General

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Last night’s presidential debate on foreign policy surprisingly shed little light on the 9-11-12 massacre of four brave Americans in Benghazi, Libya. I was saddened it was brushed aside.

It won’t be in the coming months.

Mitt Romney got the first question on the subject and chose not to press the president. It was an understandable strategy for the evening, but left many questions unanswered. President Obama was probably relieved to not have to explain to millions of people why his Administration blamed a YouTube video for the massacre.

Of course, the great tragedy of Benghazi is the loss of life of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Ex-Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and ten year foreign service specialist Sean Smith. There is nothing more sacred than human beings made in the image of God. We lament their tragic murders and long for answers for their families.

But there is a second tragedy of Benghazi that may give us an important glimpse into the heart and mind of President Barack Obama.

Something else died on 9-11-12.

That something is vital for both politicians and nations. Actually, it’s absolutely essential for every human relationship that we share.

Because of what happened at Benghazi and how the White House portrayed it, the important character quality of trust is now an issue between President Obama and the nation. Is he telling us the truth? If not, why not? And if he is lying in this area, then in what other areas is he hiding the truth?

You can’t follow leaders you don’t trust.

Richard Nixon is Exhibit A.

Of course, we would not be in this situation if the Administration had been clear and straight in the beginning. They should have come out within 24 hours and explained to the American people that a barbarous act of terrorism killed our ambassador and those trying to defend him. They should have stated the basic facts and then said there would be a full investigation–and an appropriate response to this act of aggression.

But they weren’t candid about the situation. For some reason known only to themselves, they chose to spin a tale that amounts to a cover-up.

Cover-ups are bad. They often blow up in your face. We learned that in kindergarten:

“H-O-N-E-S-T-Y…no matter what the consequences be, is the very best P-O-L-I-C-Y.”

How do we know that the Administration is covering up something regarding the Benghazi massacre? Here is the timeline that lays out the facts in the case:

September 11: U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya is attacked, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans are killed.

September 12: Secretary Clinton and President Obama issue statements condemning the attacks and both point to an anti-Islamic YouTube video that they say provoked spontaneous rioting. The president mentions acts of terror in his Rose Garden address, but only in a general context–not applied to specifically to Benghazi.

September 12: U.S. intelligence agencies have enough evidence to conclude a terrorist attack was involved (now confirmed by numerous sources).

September 13: Press Secretary Jay Carney condemns the video and violence at a news conference.

September 14: Carney denies Administration had “actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”

September 14: The bodies of slain Americans return to Andrews Air Force Base. President Obama again blames the YouTube video.

September 16: U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appears on Sunday talk shows and says the attacks were provoked by the video, exclusively.

September 16: Libyan President Mohamed Magarief contradicts Ambassador Rice saying, “no doubt that this [attack] was preplanned, predetermined.”

September 17: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland refuses to call attacks an act of terror.

September 19: CNN reports having found Ambassador Stevens’s diary, which indicates concern about security threats in Benghazi.

September 19: Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen tells Congress the attack in Libya was “terrorism.”

September 20: Carney tries to back up Olsen, says it was “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” (It was not self-evident during the previous nine days.)

September 20: Obama refuses to call the attack terrorism, citing insufficient information.

September 21: Secretary of State Clinton, at meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister, says, “What happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” (Change of word, no explanation.)

September 25: On ABC’s “The View,” Obama says, “we don’t have all of the information yet so we are still gathering.”

September 25: To the U.N. assembly, Obama blames “A crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.”

September 26: Libya’s Magarief contradicts the president on the “Today” show saying, “It was a preplanned act of terrorism directed against American citizens.”

September 26: Published reports show U.S. Intel agencies and the Obama Administration knew within 24 hours that al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist were involved. Magarief was right.

September 27: “Innocence of Muslims” filmmaker Mark Basseley Youseff (aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) is arrested and denied bail on the charges of “probation violation.” (Smokescreen?)

September 28: Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., issues a statement backing the Obama Administration’s changing story about the Libyan attack. Says facts are evolving.

October 23: E-mails that reveal that the White House knew in real time that the massacre was terrorism, the name of the organization responsible (Ansar al-Sharia), and for seven hours did nothing to try and help the embattled Americans.

I understand Mitt Romney’s reticence about the Benghazi incident last night. Governor Romney had personally decided (according to his aides) to not be combative with the president but to act presidential, show command of the big picture and familiarity with facts regarding foreign policy, and not be drawn into a tit-for-tat with the president.

The president, on the other hand, was combative from the beginning, condescending at times with Mr. Romney, and tried to stare him down with a stern look while the governor was speaking.

Last night I believe we saw a glimpse of the true selves of the two men who are vying for the top office in the land. On the one hand, what the American people have seen over the three debates, and confirmed by a lifetime, is that Mitt Romney is a very genteel human being who is polite, well-mannered, sincere, and possesses great integrity.

He comes across as a gentleman.

On the other hand, Barack Obama can be very charming in his public persona (he has a flash smile and hip “cool” to his personality), but as we saw last night, he is very narcissistic (did you notice the references to “I” “Me” and “My” which you never hear from Romney?), can be arrogant and condescending to others, and also looks very “cold” when looking at those he despises.

He comes across as a controller.

The biggest impression for me of the president last night was the smug, calculating stare–which had appeared at times in the second debate. There is a belligerence or mean streak in the president that you just don’t see in his challenger.

I bet many women picked up on that last night. Women have better instincts for these things and arrogance and combativeness turns them off.  Not so much with the male species which sometimes like a good fight.

The Bible says “the lamp of the body is the eye” (Matthew 6:22). What this means, among other things, is that oftentimes you get a glimpse of a person’s soul by the look in their eyes. Think of Adolph Hitler or other evil people into whose picture or face you have gazed.

Of course, human beings are pretty adept at covering things up–but not always. What’s in your heart comes out. What’s lodged in your inner being is often displayed through the countenance.

That’s why I was fascinated with what I saw last night. Even when Barack Obama was attacking Mitt Romney, Gov. Romney’s gaze was respectful and non-aggressive. On the other hand, Barack Obama’s stare was smug, stern, piercing, even controlling in some ways. He wanted to “dominate” in his heart and that motive was clearly displayed on his face.

Now back to Benghazi. It is very clear from the timeline above and the evidence that we’ve seen in the past six weeks that the Obama Administration did not tell us the truth about the disaster. In real time, without question, the White House, the State Department, and the intelligence community all knew that a sophisticated terrorist assault had killed four Americans. But then someone decided they needed to lie about it. They chose to blame it on a YouTube video.

Why?

• Because they were embarrassed by the security breach?
• Because the attack didn’t fit the narrative of their success in killing Bin Laden and Al Qaeda being on the run? 
• Because a terrorist attack this close to the election could harm the president’s chances?

We don’t know the answer to that question. But someone in the White House does–and that certainly includes President Obama.

To be fair, all leaders on the level of the American presidency, spin events and statistics to prop up their image and accomplishments. Some even send “plumbers” to steal important documents. Truth be told, we all stretch the truth from time to time.

But most American presidents don’t get caught in a lie and cover-up (as Clinton and Nixon did). They can’t take the risk because the effectiveness of their leadership is based on trust. Destroy trust and the leader must go.

That’s Benghazi’s second tragedy. Four Americans are dead–and one American president is “dying.”

Not by loss of blood, but by loss of respect.

Maybe it shows in his eyes.