November 1998 Letter

Victories in Atlanta, as the Gospel Smashes the Gates of Hell

Two months ago, the enemy of God's children, in a furious effort to silence the Gospel of Christ, drew a line in Marietta, Georgia. A Cobb County judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) preventing Christians from passing out Gospel tracts on a public sidewalk in front of the Marietta High School. On Monday morning, October 19, Christians from Birmingham, Dallas, and surrounding areas joined our brothers and sisters in Marietta to meet this Gospel challenge head on. Theology moved from the church house and became biography on the streets as God did exceedingly abundantly above all we asked or imagined. Here is the incredible report from Michael and Michelle Wolven, local leaders in Atlanta:

Early Monday morning we brought the Gospel of Christ and the horror of abortion to the gates of hell at the Marietta High School. Hundreds of Gospel and abstinence tracts were handed out to students and parents. We knew that we could not allow Cobb County to silence the Gospel of Christ with a permanent injunction. It would set a precedent for other schools to do the same. It was an awesome time as one father was led to the Lord by Pastor Terry Gensemer. The school spokesperson, Jan Bloget, stated in the newspaper the next morning that, "The school does not plan to seek a new injunction." Praise the Lord!

The next gate was Barnes & Noble. Jesus so lifted this gate that we are still receiving calls and interview requests days after the event. We went into the store with brochures and on the street we had a huge 10'x20' banner depicting the awful child pornography being sold. When the police came to ask us to leave, Pastor Gensemer asked for the officers of the Child Protection division to be brought on the scene. He had bought David Hamilton's book Age of Innocence at the store and wanted to report this crime, the selling of child pornography, to the proper authorities.

When Detective McGee of the Child Protection Agency saw the book, he was aghast. So were several officers who saw the pictures. One stated that the department had arrested people for having less graphic pictures than those in the book. Detective McGee went into the store and demanded that the books be taken off the shelves until a judge could make a ruling. The police have submitted the case to solicitor Barry Morgan who is currently in touch with he solicitor in Alabama who has filed 32 child pornography indictments against Barnes & Noble. The Barnes & Noble trial in Alabama begins November 16, 1998.

This has opened the flood gates for us to do interviews and speak for our Lord and His children on TV and radio stations all over. We have had people calling the newspapers to get in touch with us so they could join our group. The Atlanta Journal went so far as to print Operation Rescue National's website and address where the pictures could be found. The highest-rated local radio talk shows in Atlanta have held hour-long shows talking about nothing but these horrible books. God is using the secular media to inflame Atlanta with righteous indignation.

On Tuesday, a local talk show host called "the Kimmer" stated that he sent his helper out to purchase The Age of Innocence so he could make fun of these "Christian fanatics who were on another book-burning spree." Once he saw the book, however, he had a radical change of heart. He spent hour after hour talking about how outraged he was that Barnes & Noble could sell such trash. On Wednesday, talk show host David Stone continued the talk saying that if Barnes & Noble can take stands against carrying Hustler and other magazines, it can make some judgments on the books it carries. Stone wants these books off the shelves, now!.

Jeff Hullinger, who also does sports broadcasts for Channel 5, contacted Flip Benham for comments. This interview was aired practically every hour during the day and the truth was made known in all of Atlanta. Many women began calling into the radio stations to tell of how child molestation begins and, with one voice, they pronounced that it begins with child pornography. This must have rattled the enemy of our children to his bones. The gates in Atlanta have been lifted up and the King of Glory is marching in, just because a little band of Christians chose to live out their faith and take the Gospel to the gates of hell. The entire city of Atlanta has been turned upside down !

Barnes & Noble's pathetic response to this Gospel challenge was issued by Senior Vice President Mary Ellen Keating: "Our position is that our customers decide what they will buy and read. This is about freedom of choice." Sound familiar?

The last gate we stormed was an abortion mill in a prestigious office complex. Michelle and Michael had been praying for months that the truth would be known and that the veil the mill operated under would be lifted. Flip marched the group through the complex complete with large signs and a police escort. Many tenants came out to listen to Flip proclaiming where the abortionist was practicing and what his name was. The Marietta Daily Journal published the exact location of the clinic including the building number and directions. Now that the truth is known, the Lord will bring the walls crashing down.

God accomplished in one morning more than we could hope to accomplish in a lifetime of political maneuvering. Perhaps this is exactly what he desires in us so that we may realize who really is deserving of the glory. We pray that you will see our good works and give praise to the one who truly did them. TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

How do these three gates of hell relate to one another? Let me connect the dots. Operation Rescue takes up the cause of preborn children in the Name of Jesus Christ. We defend children in the womb, who are being literally torn apart limb from limb, by bringing the Gospel of Christ to the gates. We defend children against those who would exploit their little bodies for a profit by bringing the Gospel of Christ to the gates. We defend the children who are fed the lie of contraception and abortion in the government schools by bringing the Gospel to the gates. This is truly theology becoming biography.

Run to the Gates - Expect Resistance - Stand Firm in Your Faith!

In several cities across our land, the "God is Going Back to School" campaign is meeting renewed resistance by local school administrations. In Atlanta, they found a judge to issue a temporary injunction to remove the Christian witness from public sidewalks in front of the high school. We've won the battle there, to the glory of God. In Chicago, gentle Christians have been painted as wild-eyed lunatics by a media frantically trying to hide the truth about Jesus and child killing from students. In Lynchburg, the sorry saga of bureaucratic censorship continues. Our precious brother in Christ John Reyes is facing six months in a Lynchburg jail because he allowed theology to become biography at E.C. Glass High School. He was just informed that he is no longer be allowed to leave the state of Virginia while his appeal is pending. John is the student at Liberty University who helped organize the "God is Going Back to School" campaign at E.C. Glass where over 300 Liberty students brought the Gospel to the gates of hell. Please keep John in your prayers.

Pressing the Gates of the Radical Homosexual Agenda

"…They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie." 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11.

Dr. James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Gary Bauer, and several other saints have come under severe media attack in recent days because they sponsored full-page ads in USA TODAY exposing the sin of homosexuality and bringing hope to those enslaved in this sin. Welcome to the club, brothers! We, in Operation Rescue, understand your plight well. When one moves from the safety of the church house and allows theology to become biography at the gates of hell -- watch out! These precious men of God dared to love enough, those who are dying in their sin, to tell them the truth. Unfortunately, telling the truth is considered a "hate crime" in a society that has turned its back on God.

A powerful delusion is sweeping across our land causing us to believe a lie. It seems today that everyone must be allowed to "do his own thing" while we spend billions of dollars trying to remedy the consequences of everyone "doing his own thing". AIDS research, condom handouts, clean needle distribution, bank bail outs, ad nauseam are all tell tale signs of a nation that has moved from the possibility of a cure to "harm reduction".

Our nation is moving from the truth to a lie. Instead of helping our kids to say no to sex before marriage, we give them condoms. Instead of enabling drug addicts to be set free from drugs, we give them clean needles. Instead of liberating the homosexual from a lifestyle that brings death, we try to appear kind and tolerant of his sin. "… but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel." Pr 12:10. We have thrown up our hands in moral surrender and invented programs in a vain attempt to reduce the harm of living life without God. We are trying to minimize the consequences of breaking God’s absolute law. This is not kind. It is the ultimate cruelty! Jeremiah the prophet called these programs "broken cisterns that cannot hold water" (Jer 2:13).

When one determines to expose this lie with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, all the fury of hell is unleashed. This is exactly what has happened to Dr. Dobson, Dr. Kennedy, and Gary Bauer. The recent murder of an openly homosexual college student, Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, provided just the right platform for the enemy to unleash his furious assault. Newspaper editorials, radio and TV talk shows, and news commentators, almost with one voice, castigated anyone who dared to say that homosexuality is a sin. The national media claimed that it was the hate-filled language of Dobson, Kennedy, and Bauer that caused Mr. Shepard’s tragic death.

But why all the national media outrage now? What was it about Matthew Shepard's death that caused such an incredible media condemnation of these Christian ministers? These were the questions asked by Brooks Egerton of the Dallas Morning News. Certainly there have been individuals murdered right here in Texas who were openly homosexual. They were murdered in far more heinous ways by those who hated homosexuals and said so. According to Egerton, Paul Boussard was mauled and killed on a city street by two teenagers with nail-studded boards. Two members of a neo-Nazi group lured Fred Mangione from a tavern and stabbed him 35 times. Three men ambushed Thanh Nguyen as he snacked in a park. They yelled slurs, beat, robbed, stripped and finally shot him. These victims were all slain in recent years in the Dallas and Houston areas. They were homosexuals out in public with homosexual friends. Their convicted killers, authorities say, were driven by a hatred of homosexuals. So why wasn't there massive media outrage at these tragedies?

Mr. Egerton did not have any answers. But for the born again Christian, whose eyes have been opened to the cosmic battle that is presently savaging our land, the answer is quite simple. This enemy hates to be exposed for the liar he is. The truth is devastating to his nasty kingdom. Homosexuality and child killing have proved to be unique ways in which he can rob, kill, and destroy with virtual impunity. He doesn't want anyone messing them up by exposing his schemes.

How does he kill with impunity with barely a whimper from God's church? He makes sin legal. "He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy." Pr 28:13. One of the ways we in America have concealed our sin is to make it legal. We have done it with abortion, and we are in the process of doing it with homosexuality. If one dares to question this lie, all of the ravenous fury from hell will come upon him.

Dr. Dobson, Dr. Kennedy, Gary Bauer, and the folks of Exodus International have had the courage to stand up to the lie of homosexuality and shine the light of truth on its perverseness. They have taken the battle outside the beltway of Washington, D.C., and brought it to the very gates of hell. They have exposed the lie of homosexuality. They have confronted our nation with the absolute fact that homosexuality is a sin that only Jesus can remedy. There is no compromise, no apology, and no exception.

This unyielding stand upon God's Word and His principle infuriates the enemy. He knows the truth slays the lie every time. He desires the compromise found in D.C. because he always wins when we bend God's Word. Dr. Dobson, et al., have become objects of his wrath because they have unflinchingly exposed him, and liars hate being exposed.

It will do us well to note his fury on a different venue. Kenneth Starr and the Rutherford Institute (representing Paula Jones) have come under the enemy's vehement attack. He is foaming with rage, and it is most visibly expressed through the shell of one William Jefferson Clinton. This enemy hates Mr. Starr and the attorneys of the Rutherford Institute because the truth they are revealing is destroying the power of his lie on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Little does the media know that it has been the most willing dupe in the hands of an enemy who has a spin for everything and a hatred for those who speak the truth of God's Word. The media is being used to shame Godly men back into the church house. May it never be! Press on to the gates Dr. Dobson. Despise the shame as Jesus did before you and we will follow you as you follow Christ!

Thanksgiving Remembrance of Those Who Have Gone Before Us

"After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled civil government: one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our ministers shall lie in the dust…"

I recently had the privilege of walking through Harvard College and Harvard yard with my son David and good friend Rusty Thomas. We were in awe of the manifold workings of God as we remembered together the history of this college, the first one established in America, and why it was begun. We saw the statue of that great Christian man, John Harvard, who had given half of his estate and all of his library for the erecting of the school in 1638. What I truly desired, however, was to find the above quote. I knew it was somewhere in the historic yard.

We finally found it on what was once the main entrance to Harvard. There it was, partially hidden by a small tree yet magnificent in its presence, and a steadfast reminder that this school was established almost exclusively to train ministers of the Gospel of Christ. Harvard's "Rules and Precepts" adopted in 1642 contain the following essential: "…Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternall life, John 17:3 and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all found knowledge and learning…" Old South Leaflets 1642.

The degeneration of Harvard College into a humanistic bastion where God has been expelled and banished from the yard is in microcosm of what is happening to us on a national scale. We, in America, have forgotten who we are and why we are here. We have forgotten the providential hand that brought us to this time and place in history. Because we have forgotten Him, we have been turned over to our enemies and ever-increasing debauchery. God has not been silent however, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness…" Rom 1:18.

YOUR 1999 BIBLE READING SCHEDULES ARE COMING NEXT MONTH!

Keep pressing the gates in Jesus name,

Flip Benham
Director