June, 2014
I chose the New American Standard Bible for this verse from Hosea 9:7... "The days of punishment have come; Let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, The inspired man is demented, Because of the grossness of your iniquity, And because your hostility is so great." Those faithful preachers who weep in their pulpits....who weep for America, for their children and their children's children, and who weep at what the American church has become, are thought of as country bumpkins, fundamentalist fools and worse. Such is the state of the American mind in this age of rampant rebellion and toxic temperance towards godlessness as our nation surrenders on every hill. Such is the hostility to anything that might interfere with plans and goals.
There is no excuse for not seeing the imminent peril our nation faces. There are reasons but not excuses. Our nation's leaders are the beginnings of our punishment! In speaking to a church congregation this past week, New York Congressman Charlie Rangel made this statement..."God gave us Barack Obama." He probably never spoke truer words.
There has never been a perfect storm as is brewing today and we are rapidly becoming a police state as it is about to hit. Yet we party on. Billy Graham has been consistent in his warnings to America. John MacArthur has been consistent also, but we don't have ears to hear, and we don't have eyes to see. We are deaf to the Approaching Hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to use the title of a 1985 book by Rev. Graham
Fervent prayer, steeped in humility and salted with our sweat is our only hope, our only defensive weapon.
The following post was written on November 30th of 2008. Barack Obama would soon be inaugurated president
I agonized for a long time over how the Christian is to deal with
politics. I read books on the subject and certainly went to Scripture.
I've been on both sides of the issue. Edmund Burke wrote "All that is
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Burke was
not a Christian, and I am not "good," but the concept and the logic
still hold weight. Our nation is crumbling fast and most of us are the
proverbial frog in the kettle. The local news from the metropolitan city
that I live near started their telecast last night with three different
killings among young black people. Yesterday's paper had a picture of
two beautiful young children joined at the head while the surgeons were
dismayed that nothing could be done for them. Every day the sufferings
of people are there to remind us of the fallen condition of this world.
We say that we yearn for Jesus to come back but do we?
Martin Luther once said when asked what he would do if he knew that the Lord was coming back the next day, "I would plant a tree." In the final analysis, we cannot quit on this nation. If people's sufferings are to be alleviated, if we are to return to at least being a "God-fearing" nation we have to seek God's mercy and try our best to be good and responsible citizens. This blog title has the word "conservative" in it to get the attention of who it is meant for but conservatism itself will save no one! Our hope is not in princes or their military power. Christians, who have been relegated to being part of the "religious right," must remind themselves of this every day. This does not mean that we do not support a political party of ardently work for its success but it does mean that we never alter our ethical beliefs or compromise that which is our only hope... the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We lost our moorings in this long before we lost this last election. Our churches are too often social gatherings, some with political causes meant to assuage the guilt of not knowing who we really are in Christ. Our pulpits mention Jesus every week but rarely preach His cross for they have lost faith in the power of preaching the blood shed on Calvary, instead preferring to give biblical advice on how to live. I stumble into church every week to hear the atoning power of the blood of Christ and of what He has done for me and how He will keep this poor wretched sinner despite my gravitation to dally with the world. More than anything we need to pray that ministers enter their pulpits, look over the congregation, and set forth to lay out the glories and majesties of Jesus Christ present in every book of the Bible. Only having done that can they begin to exegete the passages on how we are to live.
The Cauldron That Awaits Us
Martin Luther once said when asked what he would do if he knew that the Lord was coming back the next day, "I would plant a tree." In the final analysis, we cannot quit on this nation. If people's sufferings are to be alleviated, if we are to return to at least being a "God-fearing" nation we have to seek God's mercy and try our best to be good and responsible citizens. This blog title has the word "conservative" in it to get the attention of who it is meant for but conservatism itself will save no one! Our hope is not in princes or their military power. Christians, who have been relegated to being part of the "religious right," must remind themselves of this every day. This does not mean that we do not support a political party of ardently work for its success but it does mean that we never alter our ethical beliefs or compromise that which is our only hope... the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We lost our moorings in this long before we lost this last election. Our churches are too often social gatherings, some with political causes meant to assuage the guilt of not knowing who we really are in Christ. Our pulpits mention Jesus every week but rarely preach His cross for they have lost faith in the power of preaching the blood shed on Calvary, instead preferring to give biblical advice on how to live. I stumble into church every week to hear the atoning power of the blood of Christ and of what He has done for me and how He will keep this poor wretched sinner despite my gravitation to dally with the world. More than anything we need to pray that ministers enter their pulpits, look over the congregation, and set forth to lay out the glories and majesties of Jesus Christ present in every book of the Bible. Only having done that can they begin to exegete the passages on how we are to live.
The Cauldron That Awaits Us
The political upheaval today is similar in principle to what happened in the American colonies in the first half of the eighteenth century during the Great Awakening. There was the ruling class of sorts, those who held all the power.....the establishment if you will....some in the church and the rest in the government, who thought that they knew everything that there was to know. They would therefore quite naturally lead, and everyone would quite naturally follow, for they had been ordained as God's ministers....fair and square....and would in no way relinquish that power over the souls of men; as for the people, well their job was simply to listen and obey.
As always happens, and always will until Jesus Christ returns, the people had once again failed to remain vigilant in their faith and colonial America's light had dimmed, but once again God had mercy on a wayward people as He raised up men like Jonathon Edwards, George Whitefield and Samuel Davies who would, through much opposition, proclaim the glories of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a fallen world. The religious tyranny would end as would decades later the tyranny of the king.
That colonial American had a pedigree, forged in the cauldron of persecution of the religious tyranny of 17th century England, for Puritans and Dissenters who had known their God did not recognize the voice then emanating from the pulpits. These people who were well versed in the scriptures that God had given them thus recognized wolves in bishop's clothing. They rebelled against the religious darkness of the pulpit elites but were legislated against with their light then being confined to meeting in the meadows and forests. Ultimately many came to America where they would build a city set on a hill whose light could not be hidden.
That city is today but an archaeological ruin or at best a homestead to be visited occasionally as is Mount Vernon or Monticello. The hubbub in Iowa and New Hampshire which is only the beginnings of a spring and summer of political frenzy exhibit the pedigree of 1776 but the results of this election cycle, necessary as it may be, will be inconsequential as to the immediate future of America, for there is yet another cauldron awaiting us which will either prove to be a witch's brew or a purification process where we will be refined as a people who once again call out to their God. The candidates elected, should God give us time to do so, will be but some of the ingredients in this cauldron. Therefore, and for this reason alone, we must choose wisely.
