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            This week marks the 40^th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

The sad story of Nixon’s fall and the Watergate Scandal have become deeply ingrained in the American psyche. We now know that, in his desire to be reelected, President Nixon directed a campaign of sabotage against the other party which led up to the botched break in to their offices in 1972. Over the next two years investigators in and out of government followed the evidence from the lowest levels into the White House and then to the President himself. Dozens of politicians were disgraced in the Watergate Scandal.

One of the disgraced politicians was Charles Colson, but his story did not end with Watergate because this week also marks the 41^th anniversary of his conversion to Christianity and salvation. Scandal stopped him in his tracks, and Mr. Colson went to jail. But, like the Apostle Paul, he used his jail time for God’s purposes. When he got out, he founded Prison Fellowship and ultimately became a respected Christian leader.

Colson’s life illustrates the power of the Gospel: that God loves us and will not only forgive our sins but will restore our lives. It is a message Colson carried to prisoners and it is a message that the Church is commanded to bring to society: failure is not final with God, and that’s why they call it the “Good News”.

Today, as we look at scandals rolling their way up through government agencies, we see another example of political ambition turned wrong. We’re also beginning to see people like Charles Colson caught up in the web of scandal.

Our job as Christians is to pray for those people, as we should pray for all sinners. Some are enemies of the Church, but we should pray blessings on our enemies and hope that they have an encounter with God like Charles Colson and the Apostle Paul did.

Then there is the President. One of our intercessors once had a vision of another President famous for scandals, a vision where he was wrapped up like a mummy. The intercessor was given to understand that the wrapping represented the curses of Church people, and that God would not deal with the President because of this wrapping. The intercessor and others began to pray blessings and not cursing on the President, and shortly thereafter the truth behind a scandal was revealed. Ultimately that President had to make a public apology for his actions, and we can only hope that he asked God’s forgiveness as well.

We must begin blessing and not cursing President Obama. Let us pray that his eyes will be opened and that he will have a Damascus Road experience of his own.

Above all we pray for our President that, like Charles Colson, he will have a closer walk with God.

 In 1918 a new strain of influenza emerged which eventually killed as many as 100 million people. Unlike most illnesses, most of the victims were young and healthy. The reason for this mystery was soon discovered: the victims were not killed by the disease, but by their own immune system’s response to the disease.

 Like the human body, our social body also has an immune system designed to fight off toxins. The immune system is composed of our laws and those who enforce them. The toxins are people whose behavior is damaging to society. But in America we are reaching the point where, like the 1918 influenza pandemic, our immune system is attacking the body.

Take the war on drugs. We all know that drug abuse is a terrible thing, so we passed laws against drug abuse and drug dealing. The effect of those laws was to criminalize common behavior in many minority communities and thrust the drug dealing business into a highly profitable big business. We passed more laws with tougher penalties, sending many minority community members to prison and allowing law enforcement to seize suspect property. The result is a devastated minority community and laws that let police confiscate cash from anyone, as in a recent case where a man on his way to buy a car had his money seized by police. The immune system has turned on the body, creating toxic results.

There is real oppression in the minority communities, but it comes not from the old evil of racism, but from the modern war on drugs. The minority community lives this reality, while most middle class whites are unable to understand what would drive a young men into a life of drugs and gangs. Thus, more division is created as the social body is infected with more and more toxins.

It is time for Christians to deploy their spiritual weapons to bring healing to our society. The spiritual weapons needed are love and forgiveness, and we are going to have to let go of some of our cherished political positions to do so. We must admit that the war on drugs, like prohibition before it, is a good idea gone bad. We have made criminals richer and prisons fuller, destabilized minority communities and put all of our freedoms at risk, caused crime wars in our cities and abroad, and subsidized killers and terrorists around the world.

Drug crime can be stopped the same way prohibition era bootlegging was: legalize it, tame it, and tax it. Laws can be changed to restore our freedoms, and restoration can begin in the minority communities. Such monumental changes will not come unless the Church humbles itself, prays, seeks God’s face and repents (2 Chr 7:14). Then God will forgive and heal our land.

Let us pray that the Church will awaken to society’s immune system disorder and use its spiritual warfare weapons to heal our land.

 Just the days after the Americans celebrate their Revolution, the French celebrate theirs, on Bastille Day July 14.

The two revolutions could not have been more different. The Americans honored God (See our Blog of 7/2/14 “Declaration Day”). The French, on the other hand, adopted the atheistic, anti-Christian values of the French Enlightenment and set out to eradicate God from public life. Churches were closed, priests were persecuted, and the calendar was remade without any Christian holidays. To replace the Virgin Mary, the revolutionary leaders invented the atheistic “Goddess of Liberty”, which became the emblem of Godless liberty.

The fruit of the revolutions was also very different. America became a beacon of hope for the world as it worked to make its dream of equality and God given rights become a reality. In France, the godless foundation of the revolution meant that all moral restraint on power evaporated, and the infamous Reign of Terror began. Neither life no liberty were safe, and even the leaders were carried off one by one to the Terror. Finally order was restored but all hope of liberty vanished under the iron fisted rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. It turns out that Godless liberty is no liberty at all.

Sad to say, the lesson of the French Revolution has been repeated over and over since then. The Communist revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and elsewhere produced massive death and eliminated freedom. The same holds true for the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy who, like Napoleon, lead the whole world into war. The post colonial socialists in Africa grabbed power after elections, giving rise to the famous statement of “One man, one vote, one time”. And now we watch the same thing happen as Islamist extremists try to turn the “Arab Spring” into winter for the God given rights of their people.

Our hearts and our prayers go out to the people in the Middle East who are struggling to achieve some measure of equality and freedom. We especially pray for the persecuted Christian minorities in places like Iraq and Syria who are continually under persecution from the Islamist Militants. And let us also not forget Israel, which is caught between the Sunni and Shia in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.

Let us pray that the precious gift of Godly Liberty, and especially religious liberty, can overcome the evil of Godless liberty.

            This week, on June 28, we remember two anniversary dates which are linked together in a cycle of bloodshed and unforgiveness.

On July 28, 1914, 100 years ago, a young Serbian terrorist assassinated the Archduke and Crown Prince of the great Austro-Hungarian Empire. The act led Austria-Hungary to revenge itself by declaring  war on Serbia. The Russians entered the blood feud to protect their fellow Slavs, the Serbians. The Germans came to the support of Austria-Hungary, France and England came to the aid of Russia, and Europe erupted into the massive slaughter we now call World War I. All because of a cycle of unforgivness.

Five years and millions of deaths later, the war was officially brought to a close on June 28, 1919 in the Treaty of Versailles. Once again, unforgivness carried the day as the victorious Allies imposed draconian conditions on the defeated Germans. The resulting hardship and resentment created an opportunity for Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party to drive Europe into a second horrendous conflict which became the Second World War. Then, for another 50 years, the Russians extracted their revenge by turning the Eastern European nations into subservient police states. The First World War, called the “War to end all wars,” ended with the peace treaty of Versailles, which a critic called “The peace to end all peace.”

It was up to the Americans to break the cycle of unforgiveness. With the Marshall Plan in Europe and a humane occupation of Japan, the Americans turned their German and Japanese enemies into friends. America has also forgiven its cold war enemies in China, Vietnam, Russia, and Eastern Europe, leading the World into a time of prosperity and relative peace, and making way for the unprecedented worldwide Christian revival.

The American ability to forgive goes back to our history as a Christian nation. The Lord commands us to forgive our enemies, and the experience after the Second World War showed how the Biblical command to love our enemies produces Godly fruit of peace and revival. Forgiveness is perhaps the most powerful spiritual weapon to change the atmosphere and bring God’s answers into a situation.

There will always be those who are driven to attack others, and we thank God for those who protect us (See our 5/21/2014 Blog “Honoring Our Defenders”). But we must also know that time is no true peace without forgiveness.

Let us pray that we will remember that we are called to bless and not curse, and that we can use the spiritual weapon of forgiveness to end destructive cycles of unforgive