The Mount Ebal Problem: Has a Runaway Judiciary Put America at Risk in the War on Terrorism? By Attorney Tom Smith

This article is the foundation to a In Your City radio show with Washington DC, Attorney Tom Smith on Gottalife Radio also available to listen to on our podcast page www.organicchurch.us/podcasts.php

It was recorded in 2005 but the principles in this document are so important for the body of Christ to understand, If the text is a bit long, listen to the 45 min radio show at the above link.


The Mount Ebal Problem: Has a Runaway Judiciary Put America at Risk in the War on Terrorism?

In the wake of the Terri Schiavo case, spiritual leaders across the land of every political stripe and spectrum condemned the cruel starvation of a disabled woman put to death by a local court - solely upon hearsay testimony that she wanted such a fate. Many warned that executing an innocent woman was wrong. Most called it murder. Many warned that America had let loose a spirit of murder. Indeed, in weeks following there were renewed killing at our schools, and a spate of brutal kidnappings and murders confirming the worst fears of most people of faith. What is happening to America? What is the spiritual explanation for our plight? The answers are found in a Covenant America made with God at her birth. The founders did not create a “theocracy,’ but they did found the Republic on biblical morality. Did they make a national covenant with God? Recent events sounded a warning about its breach .

Just a week or so ago, a little noticed new item reported that President Bush was whisked from the White House and Vice-President Cheney sent to an undisclosed separate location. Soon after our leaders ran for cover, a false alarm was declared. A week or so later, a similar scare evacuated the Capitol. These events have become familiar to those of us who work in Washington, DC. The first such event happened on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue on the day of President Reagan’s funeral. It was about 3:30 pm at the U.S. Capitol. Former President Ronald Reagan’s casket was set to be delivered to the Rotunda for the memorial service that night. A meeting with congressmen had just concluded in one of the leadership offices. A prayer of thanks for meeting results was offered along with a prayer of protection for all attendees, when a loud alarm began sounding. Capitol police burst into offices shouting “Leave the building, and Run! Impact in 6o seconds!” Leaders were hurried into their waiting Suburbans. Former British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher who had arrived early for the event was whisked away in a car with Senator Bill Frist. All left with lights and sirens blazing under police escort. Staffers headed to the halls at a dead run. Women took off their high heels to increase their pace. Capitol police lined the hallways and continued shouting…. “Run! Run! Impact in 60 seconds.”

Outside, as staff ran out the doors, they continued their shouting, herding all to a Park several blocks away. Several hours later, it was learned that the aircraft of the Governor of Kentucky had wandered into restricted airspace, but no one in Homeland security seemed to know about it, so…. the alarm was sounded. A friend who was a part of the prayer wondered about the event. We were certainly not harmed, so our prayer was an answered, but the event was terrifying. We concluded that God must be warning America.

What is the warning? The only effective Homeland Security our nation is a right standing before Him!! God is also using our own government to warn that America’s Covenant with the Almighty is in breach. We all know that God is faithful to keep His covenants with a nation. That prospect should bring a deep fear of God and sin if we look at the Covenant history of Israel in the Bible. Let me trace for you the spiritual roots of our current national crisis over terrorism and its connection to God’s Covenant with Israel given by Moses at Mt. Ebal.

Covenant Given By Moses At Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal

God’s Covenant was delivered by Moses, who instructed the Israelites to assemble at Mt. Gerizim and neighboring Mt. Ebal to the north after entering the land of Canaan. There six tribes would stand on Mt. Gerizim and recite the blessings of obeying God while the remaining six tribes would stand on Mt. Ebal and recite the curses of disobeying God (Deut. 27:11-13). The terms of God’s covenant with Israel dealt with that Nation’s obedience to the Ten Commandments.

Obedience brought God’s blessings(Deuteronomy 28:1-14).:
1) Israel would be exalted high above the nations of the earth,
2) Her crops and children would prosper,
3) She would lend and not borrow, and
4) Defeat all her enemies

Disobedience brought curses (Deuteronomy 28:15-68):
1) Despair, decline, disease, and death,
2) Debt as the nation becomes a borrower and not a lender,
3) Captivity by their enemies in a foreign nation, and
4) Destruction by a foreign enemy:

“ The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, and; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; ...And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land until thou be destroyed.” v. 49, 51

So how did Israel fare under the covenant? Not well according Judges 3,4, and 6, which tell us that the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. The history of Israel as a nation is told in Psalm 106:

PSALM 106:36-37,40-41: “And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, who they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood…. Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they… ruled over them.

Warnings of National Destruction in 586 BC by the Prophets

For hundreds of years, the prophets all warned of Israel’s sin and ultimate destruction:

$ Elijah: I Kings18:18: “ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.

$ Isaiah 1:18: “ Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow....But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword.”

$ Ezekiel 16:36: “Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered...with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them.”

God’s Warnings Through Remedial Judgments

God himself in His great mercy warned them by pouring out remedial judgments:

$ Defeat and enslavement by the Moabites for 18 years in hardship and terror. Judges 3:12,

$ Defeat by Jabin, king of the Canaanites. Judges 4:1-2,

$ Defeat by the Mideanites and captivity for 7 years. Judges 6:1,

$ Invasion by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 605 BC resulting in the deportation of Daniel and his friends,

$ Ezekiel the prophet was taken captive into Babylon in 597 BC, and his wife died in 588 BC as a warning sign of the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem the first time in 586 BC. The city was invaded and destroyed that year. God kept His Covenant.

Jesus Warned of 70AD Destruction

There are those who believe that somehow after the cross, these consequences for a nation are somehow suspended under the new covenant. That view ignores the clear warnings of Jesus and Paul. Jesus knew that He was going to the cross to pay the ultimate price for all sin, but yet he warned Jerusalem of its pending destruction for killing His prophets, shedding innocent blood and breaching its national covenant:

$ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kills the prophets, and stones them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” Matthew 23:37.

$ “ I send unto you prophets...and some of them you shall kill and crucify... that upon you shall come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, son of Barachias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.” Matthew 23:35 .

$ “I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Matthew 24:2.

$ "When he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it." Luke 19:41.

$ “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” Luke 23:28.

Jesus also warned his disciples that when they saw the armies surround Jerusalem, those in Judea should flee to the mountains. Christians fled to Joppa and none were killed. But the rest of Jerusalem was destroyed yet a second time. Responding to the Jewish rebellion, the Roman general Titus surrounded Jerusalem with his armies, and placed the city under siege. It was completely destroyed in 70 AD. The Roman general hoped to spare the temple, and the historian Josephus attempted a negotiated surrender to avoid the temple’s destruction. The people refused. A Roman soldier torched a curtain in the temple, setting it on fire. Gold and other metals were between the stones which were torn apart by the greedy soldiers in a frenzy, fulfilling the warnings of Jesus that not one stone would be left upon the other. Over a million Jews were killed.

Israel as a nation and its Hebrew language disappeared from the face of the earth-destroyed completely for almost 2000 years. God was faithful to keep His Covenant.

Warnings of Paul to the Gentile Christians

The apostle Paul clearly viewed the destruction of his nation as a warning to all the gentiles and the Christians of his time:

$ “These things [death and destruction] happened to them [Israel] as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. I Corinthians 10:11.

$ “Because of unbelief, they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: For God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.” Romans 11:20,21.

America’s Covenant Rooted in the Covenant of Israel

Some would say that America is a “pluralistic society,” not a theocracy like Israel, so she is insulated from God’s warnings of destruction. Such a conclusion is not the teaching of American history. The founders knew that moral decline in Israel, as well as ancient Greece and Rome was a key element in their destruction and disappearance from history. The drafters of the Declaration of Independence sought to anchor their cause and their future on the moral law of the universe, the natural law, or to use the words in the Declaration itself, the “laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”

Every lawyer in the colonies understood this term as defined by Professor Blackstone to mean the laws of God. The law of nature was a Christian concept from the second chapter of Romans. It described the law of conscience written by God on the heart of every man, whether he was Christian or heathen, or had no beliefs at all. That law also, however, had to conform to the most complete revelation of God’s law as found in the Holy Scriptures. In other words, from the very first Declaration of its existence, America was founded upon Biblical morality. According to John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States:

"From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God…”...."

But what of the blessings and curses of the Israeli Covenant? President Adams concludes:

"Fellow-citizens, the ark of your covenant is the Declaration of Independence... In that scene of tremendous and awful solemnity, narrated in the Holy Scriptures, there is not a curse pronounced against the people, upon Mount Ebal, not a blessing promised them upon Mount Gerizim, which your posterity may not suffer or enjoy, from your and their adherence to, or departure from, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, practically interwoven in the Constitution of the United States.

Was this a conclusion of only one of the founders? The best evidence that all the founders held to this belief are the Congressional actions taken during war to avert a potential “curse” of the new American Covenant - defeat by the enemies of the new republic:

$ Partly in response to the Revolutionary War, the Congress designated a day or recommended to all the States to appoint a "day of solemn fasting and humiliation to seek the forgiveness of Almighty God for the sins of the people and the nation," every year from 1775 through 1783.

$ National days of solemn humiliation and prayer were called by President John Adams in 1798 and 1799, by President James Madison during the War of 1812 responding to a joint Congressional resolutions in 1812, 1813, 1814.

$ President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (responding to an action by the Senate in 1863) declared a day of repentance “to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

After September 11, 2001, congressional leaders briefed on this history by the Chaplains of the House and Senate called for the first such prayer meeting of repentance since 1744. On December 4, 2001, all the Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle a third of the members of the Congress convened in the Rotunda to pray that God would forgive America. The overwhelming sense of those present was that God wanted to call America back to himself. There was no repentance for the shedding of innocent blood that night. All were grateful that the process had begun, but I recalled the words of Jesus to Jerusalem of how He would have gathered her as a hen gathers its chicks…but she would not.” Seasoned prayer warriors present sensed that God was pleased with the service. But they sensed Him warning of a second terrorist attack.

God’s Warnings to America With Remedial Judgments

In His great mercy, God has given many warnings that America’s Covenant with Him is in breach. Some have been natural disasters, while others are major events in which God is sending a powerful prophetic warning for all those with eyes to see them as sanctions under Deuteronomy 28:

• Shedding of Innocent Blood. 4000 unborn children lose their lives to abortion every day in disregard for the Covenant consequences. 70% of the women having abortions claim an affiliation with the Christian faith. As a wake-up and warning, God has allowed this sin to spill over into our streets and schools. In the last few years, teenagers have gone on shooting rampages in Columbine, Colorado; Springfield, Oregon; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Paducah, Kentucky; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; and Pearl Mississippi. Teenage mothers in Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Michigan kill their newborn children and discard them as so much trash. Certainly the curse declared in Isaiah has fallen on America:

• Breach in the Wall of God’s Protection. On September 11, 2001, Hijackers flew planes into the Twin Towers in the first attack on American soil since 1812 confirming that there are breaks in the moral wall of God’s protective wall suggested in Ezekiel 13:5 and 22:30. Unless the breach is remedied, Isaiah 5:5 warns that the hedge of God’s protection could come completely down.

• Nation of Debts and Debtors. The federal cost of the war on terrorism through 2004 has been $151 billion according to a joint study by the two Washington think tanks - The Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus. Another group, International Horizons Unlimited, added state and local outlays to conclude that the United States will spend more than $470 billion to combat terrorism in 2003 and 2004. That's in addition to the nearly $138 billion spent from Sept. 11, 2001, through the end of 2002.

• All this spending comes at a time when our national deficit approaches $500 billion, and consumer debt is at historic highs. Consumer debt has doubled in the last 10 years, to a record $9.4 trillion. Corporate debt is at a record $5 trillion. Federal debt is $4 trillion but set to jump to $10 trillion by 2014. Financial institutions ($11.4 trillion) account for most of the rest of total debt. The total amount owed – by consumers, businesses, governments and financial institutions – totaled $34.4 trillion at the end of 2003, according to the Federal Reserve. The economy produced $11.3 trillion of output.

• Increasing Drought & Natural Disasters. According to the National Weather Service, 2003 saw the worst fires in American history with one-third of the nation in flames causing a 100% increase in economic damages from $5.7 billion to $11.4 billion. The record wildfires were caused by a 7 year drought - the worst in at least 500 years - and these conditions may persist for several decades.

• Increase in Disease and Pestilence.
o HIVAids on the increase(5% from 1999 to 2002),
o The incidence of sepsis — a severe, whole-body immune response to infection — is increasing by an average of 16% a year in the U.S,
o The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report 193 cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 32 states, a 68% increase from 115 cases on April 7, 2003.
o In 2003, CDC reported a continuing epidemic of West Nile Virus, with human cases in the United States exceeded 9,800, more than double (135%) the previous year's 4,156.

Is America’s Cup of Iniquity Full?

So where are we in the timetable for national destruction under America’s Covenant with God? We know the Bible tells us that national destruction occurs only when the cup of iniquity is full. Jesus himself prophesied that Israel’s cup of iniquity was full in His stern denunciation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:32, "Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers guilt." In 1 Thessalonians, Paul writes that the Jews "killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us ... forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins ..."

Abraham Lincoln eloquently spoke of his own understanding of slavery as the shedding of innocent blood and conviction about an imminent visitation of God’s wrath. Near the time of his Presidential nomination in 1860, his campaign had done a canvass of all the pastors in the Springfield area and discovered that most of them were opposed to his anti-slavery position. He saw this as a possible sign that America’s cup of iniquity was full, and that war was imminent as a result:

“It seems as if God had borne with this thing (slavery) until the teachers of religion have come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out."
(from Lincoln's Yarns and Stories by Colonel Alexander K. McClure)

In his second inaugural address, Lincoln said he feared that God’s judgment on America through the Civil War might continue until “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, [but] as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’"(Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865).

Today there is a movement afoot using the courts of America to legalize same sex marriage. If it succeeds, we will be among the very few nations since Sodom & Gomorrah to sanction same sex marriage. You may remember that Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments monument was put inside a court house closet by federal court order. Even as homosexuality is coming out, God is warning that our courts are putting His law in the closet. Isaiah 3:9 warns: “The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.” One consequence of such open rebellion against the Covenant is in verse 9: “Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.”

The number of slaves killed on the high seas and on plantations was tragic enough to trigger God’s judgment once on America for shedding innocent blood. But the actual numbers pail in comparison to the three decade holocaust of 40 million innocent lives, and four thousand (4000) children aborted every day. Nearly 70% of the women aborting their children claim an affiliation with the Christian faith. Three mainline denominations recently supported the recent pro-abortion march on Washington, and 34 Protestant, Jewish and other “faith” groups make up the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. If God follows the same pattern Lincoln described with abortion, His wrath is at America’s door.

Is there still time? Yes. Even when the Assyrians were at the gates of Jerusalem, King Hezekiah’s repentance for Israel turned the heart of God. Mighty angels were released who killed most of the attacking armies, and judgment was averted. Can President Bush and the Congress lead America on a path to repentance that will release God to defeat our terrorist enemies and heal our land? Yes! II Chronicles 7:14 is a conditional promise that if America turns, God will heal.

Governmental and Spiritual Leaders - Must Heed the Warnings

Who does God hold responsible for this tragic condition of America? The liberals in Washington? A biased media? No! Ezekial 9 and Zephania 1:12 tell us that in Israel’s destruction, those God held responsible were the national leaders, the prophets, the priests, the elders and the complacent men. Destruction began in the House of God.

In the last election cycle twenty (20) of the new Congressman elected were pro-family and pro-life adding to a significant majority of like minded men and women. Seven (7) out of nine (9) new Senators are pro-family and pro-life and bring a majority with the same mindset for the first time in history. We have a President who is a strong man of faith. For possibly the first time in history good men and women are now in a position to chart a course for America back to the God of our fathers and avert destruction at the hands of our enemies.

What must followers of Jesus do? The Bible mandates in II Timothy 2:3 that we pray for all men everywhere, especially those in authority. How should we pray? We must pray that our governmental leaders hear a Hezekiah call to lead America in repentance. Here are some specific prayers in that direction:

1. Remember Our Covenant with God. Most Christians today cannot list all the ten commandments. We must heed the warnings of Moses and echoed by John Quincy Adams:

“Lay up these principles, then, in your hearts, and in your souls—bind them for signs upon your hands, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes—teach them to your children, speaking of them when sitting in your houses, when walking by the way, when lying down and when rising up—write them upon the doorplates of your houses, and upon your gates—cling to them as to the issues of life—adhere to them as to the coils of your eternal salvation."

Pray that the Courts will protect public displays of the Ten Commandments. Pray for fresh revelation of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of God’s moral principles preserving the existence of western civilization. Ancient Greece and Rome fell because of the widespread violation of basic morality. At one time every religion except the atheists and Satanists affirmed this fact. These moral laws are binding on a nation whether they are recognized or not.

2. Pray for Revival and Deep Repentance. Pray that Governmental leaders call on the Spiritual elders to call the nation to repentance. Pray thatAmerican pulpits will catch fire with God-sent revival and resolve to tear out the terminal national sins of idolatry and shedding of innocent blood at their roots. Mercy to those damaged by abortion must accompany truth about the mortal sin. Only God can send a revival but II Chronicles 7:14 gives God’s promise that if we “turn” from sin, He will heal our land. Local churches can hold solemn assemblies. They should invite local and state officials to participate who can bring a spirit of repentance wherever they have authority.

3. Return to The God of Our Fathers. For America to make the II Chronicles 7:14 turn, those institutions and structures which hold the terminal sins in place must be reformed and, in many cases, de-funded. A daunting task like this must involve public officials. There must be a restoration of First Amendment freedom to acknowledge God beginning with those who teach in our schools and lead in our government. The false doctrine of separation of church and state must not be allowed to exclude God and his standards from the government. Knowledge of the covenant for believers, or its indication of what is right and wrong for those who do not is critical to saving a nation from destruction.

Prominent prayer leaders have warned that a spirit of death has invaded America through the door of the Terri Schiavo case. Now is the time for all leaders both within and outside the government to hear the Hezekiah call. All must fast and pray for the II Chronicles 7:14 turning that will save America from her enemies. When the Spirit of God moves in the heart of America’s leaders, we have a Biblical plan to follow. The repentance that will avoid judgment will be deep. It must tear down the idols in the hearts of God’s people rooted in materialism, sexuality and a lack of respect for life that God calls Holy – belonging only to Him. God will end the shedding of innocent blood, the only question is whether it ends in judgment or a turning back to Him. Our ceaseless prayer must be for a heaven-birthed turning that will draw America home.