But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life" (Ezekiel 33:9).
(Tim) Feeling some heat from the wicked because of his tepid opposition to homosexual marriage, Pastor Rick Warren wants to shrug his shoulders, making the blessing into an act of simple pastoral humility: "Prayers are not to be sermons, speeches, position statements nor political posturing. They are humble, personal appeals to God," he says.
We respond, "So what humble request will you make of God the Father with the whole world watching, Pastor Warren?" Or better yet, "What humble request will you not be making of God the Father because such a request might be too easily mistaken for an arrogant 'sermon,' 'speech,' 'position statement,' or 'political posturing?'"
Keep in mind that the man Pastor Warren has agreed to invoke God's Name and blessing for has promised that his first act as president will be to further solidify the support of the laws of our nation for the slaughter of little babies.
With this in mind, here's my pastorally modest proposal. Let Rick Warren take this occasion to pray for a quick end to the slaughter of the babies across our land...
And having made this request, let him also ask for God's mercy over us these years we have allowed--and half of us engaged in--this wickedness. Let him also ask the Only True God to forgive us for exporting sexual immorality across the world. Let him plead that the judgment coming against Babylon the Great not fall on us, and so on and so forth...
When Campolo and Jackson and Hybels were flying to the White House to "pray" for Bill Clinton, I always wondered why we didn't hear a confession of sin, afterwards? I wondered why Hillary Clinton, and Chelsea, never spoke of "forgiving" their husband and father? I listened carefully for hints from the White House that the President was now making a clean breast of things, confessing and repenting of his many other adulterous unions, and all his uses of civil authority to cover up those crimes.
But apparently the ministries of our then-super apostles were not quite successful. Or were they?
Maybe they were successful precisely because there was no correction or rebuke. Because there was no warning day and night, with tears. But then, we have a different definition of successful than the one that comes from the Spirit of God. We've moved into defining success by how many people have heard of you and how much money you've made and how many people you run through your feed lot Sunday mornings and how many books you've sold and who asks you to pray for him and how many people know who's asked you to pray for him and how many people watch you pray for him....
The Apostle Paul defined success in a different way to those he pastored: "I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God" (Acts 20:26, 27).
May our Heavenly Father cause Pastor Rick Warren to fear Him, and thus to disdain all the riches that he, like the prophets Jackson, Campolo, Hybels, and Baalam before him, have been promised for their "humble" blessings. May he too, with the Apostle Paul, "not shrink from declaring to [Barack Obama and the whole world watching] the whole purpose of God."
