General

 For more than two hundred years, the United States of America was a light of freedom and blessing to the world. Four hundred years ago Plymouth governor William Bradford described American civilization as “stepping stones to others” for God’s great work on earth.

Of course, it was Jesus Himself who said his people would be a “city on a hill” and Ronald Reagan applied that phrase to America’s great experiment with liberty whose statue stands in New York harbor as a “light to the world.”

But America’s light is going out–and it pains me to state the necessary corollary:

Nations of the world: do not follow the American example.

Our light is under a bushel.

I believe the uniquely formed, biblically based, and freedom loving United States of America reached a tipping point in 2012. Our faith-based nation, born in spiritual revival and established on numerous principles that bring freedom and blessing to people, has chosen to go down a pathway of darkness that makes us unworthy of emulation.

What is our newly chosen worldview road?

Secularism–which brings darkness and death to liberty.

On the simplest level, to be secular is to be “worldly”–to follow man-made morality and customs rather than God. The dictionary defines secularism as “1. Religious skepticism or indifference. 2. The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public.”

Sound familiar? No doubt secularism has been rising in America for some time, but the 21st century has brought its triumph in government, education, economics, morality and family life.

America used to believe in God-given rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (property).”

Today we believe in killing pre-born babies by the millions, placing punishing regulations on business, anything goes morality, re-defining marriage, and taxing people out of their properties. We have chosen “the way of the world”–which is really to say we are following Europe in the shedding of Christian freedom and blessing for the darkness of humanism.

How blind can we be.

Look at Europe. It was never the purest form of Christian expression, but none-the-less was essential and providential in the birth of God-given rights, republican democracies, science and the arts out of a biblical worldview, and free enterprise capitalism which created the middle class.

But today:

• Europe has turned away from faith in God. Secularism rules, especially in the West.
  
• It is dying demographically and could possibly become Islamic within two generations.
• Its bloated social democracies are teetering on the edge of collapse and insolvency.
• Morals are dead, family life is in decline, and despair and anarchy are rising.

Yet, America has chosen this model. We want to be like Europe.

For that very reason, the developing nations of the world–in Latin America, Africa, the Pacific, Asia, and the Middle East should no longer look to the United States as a “shining light on a hill” to follow and emulate.

Better to look to other nations who are “growing their faith” and applying Christ’s truths to their national life. These include:

UGANDA

President Yoweri Museveni recently repented of his sins and the sins of Uganda as a nation in a move aimed at establishing it as a God-fearing nation. The President made this historic move at Mandela National stadium in Namboole on October 9 during national prayers for dedicating Uganda to God.

He said to the nation: “I denounce witchcraft and satanic practices. I repent on behalf of Uganda. We confess our sins. We repent of the sins of shedding innocent blood, corruption, bribery, sexual immorality, drunkenness, rebellion, insubordination, tribalism and sectarianism.”

The president dedicated Uganda to God to be His nation anchored on His principles and values. He indicated that the next fifty years belong to the young generation, advised the young people to be God-fearing referring to the Biblical verse in Proverbs 9:10 which says, “The fear of God is beginning of wisdom.”

Family Research Council commented: “The Museveni prayer is a model for all Christian leaders in the world. Unfortunately, the media is so threatened by religion that it refuses to leave another country alone to pursue its own views on sexuality and faith. Since Museveni’s speech, the press has ridiculed Uganda for bending its knee to a higher power–the same higher power that Americans have to thank for our great nation. In times like these, President Museveni’s humility should be emulated, not criticized. It is faithfulness like his that will raise Uganda’s status as a new power in Africa.”

My friend, J. Lee Grady, points out other nations to watch:

CHINA

Nothing in the history of missions rivals the success story that is China. Mao Zedong tried to wipe out Christian faith in the 1970s when there were only 2.7 million believers. Today, the most conservative estimate is that China had 75 million believers in 2010–and it could be as great as 120 million in 2012–more evangelicals than in the U.S.

As China’s “faith” rises, its influence increases in the world.

INDIA

Despite language barriers, tribal divisions and violent attacks by Hindus, indigenous church-planting movements have flourished all over India in the last 40 years. Fifteen years ago in Andhra Pradesh, a woman who heard a gospel radio broadcast, asked if someone could plant a church in her remote village. Within the first year after a pastor came, the church had 75 converts. After a church building was constructed in 1994, this church planted 125 churches with a combined membership of more than 5,000. This type of growth is occurring throughout India today.

BRAZIL

This nation of 203 million is experiencing an economic boom during a global recession. It is also in the midst of a Christian awakening. Pentecostal churches have been growing exponentially since the 1970s, as have Baptist, Presbyterian and Nazarene groups that have adopted Pentecostal practices. If Brazil can avoid the traps of greed and moral scandal that crippled American Christians, it could become a spiritual superpower. It is already the world’s second largest missionary-sending nation.

ETHIOPIA

Since the deposing of Ethiopian dictator Haile Selassie in 1974, evangelicals have grown from 5 percent to 20 percent of the population. Mainline Christians from Lutheran and Orthodox backgrounds have been swept up in Pentecostal revival movements in recent years—and this has fueled huge church-planting initiatives.

GUATEMALA

At least 24 percent of the country’s population is evangelical, and churches are pushing farther into unreached areas where indigenous people are trading their superstitions for faith in Christ.

ROMANIA

What this Eastern European nation lacks in economic strength is offset by its spiritual passion, especially in the western cities of Oradea, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara. Many of the believers in this country are leaving old traditions and embracing a more relevant, dynamic faith and planting vibrant churches—and their sights are set on sending missionaries to the nearby Middle East. Romania’s flat tax (a more biblical idea) is the fourth lowest in Europe.

SINGAPORE

As America continues to fall on the “Index of Freedom” (number ten and dropping rapidly), the nation of Singapore is number two and rising. This tiny, prosperous nation is emerging as an Antioch of the East—a strategic base for both missionary sending and funding. Members of Trinity Church, one of many megachurches in the nation, give more than $6 million a year to missions.

INDONESIA

In the world’s largest Muslim country, Christianity is growing so fast the government tries to hide statistics. Operation World says evangelicals have grown from 1.3 million to 13 million since 1960. Time magazine recently called what is happening in Indonesia “a religious revolution.” And Christians in the Banda Arc province say Muslims are much more receptive to the gospel since the 2004 tsunami that devastated the region.

As America falters, many others are rising. God is never without his “light” in the world. You just need to choose your heroes wisely.

Here are my encouragements:

Nations of the World: The American Statue of Liberty no longer speaks the truth. Look to Christ and his power and principles as well as choosing wise national examples to follow.

American believers: Let’s be honest that “our city is no longer on a hill” but is covered by a basket. Only God knows when the darkness will be irreversible. Until then, it is our duty to humble ourselves, repent, pray, and work even harder to revive God’s American Dream.

 

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.