Monthly Archives: November 2012

Nov 5 2012

How Should Christians Vote?

By tomorrow night or early Wednesday we will know who the next president of the United States will be.   When we go to the polls tomorrow, how should we cast our vote as Christians? Should the candidate’s faith or lack of faith be a concern for us?

Here is an excerpt from the Christian Post opinion page by Eric Metaxas on how Billy Graham and Chuck Colson view the issue:

“Billy Graham also has strong views about voting for the best candidate no matter what his private beliefs are.   A few days ago, the Rev.  Graham took out newspaper ads in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch urging people to vote for candidates who supported biblical teaching on some of the great moral issues of the day.

As Graham put it, “We are at a crossroads, and there are profound moral issues at stake. I strongly urge you to vote for candidates who support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and woman, protect the sanctity of life, and defend our religious freedoms.”

Chuck Colson also held strong opinions on the issue of voting and I was a bit surprised by his position with respect to the candidate’s faith:

“Chuck also quoted Martin Luther, who reportedly said he would rather be judged by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian. He meant that he’d prefer to choose the best qualified leader available than vote for someone less qualified who happened to share his religious beliefs.  We do this in other areas of our life all the time.  For instance, if you needed to undergo brain surgery, would you choose a Christian surgeon, or the best surgeon available no matter what his beliefs?

Chuck felt very strongly about the duty of Christians to vote-and to vote for the best qualified candidate no matter what his personal religious convictions.   He considered voting a spiritual duty.  On BreakPoint, Chuck noted that as voters, we are to choose the most competent people to be God’s magistrates to do justice, restrain evil, and preserve order.  He pointed to Exodus 18, where Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, told him to select men of good moral character who were competent to help judge the people.

I agree to a certain extent with Billy Graham, and Colson, who when it comes down to it… really are casting a vote for the lesser of two evils in order to support biblical principles.  But  we should always keep in mind that there are nonnegotiable issues Christians must endorse, like freedom of religion and speech, the sanctity of life and the institution of traditional marriage.

Now go vote! 🙂

Nov 4 2012

Face to Face with the Reality of the Holocaust

It can be difficult to grasp the reality of the Holocaust from books and history until one comes face to face with a survivor who has a real and palpable story to tell.  Only then one experiences shock, anger, grief, and compassion, all conglomerated in a mixture that is difficult to bear.

My patient was an 86-year-old Jewish woman from Poland who shared her story with me.  In 1941, around age 15 she was arrested along with her parents and five siblings, and taken to Auschwitz under the pretext that they would be given work and made productive members of society.  The pain, hunger, torture and tremendous loss this woman suffered cannot be put into words.

By early 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated, the Nazis had murdered her parents, two sisters and two teenage brothers.  She along with one brother were the only ones out of a family of eight to survive this unspeakable ordeal.  It was heartbreaking to hear the grief and pain she continues to bear after so many years, especially when talking about her teenage brothers whom she described as “the most beautiful boys you’ve ever seen.”

The Holocaust was nothing short of an example of depraved human nature at its worst.  If it wasn’t for God’s grace which put an end to the Nazi regime, many more Jews and other races would have been slaughtered.  And some have the audacity today to say that another Holocaust cannot happen because we live in a modern society who learns from past mistakes.  I say no, we are capable of another Holocaust and even worse!  And this is simply because of our fallen human nature and our depraved spiritual state without the salvation given through Jesus.

The Bible is clear about the state of humanity as David laments over our depravity in Psalm 14:

1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.

2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good, not even one.

Remembering the reality and evil of the Holocaust leads us to understand the deep corruption of the human soul and the need for a Savior, which are the first steps in our restoration to where God wants us to be.  May God give each of us this great salvation available only through faith in Christ.

Nov 3 2012

Communicating With God in Solitary Confinement

Romanian evangelical pastor Richard Wurmbrand was severely persecuted in communist Romania for his faith.  He spent 14 years in prison, and three of those years were spent being tortured in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation.  He longed after fellowship with the Body of Christ, and he hungered for the Word of God, to which unlike us, he did not have access.  After years of not seeing the sun, stars, flowers, trees, women, children and the things we are blessed with through common grace… at his lowest moment… God spoke to him.  See his story below, the amazing part starts in the third minute at 3:20

Nov 2 2012

National Tragedy: Children Born Outside of Marriage

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just released a report about birth data in the US.  Beside the finding that the birth rate is currently at the lowest point ever recorded in the US, the most shocking statistic was buried in a table at the back of the publication:  40.7% is the overall percent of American children born out-of-wedlock!  They further break down the numbers of  babies born to unmarried moms by race: Asians 17.2%, Whites 29.1%, Hispanics 53.4%, American Indians 66.2%, and non-Hispanic Blacks 72.3%.

These are absolutely staggering statistics about the deterioration of family values in our culture.  Looking at America through a biblical filter or a Christian world view, it is not too difficult to see the symptoms of a decaying family structure, for example:  extremely high divorce rates, single parent homes, the redefinition of marriage, the adoption of young children in nontraditional family structure, and many others…  These are symptoms of a deep moral depravity that has corrupted us to the bone.

But the numbers quoted above are not just symptoms… These are the results of our society’s actions and their lack of the ultimate moral compass: God’s Word.  This is the result of departure from God as a society.  It is absolutely heart breaking to know that many of these children will not have access to a father figure to complete their family structure as ordained by God.  The Church needs to realize that this is a rebellion against God and His commandments, and a great tragedy which appears to grow unchecked.

Let’s remember that the Word of God is clear when it states that in the last days there will be an increasingly clear distinction between right and wrong, righteousness and wickedness, holiness and evil, and that we as believers need to differentiate ourselves from the wickedness of the world:

Revelation 22:11  “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” 12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.”

Nov 1 2012

Come, and you will enjoy… great “worship!”

On the way home today I heard a puzzling  ad on our local Christian station K-WAVE for a large but not quite mega “Bible” church in my area.  The ad invites you to join the church and “you’ll enjoy great worship.”  This is the same church whose pastor recently held a series of scathing cessationist Bible studies on the  radio, attacking Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who practice gifts of the Spirit such as prophecy and speaking in tongues…  but that is a subject for another day.

The sound bite advertises the “great worship” that you will enjoy when you go there.  Really?  Enjoy the worship that someone performs?  Like when you go to a concert and you enjoy the performance?  Is this “worship” meant for the enjoyment of the audience?  Is this the same worship that is meant to be done in spirit and truth toward a holy and great God?

I believe this embodies some of the things that have gone wrong in the modern evangelical movement.  The main issue is that the holy and exalted God seen by Isaiah in his vision is no longer the center of many modern churches, much less the center of their worship.  Humanism, yes the same humanism that our parents tried to escape when they left the eastern communist block in the 70’s and 80’s, the one that puts the human being in the center, is becoming commonplace even in some churches.  It’s no longer only about exalting God, lifting Him up, giving Him all the Glory… we have to emphasize the spectator’s enjoyment of worship meant only for the King.

They were most likely referring to their music ministry, and I would have had no problem if the ad would have said “come and enjoy great music” because a large church may have the resources to build a professional choir/band and “worship team.”  Some more conservative than me would even have a  problem with that, but it really disappointed me to hear that worship, in whatever capacity, was being misplaced toward pleasing the listener.

Lets not forget that worship is not just singing songs in preparing our hearts and minds for a sermon.  Worship of our God is a lifestyle of reading and studying the Bible, attending fellowship with the body of Christ, singing praises and praying to Him, and as Ephesians 2:10 says, doing “the good works which, God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  The way you lead your life should be worship for the King!