Should Christians Be Involved In Politics? - Part 3

Blessings to Israel presents, Discerning the Times, a program committed to encouraging you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Now in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, please join us for today's program. Welcome to the program.

So glad to be with you once again this week. My name is Brian Thomas, and let me remind you that your eternal state is far more important than your current state. And what I mean by that is if life has not turned out the way you had hoped for, the way you had dreamed of, I want you to know that the best is yet to come. That is if you have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And contrary to what Barack Obama says, contrary to what Oprah Winfrey says, the only way to get to the Father is by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And so if you've never received Him, I would like for you to confess your sins and profess Him as Lord and Savior, and you too can inherit eternal life.

Because God created us to be eternal beings. And so for those of us who receive Him, receive the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary, the best is yet to come. So be encouraged on today. Where we're going to wrap up today our series on should Christians be involved in politics. And we are spending a lot of time on this topic because we think it is very, very important, very vital for the day that we are living in. But before we get to that, I want to mention what is taking place in Kentucky over the past several weeks. If you haven't heard in Asbury University, that has been a worship service that has been going on nonstop for several weeks. And they finally decided to end it this week after two weeks of prayer and worship and calling out to God. And I've heard some skeptics out there who are Christians who have been sort of critical of what is taking place, saying, is this legit? Is this real? Now, I haven't been there to the university to be a part of it. But but here's my take on it, because there are some who say, well, there's no preaching going on.

So so is this legit? But folks, with all the ills that are going on in the world today in our ministry, we do tend to focus on the things that are wrong because we believe God has called us to be a discernment ministry. And the message that we bring is very similar to the message that the prophets brought in the Bible, in which they would call people to repentance, call people to to turn away from their sins. And so we do tend to focus on a lot of the things that are happening that are negative in which people need to turn away from and turn to God. But when we see something that is positive happening, people traveling from from thousands of miles away to to gather to pray and to worship and to call out to God.

And again, what has been a nonstop service for two weeks and they finally brought it to an end this week. I think we should celebrate that, celebrate something that is positive when we do see people who are turning to God and calling out to God. And, you know, there are some who say, well, is this really going to lead to a nationwide revival?

I don't know. Time will tell. But until we find something about it that that causes us to say this is not legit, this is not of God. I do believe we should celebrate it now, if and when the time comes that we find that there is something about it that that truly is not of the faith.

And I think we call that when that time comes. But I want to encourage you to to not be such a skeptic over everything. And when we see something good that is happening, because that is what we want. We want people to turn to God. We want people to call out to him, to worship him.

I believe we should celebrate those things and rejoice with them. So, again, we're going to continue to this week. We're going to conclude our series on should Christians be involved in politics? Where I want to begin this week is I want to share with you a clip from a sermon from Bishop Patrick Woodin Senior. He's the pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina, speaking on a very critical topic. And he is a pastor that I can always count on to speak the truth. If I'm looking for someone to speak out on the issue, I look no further than Pastor Woodin because he does not shy away from speaking the truth. Now, this clip that I'm going to play is somewhat long. It's three minutes, but it's worth every second of it. But I do want to say for the next three minutes, if you have young children present, you probably would like to tune out until you've had time to listen, because this is a very adult topic that he's speaking on.

But something, again, that we need to address in our nation. I have in my hand a million copy bestseller, newly revised and updated, for age 10 and up. And the name of this book is It's Perfectly Normal. And this is a book that has changing bodies, growing up, sex, gender, and sexual health.

I cannot just open this book to you. For this book, which is for age 10 and up, what I have in my hand is pornography. The illustrations that are drawn in this book, the sexual positions, the sexual things that they are showing for kids 10 and up in this book. It would be a disrespect to this house and to you for me to open the pages and let you see the images that are in here. The things, it's not even, it's not soft porn, it's hardcore. The only thing that's different is it's drawn in cartoon style and the people performing the sex acts are children.

For 10th grade and up. Now, you should thank God that there is a preacher in town, somewhere, who will bring this to your attention. And we're going to pray because this is not only, when I mentioned it to Elder Manchukwu, he said something to me that I thought was profound. He just, and I don't know if you remember what you said, he uttered these words and it's not only there.

It's not only in the Connecticut school system, it's in other systems. They are coming after our children and you can't afford to be ignorant, to be in the dark. Amen. And we got to pray and see this is where the political components come in because there are people who say, well, what I don't like about wooden and up room is that they seem to be too political. Well, you got to find out who in office agree with stuff like this and vote those devils out. Pray them out and vote them out.

Because we're not loyal to a party, we're loyal to God. So you can see why I stated that if you have young children present, you may not want to have them listen to this. But it is a topic that the sad thing about it is is speaking of something that is to target children when it comes to sexuality.

And you heard the bishop near the end of the clip. He mentioned 10th grade and up. I think he actually meant 10 years old and up because they are targeting children with this type of stuff in schools today.

He spoke it at the end of the clip. Exactly what we're we're talking about is this is a political matter in that we need to vote for people who are not going to push this agenda. And the thing that troubles me is that there are so many folks out there who profess to be Christians.

And yet they go and vote for people who are pushing these type of agendas, these type of things on our children. And so, folks, that is why politics is so important. But we're going to pause now for a brief announcement, but please don't go away. On the other side, we'll be back. And I'm going to bring in my co-host to continue our discussion of should Christians be involved in politics?

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And Lessons to Israel, PO Box 266, Knightdale, North Carolina, 27545. Now, let's return to the conclusion of today's program. Welcome back to the program. Today, we are continuing our discussion on should Christians be involved in politics?

Wrapping up the topic. And before the break, you heard Bishop Patrick Wood and senior. And he is one again that you can always count on to speak out on issues of our culture, to speak the truth. And that is what we seek to do. And we've been listening also over the past several weeks to sound bites from Dr. Frank Turek. And he's been speaking on this topic. And it was a message that he gave about a decade ago, but it's still relevant to the times that we are in.

So now I want to pull in my co-host, Dr. Bruce Logan, and we want to pick up where we left off last week with Dr. Logan. You were talking about the fact that politics affects all areas of our lives. When you when you have to pay higher taxes, when you pay more at the pump, when you pay more at the grocery store, more in taxes, that will eventually impact the amount of disposable income that the average family have, which in turn will impact the amount of money that people can give and donate to ministry.

And that is all initiated and enacted by politicians. And so we have to be discerning. And in terms of the morality issue, we need to really be on top of that because, again, one of the big morality issues that we'll hear in a lot of churches is that when you hear instances of police brutality and so on and so forth, the idea of racism is an excuse why many people will vote for Democrats, you know, even though they disagree with all the other issues. But the reality of it is that they're and this is going to be hard for some people to accept or to understand.

But I'm just asking the listeners to just kind of just like process it and let it marinate just overnight. The fact of the matter is that God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because they had some racist police or because they had some slaves in Sodom. There were slaves in Sodom.

That is not the reason why God brought down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. So I just want the listeners to just process that for a moment and just let that marinate, because the reality of it is that some of the things that we are allowing our politicians to enact that we're actually voting for, that's going to lead to more, you know, anger from God than anything else. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, dog, you you hit a grand slam on that point. That is exactly right. Whether people want to accept it or not, that that is the exact truth, though, concerning what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah. So so that's an excellent point. We're going to wrap things up here in just the next few minutes.

But we have a few more clips that we want to hear on Frank. He's now speaking on the lesser of two evils. Romney, of course, marriage between one man and one woman. He wants a marriage amendment and he wanted to keep Don't Ask, Don't Tell before it was overturned.

I don't know what his position is on it now. Obamacare overrules religious freedom. You've heard the whole controversy about contraception. It's not really a controversy about contraception. It's a controversy about religious freedom. He's saying to religious organizations and religious individuals that we don't care if you have a religious objection to either abortion or to contraception. You have to pay for it. God and Jerusalem, as you know, were booed three times at the Democratic National Convention.

You can go online and see this if you want. Peter denied Christ three times and repented. OK, maybe the DNC one day will. And of course, it's for same sex marriage, which has direct implications on religious freedom, as we'll see here in a minute. Romney, as you know, famously says, wants to repeal Obamacare. He's also said that freedom requires religion and religion requires freedom. And we ought to be for that as well as Christians. You can't force anybody to become a Christian. It's a free choice that you need to make.

You can't force anybody into heaven against their will. So we ought to be for religious freedom as well. And of course, as I mentioned, he wants a marriage amendment. Your choice is between one of these two candidates. And in my view, politics is always, always, always the choice between the lesser of two evils. If Billy Graham was running against Hitler, it would be the lesser of two evils because we're all evil. Now, obviously, I'd go with Billy Graham. OK, don't get me wrong.

But I'm simply saying all of us are flawed and you're not going to find a perfect candidate anywhere. All right, Doc, so what about you? Are you going with Hitler or Billy Graham? I think I think I won't slide with Billy on that one.

I'm with you. All right, let's listen more as Frank Turret continues to talk about how we decide to vote. So here's the key question, according to Jesus. What's the key question on how you should decide to vote? How will each candidate govern on the big moral issues, the most important matters of the law? Remember when he's before the Pharisees?

That's what he said. He's elected the more important matters of the law. What are the more important matters of the law, the big moral issues? We've already been through them.

Here they are. And these are the more important matters. Life is the most important matter out there. Marriage, the foundation of civilization is an important matter, and religious freedom. Now, we could talk about a hundred other issues, of course. But look, if you don't have religious freedom, you can't preach the gospel.

If you don't have life, you can't do anything. This lady, Kai Feldbaum, lesbian activist, recess appointed by President Obama to the EEOC, put it this way, on the inevitable conflict between religious rights and gay rights. She said, I'm having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win. There's one train track out there, gentlemen, with two trains on it. One train is called Gay Rights, and the other train is called Religious Rights or Religious Liberty.

They're heading toward one another. One must give way. This lady in the Obama administration says religious liberty must give way. All right, Docs, I mean, that's what it boils down to is the question of how to decide to vote.

Which one is going to best govern on the weightier matters of the law? And that's exactly right. And he made a great point when he talked about it's going to come down to the difference between religious rights versus gay rights. And that's what really the culture is seemingly coming down to from a culture war standpoint. And I want to make this point, and I want the listeners to really hone in on this, is that when you talk about enacting rights, what made slavery such a hideous institution was because you denied the rights of one group of people in order to have the rights for the other group of people. So in other words, for the slave owners to have rights to own slaves, they had to deny the rights of slave individuals.

That's what made that institution so hideous. And likewise, when you bring it into the modern context, when you deny my religious rights in favor of gay rights, you're denying my rights in favor of this other institution. So in other words, if you're going to just give rights to the gay movement by denying my rights, how is that from a principle standpoint any different than what I mentioned earlier about the rights of slaves versus slave owners?

I mean, it's different in terms of the application, but I'm talking about just the overall big picture principle. You're denying my rights in order for this organization to have rights. So then that gets back to what about my rights?

Okay, I don't have rights just so they can have rights. And so all of these are questions and issues that, again, are determined by our politicians. And that's the reason why getting engaged and understanding the issue, understanding the specifics of what is at stake from a cultural standpoint is so important that we understand as believers and understand that this is why we need to be engaged in the political process. Yep, well said, well said.

All right, last clip from Dr. Turek, and then we're going to wrap things up. Country is a mess. Should we blame Caesar? Should we blame Obama? Should we blame Bush? Should we blame Clinton or go further back?

Go home and look in the mirror. You know who we ought to be blaming? The church. Because if you don't agree with what these leaders have done, guess who put them there? We did.

We put them there. And the church hasn't been the church for the past hundred years. You don't need to convince one liberal out there. You don't need to convince one moderate out there. You just need to convince Christians to be Christians and vote their worldview. If that happens, then you'll be able to save life, marriage, and religious liberty. Let me talk to pastors here for a second, because a lot of pastors are worried about their tax-exempt status, and I all know that.

Let me say a couple things about this. First of all, pastors, you can do a lot more from the pulpit than you think you can. You can even get up and say, I'm voting for candidate X. What you can't say, according to the IRS, is you can't say, I'm voting for candidate X, and as a member or as the pastor of this church, I'm ordering you to vote for candidate X. But the Alliance for Defending Freedom right now has a thousand pastors in October this year who are going to preach direct political messages to say, vote for this guy, and I'm telling you as the pastor to vote for this guy. They've done this for the past several years, and why have they done it? Because they want the IRS to take it to court, because they know the IRS will lose in court. This is a religious freedom issue.

Okay? Well, the pastors are all afraid for a number of reasons. They're afraid if they go political, if they get political, then they're going to lose some flock, they may lose their tax-exempt status, and they don't want that to happen. Well, let me just talk to pastors here for just a second. Pastors, you are called to be salt and light. You're not called to be tax-exempt.

If you're more concerned about money than you are about morality, if you're more concerned about money than you are about the gospel, if you're more concerned about money than the future of civilization, then you ought to just get out of being a pastor. Now, which kind of country are you helping to create? Are you helping to create a country like North Korea or South Korea? You know, the only worldview which will protect religious liberty for everyone is the Christian worldview. Muslim worldview is not going to do it. Sharia law. Atheistic worldview is not going to do it. Whoever the dictator is, that guy gets to decide. The Hindu worldview is not going to do it. They believe in a caste system. The only worldview that's going to protect religious liberty for everybody, including atheists, including Muslims, including Christians, including Jews, including Hindus, is the Christian worldview.

So you ought to be for the Christian worldview, even for your non-Christian friends. Any battle you abandon, you lose by default. Any government you abandon, you lose by default.

Any culture you abandon, you lose by default. And we've abandoned them all. We're to blame. You can blame the politicians all you want, but we're to blame.

We haven't been the church. Life. Who will protect them? If not you, who?

Marriage. Who will protect children? If not you, who? Religious freedom. Who's going to protect the gospel?

If not you, who? As Edmund Burke said a number of years ago, the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. Guess what? That's what we've been doing. We've been doing nothing. We need to do something, don't we?

Are you going to do something? Well, Doc, Frank Turek lands this plane so authoritatively because he's exactly right. Much of what we see is because the church has not been the church and the church led by pastors are not properly addressing the issues when it comes to politics, because there are many who profess to be Christians and they just don't participate. And then there are many who do participate, but yet they go with support things that God forbids. What are your final thoughts to wrap us up?

Well, you know, I think the way he ended that, like you say, he landed that plane perfectly. And I just wanted to point out what he said. He said that any battle that you don't fight, you lose by default. I mean, you can't you can't win any any battle that you don't engage in. You automatically lose by default. And we've seen that happen culturally because the church has not been engaged in politics and in the culture wars. And as a consequence, we're losing this battle by default and our children are losing. The next generation is losing. And I want to just close with this one comment. And then that is the fact that it's a it's a big picture idea that we need to really be under consideration or have under consideration.