Last week I enjoyed the great privilege of teaching 1 & 2 Samuel at Word of Life in Budapest, Hungary.  Teana had the opportunity to minister to the girls in the school and we enjoyed sweet fellowship with many friends at WOL whom Heritage supports as missionaries in Hungary.  When the week of ministry at Word of Life finished, Teana and I awoke at 3:00 am on Saturday morning to take the 45-minute car ride from Toalmas to the airport in Budapest.  We left Hungary at 6:00 am and with the one hour time change, arrived in London two and a half hours later at 7:30 am.  After checking into the hotel, we immediately set out to do what sightseeing we could enjoy before entering into another week of ministry.  Rather than using the tube that evening, Teana and I took the bus from the Portabello Market back to the hotel.  In route we traveled the length of Oxford Street, London’s version of Fifth Avenue in New York City.  From the 2^nd story windows of the English bus we were able to enjoy the city’s Christmas lights ablaze while tens of thousands of Londoners began their traditional Christmas shopping.  Yet it was that same joyful sight that equally caused our hearts to melt at the thought of so many people without Christ.  It also set our thoughts to seeking God’s face about the work He might do through just the two of us in such a large metropolis of such great, spiritual, eternal need. 

Sunday morning we awoke to travel just one tube stop and arrive at Oxford Circus/Langham Place and the world-famous All-Souls Church.  Heritage is using All-Soul’s “Exploring Christianity” course in our own Muslim ministry.  All-Souls has an international ministry both in London and around the world.  Teana and I attended the 2^nd service (11:30) which had only a few empty seats in the sanctuary with an untold number of people in the simulcast; the vast majority of attendees being young people from all around the world whose hearts are on fire for God’s glory all on every continent of the planet.  This weekend is “Remembrance Day” in England, our equivalent to Veteran’s Day.  Before attending All-Souls, Teana and I watched as representatives from around the world placed memorial wreaths at the Military Memorial near Parliament on the Thames.  For this reason, the Sunday morning sermon focused on remembering God’s mighty deliverance of Israel in the Exodus and the ensuing commandments in the Decalogue. 

After lunch, Teana and I made our way to Speaker’s Corner at Hyde Park.  We arrived in the middle of the afternoon but remained until after dark.  The day was windy and often, ‘umbrella’ rainy but the weather was quickly forgotten as we both engaged in discussions with Christian and Muslim friends.  After walking around several different groups and listening to several speakers, both Christian and Muslim, I settled in to debate one particular Imam.  He and I stood face to face while as many as twenty people surrounded us listening in on the debate.  (May I suggest to our Muslim team and those who attended the lecture on Islam at ETSU that the discussion was much akin to what we encountered that evening)  Nonetheless, I was greatly encouraged as our argument, centering on evidences that Jesus Christ is God, kept him engaged with me and off of his ladder forwarding his own cause.  Our discussion ended only when, far after dark, he folded up his ladder and left Speaker’s Corner.  What a challenging, enlightening and enjoyable afternoon.  Pray that God will be greatly glorified as Teana and I continue to seek opportunities for ministry in a nation that gave us our Christianity but that now, much like America, is in great spiritual need.            

Dr. Mohler’s Blog

November 2008

America Has Chosen a President

Posted: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 at 5:04 am ET

The election of Sen. Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States came as a bang, not a whimper.  The tremors had been perceptible for days, maybe even weeks.  On Tuesday, America experienced nothing less than a political and cultural earthquake.

It’s about 4:30 am on Tuesday morning in Toalmas, Hungary.  Teana and I arrived safely on Monday.  Our luggage will arrive sometime today.  In the interim, I have ‘borrowed’ clothes from a dear friend here in Toalmas.  This morning I will begin teaching 1 Samuel to about 50 international students in my ‘new look’. 

It takes about 45 minutes to get from the airport in Budapest to Word of Life in Toalmas.  If you’re ‘looking’ and paying attention, you realize that you’ve just driven your first 45 minutes in the country without seeing any evangelical church between ’there’ and ‘here.’  In America there is an evangelical church every 4.5 minutes.  From Heritage, a person can drive by at least ten churches in 4.5 minutes and probably 45 churches in 4.5 miles.  

We often talk about seeing things from someone else’s perspective.  We want people to see things the way we see things.  “If you could only see things my way,” someone will lament during a discussion.  In the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis wrote, “What you see depends a lot on where you stand.”  In that light, more American Christians need to stand on foreign soil to look around and look back to America.  It will help anyone better ’see’ America and American Christianity.  It will help a person better see the world as it is and even offer a new look into his or her life.   

Too many people to count took advantage of Heritage’s global burden in 2008.  Almost every Sunday since the summer has finished, someone has offered a testimony about their mission experience.  If you haven’t been to the foreign field for Christ’s kingdom, I hope you’ll take advantage of one of Heritage’s world-wide opportunities in 2009.  Next year, Heritage is going further than its ever gone (Ethiopia) and deeper into the darkness (Muslim countries) than it has ever ventured.  The trip will not only change someone else’s forever, it will also change you. 

Our luggage didn’t arrive with us in Hungary.  That’s inconvenient.  Luggage is replaceable.  Driving for 45 minutes, looking out the window into village after village, seeing hundreds of people who have never heard the name of Christ go about their daily business and knowing that one day their hearts will stop beating and they will face eternity without Christ; that’s more than incovenient - that hurts your soul.  It brings to mind the old adage, “no pain, no gain.”  Calvary’s pain garnered Christ a bride.  The pain of conviction, confession and repentance grants us fellowship with God.  And missions…well missions gives you a whole new perspective on everything.  That’s priceless.                     

On the Eve of the 2008 Election
Romans 2:3-8
 

4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.  6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury
Self-seeking = a good definition of American culture.
I have taken a ‘news’ sabbatical over the last six weeks.  But I have been listening to people in our church and community talk about the campaign issues and I listened to people even as I voted last Thursday.  Here is what I know the Scripture says and that you should taken into account as you vote.
1.    Abortion is wrong and is the most important issue in any campaign and to any nation
 

Abortion is not wrong just because it is murder.  Murder is wrong because it challenges the sovereignty of God as Life-giver, Creator and Sustainer
Psalm 139:16 – 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Jacob to Rachel (Genesis 30:2) – Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
Psalms 127:3 – Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Psalm 139:13-16 – For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
a)    A woman does not have the right to do what she wants with her own body.
1)   A baby is not her body, it’s someone else’s
2)   No one has that right (to do as they please)
 

b)   It’s a fetus and not a human.  It’s alive and it has human DNA. How can its nature not be human if it is alive and has human DNA?
No nation can expect that it can kill millions of innocent human beings and escape God’s judgement
Jeremiah 31:8 – Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
I’m told the economy is the primary issue in this election butt is inconsistent for a Christian to voice concern about the economy but not care about the abortion issue:
c)    Abortion terrorizes the weakest among us
d)   God will judge a nation economically because of its immorality
Abortion is the most important issue because every other issue - taxes, health insurance, jobs, immigration – is dependent on life.  A culture that does not respect life at conception will not have respect for any other issue.  Life is fundamental to all issues.
A culture of death creates a people who turn their hearts from anyone in need.  We have suffered at Wall Street and Main Street because we have created a culture that exemplifies Romans 2:8 - for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury
2.    Single Issue Voting
ILL – You’re a single issue voter.  Everyone is.  It’s just that your issue may not be on the ballot this year
It may be that both candidates are pro-death.  What then?
Jeremiah 29:5 - “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare
 

The Babylonians were certainly pro-death and Israel’s sworn enemies.  But Israel was commanded to seek the well-being of the country in which they lived as a witness that they were free men unto God and that no country or king could remove their trust in God
So, if both candidates are pro-death, it is still your responsibility to seek the welfare of the country by examining other issues to determine what is best for the country in which God has given you citizenship or residence…..which brings us to the economy –
3.    The forced redistribution of wealth is unbiblical
(taxation as redistribution)
The economy is the #1 issue in this campaign and thus just shows us how ignorant of spiritual/biblical/godly matters we are as a nation.
Deuteronomy 11:13-17 – “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 he  will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. 16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
*We are more concerned about our own physical needs than spiritual truth - the selfishness of our text
*We do not realize that morality sets the foundation for the economy
*We have replaced God with the government
a)    The Lord never condemned money, only instructed the rich not to trust in riches and to be generous (1 Tim 6:17-18)
b)   He also said that poor people would always exist.  (Mt 26:11) No government programs will eliminate the poor
 

Let me define rich.  In your home, or at your disposal, do you have more than enough food to eat today?  You are rich by the world’s standards.
There is no such thing as a free-lunch.  To think that the government can fund our lives without eventual social, economic, and moral repercussions only shows the depths of ignorance to which we have sunk as a nation. Our selfishness blinds us to
It’s only a matter of time before the person who thinks it is the government’s responsibility to take care of them will think it is your responsibility to take care of them and that is called socialism, Marxism, communism, anything except democracy. (Where do people think the money to take care of them comes from except from other people who are caring for them?)
1 Timothy 6:18 – They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share
If I want to give you some of my money as a ministry of mercy that is consistent with the Scriptures.
But if the government takes your money that you have honestly earned and gives it to people who are dishonest (illegal immigrants and some who live on and abuse welfare - refuse to work or choose to be reliant on the government for their well-being), that is theft.  Yet it is a small step for a government that sanctions murder to also sanction theft.
ILL – It is patriotic to pay more taxes.  It is unpatriotic to live dependent on the kindness of others or through social or government programs.
Worse than unpatriotic, the Scripture condemns laziness
Proverbs 19:15 – Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-11 - Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living
The Scripture does not encourage, support or condone people who will not work.  It also does not support or condone a government that creates a system whereby people can or do become dependent on the government for their existence thereby making the government their god
Is there no place for any support from the government?
Ezekiel 16:49 - Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
Jeremiah 5:1-4 - Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her. 2 Though they say, “As the Lord lives,” yet they swear falsely. 3 O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent. 4 Then I said, “These are only the poor; they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the Lord, the justice of their God.
Certainly there is a place for governmental intervention on behalf of the poor but not when or if that government replaces your trust in God with trust in it.  We should not expect it to replace God, we should treat it as though it were God…in fact, because it is comprised of men and women who are fallen in mind and heart, we should exercise caution concerning any government
Jeremiah 31:9 - Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
How should we open our mouths:
a)    The government has effectively robbed the church of its responsibility and privilege to support the poor and needy.
b)   The church has no other agenda than to extend Christ’s love.  The government’s agenda is to be popular so as to gain votes to continue its existence.  This is not genuine care for the poor.  (Beware the man or government who promises you something for nothing.)  This is the self-exaltation of men over God
ILL – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – “bread and the circus”
4.    Illegal is illegal with regard to illegal immigration
It is sinful for the government to endorse or allow people who entered the country illegally to remain in the country.
a)    This teaches legal citizens to disobey the government without fear of repercussion
b)   It teaches a young generation to disregard laws and boundaries, be they of the government or of the family
c)    It teaches citizens and illegal  immigrants to lack respect for the country
d)   It affirms lawlessness
Matthew 22:21 - render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
Romans 13:1-2 - Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment…5 - Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience
e)    Any Christian in the country illegally should return to their home country
5.    People Get the Leaders People Deserve
a)    God always intended Israel to have a king.  Wanting a king was not the problem.  1 – Not trusting God and 2 -wanting to be like other nations was the problem.  They chose Saul, which was God’s judgement on the nation
 

Even rulers whom we elect but do us harm are God’s judgment on our sin.
 

b)   We do not have to wait for God’s judgement to fall on us.  To elect the leaders we have already elected who have brought us to this juncture is the judgement of God.
 

Romans 1:21 - For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened….28-32 - And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
 

CONCLUSION:
This nation has created a citizenry, not of responsibility but of entitlement.  We are reaping the harvest of our own godlessness.  I say, ‘godlessness’ because everything that ails us as a nation is the result of disobedience to God.  Like 9 of the 10 lepers healed by Jesus, we have accepted His kindness only to forget His goodness to us and reject His rule over us.
Romans 2:3-8 - Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.  6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury
 

The nation must repent of ungodliness and that repentance must begin with Christians and in the church 
 

Teana recently told me about a woman who complained her that New York City gym was now overflowing in the early morning work hours, with unemployed Wall Street analysts and stock brokers.  What can we learn from Wall Street and the King of Assyria?

 
Poor Sennacherib (705-681 b.c.).  He was the earth’s greatest king…but only for a short time.  In 701 b.c., after conquering every nation and tribe between Assyrian (Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran)) and Judah (southern Israel), Sennacherib surrounded Jerusalem in an effort to squelch Hezekiah’s Egyptian-backed rebellion. 
Sennacherib’s own war journal reads, “Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him, and by force of arms and by the might of my power I took 46 of his strong fenced cities; and of the smaller towns which were scattered about, I took and plundered a countless number. From these places I took and carried off 200,156 persons, old and young, male and female, together with horses and mules, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude; and Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape…”
Hezekiah attempted to ‘buy off’ Sennarcherib by paying him the tribute money owed to the heathen king but, by that time, Sennacherib was so angry and had invested so much time, energy and money into the conquest, he laid siege to the city and waited, terrorizing the Israelites with continuing threats. 

 
Sennacherib’s great mistake was insulting the Hebrews’ God, Yahweh or, as the Scripture records, “the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God” (2 Kings 18:4).  Sennacherib himself compared Jerusalem’s God to the lifeless, faux gods of every nation between Assyrian and Jerusalem.  In a letter to the people in Jerusalem, the Assyrian king wrote, “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’” (2 Kings 19) Hezekiah didn’t miss the sarcasm.  He prayed to God, “O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God….” (19:15-16).  God responded, “I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” (19:34).   And he did.  That night, one angel destroyed 185,000 Assyrians.  Sennacherib returned home (his war journals say nothing of the military defeat; only that he heard distressing news in Ninevah and had to return there) only to be murdered by his own sons right in front of his god, Nisroch.  In this case, it wasn’t the Nis that rocked but Yahweh!  (Get it?)

 
Oh well, kings may come and kings may go; whether the kings of Assyria or the kings of Wall Street.  As quickly as one angel can destroy 185,000 Assyrians, the stock market can crash and recover.  Gas prices can come down and then a hurricane can destroy coastal refineries. There are fortunes to be made and lost every day but one no day is God, not God.  There is only one Sovereign and according to the next great king of the earth after Sennacherib, the Babylonian, Nebuchadnezzar, “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; 35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:34-35). 

 
So it is that every Christian should not trust in Egypt, or Assyria, or Samaria or any earthly power but in the name of the Lord our God.  For your future, don’t bet on Sennarcherib or Wall Street but trust in God.  To encourage your heart, read Psalm 46 for Judah’s great exaltation of God after He rescued them from Sennacherib.  Then, ‘be still and know.’  ‘Be still and know!”  There is only one King, one Lord, one God and we are His! 

It’s true, Jesus is more often the ‘forgotten’ Son than ‘begotten’ Son at Christmas, but that’s not the point of this blog.  It is to announce Tim Keller’s new book by that title…The Prodigal God.  Get it for yourself for Christmas…or have someone get it for you…but by all means, get it.  And, if you don’t have The Reason for God, get that too!  It’s a great, easy to read, stuff you can remember way to talk to people about Christianity.