I’m reading through the Bible in 90 days right now.  I finished the Pentateuch yesterday.  One interesting verse I ran into a few days ago says, “If the prophet predicts something in the Lord’s name and it does not happen, the Lord did not give the message.  That prophet has spoken on his own and need not be feared.” (Deuteronomy 18:22 – NLT)

So in scripture when things were destroyed, like say the world or Judah or even evil, cannibalistic, homoerotic places like Nineveh or Sodom (My Sunday School teacher had a terrific imagination), typically those things were foretold by a prophet of God or even an angel of God who came beforehand and warned people that they have time to repent before God acts.  Now before you get all bent out of shape that I’m making light of the OT, please know that I believe that these things did happen and that God, though He is love, is also a God of justice.  And I believe there are plenty of times in Scripture when God reacts immediately to people’s individual sin.

But I can’t find a time anywhere in Scripture when a tragedy of epic proportions happened to a group of people, and a prophet of God reacted with “I told you so.”  “You know, I’ve been preaching for years and years about God and who He is, and now this tragedy happened, and I’ll tell you why it is, because of the way you acted. I told you so Sodom!  I told you so  Judah!  Now God got ya!”

No, welcome to the modern world of reactive prophecy.  We don’t actually have to prove that we are speaking for God, we can just talk about stuff after the fact.  Oklahoma Bombings.  September 11th.  Madrid bombings.  Tsunamis.  Hurricanes.  It’s easy for us to speak of why God did it after the fact, isn’t it?  Parents, this makes for an amazing child rearing technique.  You share with little Johnny that he shouldn’t touch the hot stove, and then when he ignores you, bring it up again.  Amidst the pain and bruising on his hand, at the moment when he’s writhing in pain,  feel free to bring a “You should have listened to me.  If you had listened to me, your hand wouldn’t be red and your skin would still be on your hand, and you wouldn’t feel the pain that you do now.”

The truth is, if God wanted you to speak to Haiti, Mr. Robertson, I respectfully ask you to consider the fact that he would have asked you to do it a month or two ago.  Yesterday was too late.  The pain was there.  The lives were lost. The homes were destroyed.  And now we pray that we all learn something about life and love and God.

But we don’t say or even infer, “I told you so.”

Please donate to help Haiti here.

In the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial elections, these 4 candidates went head-to-head-to-head-to-head against one another.  The bottom two really didn’t have a snowballs chance in Massachusetts today (89 degrees with high humidity) of winning.  The top 2 were the candidates that were in it to win it.
Kerry Healey (top right) initially had the advantage, but she was looked at as mean and known for what she was against than for what she was for.  (“I’m against crime”  “I’m against higher taxes”, etc…)  Of course these are not bad things.  In my humble opinion they’re good things.  But Deval Patrick (top left) was only known for what he was for (The fact that “Together we can!”).

These two characters do the same thing (or at least thats what they were called to do) – Preach.  However, Pat Robertson is known, most of the time anyway, for what he is against, while Joel Osteen is known for what he is for.

Even blogging is not exempt from this polarity.  Some of the blogs I read I know as ones who are for things like life and hope and love and happiness and other similar things.  Others I know he or she will write something that is going to make somebody mad, and most of the time this is on purpose.

Like it or hate it, this is the way today’s world works – if you are a leader, you are known for what you are for or what you are against.  It’s not a republican or a democrat thing, it’s a likeability thing.  Do I like you or not?  Do I agree with what you say or do I hate you for what you say?

The interesting thing about this is that probably 90% of the time the side each person lands on who is a leader is on purpose.  Yes I think Joel Osteen does what he does on purpose and has the audience he has as a result. And yes, I think Pat Robertson says some of the things he says on purpose and as a result, has the audience he has.

So if you were crafting an image of yourself, based on your personality and strengths,
Would you be for something or against something?