Week 34, 2009
As I have said before, an eagle needs both a right
wing and a left wing to fly. I am personally a
conservative, but I am just as concerned about right wing
extremists as I am left wing extremists. Someone said in a
recent summit of Christian leaders we hosted that as
Christians our allegiance is not to the party of the donkey
or the elephant, but to the Lamb. My first allegiance is to
the holy nation, the kingdom of God, far more so than any
other allegiance. However, I do have some allegiance to my
country, the party I belong to, and other associations I
have.
I also only have other associations that I believe
embrace biblical standards of righteousness and justice,
which is why I was once a member of the Democratic Party,
but felt I had to leave as the basic platform of the party
started to conflict with basic biblical standards of
morality. I also felt that the Democratic Party actually
crossed the line to make one of the most basic affronts to
God as stated in Scripture, which is to "call evil good,
and good evil" (see Isaiah 5:20). Even so, I would leave
the Republican Party just as fast if it started to do that
for the sake of political expediency.
As a member of the Republican Party, I also confess to
being disappointed by the party of Lincoln that failed to
lead the cause of civil rights and for the party of Teddy
Roosevelt that fell far behind in taking up the legitimate
need to protect the environment. I have been just as
grieved by the leaders of the party, even Presidents who
said one thing but did another when they got in office.
Even so, when the basic platform is something that I can
conscientiously agree to, I will stay and work to see the
message and actions agree.
I also agree that it is a biblical mandate in the
teachings of Scripture on righteousness for us to be good
stewards. I believe that waste is sin, and presently our
government is the worst sinner in this, probably on the
planet. With sound management principles, our government
could be accomplishing several times what it is doing now
while being a fraction of its size. I believe it would be
an easy thing to balance the federal budget and have the
federal government doing much more for people, not less,
with some good basic management principles.
If the trillions of dollars that are now being
consumed by the federal deficit in the issuing of bonds
were directed to business, we would quickly become an
economic powerhouse like never before and have enough to
begin pulling the whole world out of the prison of chronic
poverty. There are other factors keeping so much of the
world in poverty, such as unstable governments and corrupt
leaders, but this is a management problem also. Our
government feeds and keeps many of these evil regimes in
power by having such short-term foreign policy strategies.
It was actually America that provided much of the financing
for the development of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which have
used many of the weapons we gave them against our own
soldiers.
The federal government is the worst environmental
violator. Just cutting out unnecessary paperwork would
certainly save tens of millions of trees a year. Why hasn't
the environmental movement ever addressed the waste and
excesses of government? Certainly there have been corporate
violators, and these need to be judged when they destroy
that which belongs to us all—the earth. The Lord even said
that He would destroy those who destroy the earth (see
Revelation 11:18). Christians should be on the forefront of
the cause of the environment, but it must be done with
integrity and truth. I agree that if we are truly pro-life,
we should be for all life, including every species that man
was given the mandate to rule over, but I also agree that
environmentalists who are not pro-life for humans are very
basic hypocrites.
As a prophetic voice, the church should always be at
the front of the important causes and issues of the times.
If the church does not take its responsibility to do this,
then these issues and causes will be championed by those
who will often hijack them for less than righteous purposes
and can even use them for evil. This, too, is a matter of
stewardship—burying our talents by not using them to be the
salt and light that we are called to be.
Many are becoming increasingly shocked by how a
government so extremely leftist got into power in the U.S.,
which is and continues to be a "right of center"
population. As stated, it is not uncommon for even tiny
minorities to seize political power in a crisis, as we see
with both Germany and Russia in the twentieth century. This
happens when the majority becomes silent or passive. In
history, whenever such a shift has happened the
consequences have been devastating. This, too, is the
result of those burying the light. We are warned in
Scripture that such will incur a worse judgment.
If the church in America awakens and takes its
responsibility to be the salt and light that she is called
to be, a recovery of all of our lost freedoms and economic
strength can be achieved. If we continue to sleep, America
will continue to fall from its heights of strength and
greatness, likely at an increasing pace.
Either way the kingdom is going to come. Many think
that the kingdom will come faster if America collapses. I
can understand some of the merits of this argument, but it
will be much easier and better if America returned to its
godly foundations and became the force that it is called to
be—to help proclaim and prepare the way for the Lord.
Do we want such a great nation to be lost on our
watch? She is falling fast, and without bold, courageous
leadership by those who have the light, she will be lost.
It is up to those who have the light to stand with boldness
and courage for the light.
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