Ending the AIG Crisis – A Modest Proposal!

The wicked prowl on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of men. --- Psalm 12:8

As more details became available about happenings at AIG since the big bailout costing U. S. taxpayers billions of dollars and millions of dollars in bonuses given to persons who made a substantial contribution to the insurance giant’s financial woes, the resulting outrage was like a powerful volcano erupting, spewing lava and ash everywhere.

It is a subject that has dominated the news and the Obama administration being pressured to reveal its involvement or lack thereof through Treasury Secretary, Timothy “Turbo Tax” Geithner. It seems just as some questions are answered by someone in this monster fiasco then more questions are raised.

How to get this thing resolved? There is a “weapon” that has been available down through the centuries of human history, but very few view it as such. It is called prayer and it is an exercise in which one can engage and see some amazing things take place as Almighty God hears and responds to the appeals of His people.

The assumption too long has been that prayer is limited to doing things such as expressing thanksgiving, confessing sin, interceding on behalf of persons in need, and submitting personal concerns. But prayer is a weapon employed by a Christian on the offensive against evil, of which we have a substantial amount in our country and our world at the present time!

Note a statement made in Psalm 141:

Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men who work iniquity; and do not let me eat of their delicacies. Let the righteous strike me; it shall be a kindness. And let him reprove me; it shall be as excellent oil; let my head not refuse it. For still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked. --- Psalm 141:4, 5

Did you notice the last statement? The “weapon” of prayer is deployed against the wicked! So here is the proposal for those who are on praying ground in relationship to God.

Pray in the following way:

• that God will rebuke those guilty of selfishness and greed – a visitation of calamity upon them and their families until they repent and make full restitution and that they will receive no satisfaction whatsoever from those millions unjustly received.
  
  
• that God will return upon their heads the fruit of their doings – this is a Biblical term and it works both ways – for those who desire to obey and honor God, there will come blessing and benefit – for those who are defiant, concentrate on themselves and pursue greed, to them will come chaos and eventually disaster of some kind!
  
  
• the ideal would be that all would truly repent and make things right, but that is highly unlikely in a time when selfishness and greed, especially at the higher levels in the government and the corporate world have the preeminence.
  

That same prayer can be applied to the federal government since highly questionable antics with careless and irresponsible use of the tax payers’ money is standard procedure. Whatever you do at this stage, you don’t pray, “God bless….” We’re dealing with a situation that requires desperate action if effective healing is to take place and our nation is be improved as a result. A surgeon doesn’t gently massage a cancerous tumor when he finds it inside a patient’s abdomen -- quickly he grabs his scalpel, cuts it completely out and removes it so the patient will live!

One does have to wonder – if God cut off all who are driven and dominated by selfishness and greed in the corporate world and in government at the state and federal levels, how many would be left?

So pray – God’s solution is always the best in the end of it all!

To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock: do not be silent to me, lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary. Do not take me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts. Give to them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors; give to them according to the work of their hands; render to them what they deserve. Because they do not regard the works of the LORD, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the LORD, because He has heard the voice of my supplications! --- Psalm 28:1-6

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. --- James 5:17, 18

Forked Tongue #3!

We were confronted with lots of campaign rhetoric by President B. Hussein Obama stressing that the “change” he was going to bring about would involve no lobbyists, transparency, accountability, a high standard of ethics, sacrifice etc. You remember such statements, do you not? It was like hearing one of those old vinyl 33 1/3 records which had become cracked and all you heard was a repeat of a few words or bars of music over and over again until you hit the arm of the player and got it out of the grove with the crack in it!

Let’s start with the ethics of talking “sacrifice” to the American people and mentioning such things as driving SUV’s (we need to quit that) and getting that thermostat set below 72 degrees (especially those who live in winter climate), etc. Here’s a guy that has not shown one single shred of evidence that he and his family are making some sacrifices and leading by example. He’s got that new monster of a limousine which cost a tad more than $1.39 and all the luxuries of the White House with tons of money involved (our money by the way). A comment by one of the staff indicated that President Obama keeps the thermostat set high because “he is from Hawaii” and he desires the high temperature – a temperature in which it was added, “you could grow orchids in there!”

His inauguration was the most outlandish ever in terms of money spent. A report indicated a party held recently at the White House featured steaks on the menu among other things – cost of the steaks? A modest $100 a pound! The guys that sold the Pentagon $100 hammers and $30 screws some years ago must have gone into the cattle business and are now selling meat to the White House! How do you suppose that strikes the low income families across the country and those millions who have lost their jobs?

There was vehement insistence that lobbyists would not be a part of the Obama Administration. But there’s that guy named William Lynn who has been chosen by the president to be Deputy Secretary of Defense – the #2 job in the agency! He was a registered lobbyist for the giant defense contractor, Raytheon Co., from 2003 through June 2008. He served in the capacity of being “senior Washington operations executive” for Raytheon. Will it be like going back home to the Pentagon? Anyway, he gets a “free pass” from the president with the appeal by someone speaking on behalf of the president that this Lynn fellow is very highly qualified and he is needed!

That seems to be the tune played each time there are some highly questionable ethical matters lurking in the background of some appointees such as H. Clinton (conflict of interests), the new Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner, with tax problems and the incoming Attorney General, Eric Holder, with some dubious activity in his background dating back to the Clinton era. It came to light that Tom Daschle also had tax problems – that is, paying all his taxes – seems he had “neglected” some! But on February 3 he announced he was withdrawing his name from consideration. Once in a long while there may be a small bit of good news coming out of Washington DC, but very seldom -- especially on the subject of ethics, etc.

On being “transparent” the opening hours indeed were a display of that as a myriad of pictures were taken as the new president signed a number of documents. One the big photo ops took place when he signed legislation that assured employees of equal pay for the same job rather than some (usually females) getting less than male counterparts for the same kind of work done. People were practically falling over one another as the bill was signed and the president handed the pen to one of the witnesses. They had just about everything at that one except a full fledged band giving a drum roll!

But this “transparency” is quite selective – on the day (Jan. 23) after the annual March for Life (mass protest of abortion) in Washington DC the president signed an order that changed things drastically -- no cameras or video recorders present at that one! There had been a standard in place in which our tax dollars could not be used for family planning organizations in foreign countries that perform abortions or encourage women to employ this route to take care of a problem pregnancy. President B. Hussein Obama, being an ardent supporter of abortion, reversed the policy so that now our tax dollars will help to fund abortions and counseling services which encourage pregnant women to murder the child whom God is forming in their wombs!


However, when you have circulated for years in the environment of Chicago and Illinois politics and cut your political eye teeth in that environment the word “ethics” has two meanings. One, it has to do with a Judeo-Christian standard of truth and righteousness as based on God’s revelation in determining what is right and wrong when it comes to human conduct, relationships and moral responsibility – this is totally alien to the Chicago brand of politics! There is still a minority of citizens who believe in that description as to what ethics is about. But when the word, ethics, comes from politicians in high places, it doesn’t mean a thing – it is simply employed to gain favor and approval of people so that they are led to believe that there is no longer a clear line between right and wrong – everything is simply a murky gray and we are the sole judges as to what is right or wrong, according to our unregenerate way of thinking and reasoning!

The president was given many millions of dollars in his quest to buy the White House. Now that he has purchased it, the time has now arrived for pay backs and ethics is something you can only briefly mention from time to time but cannot practice because of the Mt. Everest sized pile of those pay-back obligations!

The foremost Authority on human behavior addressed such issues as those cited above a long time ago and the standards have not changed. Unfortunately that Authority is ignored today within the circles of elitist power and wealth just as He has always been from generation to generation. But the time is coming when Jesus Christ will personally interrupt the flow of human history as King of kings and Lord of lords and when He does, the whole world will know what genuine ethics, transparency and accountability are all about! It will be far from a Sunday School picnic thing for those who may have tossed the word "ethics" around repeatedly but failed miserably to put it into practice!

And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. --- Luke 16:15

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink, who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away justice from the righteous man! --- Isaiah 5:20-23