Category Archives: Politics

There was plenty of celebrating.

That’s the way it is when you win.

It’s human nature to whoop and holler and congratulate yourself.

Winning is for winners. Losing is for losers.

The tall, gaunt man dressed in black moved slowly to the open window and wearily smiled at the exuberant crowd of 3,000 gathered below.

The band had been playing for some time and now waited for his request.

Abraham Lincoln paused and smiled again at the joyous crowd. He had never been particularly musical and always graciously declined to join in public singing. Yet he also enjoyed music, describing it, according to one friend, as a “simple unalloyed pleasure.” Self-deprecatingly unpretentious by nature, Lincoln once professed, “I only know two tunes, one is ‘Old Hundred,’ and the other isn’t.”

“I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard,” the president told the expectant crowd. “Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it…I now request the band to favor me with its performance.”

The crowd cheered and the band struck up Dixie.

It was Monday, April 10^th. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant the day before, ending the most devastating and tragic war in American history. This was a first symbolic step toward Lincoln’s noble vision of a re-United States of America.

That Friday, 150 years ago this week, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. Without regaining consciousness, the president died at 7:22 the next morning. It had been an act of vengeance committed in the name of the defeated South by a deranged narcissist.

Lincoln’s vision of national reconciliation after four long and costly years of bitter and blood-drenched conflict would perish with him. In a sad irony, the South had lost its most powerful ally – and its best friend – in the long and painful effort to heal the deep wounds of civil war.

The nation would eventually once again become the United States. But the path to reunion would be more difficult and filled with recriminations. Lincoln wanted the South restored. Now it would be punished.

As a presidential historian, I am often asked if I believe Lincoln was a Christian.

He kept his faith a private and personal matter, as most presidents have. It’s therefore impossible to say for sure, regardless of what some historians insist. While he often attended, he never joined a church. As a young and intemperate politician, he published a pamphlet advocating against religion. He later retracted it. Some suggest that after the death of his 11-year old son Willie in the White House, Lincoln gave his life fully to Christ.

It’s easier to make the claim that among all our chief executives, Abraham Lincoln – ambitious, scheming and shrewd politician that he surely was – was also among our most Christ-like presidents. He need not be deified as some American messiah, sacrificed on the altar of freedom on Good Friday. But in his temperament and his character, Lincoln consistently displayed those qualities that Christians seek and God desires.

Lincoln carefully read the Bible and knew it better than most ministers.

In his humility and patience, Lincoln was Christ-like. His favorite poem was Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Man Be Proud? Often slighted and mocked by the press and other politicians, he took it all in good humor.

So too in his mercy, his forgiveness and his extraordinary and tender-hearted compassion, Lincoln displayed an impressive Christian outlook that might be the envy of many believers.

There is not a single instance of Lincoln ever seeking mean-spirited revenge against his enemies or ever fretting of what any of them thought of him. His magnanimity was most fully and eloquently displayed toward the South as the war drew to a close.

It was his humble appreciation for the inscrutable purposes of a sovereign God that led Lincoln to refuse to blame the South for the war but to lay the blame upon the country as a whole. He recognized that “both sides” had responsibility. And he perceived God’s divine judgment in it all.

That is Christ-like wisdom.

He pleaded at his second inaugural for “malice toward none and charity for all.” He urged the nation to go forward “with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,” and to “bind up the nation’s wounds” – to heal the deep divisions. He said the country must “care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan” – both North and South.

This was Lincoln’s vision for a stronger – and in the end – a happier republic. It was not steeped in angry and arrogant retribution but guided instead by “the better angels of our nature” – by kindness and goodness.

Even in the midst of violence and hate.

In his letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul called them the “fruits of the Spirit.” He said the followers of Jesus Christ should display these spiritual attributes in our daily lives. It’s remarkable that Lincoln’s towering place in history is cemented, in large part, by these Christian virtues.

And 150 years later, it’s an inspiring example for us all.

May God bless you and your family.

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can.”

Well, not so fast, actually.

What is that distant thunder we hear in the heartland of America?

It is the collective voice of conscience. It is the cry of faith.

It is the bugle blast of courage.

The State of Indiana set off a firestorm of controversy in recent weeks when its legislature passed – and its governor signed – the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Christians who supported it drew a line in the cultural sand of our new morality and said, “No further.” It would now be illegal to force any person to deny his or her religious beliefs.

That declaration was met by other cries:

“Bigotry!” “Discrimination!” “Jim Crow!” “Intolerance!”

People were getting hoarse.

The new law was over-broad, flawed in its wording, awkwardly explained and often sheepishly defended. Corporate interests, fearing the vindictive wrath of an articulate and wealthy constituency, lined up to threaten Indiana’s political leadership (ironically Republican) with economic sanctions were the law not immediately repealed or, in the nomenclature de jure, “fixed.”

We’ve seen all this before.

Homosexual activists and their liberal allies invoke the weary shibboleth of racist comparisons. Business cowers and politicians either grandstand or temporize, depending. And the envelope is once again pushed forward, a victory for the forces of correctness.

But this time may have signaled a difference.

Despite its legal weaknesses, Indiana’s new law was as morally sound as a dollar. In seeking to protect the sincerely-held religious convictions of all its citizens, the law sought to balance the need to prohibit discrimination with the need to guard an inviolate constitutional right.

One wouldn’t have concluded much thoughtful nuance from the hyperventilated debate, but the reality is that this issue is about competing and yet equally valid rights and protections.

Discrimination is wrong.

Religious freedom is sacred.

Most Americans agree with both these propositions.

The government’s job is to balance these interests when they come into conflict.

The Christian’s duty is to place obedience to God above allegiance to the state.

While refusal to serve gay people at a place of public accommodation – a restaurant for example – was the unsavory and unrealistic illustration invariably cited by the law’s opponents, the protections sought were of a quite different nature.

If a baker who is a Christian is asked to bake a cake for a gay wedding and he is religiously opposed to homosexuality, as most Christians are and will remain, is he being asked to deny his faith by participating in the wedding? Would he be disobeying his conscience before God if he joined in an activity which he believes is sin? The same may be asked of a Christian florist.

Should civil authority force him to do this? Should the law have the right to punish him if he refuses? With anti – religion and especially anti-Christian sentiment growing, these questions will become increasing relevant and paramount.

This concern is the result of the legal triumph of gay marriage. It prompted the Indiana law.

The state will need to decide. And so will the church.

So too will the individual believer.

Where will the line be drawn? Where should it be drawn?

And in a sea change of morality, what will come next?

Will the law and the courts now be used to force people to forsake their moral convictions – to coerce under threat an approval of behavior against conscience itself? Could churches eventually be targeted? In Houston, led by a lesbian mayor, they already have been.

This is not “live and let live.” This is becoming, “renounce your beliefs or else.”

Followers of Christ must continue to display respect and charity toward all people.

No thoughtful Christian believes we should return to the days when homosexuality was illegal. Nor do most believe a gay citizen should lose his or her job because of sexual orientation or be refused public accommodations or service. In this sense, we have, as a society, advanced along the course of a reasonable justice. Christians in this country have accepted gay people as fellow citizens entitled to the equal protections of the law.

In the Old Testament book that bears his name, Daniel, living in captive exile in a land that rejected his Jewish faith, offered the king an accommodation on the rule about the food he and the other captives could legally eat. Let them eat as they wished and then see who was more physically fit at the end of ten days (Daniel1). Daniel prevailed and he and the other young men passed the test.

In making this offer, Daniel displayed both discernment and decisiveness; diplomacy but also determination. He showed respect to the authorities without compromising his righteousness.

But later, when the law insisted that the king alone be worshiped over God, Daniel refused to bow to anyone except the Lord who reigned supreme over all civil authority. He knew the price for his unwavering loyalty. He was willing to pay it.

Christians must remain conscientious objectors to all sin, whether in the guise of “rights” or not.

“So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (I Corinthians  10:31, NLT).

Even if it’s baking a cake – or not.

May God bless you and your family.

Last month, they set it ahead by a full two minutes.

It now stands at three minutes to midnight.

It hasn’t been this close since 1984, during the arms race.

The only time it’s been closer to midnight was in 1953, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices within nine months of each other. Then it was set at two minutes to the fatal hour.

It’s the Doomsday Clock.

First set in 1947 during the advent of the Nuclear Age at seven minutes before midnight, the symbolic clock is supposed to remind us of the precarious position of the world. It represents a “countdown” to global disaster, usually associated with the threat of nuclear weapons. Maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock has been a sort of modern Damocles Sword hanging over the whole human race.

Sometimes the hand is set ahead – sometimes back. And so it goes – depending on a certain scientific view of world events.

As with the original ancient sword, the Doomsday Clock cautions those with great power of the accompanying responsibility.

From another point of view, one might conclude that the Clock is like the boy who cried wolf.

After all, it’s been warning us of impending worldwide doom for almost 70 years.

Nothing’s happened yet.

We’re all still here and life continues pretty much as it always has. Oh sure, change is a constant, but we adjust and move on. Let the hand of the Clock be moved as the scientists will.

It doesn’t affect us.

The scientists tell us they’ve moved the Doomsday Clock to 11:57 because of nuclear proliferation – more nations have nuclear weapons than ever before in the history of the world – and because of climate change. Both problems are getting worse, they say, and little, if anything, is being done about it.

Despite politics and theories, it would seem that circumstantial evidence would justify the scientific concern.

The weather of the world is wilder.

Extreme swings break old records.

Forty inches of snow in Boston recently over seven days made it the snowiest week in the area since records began in 1891. Reports show the oceans rising. Yes, climate change is real. And it’s becoming increasingly undeniable, even for naysayers.

Jesus foretold of climate change:

“And there will be strange signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And here on earth the nations will be in turmoil, perplexed by the roaring seas and strange tides” (Luke 21:25, NLT).

So this is not simply scientific fact. It’s prophetic fulfillment.

Ironically, the end of the Cold War has made the world, in many ways, a more unstable and dangerous place.

No one should be more concerned about the earth and the wise stewardship and conservation of its resources than Christians. No one should be any more dedicated to working and praying for peace in the world than those who follow the Prince of Peace. A Jordanian pilot’s barbaric death reminds us of the depravity of man and the long and difficult road to shalom.

Yet, for the follower of Jesus Christ there is no reason to give way to doom over the future. We must avoid the cavalier attitude of those who dismiss the coming cataclysm. “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again?” they mock. “From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same” (II Peter 3:4, NLT).

But it hasn’t and it won’t.

One day, the clock will strike midnight.

Afraid? Not at all!

Jesus told us that this would be “the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8, KJV – “the first of the birth pains, with more to come”, NLT).

Creation is going into labor. The world is dilated. Perhaps even nine centimeters – or more.

Paul writes in Romans that “all of creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8: 22, NLT).

That’s a long labor!

Since the infection of Eden, the world has labored under the curse of sin. We call it “the human condition.”

But pain always precedes the abundant joy of birth and new life.

“You will grieve,” Jesus told his disciples, “but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy” (John 16:21, NLT). He likened it to a woman in labor. “When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world.” (verse 21, NLT).

So it is with us who wait for his return.

Some day and in some way, this old world and all its anguish and suffering, will come to an end.

No Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists can ultimately prevent that. Time will end. The clock will strike.

But then will come new birth and new life.

A new heaven and a new earth.

You and I will enter that glorious land – the city with eternal foundations, the city “whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews11:10, KJV).

No more sorrow, no more pain, no more death and no more tears.

“I will see you again,” Jesus promises, “and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:22, KJV).

In the meanwhile, every tick of the clock just leads us closer home.

May God bless you and your family.

He stood high on the admiral’s bridge.

The great, gray warship floated in Placentia Bay, as the sun began to slowly rise over the coast of Newfoundland.

The rumpled stout man with thinning and unkempt sandy hair peered intently across the Atlantic. He had just gotten up but he couldn’t wait – not even to comb his hair.

Eager anticipation crossed the countenance of his determined features.

He had carefully labored and hoped for this moment – this meeting.

“Can you see any sign of them yet?” he asked an aide.

When the U.S.S. Augusta approached the HMS Prince of Wales at 11:00 AM, he had already dressed into a dark blue military uniform. He crossed the bay and boarded the ship.

There, on Saturday morning, August 9, 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill met President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the first time. Roosevelt, supported on the arm of his son Elliott, smiled broadly and shook Churchill’s hand. Though always a painful risk, especially on board a ship, the president had insisted on standing in his braces for this historic occasion.

It was a warm greeting FDR extended to his British counterpart. They had been in communication by cable. The meeting had been kept from the American press and public – a secret rendezvous on the high seas that would help determine the course of the world.

FDR jauntily lifted his head and smiled again at Churchill. “At last – we’ve gotten together,” he said. Churchill nodded and smiled back.

“We have,” he replied.

They hit it off instantly.

England was standing alone against Hitler’s Germany in World War II. Churchill hoped to persuade FDR, who faced staunch isolationism at home, to help Great Britain.

The stakes had never been higher for civilization. Both men knew that.

The next day, Sunday, on board the Prince of Wales, the President and Prime Minister joined American and British sailors in a church service.

Churchill had carefully selected the hymns.

They were rich and glorious Anglo-Saxon declarations of faith and courage. They are not so frequently sung in churches today.

The first was O God, Our Help in Ages Past, based on the 90^th Psalm.

The second was Onward Christian Soldiers.

 The service concluded with the singing of a hymn that FDR and Churchill, lovers of the sea and the Navy, would have found moving: Eternal Father, Strong to Save, known traditionally as “the Navy Hymn.”

Churchill wept and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket. “It was,” he later said, “a great hour to live.”

Prayers were offered. The scripture passage was from Joshua 1. The words rang clear and strong:

“…as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage …be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:5, 9, KJV).

Military and political strategies aside, that single worship service on the deck of the Prince of Wales, moved FDR deeply.

Later he confided to his son Elliott:

“If nothing else happened while we were here, that would have cemented us. ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ We are Christian soldiers, and we will go on, with God’s help.”

And they did.

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill forged a close friendship of rare candor, warmth and mutual admiration.

It was the friendship that won the war and saved the world.

Yes, it was a “great hour to live.” And a time of maximum peril and challenge for the whole world. There was nothing quite like it before. There has been no time like it since.

And as great as the danger was, great leaders rose to meet it.

In a poignant scene from the film Lincoln, the president asks a young soldier:

“Do you think we choose to be born? Or are we fitted to the times we are born into?”

While interesting, it’s not likely Lincoln ever said that. He did confess that events had controlled him, rather than he controlled events. He quoted Shakespeare’s Hamlet about the “divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.”

History reveals the hand of a sovereign God.

Great events and great lives remind us that this is indeed His Story.

No one who believes in God would dismiss the close collaboration of FDR and Churchill in the world’s greatest war as mere coincidence.

It was divine providence. It was God saving his world.

This year, interestingly, will serve as reminders of God’s sovereign control of events. January 24^th marks the 50^th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s death. This April marks the 70^th anniversary of FDR’s passing. That month is also the 150^th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the Civil War. In August, we commemorate the 70^th anniversary of victory in World War II.

History, like a kind father, reminds us of the power, purpose and watchfulness of God and points us to a renewed faith in his judgment and care for us.

He rules the nations.

But let us remember too that the Lord of Hosts is also the God of Jacob. He cares about the individual no less than the universe.

“Remember the days of old,” sang Moses, “consider the years of many generations …” (Deuteronomy 32:7, KJV).

And thank God for the day when giants strode the earth.

May God bless you and your family.

It again struck.

Unreasoning, brutal and deadly, its calling card read “revenge for the honor” of the prophet Muhammad.

This time it was the Paris headquarters of a satirical newspaper that had dared to poke fun at the Prophet. Twelve people, including the editorial director, were killed. Three of the terrorists were later cornered and gunned down. But not before four other innocent victims lay dead on the floor of a kosher market.

France was stunned. Nothing like this had happened in a half century.

The civilized world recoiled and then united in defiant solidarity against terrorism. Millions marched in Paris and throughout the country. The mayor of the city made clear her determination to fight back. President Francois Hollande joined the leaders of Germany, Great Britain, Israel and representatives from more than 40 other nations, arm in arm, for the show of resolve.

And once again, pains were taken to explain that this was a united resistance only to “radical” Islam, not Islam itself.

With each attack, with each mindless invocation of Muhammad and each bloody cry for “Allah”, even the most reasonable are beginning to question this persistent premise.

Is it true?

Is the religion of Islam, the world’s second-largest with 1.57 billion followers, totally blameless in the rising tide of global butchery committed in the name of its god and his messenger?

Is it possible that the guilt-ridden and dangerous dogmas of political correctness and multiculturalism have blinded us to the stubborn facts – the unvarnished truth – about Islam? Have we, in the name of a false peace and uneasy co-existence, turned a blind eye to the troubling reality of this oftentimes fervent, harsh and unforgiving religion?

By embracing acceptance do we practice cowardice?

“Tolerance,” observed GK Chesterton, “is the virtue of a man without convictions.”

Ideas have consequences. And some of the ideas – and history – of Islam lend themselves to a stridency of belief and an extremism of behavior.

It is ideas that unite terrorists around the globe who repeatedly shriek that they are acting in the name of “Allah.” And when we see this religious violence committed in the name of a single religion – over and over again – we have every right – and the duty – to be aware, informed and suspicious.

And we have the moral obligation to condemn any religion that breeds this violence; whether it is deliberate or unwitting. The danger is no different.

If our political leaders had any spine they would stand up.

These attacks, such as the one in Paris, may appear to be isolated but they are in fact united. What unites them is a sworn hatred of Western civilization and of Christianity in particular.

Muhammad is diametrically opposed to Jesus Christ. They cannot both be God’s sole messenger.

In Pakistan last November, a young Christian couple, living in poverty, was beaten to death with hockey sticks, rods and crowbars by an angry Muslim crowd of more than a thousand. The couple had been accused of burning a Koran while disposing of trash.

Muslim clerics used loudspeakers to incite the crowd while the couple was held captive. After being clubbed to death, their bodies were burned in the kiln where they had labored their whole lives. They left three small children. She was pregnant.

Where then was the outrage of Islam at such an act? Where indeed has it been throughout the Middle East in the face of savage persecution of Christians?

Even the new president of Egypt warned imams that they must rise up and condemn this terror committed in the name of Islam or their religion will disintegrate in a cauldron of vengeance.

When Abraham, doubting God’s promise, listened to his wife and was intimate with her slave Hagar, the son they had, Ishmael, was destined for violence. “‘This son of yours will be a wild man,’” the angel told the pregnant Hagar, “‘as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives’” (Genesis 16:12, NLT).

Ishmael is the father of the Arab race – the progenitor of Islam. Hate and violence are his legacy.

“I have been ordered (by Allah),” declared Muhammad, “ to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle”

Blasphemy against Islam is a criminal act in many nations, punishable by death. Responsible Muslims must call for the abolition of these repressive laws.

There are many peace-loving Muslims and we must never hate anyone. The right to worship must be protected in this country – for everyone.

This must be the Christian response.

We must continue to evangelize Muslims – to lead them to the love of Jesus Christ and the freedom, grace and forgiveness that only he offers. This is both right and effective. Haggai Institute, the great ministry for which I work, has trained thousands of ex-Muslims in leadership for evangelism. At their grave peril, they spread the Good News to their friends, family and colleagues.

Many Muslims around the world have told of seeing the Savior in dreams and visions.

Yes, he loves and he comes. Yes, he comes to them too.

Let us pray that the scourge of religiously-inspired violence will end.

Let us love all people everywhere, as He wants us to.

And let us recognize the destructive danger of falsehood, the glorious power of truth and the triumphant reality that Jesus Saves!

May God bless you and your family.

It seems to mock the harsh reality of the world as we know it.

As we’ve always known it, from the very beginning.

In this season of hope, we’ll hear and see the words again and again – this joyously triumphant declaration sent from heaven itself.

First spoken by angels to frightened shepherds in the middle of a night suddenly ablaze with the glory of God, they reach the deepest yearnings of man’s highest aspiration.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Peace on earth?

Were the angels being intentionally ironic?

Were their words a wish, a hope or a prophecy?

In the midst of the Civil War, Longfellow wrote in his Christmas hymn, “And in despair I bowed my head. ‘ There is no peace on earth,’ I said. ‘For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.’”

For Americans, 2014 has been an almost daily reminder of the strength of hate and the turbulence of war. Strife has been written in the headlines and announced at the top of the hour so often it has numbed us to the horror of its carnage.

Violence has become a grim expectancy.

Time and again throughout history the song has been mocked.

Woodrow Wilson’s “War to End All Wars” and his League of Nations were supposed to bring peace on earth. A generation later, the United Nations was intended to do the same.

The twentieth century was the bloodiest in history. The twenty-first has been gruesomely persistent. Wars engulf much of the world. In Iraq and Afghanistan, in Syria and Somalia; in Nigeria and in Pakistan, men are fueled by a mindless hostility that is snuffing out the lives of thousands every year.

Peace has been the elusive dream of humankind – and the tragic illusion of idealistic dreamers.

This is not to say we should not pursue peace, work for it and pray for it. Christians of all people should want to see peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

But Christmas reminds us that we must put peace in a much larger context.

When the choir of heaven’s angels heralded their vision it was to celebrate the Savior’s birth: “a Savior which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2: 11, KJV).

Peace apart from Jesus is impossible.

The announcement was delivered to those with whom God “is well-pleased.” Peace can come only to men and women “of good will, of His favor” (The Amplified Bible).

For all man’s good intentions and earnest endeavors, peace on this earth will always prove to be a fragile and transient thing.

The angels added the promise because the arrival of Jesus Christ was the confirmation that someday peace would come to earth and when it did it would be lasting because he would bring it.

The Jews call it Shalom.

This is much more than the absence of conflict. It includes the security and wellness of the whole community. Isaiah names the coming Messiah “The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6, KJV). The Message aptly describes him as “The Prince of Wholeness.” True peace, in the biblical sense, includes that meaning.

Only this Prince can bring that kind of peace.

For the follower of Jesus, peace need not be limited to a future millennium.

“Peace I leave with you,” Jesus promised his disciples on the night he was betrayed, “my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27, KJV). This would not be like the peace sought, negotiated or simulated by this disturbed world. It would go deeper, rise higher and stay longer than the world’s illusions.

When the great British statesman William Gladstone was asked how he maintained serenity in the midst of global turmoil, he said that a verse placed at the foot of his bed reminded him, every morning and every night, of the true source of peace:

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3, KJV).

It was the prophet Isaiah who foretold of the day when The Prince of Peace would judge among the nations of the earth. He saw a day when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4, KJV).

Instead, the peoples of the world would “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (verse 4, KJV).

The weapons of war will be melded into the instruments of peaceful renewal. Cultivation and harvest will replace destruction and violence. The celebration of life will replace the specter of death. The joy of a new day shall forever still the mournful cries of “Rachel weeping for her children” lost in battle.

And “of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end” (Isaiah 9:7, KJV).

Men will study war no more.

This is not some idealistic fantasy dependent on fallen man’s fond hopes, fruitless follies and broken treaties.

This is the eternal promise of God himself.

To know Christ is to know peace.

Not only peace in our hearts and minds but someday peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

May God bless you and your family.

She looked exhausted because she was.

It was 8:00AM.

She was dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, her hair was disheveled. The baby had been up a few times through the night – the final time early. Her little girl had demanded breakfast; it was hastily made.

The TV was playing cartoons.

It was the beginning of another day in the life of a young mother.

So the doorbell this early was more than an annoyance. It was an intrusion.

“Excuse me ma’am.” The man at the door was neatly manicured and organized. He held a clipboard and offered a polite smile. “I’m in the neighborhood this morning helping to conduct a public opinion survey. What do you think is the most serious problem facing America today? Is it ignorance or is it apathy?”

The little girl appeared at the doorway, clutching her mother’s bathrobe and staring at the man. The baby sucked on a bottle contentedly in the mother’s arms.

The young woman breathed a gentle sigh.

“I don’t know,” she answered, “and this morning I don’t really care.”

We appreciate the humorous irony and candor of the reply.

“Yes,” we think, “that’s just how I feel sometimes.”

Here we all are in this country – once again – just a few days away from another national election. The airwaves are filled with campaign ads – attacking, bragging and begging.

Most of us are concerned about the direction of our nation – and the unsettled and dangerous state of the world. The President’s approval rating is low – almost as low as Congress.

We don’t like the way things are.

We want change.

We don’t know who can deliver it; we’re not sure anyone can.

Americans are angry with Washington and its repeated failures – and disillusioned.

This is good campaign weather for ignorance and apathy.

Vote?

As someone said, “It only encourages them.”

Millions will stay away from the polls next Tuesday. Don’t you be one of them.

For all her faults – and the weaknesses of her leaders – America remains the greatest, freest and most wonderful nation on earth. And being an American isn’t just some lucky break, it is a continuing responsibility.

In a free land, duty is the greatest privilege of citizenship. And our greatest duty is to vote.

We are able to openly complain; we have the right to speak and criticize and tell others – including the government – what we think because of the vote.

We declared ourselves a free and independent nation because our founders voted to make us so.

We created the greatest form of self-government in the history of the world because the men who bravely fought to make us free voted to keep us that way. The Constitution of the United States came into being through a vote. So did the Bill of Rights.

And the expansions and protections of American freedom came to us through the vote. The Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, was adopted only after vigorous debate – and a vote.

African-Americans, women and young people gained the right to vote only after others voted to give them that right.

Of all the rights that make us free – and define us as a republic- none matters more than the right – and the sacred duty – to vote.

Of all the acts of citizenship that have shaped our history, raised up our leaders and marked our destiny as a nation, none have played a more important role than voting.

As believers in a transcendent and sovereign God, we do not place our final faith in the efficacy of politics and government. Christians, of all people, should not permit an earthbound attitude to overtake our heavenly hope and rob us of our joy in the midst of national despair.

Our confidence is not in a platform, a candidate, a movement or a party. We do not trust politics to bring us salvation. Nor do we look to government to meet the deepest needs of the soul. Sometimes we have to learn – and re-learn – that lesson the hard way.

The psalmist warns us:

“Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there…When they breathe their last [reminding us of the fragile mortality of even the greatest leaders], they return to the earth and all their plans die with them….But joyful are those whose hope is in the Lord their God.” [Psalm 146: 3-5, NLT].

Still, the scriptures underscore the importance of good citizenship – and our responsibility to honor government.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” (Proverbs 29:2, KJV).

While God governs in the affairs of nations, each of us must do our part in determining that outcome. No one can read Romans 13 without appreciating the importance God places on government and citizenship; on each one of us being accountable for our political freedom.

Every vote counts; every election matters.

And so many of them are so very close.

Not to vote – no matter how we may feel at the moment about our choices – is to sin against the Author of our liberty.

Don’t forget this coming Tuesday.

Who knows, maybe you’ll see that young mother at the polls.

May God bless you and your family.

 

Who dares to disagree with her?

Annise Parker demands to know.

They will be found out. They may be prosecuted. They will most assuredly be persecuted.

Pastors – ministers of the Gospel – were ordered by legal subpoena to turn over their sermons.

That’s right – their sermons – to the courts for careful inspection.

This didn’t happen in Russia or in North Korea or in Iran.

It happened in Houston, Texas – in the buckle of the Bible Belt. It happened in the land of the free.

It happened in Thomas Jefferson’s America.

Annise Parker, the openly – gay mayor of Houston, couldn’t stand the fact that five pastors in her city have the temerity to oppose a city ordinance, known as “the bathroom ordinance.” This latest step toward legitimizing the bizarre permits transgendered people – those uncertain and/or unhappy about their sexual physiology – to be able to use the restrooms of their choice.

Quite understandably, some Houstonians object to this. Not because they are angry bigots but because they are intelligent people – and because even craziness must have its limits.

 The ministers supported a petition drive to place the ordinance on the ballot so all Houston voters could have their say on this controversy.

That seems fair enough.

City officials questioned some of the petition signatures so the referendum proponents went to court to have the question placed on the local ballot.

Keep in mind that the pastors were not part of this lawsuit.

Instead of questioning the legality of the signatures, city lawyers went after the ministers.

Originally the pastors were ordered to turn over “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity.”

That’s a wide swath.

Everything they had ever said or written about these subjects would now be scrutinized.

Every jot and tittle.

Unbelievable!

In the face of a very loud public outcry, the city’s lawyers amended their demand.

Now they only want “all speeches or presentations related to” the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance “, or the Petition, prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by” the pastors or in their possession.

Well, that’s a relief!

These deniers of free speech and religious liberty now only want “all speeches or presentations” made by the pastors.

What is a sermon if not a speech and a presentation?

Is this not a distinction without a difference?

The troubling audacity of this demand is rivaled only by its comic imbecility.

Every authentic civil libertarian – including those who are gay or transgendered – should be appalled by this callous and arrogant trampling of the First Amendment.

Every true lover of liberty must be outraged at this naked attempt to intimidate free speech.

And every Christian in this country should be awakened from his complacency, chastened for his ignorance and spirited by his courage.

The Apostle Paul told the Christians living in a wicked and perverse time:

“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong” (I Corinthians 16:13, NKJV).

The Houston Five have done this. Who will join them?

Mayor Parker tweeted that if pastors speak out on questions of morality and seek to influence their direction, then their sermons “are fair game” to the government.

And it’s not just their sermons that are under assault, but – by logical extension – their convictions, their beliefs; their very faith.

It’s hastening sooner than expected, this hour of choosing.

Not only for five pastors in Houston – but for us all.

This incident is not some over-zealous aberration. It’s a precursor.

The powerful movement to redefine morality in America seeks not simply tolerance or acceptance. It has already largely achieved that with breathtaking speed. To salve a guilty conscience – for Nature itself can never rescind its own teaching – these advocates of cultural enlightenment seek approval.

They seek moral parity.

They demand that the rest of us openly renounce our beliefs, admit we’ve been wrong all this time, and apologize.

They will stop at nothing less.

Mayor Parker is the one who owes Houston an apology – and her resignation. Any elected official driven more by a passion for her agenda and a hatred for her adversaries than a respect for the Constitution of the United States is unfit for public office.

The God who stood by the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel is the God who stands by us. The God who protected Daniel and the three young Hebrews in their quiet civil disobedience is the same God who guides our steps and secures our way.

He will give us the courage and the strength to stand for him.

You and I must first be willing to do that.

When city officials ordered them not to preach Christianity, Peter and John replied “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, KJV).

The implications of this higher allegiance are profound and often costly. The soil of the church has been soaked by the blood of the martyrs.

And today believers in the Middle East have been given a choice: renounce their faith or suffer the sword.

Silent neutrality – and a “cheap grace” – will win us the nodding approval of those who know we pose no threat to their purposes.

God help us to take sides.

May God bless you and your family.