After publishing my February e-teaching, entitled Government Theft, I was cautioned by some readers to avoid wading into political issues. Yet quite a few others encouraged me with their feedback, reminding me that most of the pressing political issues of our day are fundamental moral issues. To avoid speaking about such issues purely because they are political is to avoid speaking about moral issues that matter greatly to God. And if moral issues matter to God they should also matter to those who pray every day, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Moreover, if those moral issues do truly matter to those who profess to be God’s people, they will act like it. If they have any power to do something that might help God’s will to be done on earth, they will do it.
I did my best in my February e-teaching to establish the fundamental evil of theft as it is clearly revealed in Scripture. No thieves will inherit eternal life, so genuine Christians do not steal, nor do they collaborate with thieves. For that reason, we cannot vote for political candidates (regardless of their political party) who are in favor of accumulating a national debt so immense that it will inevitably be passed on to our children and grandchildren, which amounts to stealing the future earnings of our own offspring. This is a fundamental moral issue. Politicians who ignore it are simply not worthy to hold office, and it is the responsibility of the electorate to vote such politicians out of office lest we share culpability for their sin. Let me say it more boldly: If we vote to put thieves in office or vote to keep them in office—thieves who would steal the future earnings of our children and grandchildren—we cast a vote for theft, endorsing and promoting what God hates and thus, by our actions, deny that we know Him.
This being so, we cannot help but wonder why what is arguably the grandest theft in human history—a generation stealing trillions of dollars from its own offspring—is not being addressed from every pulpit of every church in the nation. To suggest that pastors shouldn’t raise such political issues in their pulpits is to ignore the fact that this political issue is a profound moral issue of the highest order. Moral people, and even semi-moral people, are outraged over it. Dogs demonstrate a higher moral standard in relationship to their offspring than those who are in favor of stealing and spending their children’s future earnings.
What would we think of an individual who borrowed tens of thousands of dollars to be used for his own benefit with the intention of saddling his own children and grandchildren with most of his debt after his death? I submit that such a person would be universally despised. Why then are politicians—specifically those who are comparable in every sense to that imaginary person—respected by anyone? This issue should be paramount on every voter’s mind now and during future elections, and it will be for every voter who loves his children and grandchildren.
The theft of our children and grandchildren’s future earnings is, however, not the only weighty moral issue that should be included in the litmus test for any politician to hold an office. Another issue, which at one time was more in the forefront than it is now, is that of abortion.
Is Abortion Surgery or Murder?
It is universally agreed that murder is a supreme act of selfishness, and only the most depraved among the human race would be in favor of legalizing it. Yet there is one group of American people whom it is legal and socially acceptable to murder, and fifty million of them have had their lives snuffed out since abortion was legalized in 1973.
Is this a moral issue of any importance to God? His prohibition of murder is included in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:13). Murderers were punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Num. 35:16-30). Murder is also a violation of the Golden Rule, as no one wants to be murdered. God has placed within every human conscience the instinctive knowledge that murder is a heinous evil. Scripture warns that God hates hands that shed innocent blood (Prov. 6:16-17), and that all murderers will one day be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8).
Incredibly, however, people argue that abortion is not murder.
So what is abortion? How should it be classified? What is it most like? Is it most comparable to a woman’s rightful choice to have a cancerous tumor removed? Or is it better compared to an appendectomy?
I would suggest that what is removed from a woman’s body during an abortion resembles, more than anything else, a living human being, with a head, face, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, heart, brain, liver, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet and toes. If it were not aborted, it would become what no sane person would deny is a human being. All human beings on the planet used to be what abortionists rip from female wombs. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that what abortionists always refer to as “fetuses” are in fact undeniably humans, created in God’s image. Before they are aborted, they are alive with their own beating hearts, but after they are aborted they are dead. Abortion kills them. Abortion is nothing less than the murder of a human being.
This is such a self-evident truth that it is incredible that anyone would deny it. Yet murderers of babies and their promoters hide behind the euphemism “pro-choice,” a smoke-screen that attempts to conceal the unspeakable horror of the daily national murder of 3,500 babies. “Pro-baby-killing” is a more accurate label for those who are in favor of this holocaust. Imagine a group of people who were in favor of the brutal killing of newborn babies choosing to identify themselves with the misleading label “pro-choice.” They would be universally mocked to scorn. And can you imagine the Supreme Court making a ruling that read, “Every woman has the right to privacy in the matter of what has been issued from her own body, and so we must protect her liberty to rip her newborn children to shreds with a knife and suction machine”?
What is the difference between a newborn baby and an unborn baby? Only a stage of human development, which is no different than any other stages of human development, such as childhood or adulthood. “But there is a big difference between an eight-week fetus and an eight-week-old newborn,” some quip. Yes, and there is also a big difference between an eight-week-old newborn and an eight-year-old child or an eighty-year-old adult. Does that make acceptable the murder of any human being at any stage of human development? Can you imagine if our Supreme Court proposed the idea that children, or those over age sixty-five, were not persons who are entitled to the right to life that is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment?
Any politician who is in favor of the legality of the brutal murder of unborn babies is just as morally unfit to hold a public office as if he were in favor of the legality of the brutal murder of newborn babies or people over age sixty-five. Any person who votes to put in office or keep in office a politician who is in favor of abortion casts his vote for babies to be gruesomely butchered. Obviously, no genuine follower of Christ would vote for such a political candidate.
Some professing Christians argue that there are other issues which must be considered when we elect governmental leaders, and thus they excuse themselves for casting votes in favor of pro-baby-killer candidates. That there are other issues is without doubt, but this most fundamental moral issue towers above most, if not all, others. If a person is in favor of the legality of baby slaughtering, his moral compass has completely lost its bearings and is spinning out of control. If a political candidate is on the wrong side of this moral issue, one cannot help but wonder about his or her ability to make a proper judgment regarding any moral issue.
If you looked out your window and saw your neighbor hacking to pieces his or her screaming six-month-old baby daughter while a political candidate stood at that neighbor’s side giving a speech in favor of parents’ rights to murder their newborn children, would you consider that politician to be a viable candidate for public office? No, you and all the rest of humanity would consider such a politician to be worthy of being locked behind prison bars for the rest of his life. How does such an imaginary politician differ from those perverse and depraved politicians whom we continue to elect who think there is nothing wrong with the legality of the gruesome slaughter of unborn human beings?
In Conclusion
Both of these overarching moral issues on which I have focused in this article deeply concern anyone who cares about children. Moral people are opposed to the murder of children, and they are also opposed to stealing and spending the future earnings of children. Only the basest of people could feel otherwise. To vote for such people in the hope that they will govern us is unconscionable.
Pastor, are you avoiding these immensely important moral issues lest you upset some goats who will criticize you for wading into politics? If so, may I ask you this question: If a moral issue happens to also be a political issue, does that make it unmentionable in church? God forbid!
May I remind you that true pastors are concerned about self-deceived professing Christians, and they are concerned about holiness in their own lives and the lives of those whom they pastor. Moreover, the gospel of Jesus Christ is a call to repentance, which means that true preachers of the gospel call people to turn from their sins. If they do, they will of course touch on specific sins from which people need to repent, as did John the Baptist (Jesus’ favorite preacher), when he preached the gospel (see Luke 3:1-14). So fear not, pastor! Jesus warned His followers not to fear man, but rather to fear God (Matt. 10:28). Remember also that it is not only the unbelieving, the murderers, the immoral, and the liars whom Scripture guarantees will have their part in the lake of fire, it is also the cowardly (Rev. 21:8).
Believer, if you’ve never heard your pastor mention these two great moral issues of our day, may I suggest that you pass this on to him. And at your next opportunity to cast your vote, don’t miss your opportunity to evict the thieves and abort the abortionists. (And to any abortionists who would criticize me for advocating using violence against them—while they hypocritically advocate unimaginable violence against the world’s most helpless and vulnerable people—I use the word “abort” to mean “evict by your vote.”)
“Pro-choice” abortionist, many of us were at one time like you. But we repented and experienced the forgiveness and transformation that is only available to those who believe in and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re not aborting our babies any longer. God is calling you to the same repentance, faith, forgiveness, and transformation, in hopes that you, too, will escape the justice that you are due—a custom-designed reaping of exactly what you have sown by a God who is not mocked (Gal. 6:7). I beg you, be reconciled to Him.
As always, I invite your feedback. — David
Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, O hold them back. If you say, “See, we did not know this,” does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work? (Prov. 24:11-12)
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed (Prov. 31:8).
Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless… (Is. 1:17).
Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know. — William Wilberforce, in a speech to Parliament against the slave trade, May 12, 1789
