Daily Devotional for Monday April 9, 2007

The Answers for This Nation's Spiritual Problems

(2 Samuel 23:3, 2 Chronicles 19:6, Psalms 2:10,11)

Last week, I sat in amazement as I watched the news reports of what several of the candidates for President had raised in the first quarter of this year. With the 2008 elections still 19 months away, and with 6 more quarters of fundraising left, Senators Clinton and Obama each raised apx $25 million and former Massachusetts governor Romney $23 million. All together, candidates raised around ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS during the first quarter of this year! I watched very sad, thinking how God has blessed so many with great wealth and they squander their dollars trying to promote a political ideology when the fact is, it is NOT a politician who will save this nation, but a preacher of the Gospel!

The answers for this nation's spiritual problems won't be found in the promises of a politician but in the words of a preacher! As we are only 19 months from the next Presidential election, I think it is critical to look at the reality of where this nation is spiritually and what we can reasonably expect those in Washington to do about the key spiritual issues of our day that are also political issues. In the past I have done Devotionals on why political leaders are NOT spiritual leaders, trying to warn people that they have unrealistic expectations about what politicians can and will do regarding the spiritual issues our nation is faced with. The fact is, the spiritual problems of this nation won't be solved by a politician but by a preacher!

Let's just look at the hard facts. For 6 years now, we have had an overtly evangelical Christian in the White House. He enjoyed a majority in both the House and Senate most of that time. With the incredible power of the Presidency and a majority in both Houses, this was the greatest opportunity Christians could have hoped for to see the issues we care about, core issues like marriage, family, life, the proliferation of porn and gambling, addressed and brought into line with God's Word.

We had every expectation of seeing movement on these issues since President Bush and many in the House and Senate made them priorities in their campaigns. Make no mistake, it was the Christian vote who put President Bush into office not once, but twice by the slimmest of margins. It was the Christian vote who gave him a majority in both the House and Senate. Christians had every right to expect to see the issues we care about addressed and brought back into line with God's Word.

In his 2004 re-election campaign, President Bush promised to lead the charge for a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as God defines it, a man and a woman. Once re-elected he did NOTHING. Fortunately, it has been individual states who have been working hard to define marriage as a man and a woman, but it is now up to each state to make that determination and without the Constitutional Amendment, the definition of marriage is going to continue to be an ongoing issue not only in the legislatures of all 50 states, but in the courts.

Another issue the President ran on both times as well as many who were elected to the House and Senate were family issues. One of the key family issues has been the abominable practice of same-sex couples adopting children. Others include the special rights those who choose to engage in the sin of homosexuality seek and the use of the public education system by those in the homosexual movement to proselytize our children to their deviant sexual lifestyle. On all of these family issues the President has been woefully silent as Congress has, again, letting the individual states deal with these issues.

Two social issues that are tearing at the fabric of our society this Administration has refused to do anything about are the growing porn and gambling industries in this nation. Both porn and gambling are so mainstream now, children growing up accept them both as simply part of everyday life. Daily, I deal with the destroyed lives, marriages, and families left in the wake of these growing cancers in our society that nobody has the guts to tackle, let alone address. For the record, the recent bill to ban Internet gambling shoehorned in on a Ports Security bill at Midnight a few months ago was simply geared to banning the offshore companies and opening up that industry to U.S. corporations. Otherwise it would not have excluded things like betting on horses. lotteries and other U.S.-based gambling enterprises that still take place online today legally.

Saddest of all has been the abortion issue. I have been warning people for years now that we can't keep slaughtering over 4,000 innocent babies every day and not see God's wrath unleashed on our nation. I firmly believe at any moment God will say enough and we will feel His wrath for the practice of infanticide. It is not a matter of if, only when. To his credit, President Bush has appointed two men to the United States Supreme Court who by all indications could one day become key in helping to overturn Roe vs. Wade and take the Federal Government out of the business of killing babies, sending that issue back to each individual state. However, neither he nor Congress have taken any real leadership in this issue.

The President should have been on record from his first day in office of making the overturning of Roe a top priority. In reality, in his 2004 re-election campaign when asked about that, he said it was NOT something he wanted to do. He could have signed an Executive Order stopping all Federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Why does the U.S. Government subsidize this organization that is the leading proponent and instrument in the killing of babies? The fact is, this President, those the Christian community put into the House and Senate, all who ran as proponents of life and against abortion, got elected and have done continually NOTHING. The reality is, we are STILL slaughtering over 4,000 innocent babies every day. ZERO, ZIP, NOTHING has changed.

Here is the problem. It is very likely that in 19 months whoever is elected our next President will support gay marriage, perverting God's plan for the family, and for the killing of babies. So whatever opportunity there may have been to see these key spiritual issues addressed is really behind us. Our hopes for a political solution seem to be over.

BUT FEAR NOT, GOD IS STILL ON HIS THRONE! All these last 6 years have proven is that the President is the Commander-in-Chief, NOT the Pastor-in-Chief as many in the Christian community expected. I'm sad to say that the President is first and foremost a POLITICIAN. This in no way minimized his personal faith, but it does reinforce what I have been sharing with you for years that our hopes for the spiritual direction of this nation won't be found at a podium with the seal of the Untied States on it, but at a pulpit with a cross on it! The one God will use to lead this nation back to righteousness won't be a politician but a preacher!!!

I love you and care about you so much. I've read through David Kuo's book, "Tempting Faith." Kuo was the number two man in the White House's Faith-Based office. I'm not here to critique his book or the validity of all he wrote, but one thing seemed evident. The White House certainly knew how to mobilize Christians to give money, give their time, and vote for them with the promise of championing the issues they cared about. No matter what you think of Kuo's book, the cold hard facts are the Bush Administration used Christians to advance their political aspirations and failed to deliver on ANY of their promises. I am not even so concerned about their failure as I am the fact for the most part, they didn't even try.

Please don't take what I am saying today as an excuse to recuse yourself from the political process. We MUST be involved in every facet of our lives, including in the political arena. There are very Godly men and women who run for office, who get elected to office, and really do try and advance Biblical values through their service. God knows who they are and He knows their hearts. We need to continue to do our best to seek out Godly men and women who will support Biblical values and do all we can to elect them to office.

The point today, however, is that if you are expecting a politician to lead this nation back to God and Godly values, you will always be disappointed. It isn't going to happen. Actually, it shouldn't happen because that is not what a politician does. It is not the job of those we elect to office to bring righteousness back into our land, that is the job of the preacher. While we must support and elect candidates for every office who uphold traditional Biblical values, we must never forget that it is the preacher who is void from the compromise of politics that God will raise up to bring this nation back to Himself. A preacher who isn't looking for fame, or for fortune, but is simply being obedient in calling this nation to repentance.

A great nation like the United States has many incredible issues to face each and every day. May we pray daily for those we elect to every office to do their best and seek God for direction in helping guide this great country, to keep it free and to keep it safe. That is the main job those we elect to office have to perform. While it would be nice to have leadership from our politicians on the spiritual issues of our day, ultimately that leadership has to come from the pulpit. The heart of this nation won't be changed by passing laws, but by turning to the Truth of God's Word and Jesus Christ. The spiritual direction of this nation won't be guided by a politician but by a preacher!!!