Whom Will You Choose?

Well, here we are at what some call a milestone election. Perhaps the most important election in the history of this country, others would say. The nation is on the brink of financial disaster, a bad recession to say the least, and the world is following close behind. Home foreclosures are at a record high, unemployment is the highest it's been in years, businesses are closing up faster than they can let their employees go, and natural disasters have hit our country furiously over the last few years causing untold damage and expense. Not to mention the national debt is over 10 trillion dollars and the government is slowly but surely buying us, uh... I mean the banks, up left and right. All of this and more is awaiting the next president.

But most people are confident that he (whoever he is) will get this country going again and restore America to her glorious self! Though the road will be difficult, our nation will pull through. I say....don't count on it.

It's amazing how we as a society are so quick to gravitate to men in hopes that they will save us. Can John McCain or Barack Obama do anything to thwart God's judgment on a nation that is unrepentant and non-submissive to His Law? Somehow I doubt it.

Yes, you read that right....God is judging this country.
"But we're blessed by God in this country, with all of our freedoms, right?"
To that kind of question I would say, "Look around".

This country has only been blessed by God in the sense that He hasn't wiped us off the map yet! The freedoms we have, that God has allowed us to have, have made us think we are a nation blessed by God....His special christian nation, but if we take a deeper look we'll find something quite different.

We're constantly opening doors to things that are clearly in opposition to the Word of God - legalizing homosexual marriage, pornography, violence, abortion, etc...

God is not pleased with our lazy, greedy, ungodly lifestyles in this country and our almost total rejection of Him as our God - Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge. Money has become our god. Power has become our god. Influence and prestige have become our gods. All these things and more have become our gods and we've placed them on the altar of our heart, in place of Yahweh - the Living God of the bible!

Our nation is no different then some of the world's largest empires throughout history. Empires that built upon their own strength and grew nationally by "patriotic" endeavors in which they conquered civilizations under the guise of freedom. The Greeks and even the Romans had Democracy and certain freedoms for the people. We ourselves have become a Democracy, though we were created to be a Republic. You know, "...and to the Republic, for which it stands. One nation, under God..." A Republic is ruled by law (the Constitution in our case) whereas a Democracy is ruled by the majority (mob rule). We have walked in very similiar paths as some ancient empires. We've even had slavery in this country, closer to the time of it's foundation. We believe we've become more advanced and knowledgable, but all we've done is replaced one sin for another. Now instead of enslaving people with physical chains, we use prescription drugs, parts of the entertainment world, man-made foods, etc...

We have not realized, that as a country, we are blaspheming the name of God by "saying" His name and "saying" we love Him, but we live like we never knew Him!We hold on to cheap grace, believing God has forgiven us of all our sins so that we can keep on sinning! How heretical. Did Jesus die so that we could continue to sin freely? Absolutely not!(Romans 6:1-2). In fact, He came to defeat sin in the flesh. If we are in Christ, then we are free from the power of sin, but still have the capability to do it. God has given us, then, His Spirit so that we would not walk according to the flesh, but according to His Commandments - thereby crucifying our flesh (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:27; Romans 8:1-4).

The Roman Empire was one of the largest empires to ever rule most of the known world. It covered approx. 2.3 million square miles at it's zenith. Rome absorbed cults and religions into it's own pagan belief system thereby assimilating whole nations into itself. When the Roman Catholic church became an empire in and of itself around the beginning of the 3rd century, it carried out it's missionary work the same way, allowing pagans to keep many of their traditions and objects in hopes that they would more easily convert to christianity. Through the Dark Ages, the people were kept in the "dark" as they had no copies of Scripture for themselves. The Catholic priests taught the people since the bible was in Latin and they were the only ones that knew the language. Do the research, it's not hard to find. In doing what they did, the priests taught the people many heresies along with the truth, and the people bought it. Heresies like purgatory and praying for the dead, certain people being saints, and even that Mary was the co-redeemer with Christ! Unbelievable apostasty! This historical background is given to point out a fact: we as a religious nation have come from this very same Roman Catholicism more than we realize. And by so doing, we have walked in our own paths rather than in the LORD's. We have taken man's word over God's. We've kept our own traditions thereby making the commandments of God of no effect in our lives (Matthew 15:3-9). We sit in our pews and chairs and listen to our pastors, many of whom are not wholly teaching the Word of God, and we're buying it. It's the blind leading the blind. It's time we wake up and heed the voice of the LORD. We need to seek Him in His Word and test these doctrines and teachings to prove if they are right or not. Like the Bereans saught to see if what Paul was saying lined up with Scripture (Old Testament) so we must do.

The Founding Fathers of our country, most of whom were deists, wanted this nation to have freedom of religion, unlike the tyrrany they had escaped in England. Unfortunately for them, God isn't a big advocator for freedom of many religions.

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'" - John 14:6

Many of the Founding fathers were, as I said, deists including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and even George Washington.

The definition of deism is: A belief in God, the Supreme Being, based on reason rather than revelation and involving the view that God has set the universe in motion but does not interfere with how it runs.
Deism became prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment. Deists do not believe in a triune God, three persons existing in one. In other words, they reject the Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and believe that God is just one individual who, as stated above, does not get involved with His creation. And they reject the deity of Jesus Christ. This is unbiblical and heretical to say the least! Think of it! These men were not only deists, but wanted a country that would not be solely submissive to the LORD of heaven and earth alone, but where people could worship whatever god they wanted in whatever religious way they wanted. Today that's even more acceptable than it was then, however, the LORD said

"Before Me there was no god formed, nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, and besides Me there is no savior." - Isaiah 43:10b

Our Founding fathers were philosophical in their approach to religion and government. Rather than seeking the God of the Scriptures - Yahweh - they sought their own definition of God and fought to create a country that would be molded to their image rather than His.

And the same problem persists even today. We are a nation that would rather be led by men than God.

When God's people asked for a king, it wasn't what the Lord wanted. In fact it was sinful. He allowed them to have a king and He even anointed David as king after Saul, yet it was still not what God had wanted all along - for the people to cry out to Him as their King.

The people speaking to Samuel said,
"Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, 'Give us a king to judge us.' So Samuel prayed to the LORD. and the LORD said to Samuel, 'Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.'" - 1 Samuel 8:5b-7

The people didn't want God as their King, but rather, they wanted to have a man rule over them just as the nations had.

Their hearts were far from the Lord, and it showed even when Samuel tried to warn them what the king would be like, they still asked for one.

Aren't we doing the same thing in this country? If we are supposedly a "nation under God" then why are we not submitted to Him as our King? Do we think that it just wouldn't work? That God can only rule over us in our individual lives and through men, but not over a whole nation by Himself? How absurd!

If God created the heavens and the earth and gave life to everything, then He can certainly rule over people who want to be submissive to Him. But that's the key: we need to be submissive to Him and then He will bless us (Deuteronomy 28). But a country that is under many gods cannot be subject to the One true God. We can only pray for His mercy upon us, and hold to His promises that He will carry us through the trials and tribulations.
Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." - John 14:15. Those commandments, by the way, were not a new set of commandments, but the one's He gave from the beginning (John 7:16; 1 John 1:7). It is only through obedience to Him that we are blessed. If we're saved by His grace through our faith, then we should produce fruit befitting that. God is God and we are not, which means He knows best.

The president is only a man! and we (mankind) are all unrighteous -
"Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar" - Romans 3:4

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" - Jeremiah 17:9a

"There is none who does good, no not one" - Psalm 14:3

Sure, men who run for the presidency and for Congress want to do good things for this country, or so they say, but they cannot compare to our Lord and Savior.

And that is precisely why I'm not voting (gasp!). That's right, I'm not voting (gasp again!).

As I've said, "the lesser of two evils...is still evil." It doesn't matter whether Barack Obama becomes president or John McCain; they will both continue to be lawless men walking in opposition to the Law of God.

I'm not condemning anyone for voting. I'm just doing what I know the bible says to do - pray. Pray for whoever becomes president and that this country would wake up and fall on its knees before the Almighty Lord. He is my King, and He is the only One I'm choosing to rule over me. Whom will you choose?