Who is to Blame for Moral Decline?

I have been in the ministry 44 years and have seen a major shift in the mission of the church.  The mission of the church was to bring the message of salvation to a lost world.  Today there are very few individuals finding salvation in the church.  As our country quickly slides down the board path towards destruction we have a tendency to blame the liberals for our destruction.  However, I would say that the reason our country is in the mess we are today can be laid at the door of the evangelical churches. As Christians we are the salt and light of the world and have been commissioned with the task of spreading the true message of salvation.  This country is falling apart because we no longer are concerned about sin or sinners- we have lost what preserves—Jesus Christ.  

The evangelical churches became so anti-everything that we allowed the unbelievers to control our education, media, law, medicine, and politics.  The end result is a godless nation.  That is the end results when a nation no longer has the influence of godly people.  We can separate ourselves out of existence.  The evangelicals pride themselves on their high standards of Christianity at the cost of reaching the lost.  We have misplaced our hatred for sin with a hatred for people.  We have no problem crying out against the sins that disgust us but harbor the sins of arrogance, pride, and self-righteousness.  We no longer carry a burden for lost souls.  Our pray life is consumed with selfish requests and we disregard the mission of the church to win souls to Christ Jesus by lifting him up.  When the church gets away from the message of Jesus we have lost our way.  

We begin to wander away from God when we gave up our responsibility to raise our own families.  We have slowly given our families to the control of Satan without protest.  The Christian training of children is vital to sustaining the Christian faith.  But as Christian we have lost sight of the importance of education with a Christian view.

The education system in this country had its foundation in Christianity.  In the state of Indiana where I live, the Quakers had a major impact on early education.  In the late 1900’s they turned their schools and academies over to the state and education became secularized.  Abraham Lincoln rightly prophesied when he said, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”  Today evangelical Christians have lost their children to the secularized education.  This has become a serious problem.  In fact, the problem is at epidemic levels — 75% of young adults raised in a Christian home leave the church after they leave the home. Think about that — on average, three out of every four kids attending your youth group won’t be attending any church a few years from now. 

When the church gave up the training of their children to the secular public education system we set this country into a moral decline. Christians actually paid to make their children atheist.  Before you become so defensive let me explain.  Our children are taught to think the church is irrelevant.  Sports take a priority over church. What makes this so sad is that there are coaches who claim to be Christians but demand that your child put sports before God.  Sporting events at one time would never be held on Sunday; today it is a common practice.  There a fathers and mother who are condemning their children to eternal punishment because they refused to invest in their spiritual future.   

If high school has not made your child an atheist wait until college.  College professors are five times more likely to identify themselves as atheists than the general public. On top of having an avowed atheist teach your child keep this in mind, half of all college professors view evangelical Christian students unfavorably.  The whole philosophy of education today is atheistic. The evangelical church has not prepared our children to resist the false-teaching.  Maybe it is because most evangelical Christians do not know what they believe.  We live in a day when only one (1) percent of adults in America have a Biblical worldview.

Next to education, the greatest influence today on the American public is the media both news and entertainment.  Millions of Americans are so hooked on television that they fit the criteria for substance abuse.  Television has also become the major tool to spread anti-Christian views.  Anti-Christian hostility is reaching a new, more violent level. Christians are mocked and our faith and values are increasingly maligned. Anti-Christian bias within the media has played a large part in stirring anti-Christian sentiments.  

Again, who is to blame?  I would have to say the church.  The church has some repenting to do.  Outside of those who hate the church because they are just evil, what has the church done to cause individuals to hate Christians?  In my years in the ministry there have been many who have left the church because of being seriously wounded by something they heard in church or from someone in a position of spiritual authority.  It is no doubt that we are reaping what we have sown. 

 Recently I spoke with some retail people who said they hated to see one particular group of evangelical Christians come into their store because  they were demanding, arrogant, self-righteous and insulting.  That is a great testimony for the Christian faith.  No wonder making fun of Christians is becoming a past time for many in the media.  No doubt they too have run into this type of Christian.  We need to do some repenting.

I blame the evangelical church for the moral decline of America today. Yes, I am aware there are exceptions; however, most American churches over-emphasize entertainment and ignore the biblical commands.  Many of the small evangelical churches that are teaching the WORD are finding the younger generation is leaving to go to larger churches where their children will be entertained with skits, rock bands and fast paced videos.  The result is a generation that has no ability to reason, no foundation in what is truth, or a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We’ve failed to recognize that what we win them with we win them to. If we win them with entertainment we win them to entertainment. If we train them to ignore God they will deny God.

So if you’re a true believer  who is upset because our country is going down the broad road of destruction by killing the unborn, subverting marriage, legislating immorality, denying God from the public place, making our children into a generation that does not know God then do something about it!

First, you need to make Jesus Christ a priority in YOUR life, in YOUR family, and in YOUR church.  You need to prepare YOUR children for the future.  Teach them the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Don’t get caught up in the attitude of the world.  Don’t rot your soul with the thing that quickly passes away.  Seek first the Kingdom of God.

Is This The Last Generation of America?

For the past three months I have been teaching a class on the Book of Beginnings—Genesis.  One of the amazing things about this book is man continues to repeat the same patterns of life every three generations.  When God created Adam he declared him to be perfect.  Adam walked with God and was taught by God.  There was a spiritual dynamic to the life of Adam that was marked by his relationship with God--new things were happening all around him.  God created Eve for Adam to be his helpmate in life.  This was the first generation.

Time passes and Adam and Eve make a poor choice and are removed from the Garden of Eden.  In a new environment of struggles and challenges they begin their family-- the second generation.  Three sons are born Cain, Able and Seth.  These three did not know the experience of the Garden of Eden but knew the story of how things were when Adam and Eve were young.  Cain, like his father made a poor choice and killed his brother Able.  The relationship Cain had with God was not the ideal.  He lacked the motivation to put forth the effort to sustain a spiritual dynamic that once motivated his father.  Able however, tried to preserve and consolidate the teachings of Adam into his daily life.  He may have even dreamed of one day being able to experience the Garden of Eden like his father and mother.  Seth, the youngest of the three sons took the place of Able and continued the lifestyle of his brother.  Cain and Seth were involved in preserving the success of the present.  They were concerned with maintaining the status quo.  They were fearful of losing what they had accomplished.  They would not risk the present for the future; they were set in their ways of living.

Time passes on and the third generation comes on the scene.  They have only heard about the stories of the first and second generation.  They have watched as grandfather tries to preserve the past and father is only concerned about maintaining the present.  They find no reason to preserve the past, they are not concerned about the need to secure the present and have no concerns about preserving what was earned by the two previous generations.  There is no vision that drives them, no passion that moves them and no purpose of life--no future.

The decedents of both Cain and Seth ran wild.  Irad and Enosh both questioned the past generations.  This generation has an identity problem.  They have no desire to live as their grandparents or parents.  They did not want to be part of the family or the established community.  They struggled with trying to establish their own identity; they were uncommitted, lacked a driving passion and had no vision.  They questioned what they truly believed.  They set about to establish their own moral and ethical standards.

During the time of Enosh, the Bible tells us that this was the generation in whose days they began to err, and to make themselves idols, and surnames their idols by the name of the Word of the Lord.  Enosh is the father of idolatry.  Long before Nimrod founded Babylon paganism was alive and well. 

Paul in writing to the Romans gives a perfect description of this generation.  He said they knew God, but they refused to honor him as God. They made their own gods.  The reason is they wanted to do evil.  What is sad is that they chose to remove God from their daily lives and he allowed them to go their own way.  So they became completely immoral.  This generation did not feel it was important to have a true knowledge and understanding of God.  So God allowed them to have their own worthless thinking.  The end result of this generation is they were filled with every kind of evil, greed and hatred. They hated God.  They were rude and proud braggers.  The invent ways of doing more evil things.  They ridiculed the law’s God and man saying that anyone who lives by the laws of God should die. ( Romans 1:18-32 will give you the scripture.)  So we see the third generation is one of moral and ethical decline without regard for God or man.

In regards to the spiritual side of man the first generation had a personal relationship with God and was righteous; the second generation had knowledge of God and was religious; the third generation did not know God and were reprobates.  The cycle of these three generations are repeated all through the history of mankind.  

Paul in writing to Timothy tells us that the end time or the last days will be marked by the third generation attitude.  They will be evil people who cannot see what is right or wrong.  They have no conscience.  The say it is wrong to marry—sound familiar.  They say there are some foods people must not eat—sound familiar.  In his second letter to Timothy he describes this generation in more details.  The times will be terrible.  People will love only themselves and money.  They will abuse others with insults.  They will be ungrateful and fight against everything that is pleasing to God.  They will not obey their parents; they will have no love for others and refuse to forgive anyone.  They will have no self-control; they will be cruel and hate what is good.  And everyone will pretend to be a Christian but they will refuse to change their way of living. 

Paul says to stay away from these people.  The problem with this advice is this is the generation of today and the churches are full of these types of people as well as every aspect of our daily lives.  This generation has been confused in their thinking and the faith they have is worthless. 

So, what do we do?  We are to tell everyone the Good News of the Gospel.  We are to tell people what they need to do, tell them what they are doing wrong and encourage those who are doing right.  But remember people will not always listen to the truth.  More and more you will find that they only want to hear what makes them feel good about themselves and not what is truthful. The end result of this generation is trouble is coming with a vengeance and we must be ready to do the duties of a servant of God.

Born For These Times

Unable to sleep, I thought I would do some reflection on living in these times.  Paul told Timothy that we would be living in “perilous times” and we are living in those days now.  I have listened to people talk about the state of affairs in the world and they are astonished about the level of evil that exists.  I agree, acts that are committed daily against little children, the elderly, the poor and the helpless is almost unbelievable.  As I think about this level of evil, I am reminded of the Prophet Elijah and the evil he fought against.  If you don’t know the story it is found in 1 Kings Chapters 18 and 19.

Elijah was one of the important Biblical prophets, he is also my favorite Old Testament character, he lived in the 9th C BC during the times of wicked King Ahab and his queen Jezebel.  Elijah was a great prophet who stood against the might of Kings and false prophets. He arranged a contest between the prophets of Baal and himself.  There were four hundred against one. Elijah won the contest when fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice.  And in a non-politically correct way and a show of religious intolerance he had all 400 prophets killed.  This so enrage Jezebel that she sent a message to Elijah saying,  “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”  Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.  When the LORD asked Elijah why he was hiding his answer was, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”  Elijah was depressed, discouraged and saw no hope for the future.  But Elijah was born for the time he was living in and God had plans for his life.  

Even though evil was everywhere and his life had been threatened the LORD told him to stop worrying about what might happen and get busy doing what he was called to do. 

 ¹⁵ The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. ¹⁶ Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. ¹⁷ Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. ¹⁸ Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.” 

We are right in our assessment of the evil that exist in our government, our communities, and even in our places of worship.  We have like Elijah, spent our spirits dry worrying about these evil days.  As I reflect on this story of Elijah I am reminded that we were born for these times.  All throughout history Children of the LORD have become discouraged over the evil that was around them.  They became weakened by dwelling on the battles that were beyond their control.  These battles are not ours but the LORD’s. 

We were born for these times and the LORD has placed us here for a specific reason.  Even though we will meet the resistance of the world, be hated, despised and ridiculed we are here at this present time for a reason.  Our task is not to “fix” the world but to proclaim the TRUTH.  We are to be a witness against the “prophets of Baal” of our time.  We are called just like Elijah to be-- as King Ahab said, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?”  We are the voice crying against the evil of our day.  We are the light in a dark and evil world.  There are many who are searching for the LIGHT.  When searching souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it they find hope and evil is defeated.  If you would help to calm the tumult caused by the evil of the day by shining your light into the darkness, this is one of the strongest things you can do. 

As Christians there will be times when we are discouraged, disappointed, and despondent and feel we reached the bottom of the barrel of despair and all hope is gone and we want to find a cave and hide in it like Elijah.  But I am resolved no longer to linger in the world of despair nor to sit a place at the table for hopelessness.

The reason is this: In my heart I know, as do you that there can be no despair over the evil that surrounds us when you remember why you were born for this time, who you serve, and who placed you here.   We can take encouragement in the fact that the LORD has “…reserved. . .  those  whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”  If we do what we are called to do, the LORD will take care of the evil that surrounds us.  

Here are some lessons from the life of Elijah found in chapter 19 of 1 Kings .  Understand the importance of “Go back the way you came.”  Where were you in your spiritual life before you allowed “Jezebel” to put fear in your heart? How far have you run away from the place you first challenged evil?   Get back to the place you were born to fulfill and “when you get there” prepare others for their place in the plan of God.  And what is important is that we prepare “someone to succeed you.”  Those we prepare will continue to fight evil with TRUTH because of the courage you have inspired in their hearts.

Stupidity The American Curse

This week I will be taking part in a “Meet The Candidates” program at the Sugar Creek Art Center here in my hometown.  I feel it is important to know who we put in office.  Even though I may not vote for those who are voted in, I still want to know what they believe.  

I, along with many other Americans spend a great deal of time finding fault with our political leaders, and there is certainly a lot to find fault about, but it’s not the political leaders that’s the only problem in America, it’s the people who fail to exercise their right to vote.  A non-vote is a vote for those who are in office now.  But then I can understand why there are so few who actually vote.  All over America, people are going crazy with stupidity.   Every day on the news the stupidity of the American public is announced, and I keep asking, how they can be so stupid.  America has to be cursed with stupidity.  Maybe it is from all the genetically modified foods we have been consuming.  Whatever the case, we are suffering from the devastating disease of stupidity.  (Yes I know I should not use the “S” word.)

I agree it would be nice if we could change the present political leadership in this country from the top down, but that will not change the problems of our nation, our problems run much deeper than the present administration in Washington D.C.  The moral decay that has plagued our country for the past forty years has reached into every area of our society.  As a nation we are a people who every year cares less and less for the rights of others.  We brag that we are the ‘greatest nation in the world” and our house is falling down around us.  From local government to federal government there is corruption.  

This week I watched the GSA videos and wondered how stupid these government workers are to have posted on the Internet their disdain for the American taxpayer.  If this is not evidence of stupidity (sorry mental illness) I don’t know what else it can be called.  

America has become a sad, delusional old man that can't even think straight anymore.  The evidence of our mental illness is everywhere.  It is a sad time in America when some of the biggest criminals are the very lawmakers of our country.  The political scandals from both parties are an embarrassment to the American voters.  How often have we heard someone say, “To think I voted for that crook”. 

Only in America do we allow our political leaders to pass laws that allow people to be molested, embarrassed, fondled, groped and scanned under the guise of National Security.  How many times has “security” personnel at airports, who are paid by taxpayer dollars, to protect us from “terrorist” been arrested for stealing, charged with lewdness with a child and even accused of rape?  Almost every month we hear of another crime committed by these “security” people and we keeping giving them more money, this is the height of stupidity.   We stick our heads in the sand and give up another freedom.  What has happened to our common sense?

Our government leaders are so concerned with National Security that they have subcontracted security technology to a foreign country.  After all we know if the government is involved it will be a mess.  So how’s this for security? One foreign country has access to  all FAA and NORAD encryption codes - through RSA, controls security at all major US airports - through ICTS, has access to records of 90% of US private telephone companies - through Amdocs, has control of the financial market software and post-9/11 FBI wiretapping technology - through Comverse, controls the software used by all key federal governmental agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Internal Revenue Service, NATO, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service and even the White House - through Ptech this country is-- Israel.  Some of these companies actually use programmer from China to program our security systems!  So how secure are we?  Oh by the way just so you will sleep better at night know this, our government has National Security as a number one priority, the U.S. military is buying huge amounts of electronic parts from a very close ally—China. How stupid can we get?

Here is another sign of our national stupidity. During the Presidential Debates the issue of condoms and birth control seemed to be more important to the moderators than jobs, economy, the collapse of the housing market and the number of unemployed Americans.  What is wrong with the news media?  Where did these idiots go to college? I understand that sex sells but during a Presidential Debate—give me a break.  Although, maybe I am missing the greater picture in America, since children are exposed to enormous amounts of sexual material on television, iPads, computers, cell phones and movies these days we could feel safer if they had some kind of birth control when they act out what they see daily in our sexualized society. After all, we wouldn’t want to damage their self-esteem, or deny them the life changing experience by restricting them from acting out what they see on a daily basis and by the way-- the number of unwed teenage mothers is on the rise.

My big fear is as I look around and see the apathy of many Americans about who will run our country, that I join the ranks of the unconcerned.  The world is not getting better it is becoming more evil by the day.  The level of evil seems to grow in quantum leaps every year.  Every day there are those who tell us that we will soon be the gods of this world controlling our own destiny and live in a Matrix utopia where everyone has taken the blue pill.  

America is quickly approaching the destination of those who lived during the time of Noah.  We have been conditioned to accept the lie that we can become gods and solve the problems of mankind.  This will never happen.  You ask why?  Because we a blinded by stupidity.  Our only HOPE is found in the LORD and the only CHANGE that matters is the change of our hearts and minds toward the Creator who will make us a new creation through Jesus Christ our LORD.

Lost Identity

My father preached a sermon on Lost Identity from the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah.  He preached this sermon so often that over the years I still remember it.   The text was from verse 23-24.  23In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:  24And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.  We are living in times of religious, economic, social and political confusion; it is often difficult to understand who we are in the daily struggle of life because of the uncertainty of who we have become.  To obtain a true picture of whom we are as a people we must first look to the past.  It has been said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  My father would be identified as a member of the Greatest Generation, this generation is those who came of age during the Great Depression and fought World War II.  The identity of an American born to this generation has some very importance characteristics that identified them the world over.  These were the people that grew up during the Great Depression. My father told about plowing behind a Model T Ford for tens cents an hour so the family could have money to just get by. Just being able to survive the Great Depression took courage. The young men of the day were called to defend freedom and went off to fight in the Big One and the women ran the farms, worked in the factories and raised their children.   My father often said, I left high school to go win a war and then came home to graduate. These are the Americans who came home from that war and built America into a world economic powerhouse. These American’s knew the meaning of sacrifice, both in terms of material possessions and of real blood, sweat, and tears. They were humble people who never bragged about what they had done or been through. They were loyal, patriotic, honest and level-headed. They accepted responsibility for their decisions; they also accepted all the consequences of that decision, whether good or bad. They were not a generation of whiners or excuse makers. They took pride in personal accountability. They were identified the world over as American’s. Today we are more concerned about the ethnoculturalism of a group than are they American.  To be politically correct today we see Americans as prefix-Americans.  All you need to do is add the ethnic background to American and you have the modern prefix-American.  The values of America have changed with the prefix culture.  There are groups who refuse to honor our laws, our language, and our customs.  They want the benefits of being an American without the responsibility of being an American.  When they came to this country they had no intentions of adapting to our cultural, but rather set about to change who we are as Americans.  Some have been so brazen as to say that our country no longer belongs to us.  The anti-American attitude of the foreigners both legal and illegal has intimidated the American born citizens to the point they are afraid to speak against the prefix-Americans.  We are quickly losing our identity of being an American. For the most part Americans want to be liked and understood. I know I do.  But as we are told on a daily basis that there is a disrespect and dislike for Americans around the world we have come to believe we are a hated group of people.  It is however hard to understand this dislike and disrespect or even hatred when people around the world want to attend our universities, find employment in our country and live the American dream.  This dislike and disrespect has created the problem of dealing with those who want to destroy us by changing our laws, customs, and language.  It makes me wonder why they left their homes to change us to what they were not content to live with.  But the real problem of losing our identity is not from those outside but the American people themselves.  We have changed from a independent spirit to one of entitlement.  The innovative and industrious American has been reduced to a video game player more concerned about a sports team than who runs the country.  We have lost our identity. America has become so “diverse” and given into the multicultural ideology that we have lost our national identity.  We apologize to everyone for everything.   We can no longer say “Merry Christmas”, we ignore the Christ of Christmas, and schools no longer have Christmas breaks but Winter holidays. We are fearful of legal reprisal so we ban prayer from graduations but allow other religions their religious freedom to pray when and wherever because we would not want to offend.  Leaders of our government and churches will not lead.  Our government leaders disregard the Constitution; the church leaders disregard the Holy Bible and the American public sits back to watch their favorite sports team while America speeds down the road of destruction. Greed has driven us to economic collapse.  We have allowed a whole generation to become dependent upon the government to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide medical services at the expense of the remaining few who actual work for a living.  Over 45 million people live on food stamps.  Here is the future of this country as we travel down the road of government (slavery) dependence.  When we are no longer a society of responsible citizens carry our own burdens of life and expect the government to provide for us--how soon  we will become a third world society.  Poverty begets poverty which produces illiteracy.  The more illiterate a nation becomes the more the more dependent upon the government.  The more dependent on the government people become, the less personal responsibility, which leads to the moral breakdown of society.   What happened to the proud self-sufficient American of the past? We have been transformed into divided nation where every culture is accepted, every language accommodated, every religion allowed except Christianity.  Our government and legal society has tried to purge Christianity from our history, our National Holidays, our public schools, and our daily life.  When Christianity is gone from this county so will the freedoms we have learned to love.  The stabilizing force on America has been its foundation in Christian principles.  It is our Christian principles which cry out against honor killings, stoning of women, killing of gays, taking the life of the unborn child, and the trafficking in humans.  It is our Christian principles that move us to compassion when we see our neighbor in need.  When America has been purged of Christianity America will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Just as in the days of Nehemiah we are losing our identity.  As Nehemiah took drastic steps to regain the identity of his people America must take drastic steps to regain our identity.  Judgment must first begin at the House of the Lord.  Christian religious leaders must stop trying to be all things to all people and preach repentance, personal accountability, walking upright before the LORD and practice justice and mercy.  Government leaders must serve the people and not special interest or their own special interest.  Government leaders must uphold the Constitution of the United States as they have sworn to do.  Any government official who fails to uphold the Constitution should be removed from office and never allowed to have any dealings with the government again, and lose all government benefits provided for that office