The historian, Sidney Mead, described the United States as a nation with the soul of a church.   If we are truly a nation with the soul of a church then the most important thing you can do this July 4th is to be in Church getting right with God. The genius of our nation is not in our political parties but in our people. But until we are willing to accept God’s spiritual remedy for our sick soul, our nation will night rise above our own spiritual condition. The nation can never be better than we are.

It does not take too much time in study to realize that the founders of our nation firmly believed that the morals, values and ethics of the Bible were foundational to the success of our nation.  This quote from Thomas Jefferson is found on the wall of the Jefferson Memorial:

God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever

It is time for Christians to stop following the world and return to being the people of God.  I firmly believe that the nation rests on our shoulders, we are salt and light to the nation.  We cannot cower down when we are accused of being out of date, out of touch and moralistic.  Christians have to shed the clothing of secularism and let the robes of Christ be seen.

All too often, in the name of cultural relevance, we have compromised the Gospel.  Too many churches try to look like something besides a church, a sound stage, a movie theater, a fun park.  And every such act is a compromise with the world.  The world does not need another emergent church or any other cutting edge organization.  What the world needs is a repentant church, a church that seeks the face of God in hopes that God will renew us.

Revival among the people of God is the only hope for a declining nation.  Please pray for revival and may it begin with you and with me.

This particular video is about a fresh water project.  But can’t we see the possibilities if we enter into an Advent Conspiracy of many kinds, food, teaching, being a friend, sending gifts to those less fortunate than we?  What about the shoebox ministry or how about just asking your neighbor to church?  Wow, what a world we might create if we lived out the implications of our faith!

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

In the last few years I have become burdened with the need for personal spiritual awakening.  In discussions with our local pastors, I have discovered that this is a growing burden among my pastor friends.  The desire is not only for personal awakening but for our churches, especially for our churches.  But it also seems that our denominations all need to experience a Great Awakening.

Of course, I am most familiar with Southern Baptist Churches.  While we southern Baptists have been known for our growth and evangelism, some kind of death pall has come over us.  I was recently in a denominational meeting and the topic of the day was the demise of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).  In the last few years the International Missions Board of the SBC has suffered various doctoral issues.  But the biggest problem has been the North American Missions Board.  Money is down. Our collective number of baptisms are down. People have had to be laid off, missionary service has had to be postponed due to the lack of money. The seminaries have had to cut salaries and law off workers.  While the SBC is the largest protestant denomination in the United States, we are now easily ignored.  In fact, many Christian journals have set up a death watch to see when we will keel over.

The question is how can we fix it.  I do not think it can be fixed in the traditional sense.  No commission or study is going to give us a solution.   While my analysis may be a bit amateurish, I think we can clearly see the problem if we want and learn about a possible solution.

Baptists use to be plain people, ordinary working men and women.  We were far from the seats of power.  It would be true that in county seat churches, doctors, lawyers and local politicians would be members of local Baptist churches. Yet Baptists were largely engaged with local community ministry and foreign missions.

In the twentieth  century Southern Baptist had grown enough that leaders wanted to be part of the larger social and even political power group that wields influence in our country. I suppose that there is nothing wrong with this and may have even appeared as an act of providence.  But in serving God we are connected to the only seat of power needed to influence a nation.  Seeking to be power players can be a dangerous thing in that it causes us to forget utter reliance on God.  The result is that Southern Baptists became main street.  We were no longer just plain old people.  Now we have presidents who were Southern Baptists.  Southern Baptist pastors and leaders became nationally known figures.  We were caught up in our size, in the amount of money raised collectively for ministry, and most of all, public fame brought by being main street and being powerfully connected.  We were part of the rising new south and we had a big role to play.  I am convinced that our social success contributed to our decline.

A second factor can be found in our tendency to want to program everything.  If we have a problem, a need, or a want, someone will come up with a program to fix it.  Most of the programs came from our Sunday School Board, as it was called, now Lifeway.  Many came from the Home Missions Board, now NAMB. We borrowed from the business community our sense of organization and record keeping.  And these practices served us well.  It allowed to have a standard Sunday School and Discipleship program thus fulfilling the biblical mandate to teach Scripture, to teach discipleship including churchmanship, doctrine and history, to encourage fellowship and to do evangelism through these two programs.  These two programs gave us a uniformity as a denomination that one would not normally find in a non connectional church.

Being successful at Sunday School, we concluded that we needed a program for everything.  Evangelism, Stewardship, building and equipment, almost anything you could imagine.  Soon churches were trying to make one-size-fits-all programs work in their churches even thought most programs were written for larger churches.  The program approach stifled local creativity among church members and even encouraged them to be observers and not participants.

Often these programs were unitarian without thought given to doctrine. This is the third and perhaps most important factor.   We became impressed by size and numbers while we neglected based doctrine.  I am convinced that our efforts at evangelism, no matter how noble, resulted in churches being full of lost people who made emotional “decisions” instead of coming to faith in the incomparable Christ.  It became a routine matter for denominational leaders to claim that the purpose of the church is evangelism.  I heard this just this week.  Not only is it the only purpose of the church but we pastors need to repent if we disagreed with the speaker.  It is a kind of arrogance that says I know better because I am a denominational worker and you are a mere pastor.  The fact is, the purpose of the church is to glorify God and bring him honor by our holy living. But above all, the church brings honor and glory to God by faithfully worshiping him.   The pastor shepherds the flock.  Shepherding includes teaching them the things of God, helping the member to become mature believers. Thus, discipleship and fellowship are integral elements in the purpose of the Church.  When these things are done, the church will be self replicating, evangelism will be normal and natural.  But, no, we tend to listen to our “leaders” who know better.

Our literature has been so dumb-down that very little substance is found in it.  We have been too busy trying to accommodate the world that we have stopped teaching doctrine.  Baptist suffer from a lack of understanding of our basic doctrines.  No one really understands the sovereignty of God and his right to order the lives of his people according to his purposes.  We “accommodate” God by coming to church when it suits us and, for the most part, not paying attention to the things of God during the week. This latter behavior is being reinforced in local churches, often because they are following the latest trend and fad expressed by denominational leaders.

The same can be said for the doctrine of the church, the person of Christ, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of the atonement. Feelings have become the substitute for sound doctrine.  We lose members to cults, and defective churches because we have settled for the lowest common denominator instead of seeking to teach doctrine that leads to a mature Christian.

Finally, this needs to be said. We fought over various definitions of orthodoxy for 25 years and it left us weak and feeble in our practice of the faith.  I am not commenting on the necessity of that fight but the results.  The main argument was that there were many in the denomination who did not believe that the Bible was the inerrant, infallible Word of God.  The battle was won but if you survey the preaching and teaching done by many Southern Baptist pastors you would never know it.  Much of the preaching is topical.  The topics are often about finances, marriage and sex.  The drama of preaching has become more important than the words preached.  It is not unusual to see a stage with cars, motorcycles, beds, and others displays used to promote the subject of the sermon.  It is all entertaining and many men have become famous preachers for these kinds of tactics.  But the Word is not being preached, the kingdom of God is not being built.  No doubt the subjects of modern preaching are important, but we are called to proclaim Scripture not topics.  Expositional preaching is almost gone from many pulpits (if they have a pulpit) because the pastor is trying to imitate his favorite popular preacher.

Since the troubles we experienced in the Southern Baptist Convention, no national leader has risen up to lead us back to the important things.  Institutionalism is stronger than ever even though all the major Southern Baptist institutions are in trouble.  What has been forgotten is that it is all about the local church, not the denomination.  Ultimately the denomination is nothing.  When we get to heaven all there is going to be, is the local church, the Bride of Christ.   The principle was given by Christ himself, “for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”  Institutions take on a life of their own and they often forget why they exist.  Instead, they become concerned for their self existence, protecting jobs without regard to their original purpose.  If we want to save the institutions of the Convention, then they will have to give themselves away so to speak, and become servants to the local churches.

It is the reason that these things happened that is the most disturbing.  It happened, not because of the leadership of the Convention, but because of the wants and compromises of the local churches and the pastors who lead them.  We cannot put the blame on others. If the convention is in decline, it is because the churches are in decline.  That decline is more than numbers, it has to do with the spiritual vitality of the local churches.  We got from our denomination what we demanded.

I think the answer does not lie in the SBC or it’s leadership. No Great Commission study can solve our problems. It is evident that we need a Great Awakening on a national scale.  The great need for an awakening becomes even larger when we view the condition of the SBC in light of the health of local churches.  We must get back to our relationship with God that caused our existence in the first place.  No Great Awakening ever began on a denominational level.  No denominational leader has been at the heart of one.  Great Awakenings begin in churches and with small groups of people who are so disgusted with themselves that they turn to God to restore them.   Most likely if there is ever a Great Awakening in SBC life, it will begin in some small church or group of churches. If God allows an awakening to come, he will sovereignly move his church and if he allows, it will spread until it becomes a raging fire.  It will not be something that any man, any institution can claim to be the leader of or heralded as the one who started it.  Great Awakenings are always a sovereign work of God.  No doubt, God wants us to be right with him.  But it must begin at the top, which is the local church.

Recently a friend sent me this quote from Joe McKeever, “Something that has eluded religious historians and pastors for decades: ‘Why churches do not have revival.’ Insufficient prayer? Lack of godliness? Those are important, but are the symptoms, not the reason. The real reason for no revival is: we don’t want one. Revivals mess with your mind, rearrange your priorities, upset your lives. We prefer to be left alone. Agree?”  And yes, I agree.  But when our situation becomes so grim, when there is little life left in the church, we can no longer sit back and watch it all die.  We are compelled to fall before God and seek His life-giving Spirit for a dose of real revival.

It is my greatest desire to see the fires of a Great Awakening blow its way among our churches and revive our Convention and our state conventions.  I pray that before I die I will see such a movement.  I hope that we all find ourselves before God confessing our sin, begging God for his forgiveness and seeing the revival fires light up in the hearts of believers everywhere.  May God grant it to us.

Exodus 22:25 ¶ “If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest.

Exodus 30:15 “The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than the half shekel, when you give the contribution to the LORD to make atonement for yourselves.

Leviticus 14:21 ¶ “But if he is poor and his means are insufficient, then he is to take one male lamb for a guilt offering as a wave offering to make atonement for him, and one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, and a log of oil,

Leviticus 19:15 ¶ ‘You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.

Leviticus 25:25 ¶ ‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.
Leviticus 25:35 ¶ ‘Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.

Leviticus 25:39 ¶ ‘If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service.

Leviticus 25:47-50
47 ¶ ‘Now if the means of a stranger or of a sojourner with you becomes sufficient, and a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stranger who is sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger’s family,
48 then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him,
49 or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.
50 ‘He then with his purchaser shall calculate from the year when he sold himself to him up to the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall correspond to the number of years. It is like the days of a hired man that he shall be with him.

Deuteronomy 15:4-18
4 “However, there will be no poor among you, since the LORD will surely bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess,
5 if only you listen obediently to the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all this commandment which I am commanding you today.
6 “For the LORD your God will bless you as He has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
7 ¶ “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother;
8 but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
9 “Beware that there is no base thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,’ and your eye is hostile toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry to the LORD against you, and it will be a sin in you.
10 “You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings.
11 “For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.’
12 ¶ “If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free.
13 “When you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed.
14 “You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you.
15 “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.
16 “It shall come about if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you;
17 then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also you shall do likewise to your maidservant.
18 “It shall not seem hard to you when you set him free, for he has given you six years with double the service of a hired man; so the LORD your God will bless you in whatever you do.

Deuteronomy 24:10-15
10 ¶ “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge.
11 “You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you.
12 “If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge.
13 “When the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the LORD your God.
14 ¶ “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your towns.
15 “You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it; so that he will not cry against you to the LORD and it become sin in you.

1 Samuel 2:7-8
7 “The LORD makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.
8 “He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap To make them sit with nobles, And inherit a seat of honor; For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’S, And He set the world on them.

Isaiah 3:14-17
14 The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people, “It is you who have devoured the vineyard; The plunder of the poor is in your houses.
15 “What do you mean by crushing My people And grinding the face of the poor?” Declares the Lord GOD of hosts.
16 Moreover, the LORD said, “Because the daughters of Zion are proud And walk with heads held high and seductive eyes, And go along with mincing steps And tinkle the bangles on their feet,
17 Therefore the Lord will afflict the scalp of the daughters of Zion with scabs, And the LORD will make their foreheads bare.”

Isaiah 10:1-4
Isaiah 10:1 ¶ Woe to those who enact evil statutes And to those who constantly record unjust decisions,
2 So as to deprive the needy of justice And rob the poor of My people of their rights, So that widows may be their spoil And that they may plunder the orphans.
3 Now what will you do in the day of punishment, And in the devastation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your wealth?
4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the captives Or fall among the slain. In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away And His hand is still stretched out.

Isaiah 11:4
4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.

Isaiah 58:1-7
hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet, And declare to My people their transgression And to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 “Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways, As a nation that has done righteousness And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God. They ask Me for just decisions, They delight in the nearness of God.
3 ‘Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’ Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, And drive hard all your workers.
4 “Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist. You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
5 “Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself? Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the LORD?
6 “Is this not the fast which I choose, To loosen the bonds of wickedness, To undo the bands of the yoke, And to let the oppressed go free And break every yoke?
7 “Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, to cover him; And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Jeremiah 5:26-29
26 ‘For wicked men are found among My people, They watch like fowlers lying in wait; They set a trap, They catch men.
27 ‘Like a cage full of birds, So their houses are full of deceit; Therefore they have become great and rich.
28 ‘They are fat, they are sleek, They also excel in deeds of wickedness; They do not plead the cause, The cause of the orphan, that they may prosper; And they do not defend the rights of the poor.
29 ‘Shall I not punish these people?’ declares the LORD, ‘On a nation such as this Shall I not avenge Myself?’

Amos 4:1-3
Amos 4:1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, Who say to your husbands, “Bring now, that we may drink!”
2 The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness, “Behold, the days are coming upon you When they will take you away with meat hooks, And the last of you with fish hooks.
3 “You will go out through breaches in the walls, Each one straight before her, And you will be cast to Harmon,” declares the LORD.

Amos 5:11-15
11 Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor And exact a tribute of grain from them, Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, Yet you will not live in them; You have planted pleasant vineyards, yet you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great, You who distress the righteous and accept bribes And turn aside the poor in the gate.
13 Therefore at such a time the prudent person keeps silent, for it is an evil time.
14 Seek good and not evil, that you may live; And thus may the LORD God of hosts be with you, Just as you have said!
15 Hate evil, love good, And establish justice in the gate! Perhaps the LORD God of hosts May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Zechariah 7:9-14
9 “Thus has the LORD of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother;
10 and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’
11 “But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing.
12 “They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
13 “And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of hosts;
14 “but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

Matthew 6:2-4
2 ¶ “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
3 “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Mark 12:41-44
41 ¶ And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums.
42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent.
43 Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury;
44 for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”

Luke 14:12-14
12 ¶ And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.
13 “But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
14 and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

2 Corinthians 8:8-9
8 ¶ I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also.
9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

Our salvation is too costly to trivialize. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was one of the founding members of the Confessing Church started in Germany in opposition to the culturally compromised state church that supported the rise of Hitler. Helmut Thielicke was a contemporary of Bonheoffer and fellow member of the Confessing Church. Thielicke used the device he called the Borderline Situation to expose all the weaknesses and questions hidden by an idea or cultural situation. Being a Confessing Christian in the midst of Nazi Germany was certainly borderline situation in which Bonhoeffer’s faith and theology were tested to the extreme.  The experience focused his thinking on the Christian life which he expresssed in his book, Cost of Discipleship. These were no armchair observations.He wrote from the deep dungeon of oppression and suffering.  Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging at Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, 1945 shortly before its liberation.

Whether or not you agree with a martyr’s theology, you have to hold them in great respect for giving their life for the Gospel. God himself prizes those who die for the faith. When Bonheoffer wrote about the nature of grace, he wrote as one who had been refined by the fires of Hitler’s hell. Certainly we should hear him in our generation and be deeply moved. And perhaps we should be reminded that in any generation, we can cheapen our faith by our own behavior or we can be persecuted by others. It is good to hear again what he had to say.

Our salvation is costly, it is costly grace. costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go an sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price for which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Such grace is costly is because it calls us to follow and is grace because it causes us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and it is grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his son: ” ye were bought with a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.” (Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, 47-48)

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on the battle on all the battlefields besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point. (Martin Luther, cited in Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There. P 11)

More than ever, we need clear, pointed thinking and sound, focused preaching.  We dare not pull the punch because the world does not like it or because someone might be hurt.  To not tell the truth in our sinful environment is to murder the soul those who need to hear the Word of God.  We need to understand that the condition of the sinner is grave and that every living human is a sinner.  It is not a popular subject but it is the truth.  And in order for us to escape the wrath of God and to find purpose and meaning in life one must know the truth.  So, we cannot stand by and agree with the world that sexual immorality is perfectly acceptable, that homosexuality is just another lifestyle, that lying is a perfect form of defense, that willful violation of God’s law means nothing.

We cannot, at any time, agree that sin ceases to be sin.  But, the truth can only be presented and defended from a position of humility and grace.  When we are bold in truth, it must be as one who knows he or she is a sinner who had no hope until Christ himself redeemed him.  We are all sinners telling our fellow sinners where to find grace.

Many wise men have said that life is about the art of compromise. This is particularly true of relationships. Sometimes two people can’t be right but two can be wrong. Compromise allows friends, spouses and neighbors to get along with each other. And when one refuses to compromise, often relations are broken.

But, compromise can be a deadly serious thing when it involves one’s faith and principles. This past week, a notable Catholic University, Notre Dame, compromised on one of Catholicism’s most sacred principles, the sanctity of human life. While there was nothing wrong with having President Obama speak at the University, it was set up to be a political forum to undermine a moral principle. The student body seemed to have been swept away by the President’s speech in apparent agreement with his wisdom.

The president acknowledged that the difference between those who believe in the sanctity of life and those who are pro choice is irreconcilable. He said that we “can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.” While having all the appearance of wisdom, this says nothing and it solves nothing. In fact, it says can’t the pro life people and pro choice people just get along? In other words, let’s compromise. And by the reaction of the audience, they were agreeable with the suggestion.

I am sure the President is pleased with compromise because that means mothers can continue to abort their babies at any stage of their pregnancy. Can you see the faulty logic here? For the pro life person, death goes on. Nothing has changed. He or she has been compromised and we are no closer to treating unborn children as the image of God. In this case, compromise literally kills. It kills unborn children but it also kills another moral principle for millions of people. It is a kind of deception that suggests that compromise is fine. We made a serious effort to be civil, to get along. Yet, we are now worse off than before because reasonable people have been compromised by a deceptive idea.

Something deeper than a deceptive compromise is going on. We need to understand that every time we compromise a moral principle, we actually chip away at our moral foundations. You cannot take away one aspect of morality without compromising our entire moral framework. So, when we accept sex outside of marriage, when we agree to homosexual marriage, when we compromise and allow gratuitous abortions to take place, we coarsen our society, we degrade human nature, and we cheapen life. Already we have legal suicide is some States. In fact, it is easier for a person on Medicare to get help to commit suicide than it is to get medical treatment. Congressmen have made speeches and literally said that people over 65 years of age have a responsibility to die and allow limited resources to be used by the next generation. As pastor I have watched the elderly receive poor medical treatment simply because they were old. Why extend the life of an old person who will die in a year or two anyway? There is a direct link between the abortion issue and the treatment of senior adults. Can we not see how the slop slips once the moral foundation is removed? We take the life of an unwanted baby even up to the time of delivery. It is natural for fallen man, once restrained by moral principle, to now take the life of the elderly because they consume too many resources. Who will be next? The mentally ill? Left handed people? Religious people? Those who oppose evolution? No one should be so naive as to think these things cannot happen. They have happened before. It was not just in Germany. There was as strong eugenics movement in the United States in the first part of the twenty century–a natural outcome of evolutionary thinking. Planned Parenthood was founded on the eugenics movement. They were committed to eliminating inferior people from the human gene pool. You have to wonder who the inferior people were and would we be here today if they got their way?

Perhaps we have forgotten that many people were locked up in mental institutions to keep them out of society and to keep them from reproducing. This is one of the untold American tragedies. Thousands of families have missing family members. They were locked up in institutions and never seen or heard from again. They were cut off from their families, their history, their roots and no one really thought anything about it. It fact, it was a relief, they were an embarrassment.

These are dangerous days. People are willing to give up their freedoms in response to a good speech. We need to stop and listen, really listen to what is being said. Our educational system is not so bad that we fail to see bad logic. We are just too trusting of those who give smooth speeches. We have to listen and discern what is really being said.

Martin Niemöller was a German pastor and theologian who lived through those dark days of Nazi rule. In the early days he supported Hitler because he brought results. But like many of the clergy, he came to his senses and opposed the Nazis. He is famous for a statement he made about the problem of compromise:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

You have to wonder if history is not, in some way, repeating itself. I am not saying that the President has evil intentions. But bad ideas, sinful ideas have a bad habit of feeding the law of unintended consequences. It is the nature of a fallen and sinful world that evil triumph with very little effort. It is true, the world is fallen, we are fallen, sin is woven into the fabric of human society. But good, righteousness, and moral principle are fought for and maintained by hard work. It is always harder to do good but it should never deter us from doing the right thing. The Apostle Paul said, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal 6:9-10 NASB). We do good for all people when we stand up for what is right.

I hope and pray that we will be ever vigilant to safeguard our moral principles.

Who Rules the Church?: Examining Congregational Leadership and Church Government

Who Rules the Church by Gerald P. Cowen is a very good book on the nature of the church. He is a Baptist and writes from a Biblical perspectiv Cowen is a New Testament Scholar and he makes his argument from Scripture before any appeal to tradition.  Cowen makes a very strong case for Elder/Pastor lead, congregational rule church as basic Baptist polity. It is well worth a reading in a day that seems very confused about the nature of the Church.

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, may have lost the Miss USA pageant because she said she believed in normal, traditional marriage between a man and a woman. No one should be shocked that a homosexual would ask such a question. The homosexual club has as its agenda to break down moral barriers and gain acceptance for their perversion. But no matter how loud they shout or how militant they become, you cannot make a wrong into a right. If that is possible then there is no possibility of any kind of moral or virtue or value. Morality becomes a social or political convenience, not an absolute standard. We need to be clear about this. Once we cease being morally intact in one area of life, we cease being morally intact in all areas of life. It is obvious that homosexuality has taken a foothold in our society because sexual immorality, in general, has become acceptable in our society. How can an adulterer tell a homosexual he is wrong?

What is sad is that executive director of the Miss California USA wrote a letter to Perez Hilton in support of his position and against Prejean. Keith Lewis, in effect, gave tacit approval to Hilton for his outrageous name calling against Prejean. But that fact that Prejean was asked a moral question and she gave her answer and then criticized for giving the traditional and moral response is outrageous. What happened to freedom of speech? What happened to the freedom of religion? I suppose that their response is that she should keep her religion to herself but where is the freedom in that? Her faith is part of what it means to be Carrie Prejean. It seems that the Miss USA contest now officially supports homosexuality and in essence says to all contestants they most accept it as well.

We live in an increasingly immoral society and Christians and others who hold to traditional morality are being steamrollered by a well financed, well-thought out movement that is essentially anti moral and specifically anti Christian. But we Christians are so gullible that we keep watching their TV shows and going to their movies and buying their books, putting millions of dollars into their pockets. How dumb is that?

Unless you are a closet homosexual, normal people have no business supporting the industry that is trying to destroy us. We need to stop buying the music of those who push homosexuality. We need to stop seeing the movies of those who push that agenda and do the same with TV programming. Your voice will not be heard but your dollars will be missed. I believe that we, who are normal, spend enough money on entertainment that our dollars would be missed. It would probably shut down some TV shows and cause some movies to go bust. And it would deprive their movement of their financial support which comes from a lot of Christian pockets. There is no better time than now to stop your support. Families need the money in these tight economic times. Holding on to our money in these tough economic times may cause some of these to go out of business permanently. Never waste a good economic crisis.

It is time for us to put our money where our morality is. Stop supporting the homosexual agenda with your money. They cannot boycott you, they cannot call you names, they have no right to your spending habits. Over night we could stop some of this nonsense and take away their platform if we would spend our money elsewhere. It seems like an easy and smart thing to do.

According to the State of Missouri and the United States federal government, you may be a right- wing extremist if you meet any of the following criteria.

• You are a conservative
• You are a Republican
• You are a Libertarian (even worse than a Republican)
• You believe in gun ownership
• You own a gun
• You are anti abortion
• You oppose gay marriage
• You believe in smaller federal government
• You believe in states rights.
• You read the U. S. Constitution
• You cited the Bill of Rights in any conversation
• You listen to conservative talk radio
• You oppose more federal spending and increase in taxes
• You support the war on Terrorism
• You served in the military in Afghanistan or Iraq
• You think that Socialism and Marxism are enemies of democratic freedom
• You think the order should be dating, marriage and then the baby
• You go to church
• You love Jesus

This are just a few of the things that can get you labeled right wing extremist. This means that you are probably a member of a right-wing Militia and that you are plotting to overthrow the government. If you are what was once called normal, you are a danger to the new world order and may be subject to surveillance, censorship, a deprived of your basic civil rights. But, of course, you deserve it.   It is for your own good.  Remember Big Brother Knows Best.