November 5, 2000

Prove All Things

1 Thesssalonians 5:21

This has been an interesting week for me. Sunday night I got convicted that before I went any further into Revelation, I first needed to say something about the election this coming week. Last Monday and Tuesday were two of the worst days I have had in years. I'm convinced it was enemy action, spiritual warfare, I really did not want to speak on politics. But Wednesday, things changed, I knew that it was something I had to do, and God would give me the strength and the resources to do it. And he has.

There are strange things happening in this country today, and we seem to live in a time of contradictions. The government can proclaim the separation of church and state, but what if God chooses to get involved with what the state is doing, then what happens? Then the government has a problem: it doesn't matter wether they make laws about the separation of church and state, God will do His will in the affairs of men.

There is an interesting situation that happens in the Old Testament when Daniel is serving in the court of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, and he calls all his wise men in to interpret it. The king tells everyone that he had a dream about a huge tree, all kinds of different creatures live in it, and under it, and then it gets cut down, yada yada, the point is that in this dream an angel from God is speaking to Nebuchadnezzar, and the angel tells him: " This matter is to the intent that the living may know that the most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will, and sets up over it the basest of men." (Dan 4:17) Hmm. Does that mean that even if we pass laws separating church and state, that God can still call the shots, and give us good leaders, or as we have seen recently, allow us to be governed by the basest of men? Yep.

Do we have any say so in this situation? Do we get to have any input? If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to 1 Timothy 2:1, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
:2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."
Not a complicated concept, God wants us to pray for whoever is in authority, so that we can live lives of godliness, and honesty, He says that this is good, and part of the reason for this is because He wants honesty and salvation for everybody.

How does this apply in our country? We don't have kings, so what does this verse mean to us? Who are our kings? Since we live in a representative form of democracy, since we are the ones who pick our "kings" by election, then our "kings" are actually our employees, correct? We pay them a wage, we hire them and fire them by public election, and if they are sorry enough, we can even impeach them, can't we? Let me ask you a question: if you had an employee who was sorry and useless, what would you do about it? You'd get rid of him or her, and next time you hired someone, you'd make a real effort to do better, right?

A lot of people complain and gripe about our political leaders, but in 1992, Bill Clinton was elected by 43% of the people who voted, and that was only 24% of Americans of legal voting age. One fourth of this country's legal voters put Bill Clinton in office. If you aren't planning to vote on Tuesday, then don't complain if you don't like the way things turn out, maybe only one fourth of this country's voters will be able to elect our next president like they did in '92.

Every once in a while I run into some one that is a little bit confused about the Christians relationship to government, and I want to clear something up. Turn to Romans 13:1 "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. (Referring to government) For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
:2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake."
I have heard people read this and say: "Well, I don't want to say anything bad about our elected officials, because they are ordained of God, and I don't want to say anything bad about God's leaders over us."
What kind of government do we have in this country? The United States is a republic which is a representative democracy. What does that mean? It means that we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

What is the ultimate authority over this country? Our laws. Our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights. God led our forefathers to put together a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that has given us a freedom unknown in the rest of this world, and that is what rules over us. The men in Washington, or Nashville or the Supreme Court don't rule over us, we are not subject to them, we are subject to the law, and so are they. If they do well, reward them. If they do not keep the laws of the land, fire them, impeach them, throw them out, they are not ordained of God, they are employees, and the sooner they learn that, and the sooner we learn that, the better off all of us will be.

Lately there has been a problem with the breakdown of parts of our government. Our founding fathers knew something of the sinfulness of man, and they divided our government into three branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial, do you know where they got that idea? In Isaiah 33 verse 22, it says: For the Lord is our judge, giving us the judicial branch of government, the Lord is our lawgiver, giving us the legislative branch of government, the Lord is our King, giving us the executive branch of government. A divine pattern, suited for the affairs of men, checks and balances, so that no one group could usurp all the power. What if there was a way to get around that division of power? What if there was a way for one of those branches, or two of those branches of government to outmaneuver the other one? Last week we said that the problem of the church at Pergamos was that they compromised on what the Bible said. People who pretended that the Bible doesn't mean what it says, or say what it means were a real problem at the church of Pergamos. We have a similar problem in our government, people who don't believe that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights mean what they say, or say what they mean, and they are trying to subvert and overturn those documents to suit their own agenda. That is why it is always smart to elect a president who will appoint judges who are strict constructionists or interpreters of the Constitution. Because those people will go by what the Constitution says, instead of by what you or I, public opinion, or anybody else wants it to say. When the courts have judges that creatively interpret the laws to suit the trend of the moment it might seem good at the time, but it can come back and haunt you later. For instance the current the reinterpretation of the due process and forfeiture laws: Last year 50,000 Americans had their property and all assets seized with no due process because of some accusation under the forfeiture laws, 80 % of those cases never went to court. When the hate crimes laws link up with the forfeiture laws, you will have an instant replay of the 1930's German Weimar Republic again in our society.

Al Gore in the second debate said that he thought the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were living documents, and needed to be continuously reinterpreted to suit the times. In the election to come, the next president will get to appoint several Supreme Court justices to replace those that are retiring soon, already there are several Supreme Court judges that interpret the Constitution not by what it says, but according to their own opinion, what do we do when the court is packed with that sort of judge, and public opinion is against Christians? What do we do when the judicial branch gets to re interpret the laws in such a way that now they have become the legislators, and suddenly the laws don't mean what they say, or say what they mean? What kind of nation will our children grow up in? A nation of laws, or a nation of men? If it is a nation of laws, and the same laws our parents had, and their parents had, then things ought to work out pretty well. If it is a nation of men, and their opinions of the moment, who knows?

During the debates, one of the things that came up was the strength of our military, and the statement was made that our military is in excellent shape. Let me give you a pop quiz, name this country: it has
709,000 regular active duty service personnel
293,000 reserve troops
Eight standing Army divisions
20 Air Force and Navy air wings
232 strategic bombers
2,000 combat aircraft
13 strategic ballistic missile submarines
3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles
500 ICBM's with 1,950 warheads
Four aircraft carriers
121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases, shipyards, and logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force. Is it Russia? China? France? Great Britain? U.S.A.? Wrong. This country no longer exists. It has vanished. These are the American military forces that have disappeared, decommissioned, been eliminated since 1992.

Another quiz: how many of you suspect that a lot of the news you get from the papers or on TV is biased one way or another from someone else's viewpoint? How many of you suspect that a lot of what you hear is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it has been edited or filtered to suit some body else's agenda?

In 1996, Australia banned, confiscated, and otherwise removed gun ownership from the population of Australia. Australians do not own guns, Australia is to all intents and purposes, a nation with no legal guns. Since 1996, armed robbery has increased 69%, gun murders have increased 19%, and breaking and entering of peoples homes has increased by 21%. Anybody ever seen anything mentioning that, does anybody bring that up when the news media talks about gun control? In Great Britain, gun ownership has been severely restricted since 1997, yet violent crime committed by criminals with guns is up so much that Britains have bought 60,000 bulletproof vests in the last year. At an average of $575 a pop. I don't remember hearing much about that from Baba Wawa or Dan or Peter or Tom, do you?

Another pop quiz: what nationality is Yassar Arafat? Palestinian? No he's not, he's an Egyptian. Did you know that Yassar Arafat's uncle used to be the Grand Mufti over Jerusalem back in the 1920's and 30's, and that same uncle cooperated with Hitler to condemn the Jews and their plans to return to Jerusalem? Arafat's not a Palestinian, he is just carrying on a family tradition that pays well and has a lot of prestige.

How about this one: the Dome of the Rock, and the Al-Aksa mosque, according to the news pundits, are the third holiest places in the Muslim religion, right? Have they always been like that? Did you know that Yassar Arafat's uncle was the first Muslim to announce that Mohammed ascended to heaven on his horse from the site of the Dome of the Rock? So the Temple Mount has only been significant to the Muslim religion since the 1920's, but it is treated in the media as having the same status with the Muslims as the Temple has to the Jews. How many of you have ever heard anything mentioning that from our news media, the people that are supposed to keep us well informed?

Closer to home, our government has come to be characterized by immorality and deceit, so let me ask you a few questions to make you uncomfortable. On July 17, 1996, TWA flight 800 exploded and fell into the sea off Long Island. The NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board publicly announced that it was because of bad wiring in the wing center section fuel tank that created a spark and caused the fuel tank to explode. Did you know that there were 183 eyewitnesses that saw a missile rise from the surface and intercept the aircraft? Did you know that a number of those witnesses were ex military professionals that had guided missile experience and expertly described what they saw, having seen lots of it previously it in Nam' and Desert Storm? Did you know that the Navy had 30 surface ships conducting Special Ops in the area where TWA 800 crashed, and none of them provided any assistance? Did you know that the FBI and the CIA told the National Transportation Safety Board what data they could and could not use to arrive at their conclusions? The Naval Special Warfare people did the major part of the recovery of the debris from the crash of TWA 800. Did you know that on March 11, 1997 President Clinton signed Executive Order 13039 which prohibited those people from reporting any wrongdoing that they had knowledge of? If the crash was simply because of defective wiring in a gas tank, why is it a national security matter requiring the FBI, CIA, and an Executive Order to cover something up? Has anybody noticed any of our national news people publicly wondering about this, asking any questions, seeking the truth?

Something else for you to wonder about: how many of you have had friends or acquaintances die in an accident over the last 15 years? How many of you have had several acquaintances die in accidents over the last 15 years? How many of you have had 60 acquaintances, plus those that were unfortunate to be in the immediate vicinity, totaling over 100 people, die over the last 15 years? Let's talk about a few of those 60 deaths: On February 2, 1993, four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms agents died from gunfire at Waco Texas, supposedly while in a firefight with the Branch Davidians. It is interesting that those four men were the only ones killed at Waco, and all four of them had been body guards for Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas, or running for President. The Davidians must have been pretty good shots because all four had identical bullet wounds in the left temple.

There was a woman named Kathy Ferguson who had information supporting Paula Jones sexual harassment case, she died of a gunshot wound to the head before she could testify, it was ruled a suicide. Her boyfriend Bill Shelton, an Arkansas police officer committed suicide on her grave. He must have been pretty emotional, since he shot himself in the back of the head.

Remember Ron Brown? Commerce Secretary, died on April 3, 1993. He was under investigation and several days before his death, was heard to say: "If I go down, I'm taking the rest of you with me." Probably not the right thing to say, his Air Force jet crashed in Croatia, killing Brown and 34 others, probably not the ones he meant to bring down with him. The official report was bad weather, but there is also evidence that the navigational aid was turned off while Brown's plane was on approach, and another bogus nav aid at the base of the hill where the crash occurred was turned on. Unfortunately, the Croatian sergeant in charge of the nav aid was so distraught that he committed suicide, and was unable to be questioned. Brown's autopsy revealed that his injuries were mostly minor, and not life threatening, except for a perfectly round hole the size of a nickel in the top of his head. I've seen the autopsy pictures, very interesting. Something else interesting is that the crash was bad, but not that bad, there should have been survivors, yet nobody survived to tell what happened. And several of the dead had injuries inconsistent with crash trauma. Very strange. I don't suppose that our national news media went into that much detail.

The problems are not all one sided either: why did Trent Lott and the Republican leadership in the Senate decide even before Clinton's impeachment trial began, that they were not going to remove the president from office? Was it all just for show? Why has the Republican leadership not pursued any of the other things that would point to various cover ups or corruption, some of which I have mentioned this morning? What are they hiding, and why?

What is the point that I am trying to make? There is corruption at all levels of our government but the press and the TV media have no apparent interest in exposing it. In our society today, we have several sources by which we can keep ourselves informed citizens, and make intelligent decisions about who is fit to run our country, and who isn't. We have the printed media, the newspapers, we have TV. And we also have the internet. Which of those three is the least filtered or censored? Let me draw you an analogy: if you go to the library to learn something about a topic, when you pick up a book, after you have read just a little bit of it you can tell if the author has an axe to grind, some hobby horse to ride, or is just telling the truth straight out. When an author is biased, sometimes you learn something useful, but when you really want the truth, you know you also need to go to somewhere else and get a different viewpoint. That is what makes the internet such a valuable tool to discover the truth: it cannot be censored, and even though it has it's share of fruits, nuts, and creeps, once you learn how to use it, you can easily avoid them and quickly find the cream that rises to the top. If you are a person who is interested in what is really happening in the world, if you are tired of trying to make sense of the world from the things that are deliberately intended to confuse you, I would strongly encourage you to obtain and use the internet for what it is really good for, the rapid access to information from a multitude of sources.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press is still incredibly important to a free society, the problem is that the traditional sources of information seem to have their own agenda, and truth has been lost in the process. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 tells us: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." We have an obligation to be well informed, to have discernment, and not to naively believe whatever some special interests would have us believe. If you want to know the truth about what is really going on in the world today, the internet is almost your only option.

As voters, God has intrusted us with the care and oversight of our country, Chuck Colson says it well when he tells us: "The state is ordained by God; it is not a necessary evil, but a part of God's creation. Therefore, participation in political life is a moral obligation." President James Garfield expressed it very well: "Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature."

I am well aware that not everyone in here is of the same political persuasion, and that is as it should be in a free nation. Some of us would label ourselves conservatives, and some of us would label ourselves liberals. However, there is a problem, and that is that words no longer mean what they used to mean, and those labels no longer describe things very well. When you look up "conservative" in the dictionary, it says: tending to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions." I like that. That makes good sense. If the Constitution and Bill of Rights are not broken, then we don't need to fix them. When you look up "liberal", it says: associated with economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives. I like that too. Those are noble objectives, count me in. Now stop and think about what all this means: it means that both the Republicans and Democrats are both conservative in some areas, and liberal in other areas, the old terms; conservative, liberal, no longer correctly describe the current situation, but especially the term, "liberal." When our fathers and mothers said liberal or Democrat, they knew what they meant, but that is not what the words mean today. Today the term "liberal" refers to a group of people determined to overthrow the status quo by any and all possible means. In fact the term "liberal" has changed so much, that I want to give you a new definition of what it means to be a good "liberal":
To be a Good Liberal,
1. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
2.You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach the same kids about sex.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese Communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate, and more affected by people driving motor homes and SUV's.
6.You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
7.You have to be against capital punishment, but for abortion on demand.
8. You have to believe that businesses create oppression, and governments create prosperity.
9.You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside Seattle do.
10. You have to believe that self esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. You have to believe that the military, not corrupt politicians, start wars.
12. You have to believe that the National Rifle Association is bad, because it supports certain parts of the Bill of Rights, and the ACLU is good, because it supports certain parts of the Bill of Rights.
13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
14. You have to believe that Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda are more important to American history than Thomas Edison or Robert E. Lee.
15. You have to believer that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides aren't.
16. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
17. You have to believe that preachers telling the truth belong in jail, but liars and sex offenders belong in the White House.
18. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
19. You have to believe that Democratic party funding by the Chinese is somehow in the best interest of the United States.
20. You have to believe that a crucifix submerged in urine is art, while a crucifix or the Ten Commandments in a classroom is a threat to our constitutional freedom.

So what's the solution? Is Al Gore the solution? No. Is George Bush the solution? No. Is one party more than the other the solution? Not necessarily. In some respects the biggest difference between the two parties is that the Democrats are more honest and the Republicans more treacherous. The Democrats tell you up front that they are going to promote homosexual rights, bigger government, higher taxes, and abortion for any reason, at least they are honest. The Republicans say they are not going to do those things, and then they compromise and do them anyway, they lie.

You need to be informed, you need to be aware of what is actually happening, and you need to demand accountability. Elect the best representative you can get and then hold their feet to the fire, make them live up to their promises. And whenever you hear that one of your elected people in office has done something that pushes your hot button for either good or bad, let them know. All it takes is a phone call to their office, normally it's a local call, let them know that you are interested, concerned, and paying attention. All of us make one or more phone calls every day for something anyway, why not make one once in a while that might affect the world your children grow up in? Get involved.

We need to do all these things, but is this all it will take to restore this great country of ours? No, the only thing that will help our country is a miracle, fortunately God is in the miracle business. We need to appeal to the God in heaven that allows the world's kingdoms, even ours, to be ruled by the basest of men, and ask Him to overrule, and give us good men instead of base ones. We need to get involved, learn the truth, but even more important, we need to get before God in prayer. I don't mean some quickie little e-mail prayer either, we need to get seriously before the Lord, and ask God to give us the best men and women for the job, and then ask Him to touch their hearts and minds and convict them of sin and judgement.
Over the years God has used this country as a place from which the Gospel went out throughout all the world, and the need of the world is still great. Our needs are great. God can still meet those needs. But we need to stay before Him in prayer, because if we fail to ask, then He will not answer.