How have we strayed off the path that the Founders have laid out for us?  Two ways.  First, we have said as a nation that we do not want God in our affairs:  whether they are social, economic, or political.  Secondly, and most important, We don’t teach what a Biblical worldview is from our pulpits.  So is it any wonder that a Biblical worldview is not seen in society? It’s because it’s conspicuously absent from the pew.

By being apathetic in our duties of  preserving the Constitution that our Founders have given us through Divine Providence, we as Christians as well as Americans are on a cataclysmic course of embracing the horror of a dictatorship.  It is the very thing that the Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for us to avoid.

Being familiar with eschatology, I am well aware the Anti-Christ and the False Prophet has to appear on the world stage so that they can be worshiped.  However, no one knows when that day will occur.  A bigger event will take place prior to that.  It is the capturing away of the Church.  The event where Jesus Christ Himself will descend from Heaven to the Earth and gather unto Himself those that are His and we shall so ever be with Him.  THIS is the blessed hope.

In Luke 21:28, he states, “Look up and lift your heads for your redemption draws near”.

Christian chiropractors should be seeing a lot of business between now and then.

Let’s take a look at some of the sins this nation has committed.  No, we do not have to go back to the time of slavery.  That was rectified by the 13th, 14th, and 15th, Amendments respectively.  In 1947 Justice Henry Black ruled that there was a wall of separation between Church and State, and that wall was impregnable.  Pretty strong language for a ruling that had no precedent. Why was that so egregious?  Because this nation had church service in the Capitol Rotunda – which is now the United States Supreme Court building for the first 100 years of its existence.  A clear action of legislating from the Bench.  An action our Founders abhorred and that our Pastors said nothing.

Next we move on to 1954 where then Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson amended the IRS tax code keep preachers from endorsing candidates from the pulpit that hold a Biblical worldview or risk their non-profit status exemption.  To this day that amendment is never been challenged  in a U.S. Supreme Court case.  Our Pastor’s silence is their agreement with the law.

Fast forward to 1973 where the systematic murder of  In Vitro children became “the law of the land”.  While the Church has been outspoken about this heinous ruling,  it’s like saying, “Close the barn door” after the horse has already left.  Where were the Pastors speaking of recalling the Justices that were in favor of that ruling?

It seems to me that when the government which we are charged by God to hold accountable to the standard of Scripture does something un-scriptural and passes a law to enforce it, THEN we say something. It’s the dramatization of putting the cart before the horse, wondering why the cart doesn’t move even after all of us collectively scream “giddy up”.

America has found herself in the balances of God and we have been found wanting.  In short, our collective sins have outweighed any type of righteousness we could muster.  However, unlike Belshazzar, judgement has not come for us…yet.  We still have (very little) time.  We need to repent now as ever before.  If the altered course began with Spiritual Authority, then the course correction needs to begin with them also.  If this means that they choose not to repent it is your responsibility to find another church lest you partake in the same judgement of that person.  If repentance does not come from us collectively and soon, we have to look no further than Biblical and world history of those who have turn their backs on God.  From the Israelis who brought into captivity by Babylon, to the Church in Germany that was slaughtered by Hitler.  Summary judgement was brought about by God who has made it repeatedly clear that He will not be mocked.

So what will it be Church of America?  Will our nation suffer judgement due to our rebellion or though our repentance will He find a just weight that will bring our nation into “balance” and stay His hand, for now.

When we stop and look back at history, we can see that a lot of things have come full circle.  From the cultural where in the 1970′s people wore Bell Bottom pants, and now we currently call them “Flares”.  To the economic where manufacturing plants were closing at a record rate, and unemployment was in excess of 15%, and we are racing toward that mark again.  To spiritually where most Christians can’t define, much less live out a Biblical worldview.   We as a nation have come back to a place where most people in America – Christian or not, recognize that there is something terribly wrong.

Since all things begin and end in the spirit, I would call this a spiritual “merry-go-round”.  Why?  Because like a natural merry-go-round we are moving in different directions:  Up and down, round and round deceiving ourselves thinking that we are progressing – moving forward as it were.  Then reality slaps us in the face and we realize that once we get off the ride, we can see clearly that we didn’t go anywhere at all, and the movement we experienced was just an illusion just to waste our time.

So how do we change the situation?  Three things we as a nation must do:

First,  we as a nation must recognize that we a spiritual problem first, not a natural  problem.  Spiritual problems must be solved with spiritual solutions.  Those solutions should originate from Spiritual Authority. They should include repentance, prayer and fasting, with those in that authority demonstrating how it is to be properly done.

Secondly, in order for this nation to be successful again, we must discover the very thing that made us successful in the first place.  In order to find out what that was we must go back into history to see what did the Founders do that we are not doing.  The answer is the Founders believed that God is an integral part of society that permeates all areas:  Socially, Economically, and Spiritually.    In other words, no matter what part society you chose to peer into, God was there.  Can we say that about our society?

Third, we need to begin to execute a plan to put God back into places of  our society and culture that we have forced Him out of.  One of the obvious places we have force Him out by either active removal or passive indifference is government.  Why is that so important?  Government is not made of up laws, but of people.  When people who can exercise self-control internally, laws don’t need to be created externally.  So if you have those who are in public office that are controlled internally by God, the laws that are created are very few and are specifically designed for those who choose not to be controlled by God.  In short, the success of the Founders can be summed up this way:  God was in control – of them.

Let’s get off the merry-go-round, go past the “fun house” and ask God to show us the nearest “exit”.

So the saying goes.  However, I find the time that we are living in is flying faster than ever – even though we’re suffering in this kettle of pain we chose to jump into back in 2008.  At the time the nation was chanting “Hope and Change” and “Yes We Can”.  Now the nation is slowly waking up to the fact that without God there is no “Hope”.  To be independent from Him will not result in any “Change”.  Finally, we in the Church who have been commissioned by God to save the lost, recognized that by dazzling people with our hip programs, our seeker sensitive culture and our palatable Gospel, we have concluded that without the power of the Holy Spirit, “No We Can’t”.

We are about 9 months away from choosing another President.  There has been a lot of chatter in churches – “Black” churches especially, that people will re-elect Barack Obama based solely on his skin tone.  Regardless of your political affiliation, the standard of choosing a leader to rule over you should always be based on the Word of God.  Those who choose political expediency over God’s Word are no better.  Sarah Palin, who claims to be an unashamed Christian wrote a note on Facebook concerning Bella Santorum, Rick Santorum’s daughter who was admitted to the hospital recently, “Thank you, Rick and Karen Santorum, for living the Christ-like example of sacrifice and right priorities”…..  Yet she endorses Newt Gingrich for President?

As I have said in previous postings, “Just because I say I’m a Cadillac, doesn’t mean that I am”.  As this and subsequent years moves on – providing that the Lord tarries, it will become more and more evident of who verbalizes the teachings of Christ, as opposed to who lives them.  In Biblical terms, the chaff has grown with the wheat and harvest time is upon us (see Matthew 13:24-30).  This doesn’t mean that those who have made mistakes that repentance is not available to them.  I am speaking directly to those who have chosen to walk in error and refuse to look at that error for what it is.  That the pride in their heart is more important than the approval of the Holy Spirit.  That their position holds more sway than God’s direction.  That the ruling of men is tantamount than the serving of them.  These leaders and all that willing to follow them are part of the Laodicean church that Jesus spoke of that are miserable, wretched, blind, poor, and naked ( See Revelation 3:17).

In the coming months we will see more political rhetoric than ever – on both sides of the aisle.  Our countrymen will be doing a lot finger pointing saying that “My side is right”.  or “God is on my side”.  While there maybe instances that could bear that out, I think Abraham Lincoln said it best:

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Lincoln knew a thing or two about having a clear vision to eliminate tyranny;  what we now call slavery.  We in the Church should learn from history, lest we damn our country to repeat it.

As the dawning of 2012 is here, an ominous specter is no longer on the approach toward our shores.  It has gone past the point of establishing a beach head. It has now been woven and solidified into our laws;  and with Blitzkrieg type speed will influence and dominate our culture.  That specter I am speaking of is tyranny.  It is a governmental order that has taken the most civilized of cultures and has caused them to sink into the most base, vile, depraved, abysmal, and wretched displays of humanity that has ever been recorded in the annals of human history.  Why?  The answer is quite simple.  Tyranny is mankind’s attempt to replace God.  It is those at the top of this order who have an insatiable hunger and thirst to be the object of human worship.  To have mankind – by force or deception,  bow down to them in thought, word and deed, and to carry out their twisted agenda to it heinous conclusion.

Tyranny, like liberty has one thing stopping it:  Your choice.  Sounds farfetched?  Don’t believe me?  Consider the children of Israel when Samuel’s sons were making perverted judgements (see I Samuel 8:3).  What was the people’s response?  “Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations”.  This was not God’s will.  This was the people’s choice.  God solidified that this was the people’s choice by saying, “And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them“. (I Samuel 8:7 emphasis added)

On November 6, 2012, barring martial law being implemented, we will have another – and could be our last, opportunity to elect a President, Vice-President, Congressional leaders, et, al.  so that we can retain our freedoms that God has given us. We will have another chance to preach the Gospel freely without any fear of being carted off to jail or executed on the spot for being an enemy of the State.  In short on November 7, 2012, the government we as American citizens will live under will be because of God’s will or….

These are two of many examples I can cite that have the markings of “Pax  Romana” (Roman Peace)  Where the religious leaders of the day have by active intent or passive agreement kept the people “in line”, in exchange to continue to function unabated by the government.  To many the response would be “What’s the difference”?  ‘God’s will is going to be done anyway”.  My rebuttal would be Yes. But will it be done because of your choice or in spite of it?  Why? As an example, the person in charge of the judge who acquitted the two preachers is Barbara E. Hartle, a hand picked appointee of Annise Parker - an open lesbian who is the Mayor of Houston. What would be the chances of this even coming to trial in the first place if Christian voters would have not been actively deceived or passively not voting for Annise Parker?  It is a testament to how illiterate the Christian is toward history – both Biblical and American.

We are on the verge of signing over our rights as citizens because those that are “professional clergy” tell us not to worry, “God is in control”.  While that is ultimately true, the one thing that God can not control is your choice.  It is you who voted for the leader over you, not God.  Therefore it is you not God that will hold them accountable for their votes.  Mr Obama, was telling the truth when he said “I will fundamentally transform this country….”.   How right he was, and look how far he has come.

2012 will be a year where the decisions made will transform our nation and we as a people significantly and permanently.  If there is a time to get a vise grip type hold on what a Biblical worldview is and how that translates into American history and politics the time is now.

To those who still “wax nostalgic” and wish they could live in the 1st century with Jesus, my reply is “Rest assured, your “dream” is about to come true”.

People think politics is a complicated matter.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Politics is not a contest of party affiliation as it is a contest of worldviews.  In other words, on Election Day which worldview will we as a nation follow until the next election cycle?  I go into more detail about this in my blog “Elections Have Consequences”.   When you eliminate the “fluff” you are really left with two choices – A Biblical worldview or a Non-Biblical worldview.  Most Christians can not articulate what a Biblical worldview is.  Therefore you can’t confidently vote for something or someone that reflects your values.  What is worse is that you can’t convince a person that holds a Non-Biblical worldview through a discussion, that their worldview has flaws and that a Biblical worldview has the answers that they are looking for.  Consider this:

• How would you classify abortion?  Murder of innocent blood or a woman’s right to choose?
• How would you define marriage – as God sees between a man and a woman or something else that Scripture doesn’t support?
• How would you classify the rights and freedoms you enjoy as an American – God given or government given?
• How do you view political office – as a responsibility to be stewarded or a stepping stone to get what you want?

These are just a few questions you would need to ask yourself before you engage a person with a different worldview, much less a candidate running for public office. I think we do God as well as ourselves a disservice if these questions are not addressed in our hearts and in the pulpit.   Like tithing, we must be continually  reminded that it is our decisions that bring forth God’s blessing or His curse.  It is our decision to elect a candidate that has a Biblical worldview.  It is our decision to pray one in if you don’t see one.

I have encountered people who have tried to use Daniel 2:21 as a political “Get out of jail free” card; meaning it is Biblically permissible to get out of the political process.  However, we haven’t had a king ruling this country in over 200 years.  Remember, with the exception of the Judges, every political authority in Scripture was a dictatorship.  From Pharaoh to Agrippa and every one in between – including David and Solomon.

However, every country in world history did have supreme ruling body on the Earth.  In the time of Jesus it was known as Caesar.  This would make many Christians feel justified in their minds that there is nothing we can do because they will quote “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar, and render unto God that which is God’s (see Matthew 22:21).  While this is true, in America we must recognize what is classified as Caesar.  Most Christians – including a lot of preachers get this incorrect.  “Caesar” in America is not the President, Governor, or any person in public office that has authority. It’s not the body itself; such as the U.S., State, or local government.  Caesar in America is the U.S. Constitution.  It is the supreme law of the land.  It is the document that all State officials, the entire Congress, The Supreme Court, and all service members in our our Armed Forces, including the President and Vice-President swear and a oath of allegiance to uphold, protect, and defend.

So in the day that we live in you can read Scripture this way:  Render unto the Constitution that which belongs to the Constitution.  Render unto God that which belongs to God.  When you read Scripture in this context, knowing that the Constitution was framed around the Declaration of Independence – where over half the signers held seminary degrees, you can make the case that our Founders have a Biblical worldview and that it is our obligation to ensure that the Constitution remains the standard – not a “living document” that needs to be changed.   On November 6, 2012 we will choose a worldview.  The question of what is more important to us as Christians and Americans will be answered on November 7th: God’s blessing or His curse.

Choose Wisely, America.

My question would be “Where is the Church”?!  As the old saying goes, “The squeakiest wheel gets the grease”.  Yet I hear no “squeak” coming from the pulpit.  Where is your outrage, Pastor?  Why have you allowed this type of behavior to go largely unanswered?  Is it because your tax exemption is more important that your moral duty?  Is it because you lack the courage to speak out on not only what is obviously sin, but can’t find the intestinal fortitude to say that “Right behavior brings forth right results”?  When have you encouraged your congregation that the saving the soul of this nation is just as important as saving the soul of a person?  Do you know that to do both averts judgement on both?

This nation was birthed out of religious persecution.  It is a very sad commentary that to bring back God in a place that He should have never left,  we as a  people are going to have to suffer religious persecution again.  Not the Laodicean type of “persecution” of not getting the closest parking stall to the church doors.  Not the agony of someone sitting in “your” seat.   I’m referring to the police braking down your door at 3 A.M. pulling you out of bed and arresting you for being a Christian.  If we as a nation ever get to that point and you pull out a gun to defend your family, justifiable homicide will be the cause of your death and your family will still be arrested.  Ready for that one Pastor?

I am calling forth a new “occupation”.    An occupation of righteous men and women who will stand behind the sacred desk and extoll the virtues and mandates that God Almighty has in His Word and for His people.  A people who will stand up be counted and take captive the darkness in this nation by bringing forth the light of His righteous to every facet of life  -  including political life.  An occupation that has at its core the serving of others as God intended, not the serving of self.  An occupation which understands a lack of freedom in Him is a sure road to bondage.   An occupation of the preservation of our Christian core beliefs is a sure road to freedom.

THIS is the occupation that Jesus is looking for.  A new direction birthed out of II Chronicles 7:14 and fulfilled out of Proverbs 29:2.  When we as a nation begin to do this, then we will begin to see Him.

Ready to occupy?

“As we the Church in America enter into 2011 we must make no mistake.  A mark will be made this year.  The question is what kind of mark will you as a believer will leave behind.  Will you be known as a person that was despised because you refused to do your job?  A person that conspired to abandon your job of maintaining Constitutional vigilance and leaving it up to someone else to do for you?  Or will you be known as a person who stood up for righteousness in the public square and the political arena; To be an inspiration to our countrymen that Biblical Truth is worth living for and that God ordained liberty is worth fighting for“.

It takes approximately nine months to create a child   Let’s take a spiritual and political “ultrasound” and see the ‘child” the Church has created.  We have 17% unemployment (regardless of what the government says).  We have seen and allowed Socialist-style capitalism to take place (see Solyndra).  Yet the pulpits of America are eerily silent when it comes to calling out this type of sin.   Sure,  we point out the obvious ones such as same same -sex marriage.  Why?  Because pointing those sins out is considered “safe”.  Why are they considered safe?  The world has come to expect the Church to call out those sins.  Yet instead of  feeling the conviction of God’s Word that’s being preached, we are largely ignored.  Why?  Because we are regarded as no real existential threat to the American Culture because truth be told, we don’t believe in the Truth of the Word of God.  Why Not?  Because so long as our Pastors keep dangling the “prosperity carrot”  in front of us, we are more than willing to let the world pass us by since we have become so fixated on our “breakthrough”.

We have at least heard of the trial and conviction of Pastor Yusef Nadarkhani of Iran.  Yet what kind of “solidarity” have we seen coming out of the Church?  What viral videos on YouTube have been posted?  Where are the “fire and brimstone” sermons that tells the congregation that God is the one who gave us our rights and it is those rights we are called to steward?  That if this can happen in a place where Sharia Law is accepted as the “Law of the land”,  then it has the potential of becoming the law of the land here because we allowed it.  Can’t happen in America you say?  Think again and read this article:  “Sharia Law in America – Is it Possible?: YES!“  Ask yourself this question:  Why is there no outrage in the pulpit over the Solyndra debacle?  That a corporation in a niche industry can ask and receive loan guarantees totaling hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money – God’s money, right Pastor? Yet very little to no accountability is being called forth.  These are two of many examples that the Church in America instead of proclaiming and implementing the solution of God’s Word, we have become an integral part of the problem.

What is the solution you may ask?  I would classify it as the three “Rs”:  Repentance, Removal, and Restoration.

Repentance – This is a job that Church in America MUST initiate from the top down.  That those in spiritual leadership would repent to God AND the congregation for not leading us in the way we should go.  Once that is initiated we invite the entire country to join us in this spiritual, but critical exercise.

Removal – We mount with up the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit along with the intestinal fortitude necessary to hold those that in public office accountable and to remove those who have  chosen not to be.

Restoration – This is something that can happen only at God’s direction.  As the Church we must keep our ear toward Heaven and our eyes on the Earth, so to ensure that what we hear from Him is translated in to what we see because of our obedience to His Word.

When the three “R”s” are properly implemented, we will hear the cry of the child that is the new birth – revival.  If not,  this child will come out the womb stillborn and we the Church will be held responsible  by God.

However, we would stand to benefit from the history of others.  A case in point is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He was a Pastor in Germany before Hitler and Nazi (National Socialists) party took over Germany.  He warned the Church of Germany about Hitler and the Nazis, but no one listened.  He warned that the Nazi would arrest people and raid their homes and businesses.   No one listened.

On August 25, 2011 Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar Corporation  had his business raided for a 2nd time (the first time being in 2009) and the wood used to make Gibson guitars were seized.  However, in both cases no charges were filed against Gibson and the wood was never returned.  Below is a news conference Mr. Juszkiewicz on August 26, 2011.

As the CEO stated, the seizure occurred due to the enforcement of Indian – not American law.  This action by the Federal Government should send chills down the backs of the Church in America.  That your property – personal and ministerial, can be seized without warning which is a complete and direct violation of the 4th Amendment.  No probable cause.  No due process.  If you “upset” someone in the government, your freedom as you know it can end, and you can serve time in a jail cell for a crime – perceived or imaginary that the government said you have committed.

This is the precise path Hitler took with the Jews.  He and the Nazis raided their businesses with no probable cause – other than they were Jews.  What was the Church’s response?  They sangs songs.  They had fellowship.  However, they dared not open up their mouths and voiced their dissent against the government, for they feared that they would suffer the same fate as the Jews.  In short, the Gospel that they lived and preached was different from the Gospel that is found in Scripture.  As horrific as the genocide of the Jews were, what’s more terrifying is know that the Christians could have reduced or eliminated the event altogether – if they knew their Bible.

This same diabolical plot has come to our shores and had planted itself in our government. Scripture says, “…a corrupt tree can not bring forth good fruit” (see Matthew 7:18). We have witness over the last 50 or so years, the corruption of the tree we call government and now the evil fruit of it is coming to bare.  All the while, the pruners of the tree – the Church in America have been eating, drinking and making merry with themselves, while the garden of our freedoms have been overrun with every type of weed, thorn and thistle imaginable.

As it was in the days of the Holocaust, soon it will be the same in America.  We the Christians in this nation will have in short order, our own version of  “Kristallnacht” (Night of the Broken Glass).  It may not be your stained glass of your church that is broken, it will be your freedom.

As it is with glass, your freedom once shattered, can never be repaired.