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Bill Clinton, John Ashcroft, and the Christian Right By Dr. Bob Cosby It is a confused and mixed up world we live in. This week I walked into a store and in exchanging greetings with the manager, I commented on the warmer weather and she began talking about how it was not as warm as she had been led to believe on the weather report and she had dressed for warm weather. The truth was she practically didn’t dress at all. A few minutes later I overheard her talking to a coworker about how her pastor had commented that someone had put a pack of cigarettes in the offering plate last Sunday, trying to give them up and she was so happy that this person was getting victory over cigarettes. Here she was dressed in a miniskirt and painted like a harlot but feeling very spiritual compared to a person who smoked. President Clinton left office yesterday and in the getting ready process, a lot is being said about his legacy as a president. This week, I received the following email on that subject. “Larry Burkett, Christian talk show host and financial author, praised Clinton's Presidency during opening comments on his syndicated radio-show, Money Matters, which aired January 17, 2001. Mr. Burkett, speaking with another on-air personality on his show, said, "If you ignore his lifestyle, which is hard to do, he wasn't a bad President." He went on to praise Mr. Clinton's enthusiasm and stated that Mr. Clinton had done much for his office through his enthusiasm. Toward the end of the first segment of his show, he went on to describe Alan Greenspan's role in the thriving economy, and stated that any President has a limited effect on the way an economy trends. As I am preparing this message, the debate is raging over the confirmation of Attorney General designate John Ashcroft. He is under attack for about everything he has done from the fact that he gave an interview to the Southern Partisan to his speech given at Bob Jones University that I quoted last week to the way he combs his hair it seems like. In a column entitles “QUESTIONING NOMINEES ON NEW-CONFEDERACY” in the Thursday, January 18, Indianapolis Star, E.J. Dionne attacked Mr. Ashcroft for the Southern Partisan article. “As for Ashcroft, there is his praise of the magazine Southern Partisan for ‘defending patriots like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.’ There is a lot to be said for regional pride. But Ashcroft went beyond that. ‘We’ve got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we’ll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda.’ Which raises the question: Was slavery not a ‘perverted agenda?’ As Norton argues, the cause of states rights wasn’t being defended during the Civil War purely as an abstraction. It was linked to the right of the states to maintain slavery against the wishes of the federal government. What exactly was Ashcroft trying to say? These debates matter because it’s more ‘socially acceptable to flirt with’ neo-Confederate doctrines, says wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. These doctrines have real life implications for the future role of the federal government, especially for. . (this nominees) in the area of . . .civil rights. It is they who have put the issues of the Civil War back on the nation’s agenda. We can only assume they are serious people who are serious about what they say. It’s fair to ask them to explain and defend their positions.” I took the time to answer this diatribe in a letter to the editor, not for the purpose of defending Mr. Ashcroft, but to set the record straight as to the issues. Dear Sir: In reference to "Questioning nominees on neo-Confederacy," I would like to submit the following facts which belie the position of Mr. Dionne that slavery was the purpose for the War Between the States and those who align themselves with the Confederacy today oppose Civil Right. Abraham Lincoln publicly declared at the beginning of the war that the war was not to free the slaves but to save the Union. When Mr. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation he only declared the slaves to be free in those States which were presently in rebellion. The slaves in Northern States like Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri remained in bondage even after the war. As many as 50,000 black men fought voluntarily for the Confederacy many of whom were imprisoned at Camp Morton in Indianapolis while many Northern soldiers went home and refused to fight after the Emancipation Proclamation was made. Most of the work done by Harriet
Tubman of the Underground Railroad during the war was freeing slaves from
Northern not Southern States.
In trying to make slavery the issue for the war, Mr. Dionne ignores the economic, theological, sociological and legal divisions that caused the war. Remember, when the South seceded from the Union, the most the Black man could ever hope to be according to the Dred Scott decision, was three fifths of a person with no rights the white man was obligated to acknowledge. Sincerely Pastor Bob Cosby, ThD Well, if Mr. Ashcroft has been under attack, he has also had a plethora of defenders. I received the following email this week as well. According to the Center to Reclaim America, “Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al Sharpton and others have announced a full frontal assault against John Ashcroft. A professing Christian whose father was a Pentecostal minister, John Ashcroft is the target of a political smear campaign. In a recent interview, Michelman accused Ashcroft of wanting to "take women back to a day when they had no control over their lives," just because he’s pro-life. When asked if she was gearing up to fight his nomination, she answered, "Absolutely." This article goes on to say, “Ashcroft
has also falsely been accused of racism because he dared to oppose the
nomination of a radical judge, Ronnie White, to the federal courts.”
The dishonest, bigoted attack on John Ashcroft shows the true face of modern American liberalism. Make no mistake: Former Senator Ashcroft is under attack more for his religious beliefs than for his positions on matters of public policy. Ashcroft's views on the issues are well known, and have been examined through numerous statewide campaigns. Although he is a conservative, he is so respected by people across the political spectrum that, as state attorney general, he headed the National Association of Attorneys General, and, as governor, he headed the National Governors Association. And, in any event, his political philosophy is shared by the president-elect, George W. Bush. If Ashcroft's nomination for attorney general were defeated, presumably his replacement would likewise share Bush's conservative views. Liberals claim that they are justified in examining Ashcroft's religious views because those views might prevent him from enforcing the law. Yet Ashcroft's record shows that he is fully capable of separating his religious views from his views on public policy, when such separation is appropriate. For example, when he was governor of Missouri, he was obliged to implement the state lottery and the law providing for horse racing, even though he strongly opposes gambling. On this, and all other matters that came before him as attorney general and governor, he followed the law, period. "We must embrace the power of faith," Ashcroft said in a 1998 speech to the Detroit Economic Forum, "but we must never confuse politics with piety. For me, it is against my religion to impose my religion." Yet the campaign against Ashcroft depicts him as a backwoods Bible-thumper, as a religious zealot so deranged that he would look the other way if an abortion clinic were bombed. "Many who have such extreme pro-life views as Senator Ashcroft does," said Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), believe that the law against violence at abortion clinics "should not be enforced and clinics would be shut down." In days gone by, bigots skillfully manipulated stereotypes to suggest that Felix Frankfurter, a Jew, was unfit for the Supreme Court, and that John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, was unfit for the presidency. After all, wouldn't a Jew impose his religious views from the bench, and wouldn't a Catholic take orders from the Pope? As recently as last year, some on the Left suggested that Joseph Lieberman, as an Orthodox Jew, was not fit to be vice president. The head of the Dallas NAACP questioned Lieberman's nomination because "Jews are just interested in money." The Amsterdam News, a famous African-American newspaper in New York, suggested that Al Gore picked Lieberman as his running mate in order to get money from Jews. And Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan questioned whether Lieberman would be "more faithful to the Constitution . . . than to the ties that any Jewish person would have to the state of Israel." Now the Bigot Brigade is attacking John Ashcroft, the most successful officeholder to emerge from the world's fastest-growing religious group, the Pentecostals. Although in the U.S. there are 24 million Pentecostals, Ashcroft was the first Pentecostal elected to the U.S. Senate or to a governorship. * Ashcroft, we are told by columnists in The New York Times and The Boston Globe, is a "zealot" -- a term that originally referred to a group of Jewish revolutionaries against Rome, but that has become an insult directed at any religious person. * Throughout the media, Ashcroft is attacked as a member of the "religious right" -- an insulting term applied originally to certain Muslims who hate America and the West. Today the term is applied to any religious group that either (a) commits atrocities such as keeping women in slavery, or (b) votes predominantly Republican. How convenient to have a single term that applies to both (a) and (b)! * Ashcroft is described in People magazine and by the Associated Press as a "fundamentalist." He is not. In fact, Pentecostals and fundamentalists have been at odds for nearly a century, with some fundamentalist leaders using terms like "vomit of Satan" to describe Pentecostals. Like the terms "zealot" and "religious right," the term "fundamentalist" has come to be applied to any religious person whom the media do not like (even a Marxist mass-murderer like the Rev. Jim Jones). * Throwing the spotlight on Ashcroft's religion, Newsweek magazine's cover headline proclaims that the fight over Ashcroft's confirmation is a "Holy War." * Ashcroft is criticized in the media for his acceptance of an honorary degree from Bob Jones University, a religious institution that, we are constantly reminded, has opposed interracial dating and has sharply criticized Catholics and Mormons. "Just going there," said Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), "in and of itself, it shows a certain intolerance." But BJU has sharply criticized not just Catholics and Mormons but also the Pentecostal movement, in which Ashcroft's father and grandfather were ministers! Are we to believe Ashcroft is anti-Pentecostal? * "Crossfire" commentator Bill Press allowed that "I don't think anybody's going to hold John Ashcroft's religion against him," but "when you do make the statement in the United States what makes us different is we have no king but Jesus, that does lead one to question whether or not he recognizes that this is not a Christian nation." The "no king but Jesus" reference was to a line in Ashcroft's Bob Jones speech -- a speech that was, in essence, a sermon. Speaking to a religious audience about his religious views, Ashcroft quoted the defiant slogan of America's revolution against George III: "We have no king but Jesus." All patriotic Americans reject the notion of an earthly king; Christians believe Christ is the "king of kings"; thus, any patriotic American Christian believes that he or she has "no king but Jesus." The irony is that, among all denominations, the Pentecostals are among those that have made the most serious efforts to reach across lines of race and class. Indeed, the movement was founded by an African-American who preached to blacks, whites, Mexican- and Filipino-Americans. Although it split into white and African-American factions, in recent years it has taken up once again the banner of the unity of mankind, of a single, human race. That's one reason it is spreading rapidly in Third World countries. As Ashcroft noted in his autobiography, when he was a young teenager, his father urged him to read Black Boy by Richard Wright because "my father thought it was the best way for me to begin to understand the plight of young black men." Africans whom Ashcroft's father had met on his religious travels stayed at the Ashcroft home when visiting the U.S. And Ashcroft helped organize a Pentecostal congregation near the U.S. Capitol that includes many Asian-Americans and African-Americans. Compounding the irony in liberals' attacks is the fact that Pentecostals have often been criticized by other religious groups for including women in leadership roles. Not that the facts matter to the Ashcroft-haters. They simply disregard the facts, and use Ashcroft's religion to portray him as anti-African-American and anti-women. Fred Barnes of Fox News and The Weekly Standard said this week, "There have been stories in The New York Times that are downright anti-Christian in their bigotry, really treating what are normal, standard Christian beliefs as exotic and weird, Christian practices as strange, and somehow his faith is one that -- even some senators have raised this -- that might make him unqualified to be Attorney General. . . . This bigotry is out there, in full flower." "What arouses the ire of Jesse Jackson and others is that Ashcroft is a conservative, Bible-believing evangelical Christian," Charles Colson wrote. "This is just what happened to Stockwell Day, a Pentecostal running for prime minister in Canada. He was vilified daily in the media because of his religious beliefs. Have we sunk to that point in this country?" Asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether "Senator Ashcroft's religious faith -- he's a devout Pentecostal Christian -- should be of any concern to the Senate," Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said, "I don't think that we should focus on any one thing" but added that "I think that we have a right to look at John Ashcroft's religion." John Ashcroft is a lay minister, a gospel singer/songwriter, and a frequent speaker at Christian gatherings. He is so religious that he does not drink or smoke or dance, though he understands well the world around him: When he traveled to China, he appointed "designated drinkers" among his staff so that his hosts would not be offended by his abstinence. The Constitution (Article VI) bans religious tests for public office. Thomas Jefferson argued that a person's religious views are never the legitimate concern of politics and politicians: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." By targeting John Ashcroft for his religion, the Left is violating the spirit of Article VI, violating Thomas Jefferson's vision of religious freedom, and violating the very principles of pluralism and tolerance that the Left claims to revere. What a bunch of hypocrites! I have taken a long time to introduce the message this morning for two reasons, the first being the importance of the message and the second being the relevance of current events to the message. Our text is found in 1 John 2:18
Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist
shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it
is the last time.
John, who is known as the apostle of love because of the tenderness of his writings here issues a warning of the most intense nature. To call someone an antichrist is the worst things you can call them. Here John, in the context of brother love, warns about antichrists. Is there an inconsistency here? Not hardly. Psalms 97:10 tells us, “Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” And again in Proverbs 8:13 we are told, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” The truth is that the more we love righteousness, the more we hate sin. Last week I told of my love for children and I find that the more I love children, the more I hate rattlesnakes, dope dealers, public schools and anything else that threatens the wellbeing of those I love. It is natural. It is Biblical. John is giving us a solemn warning about these “last times” which is nothing more than the entire Church age during which time there will a propensity for apostasy. Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:1 “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Peter, continuing the same theme in 2 Peter 3:3 wrote, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,” And in Jude 18 “How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.” What is an anti-Christ? The most direct answer to that question is found in verse 22. “ Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” The doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ is the pivotal doctrine in this discussion because what we believe and teach about Jesus Christ determines whether or not we are the children of God or an antichrist. Any man that denies that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of the prophets, is not indeed the only liar in the world, but he is the greatest of liars. To deny this truth is a consummate lie. It means being opposed to a glaring truth, to a fact clear an indisputable. This truth rests not merely on the testimony of Jesus, who is truth itself, and who, in express words, more than once, declared and asserted himself to be the Christ, but all the characters of the Messiah, everything that is said of him in the Prophets, meet in Jesus. The miracles which were done by him are flagrant proofs and undeniable evidences of his being the Christ of God. All the apostles believed, and were sure that he was Christ, the Son of the living God. But there was a greater witness than He; even God himself, by a voice from heaven, bore a testimony to him. The angels, at his incarnation, declared him to be the Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Even the devil himself, who is a liar, and the father of lies in other things, knew and owned Jesus to be the Christ; so that those that deny him are the worst of liars, even worse than the devil himself. To say it briefly and pointedly, any man who denies that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, virgin born, sinless and whose vicarious death, burial and bodily resurrection constitute the only payment for sin, is a liar and an antichrist. That statement is not politically correct, but it is truth based on the eternal, infallible, inspired Word of God given to the Apostle John. And then that leads to the second point in this passage that is not very popular and that is the fact that as Children of God, we have the ability what is Christian and what is antichrist. Notice verse 20. “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” Now don’t jump to the conclusion that when we get saved we become omniscient but in the context of this passage we can conclude that as believers we can and we must determine who is of Christ and who is not of Christ. At this point in the message, I can imagine that somebody is saying to themselves, “What did the introduction have to do with the text?” “How can you mix a political sermon with a sermon on the Deity of Christ?” Well, be patient, we’ll get there. At the beginning of the introduction I pointed out the confusion that we have in our nation by pointing to things that are relatively obvious. However, I want to point out that some of these things are far more than just confusing, they actually represent the spirit of antichrist and as Children of God we have the responsibility to expose and stand against them. I want to take the time this morning to show you the spirit of antichrist in three different aspects of the political spectrum that desperately need to be exposed. The first area involves the issue of the new-confederacy and the idea that people who espouse the southern culture and religion are somehow unfit for office. That this nation was founded as a Christian nation is an unquestionable matter of fact. In fact, it was not only a Christian nation, it was a Protestant, Christian nation. The laws, the culture, the economic system, everything about the nation was Christian. When people went to Church, about the only difference in the various denominations involved Church polity. There was no real disagreement in doctrine. Then cam the Revolutionary War. For 8 long years we fought, most of the time without any real hope of winning, to gain our independence from England. Then, we finally got some help. The French came into the war on our side and helped us to win what there seemed to be no chance of our winning by ourselves. The French, who had completely wiped out Protestant Christianity in their country with the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in which some 50,000 Protestants were murdered in one day, were suddenly welcomed into the country with open arms. When they came to this country, they brought with them a new concept of God in a religion known as Deism. It was a religion that denied that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh, and believed that God was an impersonal being who had no particular interest in things on the earth today at all. Within just a few years, Deism began to take root in a movement known today as “The Enlightenment.” It was Puritanism and without a belief that Jesus Christ was God. The result was a whole new concept. To the proponents of the enlightenment, the doctrines that their fathers had held to and died for were now something to loath. The doctrine they hated the most was the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God. The Enlightenment was man centered from stem to stern. It took on various manifestations as a plethora of new religions sprang up. Some, like the Unitarians, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Christian Scientists, the Mormons and other, completely and totally denied the deity of Christ altogether. They made no bones or reservations concerning their disdain for a sovereign savior. Other manifestations of the Enlightenment included Armenian preachers like C.G. Finney, Alexander Campbell and others who taught that although Christ was God, they believed salvation was a combination of Grace and works with man being the one who called all of the shots. Still another direction of the Enlightenment was toward existentialism which was almost atheistic in doctrine and believed that man just existed on the earth with no purpose and no future. The only purpose that man had in living upon the earth was to try to make life more livable. In time, many of these false teachers began to form an alliance working toward the abolition of slavery. In an act of pure hypocrisy these people waited until they were able to sell off all of their slaves and thereby recoup their investments before they developed a conscience that demanded all slaves be free. Keep in mind that the thing that cemented these people together was their hatred for the Christ of the Bible and they hated people who still believed in the God of the Bible. Their practice and intent was to bring in a utopia without Christ or else bring in the Millennium according to their doctrines and practices. Eventually that stirred things up until there was a war that killed over 650,000 men. It was a bloodbath of such proportions that it is hard to imagine today. A full 2% of the entire population of the country was either killed or wounded. These are staggering numbers. And all of it was done in the name of a Jesus who was not God. Again, our text says, 1 John 2:18
Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist
shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it
is the last time.
If our text is true, we are not one bit out of line to declare that the perpetrators of the War of Northern Aggression was a war waged and won by the forces of antichrist. Truly They went out from us because they were not of us. The government that was established as a result of the war was no longer Christian. Christianity was now tolerated, but the nation was no longer governed by the principles of Christianity. If there was any doubt about that, one has only to look at subsequent history to realize that we have been steadily moving more and more away from the principles upon which we were founded until now almost every vestige of Christianity is gone. Pluralism became the buzzword in describing our nation. We were a pluralistic nation. Even Christians got caught up in this rhetoric. In fact, we became tolerant of every religion, even those sworn to our destruction. Which brings us to the purpose for the other cases I gave at the beginning of the message. The first was Larry Burkett saying that outside of the moral problems, Clinton was a good president. "If you ignore his lifestyle, which is hard to do, he wasn't a bad President." Let’s examine the record. Here is a President who will be remembered legally for Waco, Oklahoma City, Whitewater and Ruby Ridge to say nothing of a whole string of mysterious “accidental” deaths of people around him. He will be remembered for such oratorical masterpieces as “I didn’t inhale,” “I did not have sexual relations with that young lady,” and “I lied.” And what would we have done without the women we were introduced to. Monica Lewinski, Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, Janet Reno, Donna Shallala and Hillary. We will remember his impeachment, perjury, getting drunk and blowing out his knee, using the White House as a private hotel for campaign contributions and selling us out to the Chinese and we could go on and on. They only thing “good” during his administration was that the economy was strong and everybody had a job that wanted one. Now you would expect the ungodly to be impressed with his administration but when a man professing himself to be a Christian leader says something like this,. . . But in my lifetime, I don’t think I have ever seen anything more inconsistent with Biblical Christianity than the John Ashcroft for Attorney General hearings. At this point I am not dealing with the attack on him by the liberals, but I want to deal with the defense that Christians have raised and then his own defense. We read a while ago, “Liberals claim that they are justified in examining Ashcroft's religious views because those views might prevent him from enforcing the law. Yet Ashcroft's record shows that he is fully capable of separating his religious views from his views on public policy, when such separation is appropriate. For example, when he was governor of Missouri, he was obliged to implement the state lottery and the law providing for horse racing, even though he strongly opposes gambling. On this, and all other matters that came before him as attorney general and governor, he followed the law, period. "We must embrace the power of faith," Ashcroft said in a 1998 speech to the Detroit Economic Forum, "but we must never confuse politics with piety. For me, it is against my religion to impose my religion." My friend, I have a problem with this position. When the statute is wrong, is it right for a Christian to obey the statute? Does making it legal make gambling right? Does making it legal make abortion right? Does making it legal make sodomy right? Now here is the kicker. Is it right for a Christian to enforce wrong statutes? Is it right for anyone to enforce wrong statutes? At the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II, a bunch of men were brought to trial for perpetrating the holocaust. Their defense? “We were just following orders.” Did the world buy that defense? Absolutely not. They were all hung. Does the Bible have cases where people were justified because they were just following the law? 2 Kings 1: 9 Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty. And he went up to him: and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. 10 And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. 11 Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. 12 And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. 13 And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. 14 Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. 15 And the angel of the LORD said unto Elijah, Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king. In this story, a German officer with fifty of his men, just following orders, come to Elijah sincerely believing that they are covered because they are under orders. He and his men are all killed. Then comes John Ashcroft, a Christian, and even though he does not agree with the orders of the king, never the less he feels that it is his sacred duty to obey the law. He and his men are all killed. The only guy that survives in the story is the guy who recognizes that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. He recognizes the truth of the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:28 “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” I do not doubt for one minute that John Ashcroft is a child of God. I don’t question his sincerity, and I certainly don’t know of anyone in the political arena anywhere near as good as him for the job. He is, after all, a Christian who mouths the principle, “no king but Jesus.” He is a southern sympathizer. In the spirit of “the lesser of two evils” he certainly qualifies. All of these things make him hands down, the best man for the job that I know anything about. This is not a slap against John Ashcroft, it is a slap against the compromised and ignorant brand of Christianity that we have today that does not even pretend to understand the principle of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I do not blame John Ashcroft for not knowing better, I blame his pastor for not teaching him better. Why was he never taught Joshua 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Deuteronomy 6:6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. Psalms 119:97 “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” Our text says, 20 “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” We are supposed to know and understand what is going on better than this but somehow we have been bullied and pushed into adopting a stance the is tolerant of sin and intolerant of righteousness. What a coup it will be for the enemy of our souls if he can Christians to persecute Christians. We have just such a situation brewing in Indianapolis right now. The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of the Indianapolis Baptist Temple and so there is no further legal challenge blocking the federal marshals from taking the Church. On the one hand we could focus on the legal inconsistencies that the Baptist Temple is guilty of, but the bottom line is that the federal government will, in the near future, barring an unforeseen act of providence, take the property of the Church in payment for back taxes. Throughout the entire ordeal, Greg Dixon has complained that this is an attack by the Clinton/Reno justice system and it has been easy to play the martyr against the backdrop of such a wicked administration. Now, Clinton and Reno are gone. In a few days, George Bush will be the President and John Ashcroft will be the Attorney General. Will the Baptist Temple be saved? Not if John Ashcroft does what he is promising to do in his confirmation hearings. Unless he has a change of heart, the first confiscation of the Church property in America will not come during the watch of the wicked, alleged lesbian Janet Reno, it will come during the watch of the professing Christian and Bible believer John Ashcroft. 1 John 2:18 Little children,
it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even
now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
Originally preached January 21st, 2000 |