The Church’s Role In Praying For The Supreme Court
11/06/05
I believe it was the
intervention of God that George Bush won over Al Gore in the 2000 election!
The U.S. presidential
election of 2000 was one of the closest elections in U.S. history, decided by
only 527 votes in the swing state of Florida.
On election night, the media
prematurely declared a winner twice based on exit polls before finally
conceding that the Florida race was too close to call.
It would turn out to be a
month before the election was finally certified after numerous court challenges
and recounts.
Republican candidate George W. Bush won Florida's 25 electoral votes
by a razor-thin margin of the popular vote in that state, and thereby defeated Democratic candidate Al Gore.
This election was only the
fourth time in United States history that
a candidate had won the Presidency while losing the nationwide popular vote.
I believe it was the
intervention of God that George Bush won again over John Kerry in the 2004 election!
I believe we are witnessing
one of the greatest reasons (if not the greatest) why President Bush is in
office. As President of the United
States it is his duty to nominate someone to the Supreme Court when there is a
vacancy. This person must be confirmed
by the Senate.
Here are just a few
interesting facts about Supreme Court Justices.
Since 1789, 30 of the 144
nominees sent to the Senate for confirmation have been rejected.
The youngest justice ever was
Joseph Story, who was 32 when he joined the court in 1811. Story served for 33
years.
The oldest justice was Oliver
Wendell Holmes, who was 90 when he retired Jan. 12, 1932.
Appointed by President
Roosevelt in 1939, William O. Douglas was the longest-serving justice. He sat
on the court until 1975 (36 years).
The shortest tenure was that
of John Rutledge, to whom George Washington gave a recess appointment as chief
justice in 1795. Rutledge presided for a few months and wrote two opinions
before the Senate defeated his nomination by a 14 to 10 vote.
The president who had the
opportunity to appoint the most justices was Washington, who appointed 11 men
to the high court. The runner-up was Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed nine
justices during his 13 years as president.
Of presidents who served only
one term, the one who had the chance to appoint the most justices was William
Howard Taft, who appointed six men to the court. In 1921, Taft, then an
ex-president, was nominated by one of his successors, Warren Harding, to be
chief justice.
Four presidents, Jimmy
Carter, Andrew Johnson, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison, did not have
the opportunity to appoint any justices. Carter was the only one of those
presidents to serve a full four-year term.
The president who had the
most Supreme Court nominees rejected by the Senate was John Tyler. The Senate
voted down five of his nominees in 1843 and 1844.
Is. 10:1 Woe
to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to
deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What
will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
For over 40 years,
black-robed justices have pushed a radical agenda in America with devastating
results. Consider the damage inflicted since 1962:
·
They banished prayer
and the Bible from our public schools.
·
They raised a “right of
privacy” banner, under which 43 million babies have been aborted.
·
They overthrew sodomy
laws, opening the door to same-sex marriage.
Ÿ
They called for the removal
of the Ten Commandments from courthouses across the nation.
Jehoshaphat was a man who
loved God and understood the role of judges in the land.
2 Chr. 19:4 Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem, and he went out again among
the people from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim and turned them back
to the LORD, the God of their fathers. 5 He appointed judges in the land, in each of the fortified
cities of Judah. 6 He told them,
“Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for man but for
the LORD, who is with you whenever you give a verdict. 7 Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully,
for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”
This is no time for the
church to be weak!
Pr. 24:10 If you falter in times of
trouble, how small is your strength!
Ez. 33:1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them:
‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one
of their men and make him their watchman, 3 and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the
trumpet to warn the people, 4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but
does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be
on his own head. 5 Since he heard
the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own
head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself. 6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow
the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of
them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the
watchman accountable for his blood.’
7 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman
for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from
me. 8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man,
you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways,
that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his
blood. 9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and
he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.
Pr. 24:11 Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
12 If you
say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has
done?
Milestone Cases in Supreme Court History
1803
Marbury v.
Madison was the first instance in which a law passed by Congress was
declared unconstitutional. The decision greatly expanded the power of the Court
by establishing its right to overturn acts of Congress, a power not explicitly
granted by the Constitution.
1896
Plessy v.
Ferguson was the infamous case that asserted that “equal but
separate accommodations” for blacks on railroad cars did not violate the “equal
protection under the laws” clause of the 14th Amendment. By defending the
constitutionality of racial segregation, the Court paved the way for the
repressive Jim Crow laws of the
South.
1964
New York
Times v. Sullivan extended the protection offered the press by the
First Amendment. L.B. Sullivan, a police commissioner in Montgomery, Ala., had
filed a libel suit against the New York Times for publishing inaccurate
information about certain actions taken by the Montgomery police department. In
overturning a lower court's decision, the Supreme Court held that debate on
public issues would be inhibited if public officials could sue for inaccuracies
that were made by mistake. The ruling made it more difficult for public
officials to bring libel charges against the press, since the official had to
prove that a harmful untruth was told maliciously and with reckless disregard
for truth.
Court Blunders on Slavery
and Abortion
One of the more frequently
used arguments to defend abortion goes like this: The United States Supreme
has settled the issue. Because the Court has ruled that abortion is legal,
it must therefore be a correct and moral act beyond challenge.
In an 1857 court case, known
as the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court ruled that slaves, even
freed slaves, and all their descendants, had no rights protected by the
Constitution and that states had no right to abolish slavery. Where would
Blacks be today if that reasoning had not been challenged?
The reasoning in Dred
Scott and Roe v. Wade is nearly identical. In both cases the Court
stripped all rights from a class of human beings and reduced them to nothing
more than the property of others. Compare the arguments the Court used to
justify slavery and abortion. Clearly, in the Court's eyes, unborn children are
now the same "beings of an inferior order" that the justices
considered Blacks to be over a century ago.
The words
"citizens" or "persons'' used in the Constitution were never
intended to include Blacks/unborn children.
In the Dred Scott case of 1857 the Supreme Court said:
"... a Negro, whose
ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves. . . were not
intended to be included under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can,
therefore, claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument
provides for and secures to citizens of the United States."
In the Roe v. Wade case of 1973 the Supreme Court said:
"The word 'person,' as
used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.... The unborn
have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense."
Slavery/abortion is justified
because historically the rights of Blacks/ unborn children have been abused.
In the Dred Scott case of 1857 the Supreme Court said:
"...that unfortunate
race...had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an
inferior order [and] they had no rights which the white man was bound to
respect."
In the Roe v. Wade case of 1973 the Supreme Court said:
"...abortion was
practiced in Greek times as well as in the Roman Era.... Greek and Roman law
afforded little protection to the unborn."
Slavery/abortion is for the
victim's own good.
In the Dred Scott case of 1857 the Supreme Court said:
"...the Negro might
justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."
In the Roe v. Wade case of 1973 the Supreme Court said:
"There is also the
distress for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is
the problem of bringing a child into a family unable, psychologically, and
otherwise to care for it."