coast time) which would have been about 9:30 p.m. my time.  This is what she said –

  She told me that in her dream, she was standing on a porch to a house.  And while she was standing there, she heard a door behind her unlatch, followed moments later by a loud slam.  Curious as to what it was, she said, she went into the house to investigate and when she did, she saw a door on the floor which went into a cellar.  Somehow, she said she knew, it was the entrance to a very evil place and something equally evil had just come out from or went into that door.

 Wow!  The similarities of her dream to what I had just told her were incredible!  Now, I know that dreams are a bit nebulous at best. But, my daughter and I have a history of God confirming things between the two of us. So, I took what she was saying with more than a grain of salt. What she thinks her dream meant, and I agree, was that God was confirming my original impression of the video, that the incidents involved were not coincidence, but, in fact, have spiritual implication.  And, when I looked up the verses which precede the Psalm quoted by President Obama, I’m almost certain of it.

I also wondered what Chief Justice John Paul Stevens might have to do with this, (if anything) and I did find out that he was involved in striking down the ten commandments from the Texas State Capitol – (or attempting to) –

Stevens wrote a dissent in Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005), which was joined by Justice Ginsburg; he argued that the ten commandments displayed in the Texas Capitol grounds transmitted the message: “This State endorses the divine code of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ God.” The Establishment Clause, he wrote, “at the very least […] has created a strong presumption against the display of religious symbols on public property”, and that it “demands religious neutrality — Government may not exercise preference for one religious faith over another.” This includes a prohibition against enacting laws or imposing requirements that aid all religions as against unbelievers, or aid religions that are based on a belief in the existence of God against those founded on different principles.

 I guess what I see in this, is that our God is in control!  The arrogant one speaks, but, God speaks louder!  As it says in Psalm 18:26  “to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.”  Obama thinks he holds center stage, but, our God says otherwise. 

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they will prosper who love thee!  Psalm 122:6.  Waiting and watching with YOU for the soon return of Jesus!  Cindy