An article posted on AOL News introduced readers to what it calls “fringe” element of conservatives, called “Birthers”, who persist in doubting whether Obama was actually born in the USA as he claims. According to the writer this rumour continues to live on in spite of “overwhelming evidence”. I wonder, however, if AOL News expected the kind of response they received? A poll on this story asks a question: “Do you have any doubt about Obama’s eligibility to be president because of his birth status?” The results? One day after the article was first posted (at the time of this post), 501, 655 votes had been registered. Of these half-million voters, 52% said “No” and 48% said “Yes”.
Although the AOL News article spun this story to make “Birthers” (those who doubt Obama’s eligibility to be President because of the “natural born citizen” clause in the US Constitution) appear as a fringe element, unstable, embarassing to other conservatives, and so on, a quarter of a million people who read this article doubt Obama’s eligibility while about the same number had no doubts. The “Birthers” are clearly not a fringe element.
Having now read both sides of the controversy, I now have some serious questions about Obama’s actions. In particular, if he has nothing to hide regarding his status as a natural-born US citizen, then why are his lawyers squashing every attempt to uncover relevant documents? The Certification of Live Birth image released by Obama’s campaign last summer does not, in spite of protests to the contrary, settle the issue. There are questions about its authenticity, yes, but even if it is the real thing it appears that this particular kind of document doesn’t necessarily prove where a person is born even though it looks like it does. The only real proof is an authentic Birth Certificate, such as US citizens have to produce to get a driver’s license. Obama has never yet produced a Birth Certificate for examination.
What does this all have to do with prophecy? In Ezekiel 38:10f, we read about “Gog” (thought by many to be Russia) deciding to invade Israel:
Ezekiel 38:10-15 10 “Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme 11 and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’ 12 to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth. 13 Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders will say to you, ‘Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hosts to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to seize great spoil?’ 14 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it? 15 You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army.
The point here is that as long as the USA has been a strong protector and ally for Israel, any agressor had to count the cost of taking on not just Israel, but the US as well. But if, in addition to the developing economic crisis in the United States and around the world, there is also a constitutional crisis regarding the basic qualifications of the President, his legitimacy, and the legitimacy of all of his official actions, appointees, commands and so on, would this not completely disable the United States of America as a defender of weaker nations?
How did the USA get to this point? How did a once great nation, established upon biblical values as “One Nation Under God” come to be so divided along idealogical lines so that the population is increasingly polarized between those who hate the President and those who resemble a rock-star’s fan club? Looking deeper than the Obama issue, I suspect that Dr. Dell Tacket of the Truth Project is right in saying that the present crisis is one of worldview. This has led me to recall that the Bible predicted that Satan would employ a worldview in order to influence international leaders to become hostile to Israel.
Revelation 16:13-16 13 And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. 14 For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. 15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
The spirit that comes out of the mouth of the dragon, in verse 13, is an ideology, a worldview, based not on the Bible, but on something else. Dr. Oral Collins, in his commentary on Revelation published in 2007, writes,
[The fulfilment of verse 13] must reflect conditions existing… [in] the later 19th century to the present. These spirits are “unclean” in the sense that they are demonic. They promote ideologies that oppose the true Gospel and the People of God. The spirit “from the mouth of the dragon” suggests atheism or some pagan ideology. In the mid-twentieth century many identified it with atheistic communism. Much of this Marxist philosophy still prevails in the institutions of education today. We see this in the prevalent existentialism and relativism of post-modernist philosophy, which rejects absolute truth. Today, we must consider the Satanic spirit of Islam, most noticeable in radical Islam. (The Final Prophecy of Jesus, p. 386)
So what should Christians do? Check out the Truth Project. Write your government representatives so that they hear your voice. And pray.