National Prayer Breakfast

Last night and this morning saw the organization representing Christians in Australian politics, the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, profile the health and vitality of Christian faith at the executive level of the nation. For the last few years it has been the place where political leaders have been pleased to be seen. This year the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition were both absent. The Prime Minister was in Malta at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and I don't know where Kim Beazley was.

It was the best event they have had in twenty years of Breakfasts. I remember the early ones in the old Parliament building. They have certainly been well served by leaders of mostly high level Christian commitment. Bruce Baird has been the most recent leader. Last night there were two excellent testimonies by Ursula Stephens and Joanna Gash, especially the latter.

This morning everyone spoke really well. Harry Quick, Harry Edwards, Bruce Baird, Kevin Rudd and John Anderson were all terrific. The Governor General was okay but dropped the ball a bit when he started talking about the "brotherhood of man" being the higher principle than the revelation of God in Christ Jesus. He also was trying to say that soldiers in trenches were all believers just because they thought about life after death. He is a good man, but not connected personally to God I think.

The surprise package was General George Sada, Military Adviser to the National Security Council of Iraq. An exceptional story of a man who has been part of the Iraqi military and the highest level for forty years or more but a born again and vibrant Christian who has stood for his faith under people like Saddam Hussein. He has been put in prison and has risked his life for the truth. Not just the truth about the gospel, but the truth about military issues in the midst of Saddam's evil madness.

He avowed that there were weapons of mass destruction and that the reality of their presence would be exposed to the world in a month (he is publishing a book about it). He spoke about the fact that Saddam was committed to carrying out chemical warfare against Israel at the very time of the intervention of the Coalition forces. He also spoke about the entrenched evil of Saddam and how he was totally ripping off the nation and the people through incredible violence.

Presuming he is telling the truth, it flies in the face of the "civil libertarian" and "left wing social liberals" who keep telling us that it was all totally unjust etc.

In the midst of this he spoke profoundly about his faith in Jesus. He is an Assyrian by birth and very proud to be associated with that ethnic group. He shared the depth of his commitment to Jesus and to the purposes of God represented by the Bible. He spoke about the fact that regardless of the controversy, Iraq was liberated after hundreds of years of oppression.

It was very profound and raised a lot of issues that we don't get much information about.

Pray for the current situation in Iraq. Could God be working to bring this nation to its God ordained destiny, a destiny that was stolen during the Islamic invasion and occupation of a previoiusly Christian nation.