This is an email I received and it deserves to be given the widest possible circulation, so pass it on.
Pastor Charles Cooley
RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE
STIMULUS SERMON
Genesis 47:13-27
I would love to give the Pastor of this
predominantly black church in
Virginia a hug and a high five. This guy is
obviously a leader.
Perhaps we should each decide who our
real leader is.....
It is amazing to see that very little has
changed in 4,000 years.
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Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always
a delight to see
the pews crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager
to get into
God's Word. Turn with
me in your Bibles, if you will to the 47th
chapter of Genesis, we'll begin our reading at
verse 13, and go
through verse 27.
Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great
passage for us?
....(reading)...
Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray...
So we see that
economic hard times fell upon
Egypt , and the
people turned to
the government of
Pharaoh to deal with
this for them. And Pharaoh
nationalized the grain harvest, and placed the
grain in great storehouses
that he had built. So the people brought their
money to Pharaoh, like a
great tax increase, and gave it all to him
willingly in return for grain. And
this went on until their money ran out, and they
were hungry again.
So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they
brought their
livestock -their cattle, their horses, their
sheep, and their donkey -
to barter for grain, and verse 17 says that only
took them through
the end of that year..
But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next
year, the people
came before Pharaoh and admitted they had
nothing left, except
their land and their own lives. "There is
nothing left in the sight
of my lord but our bodies and our land. Why
should we die before
your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our
land for food,
and we with our land will be servants to
Pharaoh." So they
surrendered their homes, their land, and their
real estate to
Pharaoh's government, and then sold themselves
into slavery
to him, in return for grain.
What can we learn from this, brothers and
sisters?
That turning to the government instead of to
God to be our provider
in hard times only leads to slavery? Yes. That
the only reason
government wants to be our provider is to also
become our master?
Yes.
But look how that passage ends, brothers and
sisters! Thus
Israel
settled in the land of Egypt , in the land of
Goshen .. And they
gained
possessions in it, and were fruitful and
multiplied greatly." God
provided for His people, just as He always has!
They didn't end up
giving all their possessions to government, no,
it says they gained
possessions!
But I also tell you a great truth today, and an
ominous
one. We see the same thing happening today - the
government today
wants to "share the wealth "once again, to take
it from us and redistribute
it back to us. It wants to take control of
health-care, just as it has taken
control of education, and ration it back to us,
and when government
rations it, then government decides who gets it,
and how much, and
what kind. And if we go along with it, and do it
willingly, then we will
wind up no differently than the people of Egypt did four thousand
years
ago - as slaves to the government, and as
slaves to our leaders.
What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no
different from what
Pharaoh's government did then, and it will end
the same. And a lot of
people like to call Mr. Obama a "Messiah,"
don't they? Is he a Messiah?
A savior? Didn't the
Egyptians say, after
Pharaoh made them his slaves,
"You have saved our lives; may it please my
lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"?
Well, I tell you this -
I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of
mine;
and Mr. Obama is no Messiah! No, brothers and
sisters,
if Mr. Obama is a character from the Bible, then
he is Pharaoh.
Bow with me in prayer, if you will.
Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we
rely on You, and You alone.
We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly will be.
We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the people
of what a ruler would do, where it says "And
in that day you will cry out
because of your king, whom you have chosen
for yourselves, but
the LORD will not answer you in that day." And
Lord, we acknowledge
that day has come. We cry out to you because of
the ruler that we have
chosen for ourselves as a nation. Lord, we pray
for this nation. We pray
for revival, and we pray for deliverance from
those who would be our masters.
Give us hearts to seek You and hands to serve You, and protect Your people
from the atrocities of Pharaoh's government.
In God We Trust...