'Divine wind' swept Obama to second term

In the thirteenth century, two Mongol fleets under Kublai Khan attacked Japan.  On both occasions, the Mongol invasion fleets were ultimately destroyed by timely typhoons that the Japanese came to know as kamikaze or “divine wind.”  The Japanese believed that the storms were summoned by the gods to protect their homeland.  Hundreds of years later, during WWII, the term kamikaze was adopted by the Imperial Japanese government to describe suicide pilots who crashed their planes into American ships.

Now it is possible that another divine wind has again changed the course of history.  According to an Examiner analysis of exit poll data from the 2012 presidential election, Hurricane Sandy played a crucial role in the election.  In the days after the final debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, polls showed a slight Romney lead with the president polling below 50 percent in most swing states.  Then, on October 29-30, Hurricane Sandy struck the Mid-Atlantic States, causing flooding and heavy damage from Washington, D.C. to New York City. 

In the wake of the hurricane, polling data from both Rasmussen and Gallup showed a bump for the president.  Many observers attribute this to the perception of bipartisanship and leadership that Obama received as he toured storm damaged areas of New Jersey with Republican Governor Chris Christie.  The bump eventually moved the needle in the swing states enough to give Obama slim victories in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other crucial states.  Examiner’s analysis of exit polling showed that 64 percent of voters said that the president’s response to the hurricane was a factor in their vote and 62 percent of these voters chose Obama.

It is interesting to consider the possibility of whether Hurricane Sandy was a divinely directed storm.  In Biblical history, God’s use of natural phenomena to change the course of human events is well established from the flood of Noah to Moses parting the sea.  Even in U.S. history, there have been instances of divine intervention.  One such case was the Battle of Long Island in the Revolutionary War in which George Washington and the Continental Army were saved from British annihilation by a miraculous fog.  More direct divine intervention has been cited in the U.S. victory at Midway in WWII.

  

If Hurricane Sandy did represent God’s intervention in the American electoral process, what would the Almighty have hoped to gain by influencing Americans to vote for Barack Obama?  Was it a divine rejection of the Republican Party and its ideals or something else?  Could a second Obama term be a blessing for the country or a curse?

Some clues can be found in recent events.  A Boston art exhibit recently made news when a painting depicting the president as Christ-like figure with a crown of thorns in a pose that mimicked the crucifixion was displayed at a public gallery.  Entertainer Jamie Foxx recently referred to Obama as “our lord and savior, Barack Obama” at the Soul Train Awards.  Before the election at the Democratic National Convention, a motion to add a reference to God to the Democratic platform was almost rejected.  The delegates had to be polled three times before the chairman deemed the motion to have passed by a very close voice vote.  In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.”   

The state of the United States in general also indicates a country in rebellion against God.  For example, 54 million babies have been legally killed in the United States since the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutionally protected right in 1973 according to an estimate by the American Life League.  Under President Obama’s health care reform law, abortion will be funded by tax dollars in spite of the president’s promises to contrary according to an analysis by the American Center for Law and Justice.  The United States has moved from tacit acceptance of abortion to official government approval and subsidies. 

More recently, the movement to force acceptance of same-sex marriage has gained steam as well.  President Obama became the first president to openly endorse government recognition of same-sex marriage in spite of his professed Christianity and the numerous religious and secular objections to redefining marriage.  In Charisma magazine, Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage is tantamount to “shaking his fist in God’s face.”

Many have used the decline of heterosexual marriage in America to justify acceptance of same-sex marriage.  Married couples now make up less than half of U.S. households according to the Economist.  The magazine calls marriage “a luxury for educated and affluent.”  Government entitlement programs have long had the effect of discouraging marriage.  As a result, fewer poor people marry even though there is a very strong correlation between marriage and financial stability.  The assault on marriage was taken to its logical conclusion in President Obama’s “Julia” ad from 2012 in which the government became a substitute for a husband.

The Obama Administration has also spearheaded an assault on religious freedom.  The attacks on religious freedom often involve religious opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage and free speech issues.  Health care workers are compelled to perform abortions.  Military chaplains are performing same-sex marriages in military chapels in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Additionally, Obamacare mandates that all Americans purchase coverage for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs, even if they don’t want them or are morally opposed to them.  The Obama Administration went so far as to have the maker of a controversial anti-Islam film arrested and asked Google to remove the film from Youtube.

Chai Feldblum, Obama’s head of the EEOC, has openly said that religious freedom is a lower priority than sexual freedom.  Quoted in a 2010 Examiner article, she said, “I'm having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.  Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

Abroad, the president’s Israel policy is the most hostile of any American president.  The United States and Israel have historically had a close relationship.  The U.S. was the first country to recognize the new nation of Israel in 1947.  America has long supplied the Jewish state with military assistance, including vital supplies that helped Israel survive the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  The U.S. has often been Israel’s only friend in the United Nations when Arab countries and their allies often try to pass resolutions condemning Israel while all but ignoring Arab terrorist attacks against Israelis. 

In 2011, President Obama became the first president to ask that Israel return to pre-1967 borders.  Such a move would require Israel to evacuate its capitol of Jerusalem and return large swaths of land to the Arabs, leaving the remainder of the country indefensible.  One of Obama’s earliest diplomatic moves in 2009 was to request a unilateral freeze on Israeli settlement of the West Bank.  In the months prior to the 2012 election, Obama declined to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he came to the U.S. 

The Obama Administration has also reportedly restrained Israel from attacking nuclear weapons facilities in Iran.  Iranian nuclear weapons threaten not only Israel, but the U.S. as well.  Since the election, President Obama announced opposition to new sanctions on Iran that received unanimous and bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled senate.

Considering that the United States is outside of God’s will, it is possible that God used Hurricane Sandy to set the stage for divine judgment.  In fact, divine judgment on the United States may have begun long before Hurricane Sandy. 

Some idea of judgment can be obtained from Romans 1:18-32 in which God “gave over” a sinful and rebellious society “to a depraved mind.”  Paul writes that the effect of this depraved mind is that “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”  One aspect of divine judgment is social decay that results from turning away from God’s principles and commandments.  As society becomes more depraved, the societal costs of social diseases, crime, welfare, greed and corruption increase, placing an ever greater strain on the nation as a whole. 

Other aspects of divine judgment can be seen from the ancient Israelite history in the Old Testament.  Ancient Israel and Judah were divinely established nations.  God had promised Abraham that he would “make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12:2-3). 

When the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established in Canaan hundreds of years later, their history followed a pattern of prosperity, rebellion and judgment.  When times were good, the people of Israel would reject God’s commandments and face judgment in the form of internal strife, wicked leaders, national decline, and, finally, total defeat and enslavement.  The people assumed that, as the recipients of God’s promise, they were immune to God’s judgment.  They could not fathom that God would use heathen nations like Babylon and Assyria to punish his chosen people.  Many Americans make the same mistake today, even without a specific promise to bless America. 

It is likely that America’s judgment will follow the same pattern.  According to USA Today, Munich Re, an insurance company, released a report just prior to Hurricane Sandy that noted that the number of natural disasters is increasing worldwide, but the biggest increases have been in North America.  This includes hurricanes like Sandy and Katrina, tornados, fires, droughts, and floods.

America has experienced prosperity and the following bust.  The 2008 real estate crash ushered in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Although the recession is technically over, the economy has not recovered.  President Obama’s stimulus spending has set the stage for a debt crisis that could permanently hobble the American economy. 

Another possibility is that there may be more terrorist attacks on the scale of the September 11 or larger.  It is not unlikely that the U.S. will be the target of an Iranian nuclear attack, possibly a catastrophic attack using electromagnetic pulse technology.  Such an attack could destroy the majority of the electrical capacity that makes modern American life possible.    

Divine judgment of America may be part of God’s grand plan as described by Jesus in the Mount Olivet Discourse, John in the Revelation and various other prophets throughout the Bible.  Many theologians believe that America must decline and fall away to set the stage for the final end-times Battle of Armageddon in which the world aligns against Israel (Rev. 16:16).  This theory was described in a September 2012 article on Examiner.com and a 2009 article on CaptainKudzu.  If Israel is the key to the end-times and the U.S. is the protector of Israel, then the U.S. must be removed from the picture.  This could be through an economic collapse, a military catastrophe, or a combination of disasters.

If the United States is being judged by God, is the future preordained or can we avert a national disaster?  The Bible promises “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron 7:14). 

Last summer, Billy Graham called on Americans to repent, writing on his website “My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower—wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s warning, people heard and repented.  I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation.”

As our national debt piles up at an alarming rate and Iran grows closer to a nuclear weapon each day, time may be running out quickly.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/divine-wind-may-have-boosted-obama-to-second-term?cid=db_articles

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