World News Through the Third Lens

Millions being spent as lobbying on health care kicks into high gear. (The Associated Press, 3/17/10), commentary by Les Young: With time and tempers short, everyone's playing hardball in the drive to pass - or stop - President Barak Obama's massive health care legislation by the weekend. Business groups are spending $1 million a day to depict the bill as a job killer in television ads in the home districts of 26 wavering House Democrats. A new ad barrage from supporters of the legislation went up Tuesday in 11 districts. And unions are threatening to come through for Obama - or pay the price in the fall elections. "We here in Congress are giving a new meaning to March madness," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, an opponent of the legislation, said Tuesday. The debate is so fierce that an estimated $200 million has been spent for political advertising on health care since the beginning of last year.

A biblical (third lens) perspective: I can add to this the fact that I get 10-15 e-mails per day from pro-life organizations (that's not a negative) and also several nudges on facebook per day to get involved. At this point I have prayed, paid, and "parlaised" in trying to stop this bill from passing. And it's not because I don't think health care needs reforming. It does! But it does not need: 1) government takeover, 2) an abandonment of sound business practices, 3) big-brother mandates, 4) bureaucratic fat, and 5) funding for abominable practices among other things. What I am about to say will probably make sense only to those who take God at His Word. His Word tells us that a time is coming when no man will be able to buy or sell (including medical insurance and medical services) without taking "the mark of the beast." To do so will be to abandon God and His plan of salvation. "He [the false prophet of the Antichrist] also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the number of his name.....If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of His wrath." (Revelation 13:16-17; 14:9-10).

This sounds so distressing - either take the mark so that you can buy and sell (equivalent to live) but risk eternal separation from God; or refuse it and die, so that ultimately you can live forever. Yet this has always been a choice some people (we call them martyrs, which is Greek for "witnesses"). These are people about whom God declares, "...the world was not worthy of them.." (Hebrews 11:38) God has special rewards for them. But God has always made provisions for His own, even when nothing was available from a natural perspective. When it comes to healing and health care, God has a wonderful plan and the premiums have already been paid by His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He declares that if we will honor His Word, He will put none of the world's diseases on us (Exodus 15:26). He is the One who forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. (Psalms 103:1-5). He placed all of our sins, sicknesses and diseases upon Christ, and by His stripes we have been healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5; Matthew 8:16-17; 1 Peter 2:24). He has made it possible for believers to minister healing to one another. (Mark 16:18; James 5:14-15). When the darkest hours fall, the church will experience the power and glory of God like she hasn't since the first century - and it won't be for the sake of a side-show, an new book, or the exaltation of man. It will be the daily business of the Bride getting ready for the Bridegroom. (Rev. 19:9)