We are just over a week away from an election that has been like no other. Unlike the races of decades ago, the choice is clearly defined. We are faced with two diametrically opposed visions of America. One is offering us a ‘brave new future,’ untethered to the American tradition. Oh, in the presentation, in the campaign, it has been given a coat of paint and some stars and stripes to make it seem like what it isn’t. It disguises moral uncertainty as inclusiveness and sacrifices cultural integrity in the name of a false sense of compassion. It would sacrifice our traditions, our borders and our God-given rights all traded in for a Globalist vision that erodes the role of the nation state. It is NOT America; not the one we find when we dust off the old history books and push past modernist revisionism. The other vision we are offered is tied closely to that past. Yes, it is boisterous and imperfect in both its understandings and its staging – but its roots push deep toward the well waters of liberty that slaked the yearnings of nearly forgotten and now defamed patriots. As it seeks ‘greatness’ it stumbles toward the goodness that alone can fuel that desire.
That is why this election is among the most important ever held since the founding of the Republic. The national stakes are perhaps as high as the contest of 1860 that brought us Lincoln, division, Civil War and ultimately the end of our national sin of slavery.. In 2016 we face as weighty a choice. As in the years prior to the Civil War, America drifted down the path of violence and hate. And we seem headed there again. But we face something else too; a moral drift that has taken us away from the foundations of both our founding and our national faith.
The Church That Failed a Nation
We are a nation that has lost its way led by a church that has lost its moorings. We have wandered from the path set by our Founders. Our cultural free-fall is not the fault of secularized America alone. With pockets of exception, it is the Church that has failed to maintain a living relationship with the God of the Bible. The United States has become a willing participant in the Last Days Falling Away. And without that anchor, a blinded people is stumbling in the dark as our crumbling Judeo-Christian foundation is willfully torn away by enemies within that would see it destroyed – and anticipate that they will soon celebrate its demise. Despite claims to the contrary, this nation was founded on biblical principles and dedicated to the purposes of God. It is to this we must return. As Proverbs 11:3 asks: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (KJV) The “righteous” are in the process of finding out.
So as a nation, we are well along in that process of rejecting God. As we’ve abandoned rational methods we’ve lost our social consensus. America has become a ‘law unto itself.’ “Every man did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6) (ESV) That is the world we’ve chosen. We no longer hear the voice of God. This then is the danger of eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We make up the rules….according to our preferences and predilections. The Law becomes whatever we choose it to be. This is the foundation that is destroyed. We’ve destroyed them ourselves. No enemy could do this for us…or….to us. In our lusts and our selfishness, we’ve torn down the infrastructure that can support us……that can support a free people; a free culture.
The erosion of those foundations can be found in the confused, heretical beliefs found by professing members of the Church. Just look at that ‘Professing Church,’ those 75% of Americans that identify as Christians as well as a more specific group calling themselves “Evangelicals,” defined as “only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.” Some very substantial heresies abound in each group. It’s as if aliens have come and sucked the biblical sense out of people. LifeWay Research found that 67% of non-evangelical Americans believe that all religions lead to God. Among Evangelicals the number was still high at 48%. That’s the good news. It gets worse from there. 60% of Americans say all people will ultimately make it to heaven. “Two-thirds (65 percent) agree that everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature….More than half of Americans (58 percent) say God is the author of the Bible. About half say the Bible alone is the written Word of God (52 percent)…. Fewer than half of Americans (47 percent) say the Bible is 100 percent accurate.” Forty four percent of Americans say sex outside of marriage is not a sin and 40% say abortion is ok. “Forty-two percent of Americans say the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today.” Forty-four percent disagree. And when it comes to salvation, Americans have adopted a completely unbiblical concept. “Three-quarters of Americans (77 percent) say people must contribute their own effort for personal salvation.[i] This was not something that came about by happenstance. The American Church abdicated its responsibility and allowed the world to come in. Prayer was removed from the schools….and there was no effective response. Abortion was legalized….and the reply was anemic and feckless. Over time, TRUTH became preference and morality was lost in a maze of contradiction. The Church had surrendered its role as the moral guide to the culture at large.
The removal of prayer was more than a symbolic act. When prayer left morality followed. That decline was set in motion by the Supreme Court decision in the case Engel v Vitale. As chronicled by CNS News: It was determined “that a prayer approved by the New York Board of Regents for use in schools violated the First Amendment because it represented establishment of religion. In 1963, in Abington School District v. Schempp, the court decided against Bible readings in public schools along the same lines.” The race to the bottom was on. In an address to the Heritage Foundation, Professor William Jeynes, an expert on American education, laid out five consequences of that action. Academic achievement and SAT scores fell drastically. Out of wedlock births skyrocketed. Drug use increased. Juvenile crime increased. And school behavior deteriorated. From 1940 to 1962 the top complaints of teachers were “talking, chewing gum, making noise, running in the halls and getting out of turn in line.” Today they are “rape, robbery, assault, burglary and arson.”[ii]
This is just one area that has suffered. The Church’s decision to more or less sit out the cultural war has had devastating consequences. [It’s not that there has not been a remnant that has fought the good fight. But for the most part the faithful retreated from engagement as the mainstream press and Leftist hordes directed scathing criticisms and charges against them.] The fallout has been jarring. Social commentator Michael Snyder offered this. “America is never going to be great again until we deal with the wickedness in our own hearts.” That gets right down to the heart of the matter. The problem with America is totally spiritual at its core. But the symptoms manifest in very real, material ways. For instance, we’ve become a society that has made sex simply a casual activity. The Free Love movement of the 60’s went from the fringe to the acceptable social more; promoted on TV, in movies and in music. That new ethic has had its consequences. One example is that sexually transmitted diseases are spreading at an alarming rate. According to the Center for Disease Control, “Cases of sexually transmitted diseases in the United States have reached new highs.” Gonorrhea went up 13% in just one year. Syphilis saw a 19% increase.[iii]
The new sexual model has eroded the social fabric by destroying the culture’s most essential building block; the nuclear family. Here’s Snyder again. “Back in 1940, 3.8 percent of all babies were born to women that were not married. Today, that number is over 40 percent…. If we want to make America great again, we can start by not sleeping with people that we are not married to. But of course an increasing number of Americans (especially our young people) are discarding traditional notions of love, marriage and sexuality completely. At one time we were told that the choice was between ‘gay’ and ‘straight,’ but now many people have decided that they want absolutely no limits. Miley Cyrus is among those that are now identifying themselves as ‘pansexuals.’” Snyder quotes the definition on pansexual as “not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity.” The slide is not limited to the secular. According to a survey reported in Charisma Magazine, 68% of Christian men admit to viewing pornography on a regular basis.[iv] Then there is the bloodiest sin of all. Since Roe v Wade legalized abortion we’ve murdered over 58 million babies. This is nothing less than a sacrifice to Satan of our children, no different than when the pagan peoples – and eventually the apostasized Israelites – performed their fiery sacrifices to the god Molech. And the sanctioning of late-term abortion exhibits a cruelty unsurpassed in even the most paganized cultures. [Yet it is a practice that is openly promoted by one of this year’s presidential candidates.]
Snyder’s comments are well taken. I read the comments following an online news article a few weeks back and found this curious argument which makes the point. A man, claiming to be Christian, admitted that he drank too much, smoked pot and visited porn sites, but seemed to excuse it all. After all, he argued, he was human and weak – and he’d probably continue doing all that. However, this points, he said, to the fact that Jesus is greater and is capable of forgiving our sin – so in that way, it results in God’s glory. The argument sorely missed the point Christ’s message. For this gentleman, there was no impetus to change in the Christian message. Turning from sin was the point of Christ’s first message. “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”
In his letter to the Romans, Paul lays out the consequences of sin in no uncertain terms. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” (Romans 1:18-19) Bang! Zoom! There’s no doubt about what Paul is telling us here. Jump down a few verses and you seem him define the process of the sin he is talking about. “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:24-32) It all seems rather clear. That’s just where we are today.
The Choice at Hand
So we come again to this election, this choice. For the Christian, there is no perfect solution. Many cite Donald Trump’s past, his coarseness, his sexuality, the fact that he was once pro-choice. They don’t trust he’ll do what he says he will do.
As to Hillary Clinton, her downside seems unlimited. Corruption vomits forth from the bowels of the Clinton enterprise. It is not possible to catalogue them all here, but here are a few examples. A Project Veritas video revealed Clinton’s campaign people paying and sending operatives to Trump rallies to foment violence. One caused the cancellation of a Trump event in Chicago. A second video showed them admit to “bussing in” voters from out of state and setting up dummy companies to pay them for their vote. On the video one campaign executive is heard boasting that they’ve been “rigging elections for 50 years” and they weren’t about to stop now.[v] Wikileaks emails revealed what appears to be a “pay to play” scheme wherein nations and anyone wanting influence with the State Department would have to pony up a tidy sum to the Clinton Foundation first. A CNN report details: “One newly released document was a memo prepared by Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s former top aide, for the attorneys who were conducting the audit. In the memo, Band details his own consulting company, Teneo, and its relationship to the foundation’s top donors as well as how those top donors also enriched Bill Clinton through what Band called ‘Bill Clinton, Inc.’” [vi] The Washington Post tells us: “Teneo consulted for several companies that contributed to the Clinton Foundation, including Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical and UBS.”[vii] Then there’s the “Fixer” who worked for Hillary in her White House years as First Lady, who came with documentation, saying that he arranged trysts for Mrs Clinton with both men and women. Of course there’s the ever-loved ‘Bimbo Eruption Team.’ Finally, there is the reopening of the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails now that more have come to light, being found on the server of shamed former Congressman Anthony Wiener. Wiener is the husband of Clinton confidant and aide Huma Abedin. Then you can add in the body count. Dozens of strange and mysterious deaths occurring to people that the Clinton’s were involved with in some way, shape or form. A number were set to testify about either Bill’s or Hillary’s activities or were otherwise engaged in endangering Clinton fortunes.
Finally there are the defining personal character traits of Mrs Clinton. Secret Service Agents have detailed her angry tirades in the White House complete with swearing and throwing of objects. Reports are that she dressed-down Donna Brazile, the African American Chair of the DNC screaming at her in a racially insensitive way. Hillary’s outburst was triggered by the fact that Matt Lauer asked a question about her emails which had not been approved in advance by the Clinton campaign. [That’s way out of bounds to begin with.] Brazile had passed the questions to Clinton – but Lauer had varied from the script. Clinton threatened to have him fired. Then there’s the former White House Chef who testified that Clinton used the N-word to describe a server that displeased her. This confirms what others have said about her common use of that word. [But she’s not racist….No Trump is the racist!] Finally, there are three witnesses, including one that passed a polygraph that “claim that she referred to her husband’s former congressional campaign manager as a ‘f—ing Jew bastard.’”[viii]
So how is a follower of Christ to choose? I believe as Christians we are to seek both the material and especially the moral and spiritual good of our nation. While we may have personal objections to someone’ character, we must ask ourselves what would advance God’s cause. We are engaged in a battle for our nation. Ray Gano of Prophezine puts things more bluntly. “There is a group of people, Christians who have their noses so far up in the air being so holy and all that they have come out and said ‘Anything But Trump.’ What these people are blind to… no not blind, refusing to take their heads out of the proverbial sand and truly look around at what is at stake. What is at stake is their jobs, their church, their homes, their Christian communities and their children.”[ix] This contest involves two very different versions of America. It pits the Globalist Clinton against the Nationalist Trump. Is American to return to the principles of its founding or is it to surrender to the vagaries of a New World Order.
HILLARY CLINTON
- Will continue the LGBT Revolution
- Has told her banker cronies she is in favor of Open Borders. Immigration from Muslim countries will increase
- Will continue to promote abortion including late-term, partial birth abortions
- Is in favor of the disastrously globalist TPP which will eventually dwarf the effects of NAFTA
- Wants to replace Obamacare with a Federally-run Single Payer Program – so we can be like all of those failed European models with their long waits for essential services
- Will redefine the 2nd Amendment to allow the seizure and control of Americans private weapons. (She is in favor of the UN Small Arms Treaty.)
- Will nominate liberal justices that will re-define the American Constitution and import foreign law
- Has threatened to take on the Russians, who even right now are in the process of preparing for nuclear war
- Was behind the Arab Spring and other Middle Eastern disasters.
DONALD TRUMP
- Will repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act
- Would uphold the 2nd Amendment and say no to gun control legislation
- Will nominate pro-life, strict-constructionists to the Supreme Court
- Has promised to overturn Obama’s illegal Executive Orders
- Will defund Planned Parenthood
- Will cut personal and corporate taxes to revive the economy
- Will return education to state and local control
- Would block Common Core
- Will work toward energy independence
- Will bar refugees from terrorist-producing nations
When weighed against the evidence: The choice seems clear. We know what Hillary Clinton brings to the table. It is globalist, self-serving, immoral and wicked. With Donald Trump we may be a little less sure. Some may not believe him. But with Hillary we know we would be electing a disaster. With Trump, there is risk….but if he follows through….there is opportunity once again to get on the right path.
America has a last chance to right itself. And no, it’s not this election in itself. We are falling into a moral abyss. Repentance and Return to God are the only solutions. This election is not the answer. But without the right answer on November 8th, the road back will be hard….or nearly impossible. This choice is a down payment on that return.
“When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.” (2Chronicles 7:13-15)
[i] Americans Love God and the Bible, Are Fuzzy on the Details, LifeWay Research, September 27, 2016
[ii] Penny Starr, Education Expert: Removing Bible, Prayer from Public Schools Has Caused Decline, CNS News, August 15, 2014
[iii] Sexually transmitted diseases surge in California, Los Angeles Daily News, October 21, 2016
[iv] Michael Snyder, America Needs To Wake Up, The American Dream, October 23, 2016
[v] “Rigging Elections For 50 Years”, Zero Hedge, October 18, 2016
[vi] WikiLeaks reveals Hillary-world vexed by ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’, CNN, October 28, 2016
[vii] ‘Bill Clinton, Inc.’, Washington Post, October 28, 2016
[viii] Larry Elder, Trump vs. Clinton: a Risk vs. a Disaster, Real Clear Politics, October 27, 2016
[ix] Ray Gano, I Don’t Get These Ignorant, Pious, Prideful NO TRUMP Christians, Prophezine, October 25, 2016
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