October 2018

I seldom address politics in my weekly blogs.  However, it is important that Christians deal with government, including politics, from a biblical worldview.  Jesus told His disciples that they were to be salt and light in their culture.  One of the ways that a disciple of Christ can be salt and light in today’s culture is to be active in the political process. I know that the government is not the answer to our problems and that only God can change lives.  However, we must address all areas of life from a biblical perspective.

We are approaching election day here in the United States and it is my conviction that, as a Christian, I have a moral obligation to make my voice known by voting. However, the problem that many Christians have about the voting process is that they look at this from a dualistic worldview perspective.  They see politics as part of their secular, not their spiritual lives.

When a Christian approaches voting from a secular/sacred divide, he/she ends of doing various things such as:

• Not voting because they don’t see it as having spiritual meaning and/or importance.
• Voting for a particular person based on his/her personality.
• Voting for a political party.
• Voting for what will give him/her temporal gain.

The reality that we must embrace when performing our civic duty by voting in an election is that we must make our decisions based on a biblical worldview.  When we apply a biblical worldview to the area of politics, we realize that we must cast our vote based on the ideas or worldview that an individual and/or a political party espouses.  Whenever I engage in the voting process, I am choosing what ideas/worldview that I want to direct or control my life and the lives of others in my community, state or country.

As election day draws near, I know that I must not be silent by not voting.  For me, it means that I have to take some extra time to cast my vote as I will be out of town on election day.  But just making sure that I vote is not enough.  I must be willing to take a stand for certain ideas and values that are in line with biblical truth.  Here are some of the basic ideas/values that I will be voting for.

The Sanctity of Human Life

We are witnessing the dire consequences when a society does not hold in high esteem the sanctity of human life.  When the culture rejects the fact that every person is created in the image of God and that life begins at conception (see Psalm 139:13-17; Jeremiah 1:5), human life ceases to have intrinsic value.  Because Christians have not voted to protect the sanctity of human life we have witnessed:

• Over 60.8 million babies aborted since 1973 which is an average of 1.2 million per year.
• Mass murders taking place in epic proportions.It is becoming all too common to hear accounts of shootings in crowded movie theaters, army bases, schools, shopping malls, and houses of worship.  Just this past weekend 11 Jewish worshipers were killed while attending their Shabbat services in their local synagogue.
• An epidemic increase in suicides, murders and doctor assisted deaths.
• Losing of what it means to be human where gender has become a choice. This results in today’s gender confusion that makes it legal for individuals to use restrooms and/or locker rooms based on their individual gender preference.

The Family

God ordained marriage to be between a man and woman as a picture of the relationship between Jesus and the church.  Marriage is the cornerstone of society as it is through the marriage relationship that families are made.  When Christians are silent or vote against a biblical standard of the marriage relationship, society embraces:

• Easy divorce that finds divorce rates in “Christian” marriages keeping pace with those of the world.
• Laws that allow for same-sex marriage.
• The disintegration of the family which will always lead to the collapse of a civilization.

Religious Freedom

One of the most treasured freedoms we have experienced here in the United States is the freedom to practice one’s religion without intervention by the government.  Once again, by either not voting or voting for people and laws that do not value the freedom of religion, we find ourselves seeing this freedom eroding at a rapid pace.

I recently saw where posters were placed on community trash cans that compared Christians to trash that needs to be kept off of city streets.  Christians who choose to live out their faith in their private businesses have been harassed and even faced criminal charges.

These are just a few of the ideas that I believe God expects His people to support and protect as we engage in the political process.  There are other values that are always at stake in any election.  These include the power of the government verses dependence on God and the support of Israel.

Kyle Idleman gives Christians a strong challenge in his book, “gods” at War.  I believe this is a challenge that every Christian needs to accept at this critical point in our country’s history.  He explains how Joshua told the people of Israel that it was time for each of them to choose a god and worship it.  He clarifies what he meant by the term “god” when he wrote,

It’s time to choose a worldview and let it remake you.

Christians must destroy dualism in their lives.  It is imperative that we choose a biblical worldview and let it remake us into biblically-thinking and biblically-acting citizens.  A great place to start is to make sure that we act as salt and light in this world.  This means we must take the truths of Christianity into the public arena and make our voice heard.  I do not believe that any Christian can allow false ideas and values to control our lives any longer.  Yes, we must vote but we must vote, in every instance, to make sure that the sanctity of human life, God’s design for the family, and the freedom to practice our religion are protected.

We must also become more determined to give our children a biblical worldview education at home, church and school.  The goal of this type of education should be to prepare them to be salt and light when they go out into the world as young adults.  We can model this for our children to see by engaging in all areas of life – including politics – from a biblical worldview ourselves.  This week talk with your children and let them know how privileged we are to live in a country where we can vote and why you vote in a certain way that will take God’s truth into the public arena.

The question is What ideas do you want to control your lives and the lives of your children and grandchildren?  How you answer that question will determine their future.  We can’t afford to answer this wrong.

We have been looking at what happened when one city decided to change its source from where it was getting its water.  I want to remind you that the main reason why the city of Flint, Michigan wanted to change from getting its water from Detroit was to same money.  If they would use the water that was right there in their backyard, they would save approximately $5 million.  However, the contaminated water that came from the new source would cost much more than what they had hoped to save.  After a mere 18 months of using the contaminated water, the cost of such a disastrous decision was and is still rising. Consider the following:

• It was estimated that it would cost the city $1.5 billion dollars to replace the city’s water system
• Home repairs caused by the corrosive water could be as high as $10,000 per household.
• Households that tried to compensate for the contaminated water spent approximately $300 for home filtration systems and $100 every couple of months for cartridge replacement.
• Households who had to go to bottled water averaged spending almost $400 monthly for clean water.
• One report estimated that the city might face almost $400 million in future “social” costs.These costs would come from addressing education, mental health and behavioral issues stemming from poisoning from contaminated water use.
• Another report predicted that the use of contaminated water could cost $50,000 in lifetime economic losses for every exposed child.

The alarming thing about all of this is the fact that these costs are the result of the city of Flint attempting to save between $5 and $12 million dollars in water costs.  In March of 2018 it was reported that the state of Michigan was still spending more than $22,000 a day on bottled water for Flint residents.

The decision for Flint, Michigan to switch its water supply resulted in one cost that was much more devastating than the economic impact it had.  Changing to contaminated water led to the loss of human life.  Even though the official death toll was 19, the actual death toll was probably much higher.  Studies showed that pneumonia deaths rose 74% during the 6-month period after the water supply was switched.

The cost that that has resulted from Christians changing the source from which their children would receive their education has been catastrophic.  It is almost impossible to calculate the costs that have resulted from Americans switching to a secular source of education for their children and youth.  Christians have led their children to drink from a secular education system with contaminated water for many decades now.  The poisoning of children and youth has gone on for several generations and the degree of corrosion in today’s culture is almost impossible to comprehend or even imagine. The home, church and school have all been compromised and weakened.

One high cost to drinking from a contaminated educational system is that Christianity has been privatized and is limited to performing a series of programs on Sundays, Wednesday nights and various special events such as VBS, women’s and men’s conferences, etc. Christianity is allowed to operate in the home and church but is being forced out of the public square.  At the same time society has become totally secular where God is simply ignored, denied and/or even attacked.

The secularization of society and many Christian homes continues to carry with it high costs.  Consider the following:

• Several studies suggest that today’s Christians may be the most biblically illiterate generation in modern day history.
• George Barna recently reported that only 1 out of 10 (10%) Christians and only 1 out of 25 (4%) millennials possess a biblical worldview.
• There is a growing loss of understanding of what it means to be human.  Gender confusion can be seen when one understands that there were 70+ gender options one could choose to identify one’s self on Facebook in 2014.
• Laws have been passed that make same-sex marriage and individuals to use restrooms and locker rooms according to their individual choice legal.
• Many Christians reportedly support same sex marriage and the idea that one’s gender is a choice not a biological fact.

The poisoning of our children and youth has also carried with it the cost of human life.

• Since 1973 there have been over 60.7 million babies killed in their mother’s wombs, an average of 1.4 million each year.
• The murder rate in the USA is up and the suicide rate is at its highest level with a 24% increase over the past 30 years.
• The number of drug deaths due to overdose has doubled from 2002 to 2014.
• There are laws on the books that allow for doctor assisted suicide to take place.

I believe the most disastrous cost that we have encountered has been eternal in nature.  Studies show that between 65% and 80% of teens in church today will walk away from their faith within two years of high school graduation.  More and more “Christians” say that the Bible contains errors, evolution is a scientific fact, and that Jesus committed sin while here on earth.  Christian Smith in his study of religion in North America found that many young people are moralistic, therapeutic deists where God only gets involved in one’s life in order to solve one’s problems and make him/her happy.

These are just some of the devastating costs that our society has encountered from drinking from a contaminated educational system.  Of course, God warned His people that this is what would happen if they continued to forsake Him, the fountain of living waters, and go to the world to drink of its waters of knowledge and wisdom (see Jeremiah 2:13, 18).  In fact, God made it clear that choosing to “drink” from the world’s water would become their own discipline.

Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you;
Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God,
And the dread [fear] of Me is not in you,” declares the Lord God of hosts. Jeremiah 2:19 (NASB)

What is the solution to these horrific results that come from drinking from the contaminated waters of a secular education?  The only solution that can reverse these trends is for Christians to return to the “fountain of living waters.”  The costs to change back to the original source of living water, God, seem too high for anyone to afford.  One of the reasons for this is the fact that the poison water of secular education has taken the average Christian home deep into debt because of the desire to consume more and more stuff.  At the same time, only a small percentage of Christians have stayed true to God’s economic system whereby God is given the first tenth of one’s increase and then, he/she uses the other 90% as good stewards of God’s provision to advance His kingdom.

Even if the home and church were to unite immediately and give their children a biblical worldview education, the results would not be seen in the immediate future.  The reason for this is that Christianity’s infrastructure has become corroded over decades of contaminated water pouring through it.  Parents and church leaders must renew their own minds and develop a biblical worldview before they are going to be able to give this to their children.  Churches must also help young adults, who have developed a secular worldview or have compartmentalized their lives and formed a secular/sacred divide, flush out their corroded thinking and develop the ability to think and act from a biblical worldview.

The poisoning of our children and youth has been taking place for decades.  It will take several years to fully reverse this trend.  However, we have reached a crisis point where if we don’t take action now, it might become impossible to do so in the future.