One More Night With the Frogs
The title above is borrowed from another poor country boy from Missouri, Rev. Lou Barton. The PCB was privileged to listen to Bro. Lou, as we used to call him, preach that sermon in person a few years ago. He was using as his text the story of the plagues and the effect they had on Pharoah in ancient Egypt during the time of Moses. The particular verse in the story was, Ex 8:9-10 (BBE) quoted here:
9 And Moses said, I will let you have the honour of saying when I am to make prayer for you and your servants and your people, that the frogs may be sent away from you and your houses, and be only in the Nile.
10 And he said, By tomorrow. And he said, Let it be as you say: so that you may see that there is no other like the Lord our God.
Bro. Lou, used a unique paraphrase for these verses in his sermon. He told the story of how Moses had been interacting with Pharoah concerning the plagues as they began in Egypt to force Pharoah to let the people go. The land had been covered with frogs as part of the plagues. The frogs were everywhere. There were so many frogs, they even crawled into the beds of the egyptians.
Finally, Pharoah called for Moses and asked that the frogs would be taken away. That was when Moses asked the question above, (again paraphrased) “About what time would Pharoah want me to ask The Lord to take away the frogs?”. The answer by Pharoah in Bro. Lou’s words were “tomorrow, I want to spend one more night with the frogs”.
You see, Pharoah wasn’t ready to take a stand that would be better for him and his people. He wanted to think about it some more, so he decided not to have Moses take away the frogs immediately as could have been done. He wanted to spend another night in bed with the frogs.
The same situation could be said about the Senate Republicans, and in particular, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist concerning the filibustering by the Senate Democrats in voting on President Bush’s judicial nominees. The Senate Republicans have been given a larger majority, a mandate from the people in the 2004 election, and the overwhelming support of grass root Republicans all over America. The directive is to exercise the so-called “nuclear option” of changing the filibustering rules for voting on judicial nominees. By doing so, they have the moral high ground of returning to the guidelines of the Constitution which only calls for a 51 majority vote instead of 60 needed to end a filibuster.
Rush Limbaugh made the statement today on his radio show, that Sen. Bill Frist could lay the foundation towards being elected President in 2008. All he has to do is to take a stand and do what is right, and become a hero overnight.
So the question for the Senate Republicans, and for Senator Bill Frist is, “will you demonstrate your leadership, and uphold the constitution in the matter of these judicial nominees, or do you want to spend some more time in bed with the frogs”?
