Evangelical Christians make up around 22 percent of the American population and over 80 percent of evangelical Christians voted for Trump in 2016. It would not be an understatement to say that evangelical Christians helped elect Donald Trump in his first election and they will be just as critical to electing him next week.
John Piper is one of the most respected evangelical pastors in America. He is the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist church in Minneapolis and the author of numerous Christian books. On October 22nd, he wrote an article entitled “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin” where he outlined why he could not vote for either Trump or Biden.
I was going to write my own rebuttal of Piper’s views on the 2020 election as a fellow Baptist and evangelical but then I came across an excellent rebuttal of John Piper’s article by a close friend of his – Wayne Grudem.
In my article “Piper vs Grudem on Trump vs Biden” over on BiblicistReport.com, I give excerpts from both of these respected evangelical theologians. And Wayne Grudem does an excellent job of rebutting the position taken by Piper. This is a must read for evangelical Christians before next week’s election. You can read the full article here.
Humanity has faced many pandemics over several thousand years of recorded history. The Plague of Justinian in 541 BC killed roughly half the western world’s population at that time. The Black Death was also estimated to have wiped out 50 million people, or half the population of Europe when it hit in the 14th century.
Putting the Corona Virus in Perspective
Now let’s contrast the Plague of Justinian, the Black Death and more recent viruses over the last century with the Corona Virus (COVID-19).
There have been about 35,000 cases of Ebola since 1976. It had a fatality rate of about 40 percent. The H1N1 virus has seen about 1.6 million cases since 2009 and it has a 17 percent fatality rate. To date, the Corona virus has about a 3 percent fatality rate.
However, the Corona virus is different from some of these other viruses we have seen over the last century because if is much more easily transmitted and stays active longer. It can literally be transmitted by someone with them just breathing a few feet away from you. It stays active on surfaces for many hours. So, because it can be so easily transmitted there will be a lot more people that get it.
Some estimates show 80 percent of the population in most areas of the world could be infected with the Corona virus. The world has roughly 8 billion people, and if 80 percent are infected with the Corona virus and 3 percent die from it that means roughly 200 million people world wide could die from this virus.
While that 200 million people are far greater than the number that died from the Black Death in Europe, if we look at it in proportion to the population it is far less of the population that will die.
And the vast majority of those 200 million deaths will most likely come from the elderly populations in most nations of the world as that is the group who can typically have the weakest immune systems.
And while 80 percent of the world might be infected with the virus, the vast majority will only experience mild symptoms. Johns Hopkins medical did an excellent comparison of the Corona Virus to common strains of flu that people are infected with each year. Below are some similarities between the flu and the Corona Virus:
“Symptoms
Both cause fever, cough, body aches, fatigue; sometimes vomiting and diarrhea.
Can be mild or severe, even fatal in rare cases.
Can result in pneumonia. Transmission
Both can be spread from person to person through droplets in the air from an infected person coughing, sneezing or talking. Treatment
Neither virus is treatable with antibiotics, which only work on bacterial infections.
Both may be treated by addressing symptoms, such as reducing fever. Severe cases may require hospitalization and support such as mechanical ventilation. Prevention
Both may be prevented by frequent, thorough hand washing, coughing into the crook of your elbow, staying home when sick and limiting contact with people who are infected.”
What About the World Wide Lock Down?
In the last week governors across the world and the United States, including the governor of the state I live in, ordered that all larger areas where people congregate be shut down for the next few weeks at least. That means no movie theaters, no eating at restaurants (take out only), no sporting events and no church services.
All of this is being done to make sure our medical facilities don’t get overrun and I think most people understand the rational behind the move.
But the fact remains that the vast majority of us will most likely get this just like the vast majority of us experience colds and flu bugs each year unless we have the flu vaccination (which I get for me and my family each year). So, we really are only trying to stave off the inevitable.
My son works as a help desk support person at a local hospital and so does his girlfriend. They already have people with the Corona virus. It is very likely my son could be infected with the virus and bring it home to me and my family. Am I saying we should not wash our hands or take sensible measures to try and not get infected? Of course not. We should certainly take all these appropriate measures. I am just saying despite taking these measures, there is still a highly likely chance we will get infected.
But let’s return to government measures to limit group gatherings. These next few weeks should be used to put standard triage procedures in place at all the nation’s hospitals to prioritize those who truly need medical assistance and those who should just stay home and weather this out.
We cannot have everyone who experiences a fever and coughing overwhelming our emergency rooms and doctors’ offices. Only those like the elderly, infants or others with compromised immune systems or severe symptoms should be going to hospitals. We need an education campaign to get everyone ready for this.
The message boils down to this:
“Yes, most of us will get sick. But for most of us it will be no different than a cold or flu bug. Please do not overwhelm doctors’ offices or hospitals if you are not experiencing severe symptoms.”
Now that we have placed the Corona Virus in its proper perspective in comparison to other pandemics, we will now look at this from a spiritual perspective.
We Have a Hope that Humanists and Others Don’t Have
Humanists believe they can rid the world of all crime, abuse, sickness, poverty and perhaps one day even death by teaching people to have faith in humanity and human ingenuity. But if we as Christians believe God’s Word, then we know that only God can rid these things from the world and one day he will. The Bible tells us these things will not be removed until God comes and makes the world anew after removing those who reject him and casting them into the lake of fire for all of eternity.
In Revelation 21:1-4 we read the following: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4 (KJV)
The Bible tells us as Christians that if we allow it, suffering in this life can cause us to focus on the hope that is found only in God: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:1-5 (KJV)
So yes – both Christians and non-Christians all over the world will most likely be infected with the Corona virus. Christians and non-Christians alike will die from this virus. So, what is the difference? The difference is that for humanists around the world, their hope and faith is in humanity. Our hope and faith is in God. All they have is this life in this world which they cling to so tightly, but we have a hope for a life beyond this world which they cannot understand.
Conclusion
Whenever natural catastrophes or pandemics happen this is God’s way of repeating to the world what he said in Deuteronomy 32:39:
“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.”
God is sovereign over all his creation, all living beings, all people whether they be Christian or non-Christian. And these times are a powerful demonstration of God’s sovereignty.
God has slowed down the world, if only for a time. He has focused our attention away from all the things that take us away from our homes and brought us back to a focus on the home and the family. And this is a wonderful thing that has come from an otherwise bad situation.
I pray that God will use this pandemic to bring many to Christ and also to strengthen the faith of us who are already his. For those of you are who are in Christ I leave you with this blessed hope:
“For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”
Law makers in Virginia are rescinding Virginia Code 18.2-344 which states “Any person, not being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor”.
Here is more on the story from WTVR in Richmond Virginia:
“Del. Mark Levine (D – Alexandria) introduced House Bill 245 [lis.virginia.gov] to repeal what he called a Victorian-era law. The Virginia Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 2005…
The bill received bipartisan support on the floor. The seven votes against it [lis.virginia.gov] came from Republican lawmakers. One Democrat abstained.
“Now that the Democrats are in power, I’m thrilled to get it off the books,” Levine said.
Levine pointed out that this is a crime a majority of Virginians have probably committed at some point in their life.
“It’s a stupid law. It’s crazy,” Levine said.
This is Levine’s second attempt to repeal the law, and the third by Democrats since 2014.
“I had that fornication bill before, it couldn’t get out of committee. The world has changed,” Del. Mark Sickles (D-Fairfax) said Thursday from the House floor. Sickles introduced the bill [richmondsunlight.com] that failed in 2014.”
We must remember that civil fornication laws, like laws against murder and theft are simply reflections of God’s moral law as found in the Bible. God established civil government, not to add to his moral law or take away from his moral law, but to enforce his moral law.
“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. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.”
Romans 13:4-6 (KJV)
Yes, the world has changed, but the Bible tells us in Psalm 33:11 “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations”. And God’s counsel regarding fornication is found in Hebrews 13:4 where it states “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge”.
We can argue about what the civil penalties should be for fornication. But to remove all condemnation of it from our laws and to call such laws “stupid” and “crazy” is to call the law of God stupid and crazy. And if I were a law maker, that is not something I would ever want to say. It is sad that only seven Virginia Republican law makers agreed that we should not call God’s laws stupid and crazy.
I have been listening to Rush Limbaugh on my lunch breaks at work for almost 25 years. I was driving to an appointment on Monday listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio when he gave the sad news that he has been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.
I was so happy to see that President Trump decided to award him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I was shocked that he had Melania do it right there at the State of Union Speech, I thought he was going to announce he would be giving it to him at some future ceremony. But it was a great moment.
Rush Limbaugh is the boogyman to humanists and leftists whose goal is a world without Christians, Jews, Muslims, Americans, Russians, Mexicans, Caucasians, Africans, Asians, men or women – just humans. A world where human beings have been reprogrammed to move past all these “pointless” distinctions to fully embrace a one world religion, ordered and centered around the their religion of humanism. They want a world which denies the existence of God and assigns god-like powers to humanity.
Rush Limbaugh made the following statement about these people back in 2013:
“See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming … You must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something that he can’t create.”
But to those millions of us who still believe in the traditional Biblically based values of our founding fathers he will always be a great hero. Liberal humanists had taken over radio, movies, TV and the print media for decades. They controlled the narrative each day. Millions of Americans thought they were alone until Rush Limbaugh came along with his syndicated radio show in 1988. He showed those who opposed humanism, secularism, feminism, socialism and radical environmentalism that they were not alone.
My favorite word he coined to this day is “Feminazi” to refer to feminists.
I will be praying for him that the Lord heals him. But even if God chooses not heal him, he will have left a great legacy that will go on in the myriad of conservative media that rose up because of what he started.
“As birthrates fall, countries will be forced to adapt or fall behind. At least two children per woman—that’s what’s needed to ensure a stable population from generation to generation. In the 1960s, the fertility rate was five live births per woman. By 2017 it had fallen to 2.43, close to that critical threshold.
Population growth is vital for the world economy. It means more workers to build homes and produce goods, more consumers to buy things and spark innovation, and more citizens to pay taxes and attract trade. While the world is expected to add more than 3 billion people by 2100, according to the United Nations, that’ll likely be the high point. Falling fertility rates and aging populations will mean serious challenges that will be felt more acutely in some places than others…
Ultimately, no country will be left untouched by demographic decline. Governments will have to think creatively about ways to manage population, whether through state-sponsored benefits or family-planning edicts or discrimination protections, or else find their own path to sustainable economic growth with ever fewer native-born workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.”
The statements above are not from some Christian blog like this one that advocates for women marrying younger and having more children. Instead, they actually come from a recently published article entitled “The Global Fertility Crash“, written by Andre Tartar, Hannah Recht, and Yue Qiu for Bloomberg Business Week.
The estimates always differ between various government sources around the world in certain details. They may disagree as to how much world population growth we will see in the next century. Some sources show we may only grow by 1 billion people or less in the next century before the world population begins to decline. Others show the world population may peak as early as 50 years from now.
But what all the studies agree upon is this. In countries where women get college educations and careers fertility rates plummet. In every single one of them. Is is a very simple equation that no one can deny.
Women + Higher Education + Career = Falling Fertility Rates
Some might say “that’s fine, the world population is too high and needs to lower”. That actually is not true, but let’s just go with that false premise. When the world population shrinks from 8 or 10 billion to 2 billion over the next few centuries is that OK? What about when it drops to 1 million? What about when it drops to 100,000?
And this ignores a fact that this Bloomberg Business Week article states that “Population growth is vital for the world economy“. This is just basic economics folks. Population decline leads to economic decline which then eventually leads to the fall of governments and civilizations if that decline continues.
You see when you have a problem that is causing the decline of your people at a certain point you must address that problem. And it will be addressed one way or the other.
It is an undeniable and indisputable fact that the fertility declines we see in Westernized nations are the direct result of women living their lives for higher education and careers instead of women living for the purpose for which God created them.
God did not say he made women to pursue education and careers and whatever made them happy. But rather the Bible tells us in the passage below what God created women for and also men:
“7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.”
1 Corinthians 11:7-9 (KJV)
God created man to image him, to live out his attributes, and thereby bring him glory. And he created woman for man to bring man glory in her service and submission to him as man brings God glory in his service and submission to God.
It really is that simple folks.
We have lost our way as an American and Western civilization.
The Bible is crystal clear that women are called, not to higher education and careers, but rather to “marry, bear children, guide the house” (1 Timothy 5:14) and to be “keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands” (Titus 2:5).
The West Needs to Turn from Love of Self and Pleasure to Love of God
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God“
2 Timothy 3:1-4(KJV)
This passage above from 2 Timothy is a perfect description of modern Western Civilization. Our Western cultures encourage self love and rampant individualism instead of encouraging behavior that is for the best of one’s family and one’s country. Blasphemy and children being disobedient to parents is common place. We have unthankful and envious societies. Mothers are without natural affection for their own unborn children and contract with doctors to murder their unborn children. Westerners are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Unless we turn from our rampant individualism and humanism and return to serving God and serving others instead of living only for ourselves our Western nations will fall.
The world has no answer to this problem of women having less children but the Bible does. Restore women to their place in the home and restore God’s design of patriarchy which served human civilization for 6000 years before the rise of Feminism in the mid-19th century.
“Our existence as a species really relies on women’s ability to be able to control their fertility. If women can’t control if, when, how many times to be pregnant, then they can’t control their education destiny and they can’t control their economic destiny and they can’t control their ability to really reach their full potential in society. And so, because of all of those things, I think abortion care is justice care.” This is what traveling abortionist Colleen McNicholas claims is her motivation for traveling 400 miles per week between various abortion clinics to help where no abortionists are available.
McNicholas may help to murder up to 60 babies per day according to what she said in an interview with Kendall Ciesemier of Mic Dispatch.
Believe it or not I actually agree with one thing Colleen McNicholas said in the above statement. We do need women to reach their full potential. But the question is what does it look like for a woman to reach her full potential in this life?
Colleen McNicholas along with other feminists today believe that unless a woman has a college degree as well as a successful career outside the home, she has not reached her full potential. But the Bible has a very different definition of what a woman reaching her full potential is.
The Biblical Definition of a Woman’s Full Potential
God did not create women to live for themselves and do whatever made them happy. This is the lie that Christian feminists tell women today. The Scriptures are clear that God did not make men or women to do whatever they wanted, but to fulfill his plan for his glory.
The Bible clearly states in 1 Corinthians 11:9 that “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man”. And the Bible tells us the larger spiritual purpose for which God created woman for man in the following passage:
“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
Ephesians 5:23-24 (KJV)
God created woman for man so that together they could model the relationship of God to his people and in the New Testament age – Christ and his church. The Bible gives us details below of how a woman was meant to submit to and serve her husband and thus picture the church’s service to Christ:
“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”
1 Timothy 5:14 (KJV)
Unless a woman is one of the few who have the gift of celibacy that they “may attend upon the Lord without distraction” as 1 Corinthians 7:35 states, a woman can never reach her full potential as God has defined it without being married, bearing children and caring for the domestic needs of the home.
A woman reaching her full potential in God’s eyes has nothing to do with her having a college degree or a successful career outside the home. But rather it has everything to do with her fulfilling the purpose for which God created her which was to marry, bear children and care for the needs of her husband, her children and her home.
And women of ages past fully understood that this was what a woman’s full potential looked like. This is why barren women were always so grieved. The Bible speaks of what gave women their joy in the following passage:
“He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.”
Psalm 113:9 (KJV)
Is bearing children and keeping the house what brings women joy today? Sadly, the answer for the majority of women in our nation today is no. And this needs to change.
We Need Women to Have More Children, Not Murder Their Children
We need women to have more children, not kill the ones they get pregnant with. Over the past half century since Second Wave Feminism of the 1960s and 1970s fertility rates of American born women have been consistently below the “replacement” level they need to be at. Even liberal news outlets like Vox.com recognize this fact:
“The “replacement” fertility rate of 2.1, enough to renew the population, is typically viewed as the optimal level for stability. But in 2017, the total fertility rate, or number of births each woman is expected to have in her childbearing years, dropped to 1.76 in the US. By 2018, it declined again — to 1.72, another record low. “The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement for the last decade,” the new CDC report, which is based on more than 99 percent of US birth records, reads.
It’s not yet clear exactly what’s driving the trend, and the CDC authors don’t offer any guesses.”
But of course, to liberals, it is “not yet clear what’s driving the trend”. Why? Because they refuse to admit exactly what is right in front of their faces. Women are having less children because they believe the lie that Colleen McNicholas believes that a woman cannot reach her full potential without getting a degree and having a career.
They are told to spend their most fertile years pursuing education and a career and of course engage in all the sex they want along the way. And then if they do happen to get pregnant, they can just kill the little inconvenient human life living in their womb.
And even if a woman did not ever have sex until she finished all her higher education and was well established in her career the stats show that such career women only have one or two children at most. This is not even enough to replace the current population.
Will Humanity Go Extinct?
I do not believe humanity will go extinct.
The first reason I do not believe humanity will go extinct is because the Bible says so. The Bible tells us in the following passages that Christ will return to a world with nations of men, maybe not the same nations we have today, but there will still be humanity here on earth and it will still be divided into nations.
“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.”
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 (KJV)
In the Book of Revelation, we are given more detail on Christ’s coming reign on earth:
“And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
Revelation 19:15 (KJV)
This is not the “nice guy” or feminized version of Jesus that all our liberal Christians friends like to portray. This is the vengeful God of the Old Testament that liberal Christians like to pretend does not exist. In Christ’s first incarnation he came as a lamb to pay for the sins of the world, in his next incarnation he is coming as the Lion of Judah and as a conquering king.
But there is a second reason that the world will not go extinct which does not require the supernatural event of the Second Coming of Christ. Even if Christ does not return in the next few hundred years or the next thousand years God’s natural law of reaping what we sow will not allow the current despotism of women in Western countries to continue. And I will explain why next.
The population of individual nations, western or otherwise, can only fall so far before their governments will collapse and new governments will come into power to take measures to address the problem of low fertility.
The United Nations Report “WORLD POPULATION TO 2300” admits that if the low fertility rates of Western nations continue ,even with higher fertility rates in non-westernized nations, the total world population could begin to drop as soon as the year 2050. And if women continue having low fertility rates the world population will drop from its peak just over 8 billion to just over 2 billion by 2300.
If you think the world population dropping by 75% is not going to cause political unrest, civil wars and revolutions across the globe you are very naïve.
Let me put that in perspective. In World War II no country lost most than 25% of its population and most were around 15%. No period in human history has seen a population loss of 75% except one which was the great flood recorded in the Bible.
It is in this world that many nations will finally recognize feminism for the cancer on society that it is and the despotism of women in Western countries will be overthrown and replaced with the historic societal order of patriarchy being reestablished.
There is a third possible way that abortion and the despotism of women will end. And it would be the least bloody. Conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims could simply outbreed liberals to the point that they have no political power. It not an impossible scenario, as conservative religious families have far more children than liberal families do. However, I must return to what the Scriptures say. The Scriptures do not indicate that the world will get better and better before Christ returns. It shows the world will get worse. So, I am thinking this third possibility is less likely unless God means for things to get a little better before they get worse before his return.
Conclusion
Fellow believers, we can take rest and find comfort in the blessed hope of our Savior’s return. One day he will wipe out all this evil.
But in the mean time we must do as the pro-life rally sign at the top of this article suggests. We must mount a societal and political resistance to abortion at every place we can. We also need to be educating our children about the link between abortion and feminism. Abortion was a direct result of feminism.
Rolling back abortion is the first step in destroying feminism and taking down the current despotism of women that exists in America and other Western nations.
We need to get out and vote for candidates that support a Biblical worldview which includes being pro-life. This means standing behind pro-life candidates for all public offices including President Trump.
Yesterday President Trump stated at the U.N. General Assembly that “One of the most serious challenges our countries face is the specter of socialism. It’s the wrecker of nations and the destroyer of societies”. He also stated that “Socialism and communism are about one thing only: Power for the ruling class”.
In my previous article on his speech, “President Trump Speaks Against the “religious pull” of Globalism”, I stated that “atheism, environmentalism, globalism, socialism, communism, multiculturism and feminism are all “denominations” of the same evil religion of humanism”.
In response to that statement I had a commenter write in making the following statement which ended with a challenge to me:
“Socialism and communism are political ideals, comparable to capitalism, which American Christians seem to collectively elevate. If you are going to say these first two are “denominations” of secular humanism, you must be able to defend capitalism as viewed through the same lens, or your argument is unbalanced. I’m curious to know how you would you back this up?”
Yes, I can defend capitalism, not only from a political and economic perspective, but most importantly from a Biblical perspective and that will be the emphasis of this article.
The heart of capitalism is private property rights. In a purely capitalist society, each person retains 100% control of their private property which includes all the money they earn from their ideas, use of their lands or other properties as well as their labors. America was founded on private property rights and capitalism and the Constitution originally banned the concept of income taxes.
The United States government, including the military, was almost completely funded by something Trump is using today to crack down on China – Tariffs (taxes on goods coming in from Foreign countries).
There were incomes taxes during the Civil War and some attempts at income taxes afterwards until the courts ruled income taxes to be a violation of the Constitution. It was then that President Woodrow Wilson spearheaded the effort to put in a Constitutional amendment for an income tax promising it would only be a 1 percent tax on the very rich. This resulted in the 16th Amendment being passed in 1913.
Fast forward just a couple of decades and then FDR raised that income tax to 95 percent on the rich to fund his Socialist makeover of America. JFK lowered the top rate from 90% to 70% and then Reagan did the largest tax rate drop in history lowering the top rate to 28%.
The Bible supports the concept that what a man earns is his and this God given right is found in the 10th commandment:
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”
Exodus 20:17 (KJV)
The Bible speaks of it being God’s gift to man that he is able to work and then enjoy the fruits of his labor:
“Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.”
Ecclesiastes 5:19 (KJV)
In Matthew 20:15, Jesus when telling the parable of the land owner and his workers and how he paid them for different amounts of work said “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?“
God authorizes the government only to takes pay for the salaries of government officials and the necessary functions of government.
“For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.”
Romans 13:6 (KJV)
And this is also a tenant of capitalism that the government should only take taxes to pay for the services of government officials and things that government should be doing like building roads, bridges, law enforcement and the military.
The Bible also strongly encourages free will giving for the poor and Jesus Christ talked about giving to the poor in the Gospel of Mark:
“For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.”
Mark 14:7 (KJV)
Notice two important concepts though that Christ taught about giving to the poor. First, Christ said “ye have the poor with you always”, meaning we will never eliminate poverty in this sin cursed world. Only God can eliminate poverty when he removes sin and makes the world anew. Secondly, Christ reaffirmed that giving to the poor is to be done based on the free will of the giver when he stated “whensoever ye will”.
The Apostle Paul reaffirmed the concept of free will giving both for the poor as well as giving to support local churches when he made the following statement:
“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
2 Corinthians 9:7 (KJV)
And God builds on this by admonishing those who are rich in this world to be rich in their giving:
“17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; 18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; 19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”
1 TImothy 6:17-19 (KJV)
Socialism and Communism trample the God given right of private property. Communism does it to a greater extent than Socialism in that Communism allows no private property as all property is owned by and distributed by the state. But Socialism still violates God’s law by having the government come in and seize a man’s private property and then distributing that property to another.
In essence both Communism and Socialism are the legalized theft of private property by government and the policies of these systems effectively nullify God given private property rights.
God only gave the government power to tax to pay for government officials and the normal functions of government, not for re-distributive purposes.
In God’s design, the poor and those on the lower economic side of the scale are to be cared for by close family or even extended family and only if they don’t have family then they are cared for by the church.
“If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.”
1 Timothy 5:16 (KJV)
Conclusion
There are four ways in God’s order, which is the natural order, that an individual may righteously gain property(including money).
1. By exchanging their direct labor or ideas to others to gain property or by lending out their existing property to others for their use. (Deuteronomy 24:15,1 Timothy 5:18)
2. By receiving such property as the spoils of war. (Deuteronomy 20:14)
3. By receiving an inheritance. (Proverbs 13:22)
4. By receiving a freely given gift. (Hebrews 13:16)
Socialism and Communism violate the natural order and God’s design by forcibly taking one person’s property and then giving it to another which did not earn such property.
And this is why President Trump is right that socialism and communism are “the destroyer of societies”. They destroy societies for the same reason that feminism destroys marriages, because they violate God’s design of human nature and the rights he has given to mankind.
Today in his address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Trump used a very interesting word in his speech regarding globalism. And that word was “religious”. He stated that “Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders causing them to ignore their own nationalist interests. But as far as America is concerned those days are over”.
President Trump probably does not understand where that “religious pull” from Globalism originates from. But as Christians we must under that the “religious pull” of globalism is a pull toward humanism, and specifically secular humanism.
Secular Humanism – the Religion that Claims Not to be a Religion
Secular humanists deny that Humanism is a religion, yet Humanism has all the core tenants of a religion. It worships something and it has a system of values just like a religion does.
Humanists claim that because they do not worship a deity or believe in the supernatural, that humanism it is not a religion. But you can worship something that is not supernatural or a deity. And that is exactly what Humanism does.
The Bible speaks of Humanism in Romans 1:18-27 (KJV):
“18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Does this not describe what we are seeing today in our world?
We need to recognize that atheism, environmentalism, globalism, socialism, communism, multiculturism and feminism are all “denominations” of the same evil religion of humanism. They all have the same end goals even though they may slightly disagree among themselves as to how to get to those goals.
Humanism is a religion that denies the existence of God, even though God’s existence is plainly seen in nature. It is a religion that worships education making people think they are wise when they truly are fools. It is a religion that glorifies nature rather than glorifying God. It worships “created things rather than the Creator”. And it leads to rampant sexual immorality including homosexuality and transgenderism.
Some Christians have tried to claim that they are “Christian Humanists”. The unfortunate reality is that while a humanist a few centuries ago simply meant someone who believed in “free inquiry” the secular humanists morphed this into something much broader while making atheism its foundation from which all humanist values flow.
Paul Kurtz , the Council for Secular Humanism founder, wrote the following in “The Humanist Alternative” (pg 82):
“Humanism cannot in any fair sense of the word apply to one who still believes in God as the source and creator of the universe. Christian Humanism would be possible only for those who are willing to admit that they are atheistic Humanists. It surely does not apply to God-intoxicated believers.”
Professing Christians must come to the realization that the tenants of humanism along with the tenants of its evil spawns like environmentalism, globalism, socialism, communism, multiculturism and feminism do not mesh with a Biblical worldview. They are completely contradictory.
President Trump – God’s Imperfect Instrument Against Humanism
President Trump is not a perfect man. He claims to have faith in Christ but he certainly is not a perfect Christian in either his understanding of the Bible or of the Christian faith. And sadly, President Trump, like many professing Christians and churches today, is not completely unstained by the evil influences of humanism. He has shown support for some feminist tenants as well as support for the LGBTQ community.
However, God has used him to be great defender of Israel as well as the rights and freedoms of Bible believing Christians here in the United States. God took a man who was previously pro-abortion and turned him into the greatest defender of unborn human life this nation has seen since the Roe v Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973.
Speaking on the topic of innocent unborn human life President Trump made the following statement today at the U.N. General Assembly:
“Americans will also never tire in defending innocent life. We are aware the many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right through tax payer funded abortion on demand right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.Like many nations here today, we in America believe that every child born and unborn is a sacred gift from God.”
There is absolutely no denying that God has chosen President Trump at this point in history as his imperfect instrument. Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Jewish people look at President Trump as they did King Cyrus who helped them rebuild Jerusalem. Listen to what the God said about King Cyrus:
“I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts.”
Isaiah 45:13 (KJV)
And Cyrus was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination and he was not even a Jew. But God used Cyrus as instrument of his will and that is exactly what he is doing in raising a warrior in the form of President Trump to take on globalism and environmentalism which are major pillars of humanism.
President Trump’s Stand Against Globalism
President Trump made the following declaration regarding globalism and the threat it poses to freedom:
“The free world must embrace its national foundations. It must not attempt to erase them or replace them. Looking around, and all over this large magnificent plant, the truth is plain to see. If you want freedom take pride in your country. If you want democracy hold on to your sovereignty. And if you want peace love your nation. Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first.
The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.
…
Today, I have a message for those open border activists who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of social justice: Your policies are not just, your policies are cruel and evil.You are empowering criminal organizations that prey on innocent men, women and children. You put your own false sense of virtue before the lives and well-being of countless innocent people. When you undermine border security, you are undermining human rights and human dignity.
Many of the countries here today are coping with the challenges of uncontrolled migration. Each you has the absolute right to protect your borders. And so of course does our country.”
Again, this is one of those areas where President Trump may not even realize the full extent as to why globalism is bad.
Yes, globalism threatens freedom because whenever you consolidate power, freedom is lost. This is why America’s founders believed in limited government and breaking up powers between the federal, state and local governments. And even when the power was divided between these three levels, they believed that the ultimate power rested in the people.
But there is more to why globalism is bad then just it threatening freedom. It also threatens God’s institution of nations which was one of three of the institutions he created. In the following three Scripture passages we see that is was God who divided mankind into nations giving them each a different language and sending them across the face of the earth:
“Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
Genesis 11:9 (KJV)
“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”
Deuteronomy 32:8 (KJV)
“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation”
Acts 17:26 (KJV)
Humanism Aims to Destroy the Three Institutions God Created
As we have just shown from the Bible, the concept of a nation state, which President Trump so strongly believes in, is one of three institutions which God created. And those three institutions are the family, the churchand the nation. He created each of these institutions for different purposes and divided powers and responsibilities between these three institutions of society.
“secular humanism incorporates the Enlightenment principle of individualism, which celebrates emancipating the individual from traditional controls by family, church, and state, increasingly empowering each of us to set the terms of his or her own life.”
As we can see from the statement above, Humanism seeks the destruction of the traditional controls of the patriarchal family, the local church and the concept of nation states. Their goal is to replace these traditional God given institutions with an atheistic, individualist and globalist society.
Humanism’s War on The Church
For over 150 years, humanists have been successfully waging a war on local churches both from without and within. In the late 19th century humanists infiltrated the churches from within causing them to doubt the Bible which lead to the great modernist controversies and the rise of Christian fundamentalism to fight it. In the 20th century they began attacking churches and Christianity in schools using the courts. They were successful in having prayer and the Bible banned from schools and threatened churches with losing their tax-exempt status if they spoke out on political issues or if they publicly supported politicians who supported their values.
Humanism’s War on Biblical Gender Roles
During the same period humanists were attacking the churches, they also began attacking traditional and Biblical gender roles as God designed them with the rise feminist groups in the mid-19th century. The roles of women in marriage and society began to be challenged and God’s order of male leadership in society, the church and home was undermined. This of course led to a weakening of marriage, the family unit and sexual morality.
In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act to stand against the rising tide of gay marriage advocates. While this reflected the will of the American people at the time, it outraged the left and especially those in Hollywood. Hollywood elites looked to a new plan to gain public support for gay marriage. They started incorporating more gay characters into TV shows and movies and documentaries as much as they could to desensitize the American public to the gay lifestyle. After almost 20 years of Hollywood doing this, national polls showed that public sentiment regarding gay marriage had changed and gay rights advocates took their case to the Supreme Court.
On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage thus legalizing it in all fifty states. Chief Justice Roberts in his decent on the courts gay marriage decision knew exactly what would happen because of the decision when he wrote:
“Today’s decision,for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their freedom to exercise religion is—unlike the right imagined by the majority—actually spelled out in the Constitution. Amdt. 1.”
In essence the court set the stage for many future court battles between the First Amendment which guarantees free speech and the free exercise of one’s religious beliefs against against the 14th amendment which guarantees due process and equal protection(this is what all discrimination laws and cases are based on). In other words the battle is between freedom of speech and religion verses discrimination.
Humanists believe that the First Amendment and its guarantee of the free exercise of one’s religious beliefs takes a back seat to discrimination concerns. Those on the right whether they be libertarians or evangelical Christians believe that the exercise of one’s free speech rights and religious beliefs trumps discrimination concerns.
And these are the battles that we are seeing raging in our courts over the past 4 years. Our side has had some victories and the Humanists have had their victories.
Humanism’s War on the Concept of Nation States
One of the first law’s that America passed was the 1790 Naturalization Act which stated that only “free white person[s] … of good character” could become citizens of the United States. While these laws would today be considered “racist” they were in fact in keeping with the tradition of nations throughout history that protected their dominant ethnic groups as a unifying factor of a nation.
After the Civil War, Socialist Humanists began the new narrative that America was a “nation of immigrants”. This is when “the melting pot” ideology began to spread. America’s motto of “E pluribus unum” which is found on our nation’s currency originally referred to the 13 colonies becoming one nation. But the 19th century socialist humanists reinterpreted this famous American phrase for their own multicultural and globalist goals. They changed the mean of “E pluribus unum” from a reference to the 13 colonies becoming one to “Out of many nations one nation”. The idea was to water down America’s White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture with many other religions and cultures to break down the unity of the American nation.
Humanists won a major victory with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While there were certainly issues with Jim Crow laws that needed to be addressed the law undermined private property rights and the freedom of association. It also laid the foundation for gay rights and now transgenders are trying to use it to shove their wicked ways in the faces of Christian business owners. Humanists won another major victory with the 1965 Immigration Act which abolished racial quotas which favored immigrants from northern European nations.
In the 20th Century, American Humanists began using the courts to push their humanist agenda on the nation. If they could not pass a law to get what they wanted, they would simply go to a court and find judges who would agree with them. American humanist judges used the philosophy of “if the words of the Constitution don’t say something, just reinterpret the words to make them say what you want”.
But in more recent years Humanists have taken off all pretenses and they are calling for the outright abolishment of national borders in their quest for globalism and a one world government. In 2015, a year before President Trump was elected to office, the Atlantic ran an article entitled “The Case for Getting Rid of Borders—Completely” with the sub heading being “No defensible moral framework regards foreigners as less deserving of rights than people born in the right place at the right time”. Trump ran on exactly the opposite premise and won the 2016 election in large part because it.
We Must Recognize this is Both a Spiritual and Political Battle
We as Bible believing Christians must take a stand. We must get out and vote. We must use all the legal means at our disposal to fight back against the humanist assaults on our God given liberties. That means Christians need to engage in law suits using the first Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech and religion to protect themselves and their businesses from Humanist lawsuits. We need to use the very legal weapons that Humanists use against us against them.
We must defend and uphold God’s three institutions of the family, the church and the nation state.
Some on both the right and left have called this a “cold civil war” while others have called it “the Second American Civil War”. And I agree with them in those descriptions. That is exactly what is happening in our nation and we must face this reality.
We must stop allowing leftists to paint us into a corner and shame us for believing such “radical” concepts like the one Mark 10:6 states that “God made them male and female”. God did not make people transgender; the corruption of the sin nature makes people transgender.
We must stop allowing leftists to redefine what love is by saying that that two men or two women can love each other in the special way that God only meant for men and women to do in marriage. We must acknowledge that there are some kinds of love and some kinds of desire that are indeed “vile affections” according to God’s Word in Romans 1:26.
We must stop allowing leftists to tell us that we are acting “inhumanely” for believing a nation should have borders that are enforced.
President Trump today also raised another God given right that we should not be afraid to defend:
“The United States will uphold the right to keep and bear arms. We will uphold our Second Amendment.”
The Bible affirms the God given right to self-defense in passages like Exodus 22:2 and Nehemiah 4:14 and we read in Ecclesiastes 3:3 that there is indeed “A time to kill” and in Ecclesiastes 3:8 that there is “a time of war”.
And just as God used a non-Jewish person in the form of King Cyrus to accomplish his will, so too we as Christians must be willing to form political coalitions with those who hold to and believe in liberty and freedom as we do. We must be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who defend basic American values like freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to keep and bear arms. We should be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who still believe in the concept of a nation state and national borders. And we certainly should be able to stand with anyone who stands for the life of the unborn.
According to Elizabeth Warren “we’re not here because of men at all”. This is what she said this last Monday to a roaring crowd of over 20,000 people who came to hear her speak at Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan.
She even emphasized the word “men” so everyone would know what she meant.
Now those who will try and defend Warren against charges of man-bashing or misandry will say she was just trying to show the accomplishments of a great woman.
Here was her statement in a larger context:
“We’re not here today because of famous arches or famous men. In fact, we’re not here because of men at all.We’re here because of some hard-working women
…
So, what did one woman — one very persistent woman, backed up by millions of people across this country — get done? Social Security. Unemployment insurance. Abolition of child labor. Minimum wage. The right to join a union. Even the very existence of the weekend”.
Warren was using this area, not far from the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory where 146 people, most female immigrants, lost their lives in a fire in 1911 to highlight the life of a woman named Frances Perkins.
Frances Perkins (1880-1965), was a socialist who worked in the woman’s suffrage movement. She witnessed the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire first hand and later went on to become FDR’s labor secretary and the first female cabinet member. Perkins was indeed the brainchild behind much of FDR’s new deal leading up the drafts for Social Security, minimum wage laws, union laws and child labor laws.
So, what is the problem with what Elizabeth Warren said on Monday?
First, she did not say “we are not here to celebrate famous men, but to celebrate a famous woman”. That would have been fine. When she said “We’re not here today because of famous arches or famous men. In fact, we’re not here because of men at all. We’re here because of some hard-working women” the “here” she meant was the modern culture and society we live in. A society that has a 40-hour work week, social security, child labor bans, unions and a minimum wage.
The problem is that while it might sound cool to say “we’re not here because of men at all” the fact is Francis Perkins worked with FDR and without FDR’s larger vision, charisma and political mastery Perkin’s ideas may have never come to past.
So, no Elizabeth Warren – you were there, speaking in our modern social welfare state, because of a woman AND a man, not just because of a woman.
And is that not the case for all us in this life? We live because a man and a woman came together as God designed them to do.
“Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord”.
1 Corinthians 11:11 (KJV)
But now that we have established that we are in fact “here” in a modern social welfare state because of both men and women we must ask ourselves another question. Were the changes that the New Deal brought about a good thing for America?
“The Great Depression of the 1930s was by far the greatest economic calamity in U.S. history. In 1931, the year before Franklin Roosevelt was elected president, unemployment in the United States had soared to an unprecedented 16.3 percent. In human terms that meant that over eight million Americans who wanted jobs could not find them. In 1939, after almost two full terms of Roosevelt and his New Deal, unemployment had not dropped, but had risen to 17.2 percent. Almost nine and one-half million Americans were unemployed.
On May 6, 1939, Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt’s treasury secretary, confirmed the total failure of the New Deal to stop the Great Depression: “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!
…
the National Recovery Administration, which was Roosevelt’s centerpiece, fixed prices, stifled competition, and sometimes made American exports uncompetitive. Also, his banking reforms made many banks more vulnerable to failure by forbidding them to expand and diversify their portfolios. Social Security taxes and minimum-wage laws often triggered unemployment; in fact, they pushed many cash-strapped businesses into bankruptcy or near bankruptcy. The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers not to produce, raised food prices and kicked thousands of tenant farmers off the land and into unemployment lines in the cities. In some of those cities, the unemployed received almost no federal aid, but in other cities — those with influential Democratic bosses — tax dollars flowed in like water.”
FDR’s agenda was not just bad economic policy, but it was actually an attack on some fundamental principles that America was founded on. Burton Folsom explains this in his article “Which Strategy Really Ended the Great Depression?”:
“According to Charles Merriam, vice president of the NRPB, “[I]t should be the declared policy of the United States government, supplementing the work of private agencies as a final guarantor if all else failed, to underwrite full employment for employables. . . .” That idea launched what Merriam and the NRPB dubbed “A New Bill of Rights.” FDR would call it his Economic Bill of Rights. Included was a right to a job “with fair pay and working conditions,” “equal access to education for all, equal access to health and nutrition for all, and wholesome housing conditions for all.”
New Bill of Rights
FDR viewed this Economic Bill of Rights as his tool for guaranteeing employment for veterans (and others) after World War II. But it was more than a mere jobs ploy; it had the potential to transform American society. The first Bill of Rights, which became part of the Constitution, emphasized free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion and assembly. They were freedoms from government interference. The right to speak freely imposes no obligation on anyone else to provide the means of communication. Moreover, others can listen or leave as they see fit.
But a right to a job, a house, or medical care imposes an obligation on others to pay for those things. The NRPB implied that the taxpayers as a group had a duty to provide the revenue to pay for the medical care, the houses, the education, and the jobs that millions of Americans would be demanding if the new bill of rights became law. In practical terms this meant that, say, a polio victim’s right to a wheelchair properly diminished all taxpayers’ rights to keep the income they had earned. In other words, the rights announced in the Economic Bill of Rights contradicted the property rights promised to Americans in their Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution.”
A guaranteed income, “equal access to education for all, equal access to health and nutrition for all, and wholesome housing conditions for all” sounds like something we are hearing today from many Democrats whether they deny the “Socialist” label or not. As the old saying goes “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”.
This ideology is not new. Its been tried time and time and again and it continues to fail. It fails because it violates how God has designed human nature and it also fails to take into account how sin corrupts God’s design of human nature.
How the New Deal Hurt American Culture for the Worse
People are told a false narrative today that before the New Deal there was no social safety net when in fact there was. The social safety net was the one that God designed – which was the family and the church.
The Scriptures tell us that God has declared that it is the family and the church that are to care for the poor and needy. The first level of God’s social safety net is the family.
“4 But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God…
8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
1 Timothy 5: 4 & 8 (KJV)
“If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.”
1 Timothy 5:16 (KJV)
And it is only if a person has no family to help them, that the church should then step in to help the poor. And then this giving for the poor is to be given of one’s free will, not under compulsion.
“6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. 7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-7 (KJV)
Even in the Old Testament theocracy of Israel where God commanded giving for the poor, there was no such thing as tax collector. The giving was freely done by individuals to help the poor and needy around them.
“Republicans are greedy. They’re “out for themselves” as evidenced by their reflexive support of “tax cuts for the rich.” According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, the GOP is the party of “hate.”
Conversely, it’s safe to say that the Democrats are rather charity minded. Figure that their voting habits are invariably informed by compassion for the have nots. Democrats feel, and their intense emotions are deep when it comes to correcting what they see as societal injustices of the economic variety.
…
Except that such an impression about charity and charitable giving would be incorrect
…
According to Times columnist Paul Sullivan, “Red counties, which are overwhelmingly Republican, tend to report higher charitable contributions than Democrat-dominated blue counties.” Sullivan was referencing a study published last month in the academic journal, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. The study was a creation of four research professors “who set out to explore how political differences affect charitable giving.” As Sullivan noted in his analysis of the report, the “more Republican a county is, the more its residents report charitable contributions.”
…
As Arthur Brooks showed in his 2006 book Who Really Cares, U.S. households in the top 10 percent of income accounted for at least a quarter of all money donated, while U.S. households with net worths of over a million dollars were the source of over half of all charitable gifts. Brooks’s study also confirmed what the more recent one did: Republicans give more than Democrats do to charity, and do so at all levels of income.”
In other words, most Leftists, Socialists and Democrats are only generous with other people’s money. While most Conservatives and Republicans who believe in the God given right of private property, are highly generous with their private property in helping the poor and needy around them through their churches or private charitable organizations.
And this was one of the worst impacts of the New Deal on American culture. People no longer saw it as their duty to take in their parents or other relatives in their old age. Extended family members no longer saw it as their duty to care for the poor relatives. And this affected giving and participation in church charitable organizations as well.
This change gave powers and responsibilities that were meant for families and churches to the government and in the process this change weakened both the institutions of the family and church.
No, Socialists Did Not Give Us the Weekend – God did
I just had to chuckle when I read Elizabeth Warren’s statement that Francis Perkins and the New Deal gave us “the Weekend”. Actually, it was God who gave us the concept of the weekend.
“9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates”
Exodus 20:9-10 (KJV)
Now we know under the New Covenant that we do not have to take our day of rest on Saturday, we can do it on Sunday or even another day of the week.
“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days”
Colossians 2:16 (KJV)
But the concept of a day of rest, a “weekend” of sorts, was God’s design. And Americans believed in this long before the New Deal. In fact, it was illegal in many parts of the United States to work on Sunday throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and even in the first half of the 20th century.
Conclusion
Elizabeth Warren was flat wrong that society has come to where it has only because of women and not “because of men at all”. Men have cooperated with and helped women and women have cooperated with and helped men to get us where we are today. And where we are today is not good thing from God’s perspective.
I would argue that men cooperated with women in many ways that they should not have. One of the biggest mistakes men cooperated with women on was in voting for woman’s suffrage in 1919 and 1920. After woman’s suffrage, the New Deal helped to further weaken the place of the family and the church in society.
And just as feminism has proven to be a failure, so too has socialism. Every time socialism is tried, it fails. And in the same way that feminism can only exist on the backs of men if they allow it, so too social welfare states can only exist based on the success of capitalism within their nations.
A Baptist Pastor named Grayson Fritts in Knox County Tennessee said God has granted the power to government to arrest and execute homosexuals. He made these statements while preaching from Leviticus 20:13 which says homosexuality is capital crime.
What is also very noteworthy is that Pastor Fritts was also a Knox County police detective for 19 years. He had quietly accepted a buyout a couple weeks ago. Some are calling for his police pension to be reviewed.
He claims that this never affected his job as a police officer equating it to if he worked at Burger King that he would still make food for homosexuals and not do anything to their food because it was his job to do so and this is the same way he carried out his duties as a police officer.
In the recording above, after his initial sermon which caused the media firestorm around him, he made it clear if you listen to his whole sermon, he never called on individual civilians to kill or do anything to homosexuals. He was saying God has invested the civil government with this power to arrest and execute homosexuals.
So those who were saying he was inciting his church members or other civilians to go out as individuals and cause harm to homosexuals are factually incorrect and the recordings of his sermons prove this.
You can read more about him in this article from WBIR.com entitled
Many Christians on Facebook and elsewhere have said his statements saying he hates homosexuals are the complete opposite of the Christian faith and that hate of any kind has no place in true Christianity.
However, those Christians who say this may want to consider the words of King David in the Psalms:
“Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.”
Psalm 139:21-22 (KJV)
God Both Hates and Loves Sinners
While anyone who reads this blog will know I have some disagreements with John Piper in some areas of theology, on this subject of hatred in regard to sin he has a great sermon and article about this entitled “God Loves the Sinner, But Hates the Sin?” where he states the following:
“The problem with the statement—“God loves the sinner, but hates the sin”—is that it is misleading. It is not a false statement. And what is misleading about it is the word but, but hates the sin, because but should be and. God loves the sinner and hates the sin. But implies he doesn’t hate the sinner—that is not true. God does hate sinners. Psalm 5:4: “You are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers.” Or Psalm 11:5: “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.” So it is just not true to give the impression that God doesn’t hate sinners by saying he loves the sinner and hates the sin. He does hate sinners. His wrath is real. It is not something he pours out on people he approves of.
This infinite disapproval is what the Bible means when it says God hates sinners. He infinitely disap-proves of them. Sin is not sinful except as committed by sinful hearts. Sin is an expression of anti-God human corruption, human hearts. Sinful volitions are owing to sinful hearts. Sin doesn’t just hang out there with its own existence, it is in hearts or it is nothing. Sins do not suffer in hell, sinners suffer in hell. I wonder what people who say that believe about hell, because he is not punishing sin in hell, he is punishing sinners in hell. He hates—now here is the paradox—and he loves at the same time. For God so loved the world that he hates. Hate and love are simultaneous as God looks upon hateful, rebellious, corrupt, loathsome, wicked God-dishonoring sinners.
Now here is the distinctions we need to make. This is just so crucial. I hope people will listen carefully. Hate and love both have two meanings each. Hate can be intense loathing of a quality or hate can be be-yond that the intense intentionality to destroy. Love, similarly, can be an intense delighting in a quality and it can be an intense intentionality to bless even in spite of the presence of some unsavory quality.”
And now after showing Piper’s words on the subject of hatred in the Scriptures I will add a few thoughts of my own on this subject.
If we examine the Scriptures we will find a truth that is uncomfortable for many modern Americans. We are taught in our American culture that all forms of hate are bad and all forms of love are good. The Bible however, teaches something very different.
The Bible teaches that hate is sometimes holy and love is sometimes vile.
Consider these two passages from the Scriptures below which illustrate these twin truths:
“Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.“
Psalm 97:10 (KJV)
“26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”
Romans 1:26-27 (KJV)
This is Both a Religious Issue and a Political Issue
I have quoted the following statement from Leviticus 20:13 multiple times on this blog in past articles and comments:
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.“
While no punishment is prescribed for women in Lesbian relationships, the practice of Lesbian relationships is condemned by God in Romans 1:26. But the government could punish Lesbians in some way short of capital punishment.
However, God has granted the civil government the right to treat men having sex with men as a capital crime and Romans 13:4 says the following of the civil government’s authority by God to perform capital punishments for certain sins which he allows it for:
“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.”
This power DOES NOT belong to individual citizens . There is no Biblical warrant for individual citizens to execute men for having sex with men, only the civil government has this power.
I understand where this Pastor was coming from and I partially agree with him. If we are talking about male homosexuals – then I 100% agree that the government has the right to make homosexuality a capital crime for men. If we are talking about female homosexuals, then I would support criminalization for female homosexuality short of capital punishment.
Conclusion
Many who even disagree with his statements have said it was his free speech right as well as religious freedom right to make the statements he did from his church pulpit. But as I have stated on this blog several times, there are others in this country that want to criminalize what this man did from his pulpit.
But these same people do not realize that if this man were to be led away in hand cuffs for what he stated from his pulpit that this would probably ignite a second American civil war just as there are a few other issues that would as well (like gun confiscation). So be careful of what you wish for (criminalizing Pastors preaching against homosexuality) because you may just reap the consequences of what you sow.
Biblical Gender Roles 