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While in Washington recently, I heard alarming statistics about our nation.  But the most alarming stats were not about government:  They were about churches, and particularly Pastors.  According to a Barna survey conducted in connection with Wallbuilders ministry, only 28% of the churches now believe that the Bible is absolutely true.  90% of the Pastors in those Bible-believing churches say they believe the Bible speaks to current issues.  But get this:  90% of those Pastors have never preached from the pulpit what the Bible says about the issues of our land!

Pastors’ AWOL attitude concerning civil government is the reason God’s people don’t know that they must be the ones to watch over civil government, in order to protect the right of the truth to flow to the next generation.  Thus, we’re having trouble deciding if marriage is between a man and a woman only; and if it should be protected by government.  We’re having trouble deciding if homosexuality is a choice or a trait, when we used to be convinced that it was a crime.  We’re even wondering if boys in school should get to use the girls’ bathroom!!

Pastors, if civil government is God’s institution—and Romans 13:1 makes it plain that it is—then should not those of us called to teach the Bible be the ones to reveal the Biblical Structure and Spirit by which government must operate?  Is that not logical?  Is that not right?

America became the greatest nation on earth because Pastors led the battle to keep the truth in our culture.  And that started with them speaking to the issues from their pulpits.  Pastors not only spoke to the issues of their day; it was Pastors who taught how government was to be Structured and the Morality in which it must operate. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts spoke in 1774 of the Pastoral leadership in the American Colonies as they approached a war with their Mother Country of England:

“…we cannot but acknowledge the goodness of Heaven in constantly supplying us with preachers of the Gospel whose concern has been the temporal and spiritual happiness of this people…and do therefore recommend…that they assist us in avoiding that dreadful slavery with which we are now threatened…”

(Christian History of the American Revolution, V. Hall, FACE pub., p.402)

During the years leading up to the American Revolution, the Pastors called a special meeting on Thursday afternoons where they taught what the Bible had to say about the issues they were facing with England.  They educated the people as to what their belief, as Christians, should be about resistance to a growing national government that was hostile to their faith.  They taught them to specifically pray about these disagreements with England.  They taught them to stand where the Bible stood on that issue.  They taught them to take courage from the Lord Himself to be able to stand against the intrusion of big government into their lives.  They taught them it was a privilege to die for the cause of Christ in preserving liberty so their children could hear the truth.

So Pastor, the civil liberty which protects the right to get the Gospel to the next generation is in your hands!  What will you do with it?! 

God declares to Pastors and Bible teachers:

“I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt…warn them from me.  When I say unto the wicked…thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”

(Ezekiel 33:7-8)

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—
and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson, this has been Think About It.