Haiti -- End or Beginning?

The below post is from a Facebook note written by Gerald Bustin (click here to be taken to the Facebook note page). It is very powerful, because it is so true.
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IS THIS THE END OF HAITI OR A BEGINNING? Gerald Bustin

I am really, really angry—so angry I could scream!

Yesterday, two different people who called me for news about Haiti and the victims of the earthquake fell back into the standard default mode of so called “Christians,” with their stupid, buck-passing cliche’: “Well we know this is what we expect in these last days!”

To be fair, they may not have meant it the way I took it, but since actions speak louder than words, this seems to be the way most Christians mean it— “O well, God said it would happen so there’s nothing we can do about it.” That sort of blathering stupidity is what is making me angry.

For too long we have believed the devil-inspired doctrines of John Darby and have allowed the church to lose our purpose, power, and destiny. (He claimed the church was just a parenthesis in God’s calendar and was never meant to conquer or win the world but was destined to be taken out so God could come back to His original plan—Israel.) Since then the church has believed it’s mission in life is to evacuate, not conquer! Of course we are in the “last days,” but remember, the last days started with Jesus Christ! The last days did not prevent the early church from changing their known world! The last days did not prevent John Wesley from changing the face of England. The last days did not prevent Whitefield and Edwards and others from being used of God in laying the foundation in revival for the birth and formation of the United States of America! The last days did not prevent William Carey from becoming the “Father of modern missions.” And it did not keep my father and five of his children from going into stone-age New Guinea and helping to change the destiny of that nation!

So now with maybe 100,000 dead, many lying in the streets, and probably most buried beneath the rubble in Haiti, what is our real vision for the church’s response? The world is rushing to bring in water, food, medical attention and shelter, and that is urgently needed at this time. But as important and needed as it is, this kind of assistance is little more than a proverbial “band-aid” and is only a short-term solution. We can join the rush to get more “band-aids” or we can look through the eyes of faith and see this as a potential NEW BEGINNING FOR HAITI then act accordingly!

We can cry over the terrible suffering (and we should) or, while weeping, we can pick up the “Balm in Gilead” and go forward in His Name to bring healing to a nation— Healing to a nation that sold it’s soul to the devil more than 200 years ago and has been living under a curse ever since! Healing to a nation that has lived in squalor and poverty, and starvation and disease and corruption for 200 years while being the “Voodoo Capital of the World.” Healing to a nation that shares the very same Island of Hispaniola with a neighbor (Dominican Republic) which is rich compared with Haiti.

I went to Haiti as a very small boy with my family 65 years ago—1945. Across the years since then, many missionaries including my mother and sister-in-law, have laid down their lives there. Millions of dollars have been poured into Haiti during these years. Today Haiti is really no better off than it was then. According to reports, The USA has given more than three billion dollars in aid to Haiti since 1992. But Haiti really has nothing to show for that money! Haiti has gone from once being the richest French colony - the Pearl of the Antilles - to being the poorest nation in the western hemisphere! Today it has been stripped of its resources: 98% of the national territory has been deforested, increasing the vulnerability of a population impoverished by years of dictatorship and violence. And now as Haiti reels from the devastation of a powerful earthquake, it seems it’s plight could not possibly be any worse!

And as the world rushes in with “band-aids” the Church of Jesus Christ needs to speak with the faith and power of Peter and John, “Silver and gold we don’t have, but. . . In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and live!” So how do we make this the Beginning of a new Haiti? By raising up an “army” of people filled with the love and faith of Jesus who will go in and weep with them— but not in despair or desolation— but with faith and hope that there is a better day coming. By helping them rise up and break the curse by denouncing the devil and all his ways. By lifting the Name of Jesus and speaking the power of that Name over the land! By establishing the Lordship of Jesus Christ over Haiti.

Of course it won’t hurt to have some “band-aids” in our pockets as well to share, but “band-aids” is not our business! Our Business is Asserting the Healing and Transforming Power of Jesus Christ and speaking with one united voice with the authority that is ours to cast out the devil!

Back to me being Angry: Why? I am tired of Christians living with an artificial ceiling above our heads placed there by an end-time doctrine of doom and gloom rather than a vision of victory! I am tired of having to beg wealthy Christians for a few crumbs from their over-loaded tables so I can share those crumbs with a starving world! I am tired of selfish “Christians” who have no greater motivation than SELF and in that sense are no different from the world! (Some even think they are more holy because of the clothes they wear and even this self-righteousness is just more bloated self!) I am tired of so-called Christians who are content to chase little white balls around green fields in Florida since they have enough money to “retire” on while much of the world is headed for hell but they couldn’t be bothered! I am tired of “successful” business men with bulging pockets, acting like I am being painfully unreasonable to suggest they should share some of their time and money with others whose pockets are empty! (And by the way—if they don’t give it willingly the government cometh to take-eth it away.) I am tired of so-called Christians looking the other way (because, remember it is not our purpose to win) while we lose our privileges and freedoms to pray and read our Bibles in public places and while the Name of Jesus is forbidden at the close of our public prayers! I am tired of allowing 50 million of our babies to be murdered under the name of legal abortions and allowing militant homosexuals to define the meaning of marriage! I am tired of Christians voting again and again for the same corrupt politicians who use the power we give them to sneer and snarl at our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! And I am REALLY SICK AND TIRED of being told that this is the way it has to be because God declared it should be this way in these “Last Days.” And I’m really, really, really tired of you Face Book readers who don’t have enough passion in your hearts and fire in your bellies to get off your soft sofas and start doing something about it!