restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

                

If I Ever Accept an Invitation to the White House, You Can Throw My Columns in the Trash!

 David Alan Black 

“These ought ye to have done, and not leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23).

The will of God is never done perfectly here on earth as it is in heaven. We shall not realize faultless performance this side of Paradise but we must not wait until we get to heaven to begin such experience of it as we can have here.

One day Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, who were very zealous in observing lesser religious matters such as tithing but were neglecting the greater matters of judgment, mercy, and faith. They were experts in majoring on the minors and He was exhorting them to put first things first without neglecting the secondary. He knew just how easy it is for the good to become the enemy of the best.

This is a common failing of Christians. We settle for a good meeting at church, a nice service that costs little and therefore amounts to little. We may not engage in bad things but we become so entangled in a multitude of little compromises for the sake of expediency that we lose our effectiveness in the kingdom. It is infinitely harder to compel believers out of this state than to arouse sinners from their evil condition!

The other day eight prominent “pro-life” evangelicals met with President Bush in the Oval Office following the partial-birth abortion ban signing ceremony. One of them wrote, “In this meeting, President Bush gallantly declared that his administration would put all of its resources behind the partial-birth abortion ban in the courtroom…. After having a wonderful time of fellowship with President Bush, the president asked if we could all join hands and pray that God will bless our efforts to preserve life in our land.” The pastor concluded, “What an astounding moment this was for me personally. Standing there in the Oval Office I felt suddenly humbled to be in the presence of a man — our president — who takes his faith very seriously and who seeks the prayers of his friends as he leads our nation.”

Unfortunately the president cannot so easily pass the buck, as though the Sixth Commandment were broken only when evil men commit murder through partial-birth abortion. The Word of God thunders at the vain use of His name in religious pretense perhaps more than at other forms of this iniquity. One would think that these eight men would have been filled with fear and trepidation and would have cried out to God in repentance of behalf of so-called “pro-life” politicians who have done nothing in 30 years to overturn Roe v. Wade! The “legalized” murder of 4,000 innocent children every day screams out the obscenity of our nation. If God did not allow Pharaoh, Herod, or Hitler to escape judgment for murdering innocent children, how much more will He hold accountable the leaders of a country who had the power to stop this atrocity but failed to do so!

Between January 30, 1933 and May 8, 1945, six million Jews perished under Nazi tyranny for no other reason than the fact that they were Jews. Between 1973 and 2002, 43 million unborn children perished under American tyranny for no other reason than the fact they were unwanted by their parents. This is no time to celebrate pyrrhic victories in our nation’s capital. It is time to break up fallow ground. It is time to replace our lullaby crooners in the pulpits of our land with prophets in the watchtowers who are not afraid to tell the whole truth: that what we call abortion is nothing less than the utter repudiation of God’s holy law for the law of sin and death.

John Piper once asked, “What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It’s simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those.” Then he concluded, “These reflections have confirmed my conviction never to vote for a person who endorses such an evil—even if he could balance the budget tomorrow and end all taxation.”

My friends, devotion to Christ means loyalty at any cost and intolerance of anything that smacks of unfaithfulness. I believe Satan has scored a greater victory with the strategy of compromise than with outright hostility. How easy it is to be engaged in a multitude of lesser religious activities and yet fail to observe the greater matters of God’s program and purpose and pattern!

Frankly, I’m glad to be someone who has absolutely no clout with the power-brokers in Washington. In fact, if I’m ever invited to the White House—and accept—you’ll know it’s time to throw my columns in the trash!

November 11, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. He is currently finishing his latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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