General

This month in my morning devotions I finished reading the book of Deuteronomy. Eugene Peterson calls it the world’s longest sermon by the world’s oldest preacher.

I love Deuteronomy because it clearly lays out the landscape of the moral world. This fifth book of Moses is really an “Instruction Manual for Wise Living” from ancient times. The main idea is still relevant. When we love God and obey his commands, great blessings flow. But when we turn away from God’s blueprints for living, all hell can break loose because right and wrong have consequences.

By Friday the US Senate will confirm Neil Gorsuch as an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court. Gorsuch probably shares my opinion on Deuteronomy. It was the most widely quoted book during the Constitutional Convention.

Neil Gorsuch is a Constitutionalist.

Will God use his appointment to help stop the tide of lawlessness in our nation?

The Bible is pretty clear that in the last days, (prior to Christ’s Return), lawlessness will increase. People won’t obey God’s laws for living and will cut themselves loose from his commands.

Notice the Apostle Paul’s prophetic words in two New Testament passages:

“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

“For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.  The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie,  and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-10).

To highlight a few items:

• The first list of “bad behavior” comes from loving self and pleasure instead of loving God i.e. turning away from his standards.
• This involves a breakdown of “self control” including family disintegration.
• All these ugly and selfish actions come from a spirit of lawlessness.
• The ultimate immoral mind behind the lawless one (Anti-Christ) is Satan.
• Many folks will be deceived by the lawless spirit and reject God’s truth and salvation.

Sounds pretty bad to me. Lawlessness brings disobedience, godlessness and chaos. This philosophy comes from the pit of hell where Satan and his demons try to add human beings to their rebellion.

They operate out of a spirit (mind-set) of lawlessness.

On the other side, godly people love the order and beauty of law (Psalm 119). They know that societies that love, respect, and keep good laws are more peaceful and blessed.

Which brings us to the present. Have you noticed the growth of lawlessness in the Western World (Judeo-Christian based culture) in the past six decades? Do you lament the acceleration of that spirit of lawlessness in the past few years?

Here’s a brief overview of the growth in lawlessness (20th century):

1. The 1960s saw a wholesale revulsion of God’s precepts when millions of teenagers rejected their parents’ authority and moral standards and began to rebel, smoke dope, and sleep around. I know because I was there. It was a time of casting off inner restraints (self control) for pleasure -oriented hedonism.

2. In subsequent decades we tossed the Bible and prayer out of the public schools and even decided we would re-define murder to exclude killing your own baby (abortion). Lawless people changed God’s laws to cover up their rebellion and sin.

3. During this same period, we threw away God’s laws on debt and sound money–running up a staggering twenty trillion dollars in government IOUs (plus trillions more in personal debt). I noticed reading Deuteronomy that when you obey God’s principles, you become the lender, not the borrower (Deuteronomy 15:6). In two generations the United States went from being the world’s largest lender (think the Marshall Plan), to become the world’s greatest debtor. Tragic.

4. An incredible breakdown of the American family highlights the past few decades of lawlessness. The American two-parent home was once the bedrock of our society. Today, nearly 40% of American children have been ripped away from father or mother, and in some cities, single-parent homes are up to 70%. We’ve forgotten the good laws make families stable and great.

5. Did you notice that from 1960 to today we lost most of our wars–Korean, Vietnam, and now conflicts in the Middle East? Deuteronomy details that consequence of lawlessness: “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth” (Deuteronomy 28:25).

Now let’s examine the 21st century acceleration of the lawless spirit:

1. The Obama Administration greatly advanced the rejection of biblical laws and mores by re-defining marriage, promoting gender confusion, and using the US presidency to govern by fiat. In eight years, the US Congress passed no budgets (a Harry Reed tactic). They simply operated by Continuing Resolutions that bypassed Congress and doubled the national debt in eight years.

7. Groups like Black Lives Matter, emboldened by the Justice Department, started a lawless war against police in large American cities. Dozens of cops have been mowed down during this season of anarchy. Occupy Wall Street made violent protest normal across the land. 

8. Both in Europe and America, politicians laughed at sovereignty laws and proclaimed lawless “Open Borders” for many immigrants. Some European cities are powder kegs of rape and Muslim terrorism. In the United States, millions of illegal criminals are welcome in “Sanctuary Cities” in direct violation of federal law. We even changed the wording from “illegal aliens” to “undocumented workers.” Clever and lawless. Signs at many rallies say that “No One is Illegal.” Really?

9. A large scandal envelops our national security agencies as documents leak, intelligence laws loosen,  and recent evidence points to one administration using the powers of government to collect information on their political opponents. This is unheard of lawlessness in American high places.

10. The Democratic Party knows it can’t win with its ideas at the ballot box (losing 1200 seats nationwide in eight years), so it resorts to pushing its agenda through the courts. Harry Reid changed 200 years of Senate protocol in 2013 by eliminating a 60 vote norm for approving federal justices. He did so to allow the Obama administration to pack the federal courts with lawless judges–those who do not respect the Constitution. They want to force a lawless secular agenda upon the people of the US.

We arrived at the 2016 election with a lawless spirit exploding on many fronts. Though Donald Trump was an unusual candidate, millions of Americans realized he needed their vote to help reverse the tide of lawlessness.

A major battlefield?  The US Supreme Court.

Constitutionalist (lover of law) Antonin Scalia had died suddenly. The Court was grid-locked with four anti-law justices (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) along with four generally law-respecting jurists (Kennedy, Thomas, Alito and Roberts).

The American people realized that generations of lawlessness–and maybe disaster–could sweep the United States if Hillary Clinton won and nominated another lawless judge. And then another. And maybe another.

America might not survive a lawlessly tilted Supreme Court.

So people turned out en masse to vote. One of the goals was to elect a president who would appoint a law-loving judge who could put his finger in the crumbling dike of American law and culture and help stop the explosion.

Donald Trump did the right thing and appointed Neil Gorsuch.

The Democrats are now screaming against an eminently qualified judge while threatening to filibuster a US Supreme Court nominee for the first time in history. They know that the only way governmental lawlessness can continue unabated is through SCOTUS overriding the will of the people.

But they won’t prevail on this one. Neil Gorsuch will win confirmation.

Here’s Gorsuch’s view of the law: 

There are many big issues in our world today, but none cause more protest, unease, and even sway the elections of nations than the issue of immigration (think Trump in the US, Le Pen in France, and Angela Merkel in trouble in Germany).

In the United States, the battle lines on this issue seem set in concrete and have spilled over into chaos at numerous Congressional town hall meetings.

I believe it’s crucial we solve the immigration mess with both compassion and justice.

Here is my common sense proposal.

Before I share the ideas, let’s retrace how the immigration debate has changed in the past few years. To use a football analogy, the goal posts have been moved.

If we go back just one generation, let alone hundreds of years, it’s safe to say that the “goal posts” (fixed principles) on who got into this country were based on two common sense commitments:

1. Compassion for People – as evidenced in the words of the Statue of Liberty and seen in one amazing statistic: that the United States receives more immigrants to its shores than any other nation on earth (a million a year).  Americans are a welcoming people. Caring for people is goal post number one.

2. Respect for the Rule of Law – for hundreds of years we welcomed those millions through an orderly system of receiving refugees, granting visitor visas, allowing people to get green cards, and applying for citizenship. We understood that nations have borders, the rule of law must be obeyed, and that justice is a pillar of any free society. Respecting borders and the rule of law is goal post number two.

In the last decade or so, radicals began moving both goal posts. Today, the compassion goal post doesn’t take into account that we are fighting a global war on terror and that some people who want to come to America have no no intention to assimilate, but want to kill Americans. This myopia produces blinded compassion by those opposed to extreme vetting.

More radically, the rule of law goal post has almost been taken off the horizon. There is a substantial movement in America toward open borders–anybody can come into the US if they want to without penalty. This insane policy comes in the form of a clever word change: illegal aliens to undocumented workers.

It’s a slick trick. Now we are fighting over whether criminal illegal aliens should be deported and if immigrants from terrorism-friendly failed states should be strongly vetted–while millions who crossed the border illegally get a pass. Trespassing a border is no longer a crime to the open borders folks.

Yet, simple common sense says that’s a lie.

I don’t know one open border, bleeding liberal, Hollywood celebrity who practices open borders with their own home. If they really believe that people have the right to live where they want, cross any boundary  etc., then they should immediately remove all locks from their doors, security systems from their yards, and walls around their properties. We should demand they put a sign in their yard that says “All undocumented workers can use my house!”

Otherwise, they’re hypocrites.

That’s the insanity of the position. No one in their right mind would treat their family that way no matter how compassionate they are. Resources are limited in our homes and some people are dangerous. Why should we then allow the “American family” (nation) to be treated similarly?

Both nations and families need privacy and security.

The common sense goal posts of compassion and rule of law have been moved out of sight. On this vast field, with no sense of order, a potential civil war lies in front of us that could tear apart the American fabric unless we return to wise compassion and necessary rule of law.

Here’s my proposal, beginning with six governmental actions. Governments are ordained by God to execute justice and protect their people. Then there are four individual or private group applications. It’s in the individual domain that we are primarily called to show mercy to our fellow humans.

Both justice and mercy must be a part of our immigration solution because they are attributes of God.

JUSTICE – which applies primarily to the government.

1. Secure the border just as we lock our homes.

Praise God that President Trump, of all the presidents of the past thirty years, understands that you can’t have a nation without borders. Borders are a preserver of order, values, security and the uniqueness of societies. In fact, the Bible indicates that God Himself is involved providentially with the borders that make up nations (Acts 17:26).

Open borders is a satanic idea meant only to garner votes and create conflict in sovereign nation-states. They don’t work in a fallen world. We should move full speed ahead with building the wall and incorporating technology that will keep us safe. Nations should “protect their house” and their laws be respected. The sieve must be stopped.

2. Deport all criminal illegal aliens.

There should be no argument here. Those who commit crimes in this nation must be sent back to their country of origin. When you don’t obey the rules of the “home,” you get kicked out–with the exception of the crime of crossing the border (which I will mention later).

3. Extremely vet for extreme times.

It’s totally appropriate to call a “time-out” to figure out the best way to vet people from chaotic states. Terrorists want to come here and carry out jihad. We can’t stop them all–but many. This is not a Muslim ban, it’s just being smarter with cultures who believe killing others in the name of their god is okay.

4. Nationally implement E-Verify to stop business and individual cheating.

Make sure all workers in the US have permission to be here by expanding and nationalizing the E-Verify system. This will stop businesses from wrongly hiring illegals for cheap labor and illegals from breaking the rules with impunity.

5. Punish visa abusers with a ten-year ban from the United States.

Visa overstays contribute to a large portion of the illegal population. The penalty should be strong and swift. You take advantage of the privilege of coming here, then you lose that privilege for the next decade. That would put the fear of God into many a complacent student or visitor.

6. Change/clarify the foreign-baby law.

We need to stop the flood of Chinese tourists who have babies in San Francisco while on vacation and then claim citizenship for their child based on a loophole. Congress needs to clarify the law that “visitor babies” are no more American than calves born in a garage are cars.

COMPASSION – which emanate primarily from the attitudes of the people.

7. Re-commit to being the world’s leading champion of immigrants and refugees.

Let’s continue to lead the world in loving and caring for people. It just needs to be done legally and in an orderly fashion in our neighborhoods and states. That’s God’s heart and way.

8. Whole-heartedly accept Dreamers as US citizens (DACA).

Both presidents Obama and Trump are right that the children of illegal aliens should not be sent back to the country of their parents. Children are not responsible for the sins of mom and dad–clearly a biblical and common sense idea (Ezekiel 18:20 and Deuteronomy 24:16). It wasn’t their fault that they were brought here.

9. Give long-term illegal aliens permanent residence but no voting rights.

This is the fairest way to solve the dilemma of eleven million or more illegals aliens now currently in the United States. Amnesty spanks of injustice and deporting them remains unmerciful and disruptive. Let them pay a fine based on their years of illegality and take away the right to vote for twenty years.

This is neither amnesty nor cruelty. It is common sense mercy. The penalty for entering the country illegally should be forfeiture of voting rights for some time. Then they can apply for citizenship.

10. Declare a Day of Reconciliation & Renewal (R&R)

When the other major actions have been completed, the president should declare a national day of R&R–of Reconciliation and Renewal. On that day, all Americans should be encouraged to gather in their churches, city halls, businesses and homes to ask God’s forgiveness for the immigration nightmare we created, forgive and and seek reconciliation with one another, and proclaim the rebirth of freedom in the United States as a sovereign, just, and merciful nation.

This could be America’s Day of Jubilee (maybe a new national holiday).

Hallelujah.

I voted for Donald Trump. But I was not a big fan when he first ran for president. I didn’t like the loose tongue, three marriages and playboy past. I also had negative impressions of his wife Melania due to her many seductive photos on the Internet and super model past.

Both of my attitudes have changed–over time and after last weekend. 

On Saturday, February 18, I tearfully watched Melania Trump do something that Franklin Graham says has never been done before by any First Lady in US history. Then I listened to Donald Trump’s speech in Melbourne, Florida from beginning to end.

Both of them might be unconventional messengers of grace and truth.

First, let’s put in context “grace and truth.” John 1:17 states: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Both of these attributes are foundations of biblical faith. Grace points to God’s willingness to transform repentant people; Truth refers to reality–what works in real life.

As Melania Trump introduced her husband Saturday evening, I was skeptical. Beautiful woman. Trophy wife. Super model. Heavy accent (though she speaks five languages of which English is the fifth).

Then I nearly fell out of my chair when she invited the 9000 people in the airport hangar (and thousands more outside) to join her praying the Lord’s Prayer.

You can watch the prayer here.

I can’t recall a president or first lady leading a public prayer since Franklin Roosevelt led the nation on the radio on June 6, 1944 on the eve of the D-Day invasion. 

My impression of Melania Trump has changed. Though the prayer may have inserted by a speech writer, she didn’t have to do it. But she did. Says something about her (draw your own conclusion). Mine is, that at the least, she is open to spiritual matters. Maybe she is growing in her faith–and God used that to point millions of people heavenward.

Powerful. Uplifting.

At least on that occasion, Melania Trump was a messenger from God.

Then President Trump took the stage. The Melbourne rally was designed to re-create the campaign rally atmosphere which followed him throughout 2016. I haven’t heard the POTUS speak in person. I’ve never listened to any of his speeches from beginning to end. Only sound-bites.

This one I listened to completely. If you have 48 minutes to kill, you can watch it here.

Ater listening to every word, I can honestly say I agree with virutally all of Donald Trump’s positions. He spoke truth about the God-created domain of government from beginning to end.

I want you to judge for yourself.

I took the time to download the transcript of his 5200 word speech. Then I edited out the verbiage to the 33 main points. Lay your biases aside and see if you agree with the ideas that Donald Trump expounded. You might want to even put a check mark on a piece of paper–then add them up:

1. “When the media lies to people, I will never, ever let them get away with it.”