REAL TORTURE AND TORMENT

This week, the Obama administration released the details of the torture techniques used during the Bush years. To any WW2 vet tortured in Japan, or later vets in North Korea or Hanoi, they might emit a story of what "real" torture is. To those who were deprived of food and medical attention, severely beaten and not given medical attention, to those who had electrical wires attached to their genitals, medically supervised water boarding or sleep deprivation to a handful of the most hardened terrorists must seem like tame fare. For a wake-up call, read Richard Wurmbrand's book, "Tortured for Christ". Now THAT is torture. Or try the Christians in Eritrea who are placed in metal shipping containers to try to get them to recant or the formerly Muslim children who accept Christ and have unspeakable things done to them. Perhaps consider Thai children sold into prostitution to be abused by Japanese, European, or American men. Or simply read Isaiah 51:23, "I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, who said to you, 'Fall prostrate that we may walk over you.' And you made your back like the ground, like a street to be walked over.'"

Oddly enough, fully 50% of the intelligence we have on Al Qaeda came from those interrogations, and no further major terrorist attacks have happened on American soil. To stop using those techniques is any administration's prerogative, but telling your enemies what you won't do as well as giving them the blueprint for what proved to be effective techniques to use on captured people that they could try on captured Americans is the sign of a rank amateur with zero understanding of terrorism, which Obama has confirmed many times in his first 100 days. He is an ideologue with no moral compass except himself.

For all the outrage on water boarding (and did you know that 3 Al Qaeda terrorists were waterboarded while 10,000 American soldiers were to prepare THEM for possibly being a POW), the REAL attitude about torture in this administration is chilling. One of Obama's first acts was to put his considerable weight behind the torture of innocent, preborn infants. He has repeated supported not only death, but also the smashing of the skull of a baby and the gory details, which are truly unspeakable violence. Homosexuality itself between men is an inherently violent act, an assault on the human body. As you read this, Obama is in Trinidad and Tobago glad-handing hard left leaders like himself with no compunction about torture - Chavez and Castro. He is more at home with them than with loyal Americans who simply speak their mind. Obama has called for a domestic security force larger than the military that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany's youth movement. There are also concentration camps erected in this country from before his administration but which now seem more ominous with each passing day. Can't you just see the need to put these "right wing extremists" in these camps for their own good, with editorial ascent in the NY Times, the Washington Post, and on CNN?

The Bible describes the torment that Lot felt in Sodom with all the wickedness around him, and Christians are tormented by the open evil all around them that is now OFFICIALLY government policy - homosexual perversion is exalted and all those who oppose are now EXTREMISTS. Those opposing the horrible torture and murder of abortion are now EXTREMISTS. Those opposed to a wholesale destruction of the economy with unsustainable spending (the fact it is hugely wasteful makes it even worse), are now EXTREMISTS. Those wanting their constitutional right to bear arms, which is in the Constitution to help prevent an oppressive government from remaining in power, are now EXTREMISTS. The Patriots of the American Revolution were all EXTREMISTS, I suppose. No armed citizenry has ever lost their freedom. The plan of hard leftists such as Obama is to DISARM the citizenry so in later phases of their plan they have no opposition. This is the long executed plan elsewhere, and the media conveniently ignores the fact that Obama TAUGHT Saul Alinski's "Rules for Radicals" on how to take over. His campaign mirrored that book (Mark Levin did a masterful job precept upon precept). Now THAT is what extremism is truly all about.

His crony Janet Napolitano issued her hatchet job to seek to marginalize the moral people of principle whom he really wishes to ultimately destroy. Does anyone really doubt Obama's true intent? He sat under leftists Jeremiah Wright for two decades and has been close friends with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayres and others. Wright and Ayes had the same middle name - "Hate". Obama disparaged the economy at every opportunity, resulting in catastrophic results. He now disparages his own country at every opportunity while giving the true tyrants a free ride. His radical policies when enacted would easily result in the total collapse of the economy - which is what the game plan WANTS and NEEDS! American HAS to fail for his plans to succeed! It is no big mystery!

Why can't people connect the dots? It is all right there in front of them. Obama refuses to produce one shred of proof he is even qualified to be President by hiding his birth certificate. That means that the Constitution is no longer the ruling document. He was a very corrupt Chicago politician. He supports the corrupt ACORN. He supports corrupt Unions. He supports corrupt foreign leaders. He treats Israel with hostility and her enemies with compassion - all part of the upside down world of the modern secularist. Obama pressed the limits by voting for infanticide more than once. He is more Arab than Black, holding more of their harsh values than the conservative social morality of Black Americans, and yet seeks to play the race card when convenient. He says he is a Christian when everything he has done to date is the OPPOSITE of everything Godly there is. He seems far more at ease in the Muslim community than the Christian community, and is trying to get a lot more Muslims into the government while making every effort to ensure that no true Christian has any political power. He is mindlessly reversing everything George Bush did as a reflex action, not through thoughtful deliberation. He never ran any business, yet he wants to run and control every aspect of everyone's life. It is like a college kid being put in charge of a big corporation without any real-world experience. Only this time, he has surrounded himself with the same kinds of people who are hopelessly inept and impractical as well as similarly corrupt. (Why is it that those wanting to tax everyone else rarely pay their own taxes?)

Back to torture and torment. Is it always wrong? No! Read the Bible. A time is coming when all those who reject the Lordship of Jesus Christ will be tormented in hell forever. God's penalty for unrepentant terrorists is not to give them a lawyer. It is to cast them into a lake of burning fire. In fact, the penalty is the same for murderers, rapists, and greedy people - sinners of all types. I wonder what sinners will say when they enter God's torture chamber?

Romans 13 teaches us that the government does not bear the sword in vain. They are God's ministers. What our government did is well within Biblical parameters. Death was Biblically justified for all of them. The job of the President is to protect the citizens of his country. We are decidedly less safe now than we were last week because of this blunder, and our soldiers are likewise less safe.

Torture has never really been repudiated. The thing is, people tortured Christ. They still try. The same people who call us extreme in the media and the movies blaspheme God at every single opportunity. They secretly relish it when radical Muslims torture Christians. My friends, there is a spirit of hate that has been loosed against the church and against all decent people who maintain any moral principles derived from the Bible. It is coming from the very top. The tragedy is that without Christian support, this regime would never have been elected and could not be doing the things it is now. Many Christians are totally ill informed and form their opinions based upon information given by people who pummel Christians and Christianity day after day. Why should they be the slightest trusted? The Bible prophesies that people will turn against their own families, and in fact will turn in fellow Christians. Jesus said in Matthew 24:10, "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other." I have been disheartened by the Christians who uncritically accept everything Obama says and does and who ATTACK believers who are sticking with the truth. This passage applies not only to the fall of Jerusalem, but has unfortunately happened since and will continue to happen. If we wish to end this nightmare, we must stand united against the expanded slaughter of the preborn, against perversion of all kinds, against injustice, against calling good evil and evil good, and against a departure from everything right and decent.

Obama said we are no longer a Christian country - he is right in that we don't act like it, but he is very wrong in that the legal foundations of our country are Christian. He has made himself a god, because he views his opinions as superior to God’s, and has placed his own ideas above God’s. Not a plan. To the extent we depart from God as a country will be the extent we are tortured. The flames will be hotter for Americans because to whom much is given, much is required. Won't you pray and preach and work to assure that the least possible number of people is tortured in hell forever? And while you are at it, pray for us as the church to survive the torment of living among evil people who think only evil continually. We can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us.