There is growing agitation in Congress and the nation this week as our leaders focus on a looming financial crisis that could hit every American on January 1.

The media have branded it the “Fiscal Cliff” because it is purported that by not renewing the Bush tax cuts and other tax breaks that are set to expire, increased taxation in 2013 on all Americans may plunge us into another recession.

They’re probably right. It’s never helpful to raise taxes in a down economy when so many people are out of work. It thwarts job creation.

Yet the president doesn’t seem too concerned. He canceled negotiations this week with Congressional leaders though the deadline is thirty-five days away. And the press are already blaming Republicans for the looming problem.

But I smell a rat.

No, better to call it what it is: a spirit of deception.

Deception #1 – The Fiscal Cliff is Raising Taxes

No, the real “Fiscal Cliff” is trillion dollar deficits each year and 16.3 trillion dollars in total national debt which will soon have to be raised to 20 trillion.

I remember when we first started using the word “trillion.” It was kind of unbelievable. Actually, if you look back at American history, we didn’t even use the word billion until the 20th century, and it was quickly replaced by trillion which most of us find hard to comprehend.

If you have trouble picturing a trillion dollars, watch this little video to gain some perspective.

Today we throw the word “trillion” around like it doesn’t mean diddly-sqat. More to the point, our incredible and dangerous national debt–now trillions of dollars in hock–brings empty stares. What used to be a stable dollar equaling one hundred cents is now worth eight measly cents–with 40% of the dollar’s devaluation taking place during Barack Obama’s first four years.

And we re-elected him.

Historically, we’re dealing with trillions of dollars of debt in America because of liberal policies over the past seventy years–starting with the New Deal visions of Franklin Roosevelt. Prior to that era, America had a currency that was generally “sound as a dollar,” where, for hundreds of years, our currency retained its value and was backed up by gold.

For one hundred and fifty years, the basic necessities of life in America stayed the same price.

But Roosevelt confiscated all of the privately held gold, took us off the gold standard, and began a disastrous experiment in printing and distributing “Monopoly” money in America. Most presidents after him–especially the liberal ones–continued to de-value the dollar by running the printing presses. Richard Nixon eventually took us off of a “gold peg” in 1972 that allowed the American dollar to truly become fool’s gold.

But we Americans are a busy and forgiving lot–so we didn’t say much and allowed the crap-shoot to continue. The government continued to grow, the printing presses whistled along, and all of a sudden (not really–but gradually over a lifetime), those greenbacks in our hands didn’t purchase much.

Do you remember when a twenty dollar bill seemed like a lot of money? Now it evaporates in about three minutes when you’re filling up your car with gas–in fact, you need two or three twenties to pay the bill.

I remember when making $1.35 a hour seemed like a great wage and $4 was heavenly. Heck, my grandfather worked for $1 a week! That was not that long ago. My father bought a five acre water-view parcel in 1950 with a home and multiple out-buildings on it. The price? $11,000. Today, that parcel of land is “worth” (in funny money) probably two million dollars.

I couldn’t buy our family Hyundai for $11,000 in 2010.

The real fiscal cliff is the cruel tax of inflation that has been foisted on this country since the 1930s and has exploded into trillions of dollars of unpayable debt in the past thirty.

This is the biggest “bubble” ever created in world history. Yet, a spirit of deception says that it is okay, no problem–let’s just keep on spending.

Don’t believe that lying voice. The real fiscal cliff in coming sooner than we think.

Deception Number Two – Raising Taxes on the Wealthy will Help the National Budget.

President Obama ran on this silly premise and an unthinking and illiterate 50.4 percent of the American people believed him and voted for a second term. Even Warren Buffet–one of the savviest investors and richest men in America–continues to share the charade.

But “taxing the rich” will do nothing to help the massive debt problem in America. If we followed the Obama/Buffett plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, it would only raise 80 billion dollars or pay for eight days of federal spending.

Eight days.

I don’t call that a solution to trillion dollar deficits and a 16 trillion dollar mountain (sixty-nine miles high). Go back to the video above and remind yourself that a trillion dollars is one million million.

We cannot tax our way out of Debt Armageddon.

Deception #3 – The President has a Plan for Lowering the Deficit and Improving the Economy.

This is one of the lies that half the American people believed. Barack Obama has never had a plan to help improve the American economy. Dinesh D’Souza’s 2016 documentary makes a very strong argument that President Barack Obama doesn’t even desire for America to do well.

He wants to “transform America”–to lower it as a nation–to make it just another debt-laden social democracy that is controlled and manipulated by a secular elite.

What is the evidence?

• No free market jobs plan during his first four years. No jobs focus whatsoever.
• Not one Senate budget in nearly four years (controlled by the president’s party).
• Increasing government spending from 20% of GDP to 24%–ensuring high unemployment.
• No jobs plan or budget plan for the next four years.

Barack Obama simply wants to grow American dependency on big government to make us like Europe. Unfortunately, he is succeeding. But his words are a deception.

Deception #4 – Spending is Not the Problem: We Need More Revenue (Taxes).

This is a laughable untruth. Spending is the problem in all social democracies. Despite the manufactured tepid economic growth of today, the federal government still receives more money than any time in history. The problem is not revenue–it is squandering it on non-essential programs and  entitlements galore.

Take just one entitlement–Medicare. Do you know what the unfunded liability is for this program alone? It is 42 trillion dollars. Imagine that pile of $1000 bills stretching 3000 miles into space.

And that’s only one program. It does not include Social Security, Medicaid, and the newest granddaddy of them all–Obamacare.

After a while you just get a little numb to the numbers and simply think that the money spigot will never be turned off.

But think again. Oh, there may be lots of $1000 bills floating around in future. But it will be post-War Germany times a google: Truck loads of greenbacks that are good for nothing but burning in your woodstove.

The only way to save America and many other nations from hyper-inflation and certain economic collapse is to cut spending, spending, spending.

It’s the spending, stupid!

Why don’t we get that? A spirit of deception.

Deception Number Five: It’s the Republicans Fault.

The national media are already setting the stage to blame the Republicans for not solving the fiscal cliff problem. They say that the Democrats are reasonable people–they’re willing to cut some spending if we raise some taxes.

The president says this is the fair and balanced approach (he sounds like Fox News).

So if the Republicans say no to taxing the rich (all taxes are bad during hard economic times), which the president and the Democrats say must take place in order to extend the Bush tax cuts to the middle class, then the miserly Republicans are responsible for torpedoing the deal and hurting the nation.

And the liberal media will scream to high heaven that the R’s are at fault.

That’s why some Republican leaders right now seem to be caving to the pressure and indicating that they might be willing to change their no new taxes pledge.

But they shouldn’t. The American people elected them to help save the Republic. Now is the time for courage and resolve.

“Read our lips.” 

The progressive spenders are the reason that the American economy is in trouble. America’s tax rates are among the highest in the world–corroding our competiveness. History has shown–even under conservative Democrats like John F. Kennedy–that lowering taxes across the board increases tax revenues because it gives people more freedom to create, succeed, and thus generate tax monies to the government.

Freedom actually benefits all–including government. It just takes control away from it.

Here is the truth about the fiscal cliff debate:

There is a devil. He wants to destroy America, biblical principles, the Person of Christ, and take down the Western world.

He is a liar–and he’s very good at it.

We must open our eyes, repent of debauching our currency, living beyond our means, and once again put our trust in God to save us from ourselves.

We must learn to resist the spirit of deception.

 

Free elections, a fruit of Judeo-Christian republics and democracies, allow a nation to look in the mirror and see who they are. Just as Jesus said “the mouth speaks of that which fills the heart,” (Luke 6:45), so the votes of a free people reveal the heart of a nation.

For thousands of years, this was not so. When kings ruled and religion was less voluntary, oftentimes the only way to know the corporate state of a nation was when God used invading armies in judgment.

But modern elections give us a preview. The invading armies (or nuclear bombs) may be coming, but whom we choose to lead us gives an advance warning.  If we choose good leaders, then often good is in front of us (“righteousness exalts a nation”). When we choose bad ones, then we are forewarned that problems are ahead (“but sin is a disgrace to any people” – Proverbs 14:34).

So what does the mirror on the wall tell us about the 2012 election? You may be surprised.

I’ve read quite a bit of analysis of election 2012 as to why President Barack Obama was re-elected to office by a 50-48 percent vote of the people. Because he narrowly won many of the swing states, he also enjoyed an electoral college landslide of probably 330 votes.

His victory, and that of the Democratic Party picking up a few seats in the Senate, can be looked at from a number of perspectives:

Political View

• Barack Obama’s victory may be contributed to months of negative campaigning in the swing states and a superior Get-Out-The -Vote (GOTV) effort by the Democratic Party. This is the conclusion of Michael Barone, the widely respected political analyst. The Democratic Party out-hustled and out-strategized the Republicans who even had their new ORCA GOTV technology crash on election day.
• Others like Erick Erickson of Red State believe that Mitt Romney was the doomed establishment candidate who failed to excite the conservative sector of the nation. Incredibly, Governor Romney received nearly 1 million fewer votes in 2012 than Sen. John McCain received in 2008. (In 2008, McCain won 58,343,671 votes. In 2012, Romney won only 57,486,044 votes.)

Gender View

• It’s also true that President Obama strongly won the female vote (gender gap) by getting 55% of women to agree with his positions. This is especially troubling, because as Robert Bellah explained in his best-selling book Habits of the Heart, it was the godliness and morality of American women that was the strength of America for 200 years. Men were less religious and more immoral for most of our history. It was the God-fearing and praying women that held America together. If that group is now lost, then we are in great trouble as a nation.

Demographic View

• Demographics also played a huge role with President Obama building his coalition with a 13% black vote and 11% Hispanic. These percentages are growing.  In Philadelphia, the president won 59 voting “divisions” without Mitt Romney getting even one vote. Sounds like Cuba or Venezuela. Charles Krauthammer wrote a great piece on how the GOP can re-engage with the Hispanic voters of America in the coming years. It’s hard to say what African Americans will do in the future, but it’s probably true that they will not be this motivated in future elections unless another charismatic black candidate shows up on the political scene.

Winners and Losers View

• A number of spiritual leaders weighed in on the election results and I appreciated many of their perspectives. One of the best was an article by Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries who very thoroughly analyzed the winners and losers of November 6, 2012.

All of these “lenses” for looking at the 2012 election are helpful, but I believe they don’t speak to the greatest single influence. There is a clearer reason why Barack Obama–the most anti-biblical candidate in American history–was re-elected, and it is this: the Church of Jesus Christ in America has failed to make disciples.

Discipleship View

Joel Rosenberg lays out the problem this way (I will quote him at length due to the breadth of his statistical analysis:

“Fewer people overall voted in 2012 (about 117 million) compared to 2008 (about 125 million). President Obama received some 6.6 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008 (60,217,329 in 2012 votes compared to 66,882,230 votes in 2008). One would think that such a dynamic would have helped Romney win — clearly it did not.”

“Why? Here is some of what we know from the 2012 election day exit polls: 42% of the Protestant Christian vote went for Obama in 2012.”

“When you zoom in a bit, you find that 21% of self-identified, white, born-again, evangelical Christians voted for President Obama in 2012. This means of the 117 million people who voted on Tuesday, about 24.7 million were evangelicals who voted for Obama. This was down from 24% of evangelicals who voted for Obama in 2008. (Of the 125 million people who voted in 2008, about 30 million were evangelicals who voted for Obama.)”

“You’d think this decrease in evangelical votes for Obama would have helped win the race for Romney, but it didn’t.  78% of evangelical Christians voted for Romney in 2012. Yes, this was up from the 74% that McCain received in 2008, but it wasn’t nearly enough.”

“To put it more precisely, about 5 million fewer evangelicals voted for Obama in 2012 than in 2008. Meanwhile, some 4.7 million more evangelicals voted for Romney than voted for McCain. Yet Romney still couldn’t win.”

“It is stunning to think that 25 million self-described evangelical Christians would vote for a President who supports abortion on demand and was on the cover of Newsweek as America’s ‘first gay president.’ Did these self-professed believers surrender their Biblical convictions in the voting booth, or did they never really have deep Biblical convictions on the critical issues to begin with?”

“Whatever their reasons, these so-called evangelicals doomed Romney and a number of down-ballot candidates for the House and Senate. This is what happens when the Church is weak and fails to disciple believers to turn Biblical faith into action.”

So, there is the sad reality, folks.

Twenty-five million evangelical Christians–those who should know better–voted for a secular man over a biblically-based one.

These numbers are far bigger than gender, demographics, or GOTV totals.

The lack of discipleship in the Church led to the horrific election result. What a stunning and incredible tragedy.

And why do I call it a lack of discipleship? For the past few weeks I’ve been “making disciples” at two of our training centers in North American and the Caribbean. The young people I’ve been teaching are committed to being disciplined followers of Christ, understanding the biblical worldview, and living out their faith in every dimension of life.

They understood what was at stake in the election. They knew that a biblical Christian (evangelical) couldn’t vote for the most abortion-happy president in history, the most gay-promoting president in history, and one who was committed to the power and tyranny (lack of liberty) of human government.

Disciples of Christ know that we are fighting a spiritual enemy that blinds the eyes of those who are not seeking to know and live God’s truth in the world.

In the two settings I’ve been in since the election, there is sound understanding of how believers must vote for righteousness to be a blessing to a nation.

But on November 6, millions of those who called themselves evangelicals, and over forty percent of those who are nominal Christians, voted for non-biblical, worldly values that abort human babies, destroy marriage and family, bring impoverishment to nations, and hurt individuals.

America is not Europe where only 10 percent of the population go to church. When the church recedes to being that small in a nation, they are usually irrelevant. The sheer numbers of others determine the electoral results.

But in America, in this particular election, over 42% of voters said that they attended church weekly    (a two percent increase from 2008).

And 25 million of them voted for a secular future.

They were not acting like disciples. They were more like “Judases.”

Two thousand years ago, Jesus told us that the key to world evangelization was to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-20). We have failed that task in America.

If this nation is to be revived and transformed for the glory of God, then the evangelical churches of the nation need to face our incredible failure and begin to disciple its people.

Disciples will live godly lives. They will give themselves to the passion of prayer. They will meet the needs of those around them in love. And they will vote for those who share biblical principles.

We–the Church–are responsible for an America on the precipice of calamity.

We need to make disciples of our people.

Let’s change our ways–beginning today.

 

Sometimes your kids break your heart with the wrong choices they make. Sometimes you even surprise yourself with wrong decisions or poor judgment.

Occasionally, nations and civilizations shock the unbiased observers of history by choosing poorly their leaders and future.

On November 6, 2012, America, as a nation, chose poorly in the U.S. presidential election. We chose a course of judgement over moral and economic renewal, self-interest over self-sacrifice.

Maybe God chose as well. Possibly Hurricane Sandy wasn’t just a “sign,” but rather a divine pronouncement that we must reap what we have sown.

Let’s talk about the hard truth of November 6, 2012

I must admit that I was stunned by the re-election of President Barack Obama. I watched the election results from a friend’s home in Texas where the people of the Lone Star State did their part to point the nation back to God and national sanity.

But as the nation-wide results rolled in across the television screen, my hosts and I watched in quiet disbelief. In state after state, the incumbent president piled up enough wins so that by 10:30 pm Central time, the race had been decided.

Barack Obama would be given another four years.

I spent a sleepless night praying, pondering, and tossing in bed. In the morning, I had a speaking engagement where I opened the proceedings in tears–agonizing over the choice the American people had made just twelve hours before.

Today, the political analysis is beginning. The first article I read by a conservative leader indicated that Mitt Romney was not the right candidate, did not run the right campaign, and that we had better return to standing behind solid-credential conservatives to have a prayer of winning elections.

I don’t buy it. Mitt Romney was a good candidate. The problem is bigger than that.

Another analysis chronicled the media spin in the campaign that may have given Barack Obama the narrow victory he achieved. It’s a well-researched re-cap of media bias.

There’s some truth there–but not the hard truth.

Then others began to explain why many of us thought that Mitt Romney would win. This analysis contained Monday-morning quarterbacking about the 19% youth vote, 13% black vote, and 10% Hispanic vote that propelled the president to victory. Many seers thought these groups would not turn out en masse in 2012.

They were wrong. I was wrong. The president and his advisors did a very good job of dividing the nation, distorting the truth and turning out their constituents

I said many years ago that secularists are much better liars than faith-based people because their morality allows it.

Ours doesn’t.

But none of this analysis really describes why Barack Obama won re-election.

The person that came closest to the hard truth was Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly who said during last night’s election coverage that “America had changed.” That we were no longer the center-right nation that we have been for over two hundred years.

That’s why I believe this was not just a lost election. It was more of an indicator of a lost culture that has changed and is no longer worthy of the blessings of Almighty God.

November 6, 2012 may be simply a harbinger of things to come, because,  more than anything else, it lays a new foundation beneath the American nation.

A godless one.

You say, “How could that be?” “How could one election be anything more than just a lost battle that can be re-fought four years from now?”

Because nations do reach dangerous tipping points.

Three different situations stand out to me as historical witnesses:

Jeremiah and the Babylonian captivity

Israel’s biblical history is replete with the ups and downs of the Jewish nation–in this case, the southern kingdom of Judah. The nation would have good kings-like David–and then bad ones such as Rehoboam. Godly leaders would rise such as Asa, Jephoshaphat, and Hezekiah, but after their times of renewal, the nation would slide back into evil.

This cycle went on for four hundred years until a boy (Josiah) and a young man (Jeremiah) concurrently participated in a season of revival in the southern kingdom of Judah. You can read the story in 2 Chronicles 34.

But after Josiah died, Jeremiah admonished his nation for twenty more years to not return to sinful disobedience against God. He preached there were four sins of a falling nation that would bring God’s justice: 1) Idolatry–putting other things in God’s place, 2) Perverted religion–dumbing down the true worship.3) Dull consciences–an avalanche of personal sins and vices, and 4) Human injustice–the end result of a society that forgets God’s ways.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, his ministry wasn’t just a bleep between revivals. Near the end of his life, he realized that the nation had become so bad that a terminal judgement was coming. They would not live to fight another day.

Babylon swooped in–Judah was destroyed–and Jeremiah died in captivity in Egypt.

Jesus and the Fall of Jerusalem

One day around 33 A.D. Jesus and his disciples were walking by the exquisite temple grounds in Jerusalem and his followers commented on how beautiful and seemingly permanent the buildings were.  Jesus sadly replied, “Truly I say to you there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2).

Forty years later, the Roman general Titus destroyed Jerusalem and its famous temple. It took nineteen hundred years for the Jewish people to return to the land–on May 14, 1948. The temple has never been rebuilt.

A mosque sits on the site that was so admired by Jesus’ disciples.

Augustine and the Collapse of Rome

The Roman Republic and Empire lasted nearly one thousand years and certainly seemed a secure civilization until it became overloaded with debt, promoted a life of leisure and amusements, and enslaved half its population.

In the fourth and fifth centuries, raiding barbarians from the north descended to chip away at Rome’s tranquility. In 476, the Visigoths sacked Rome and plunged the known world  into the Dark Ages.

When the Vandals had penetrated North Africa in 430 A.D. , the great Latin father Augustine was hoping to meet them. But when they arrived at his house in Hippo, he was already dead.

Rome would never rise again.

That brings us to America in the early part of the 21st century.

There is no question that the United States of America is a God-blessed and exceptional nation. What makes the U.S. unique to history is:

• It began in spiritual awakening and a movement of biblical liberty. No other nation except Israel had such a God-ordained start.
• It’s government and laws were based on biblical ideas–not perfectly–but more consciously and profoundly than any other nation in history.
• It became a beacon of human freedom to the nations of the earth, and millions came to its shores in search of personal freedom.
• It rose to greatness in government, education, business and philanthropy. In the 20th century it liberated Europe and stood down the Soviet Union.
• It’s free economy produced the greatest wealth the world had ever known.
• For over one hundred years, it has been the beacon of missionary advance around the world.

But during the latter part of the 20th century, America lost its way. The Bible was removed from the schools, a youth rebellion challenged many areas of faith, morality and family life, the church began to shrink in influence and charity, and big government began to grow to fill the void.

Yet, until the 1960s, America espoused–whether they elected Republicans or Democrats–a Judeo-Christian view of life, and every president we voted into office professed faith. Every president said he believed in marriage, morality, and was committed to freedom.

Never perfectly or completely—-but the righteous foundations stood.

By the time Barack Obama became an historic president in 2008, the drift toward secularism was growing. President Obama was elected as a man of faith, but he governed as a secular man including his signature issue, Obamacare–a massive bureaucratic take-over of one-sixth of the American economy.

After a few years of his Administration, it was apparent where Barack Obama wanted:  to take America toward godless, European socialism.

The only hope for America was renewal of the church, repentance, prayer, and a change of leadership in 2012 that might help direct America back to its original faith moorings. Americans began to pray.

I participated in some of those prayer times as did many of you. We sought God with all our hearts and asked for his mercy upon our backslidden country. Even the aged, reverend Billy Graham took out newspaper adds to encourage Americans to return to biblical faith.

But North Carolina, his home state, just barely voted the biblical line.

Many others did not.

Instead, Hurricane Sandy hit the eastern seaboard. Barack Obama saw his poll numbers prop up with a  trip to New Jersey and an arm-in-arm photo op with Republican governor Chris Christy.

At the time, we didn’t know that the “October Surprise” was actually an act of God.

Here’s the hard truth: Last night, secularism triumphed in America. A biblically-hostile political party and president won over the American public and altered the American foundation. Obamacare will not be repealed. An avalanche of sin remains in personal and public life. We are staring at sixteen trillion dollars of debt with no will to deal with it. The people like “stuff” from the government. The 47% have become the 51%.

That’s a majority.

I don’t think this was just another election. I think America as we’ve known it may have crossed a tipping point.

God still yearns for our return to Him–but for the moment, he is allowing us to choose our own fate. We have chosen poorly. There will be just, but devastating consequences.

But we must not give up.

I just took a long walk and enjoyed a beautiful, red Texas sunset. Sunsets can indicate the end of a day. Or, as they say, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” That means that sunsets can also be signs of great days to come.

The hard truth is that America has changed and it could be fatal. However, another possibility is that our greatest days of revival might be just ahead–albeit, through judgement. 

At the moment we’ve lost this nation. A trusted friend of mine believes that America’s demise–and a corresponding global economic collapse–could bring one hundred years of pain and suffering to the world. It could also prompt cries for a world government.

But do not lose your courage. The worst days AND the best days lie ahead.

Jesus said, “I have said these things to you that in me you might have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Let’s accept the hard truth and re-commit to advance God’s kingdom in our nations and world. No matter what happens, our clear and triumphant marching orders remain:

“Occupy until I come” (Matthew 19:13).

Let’s do it with renewed passion.