How is this for a quote from a supposed Bible-believing, Christian political leader, husband and father AFTER he has been publicly busted for cheating on his wife:

“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” he said. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

Those are the words of South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, who has become a public embarrassment to his state after his illicit relationship with an Argentinian woman went public. No, Mr. Sanford, it was a tawdry story of adultery, not a love story. You betrayed your wife of 20 years who bore you four children, stood by you, got you elected through her hard work, and you betrayed your four young sons by behaving as the biblical definition of a fool. Adultery is not “having an affair”, it’s not a “tragic love story”, it’s a stinking, sinful mess.

Yesterday, apparently in a chatty mood, Governor Sanford also felt led to tell reporters that it wasn’t the first time he had “crossed the line” with other women. Is the man looking for some kind of award here? The irony of all of this is that Sanford had been preparing a speech on the sanctity of heterosexual marriage prior to this story hitting the news. Just save it, Sanford. And while you’re at it, resign from public office. Your cheatin’ heart is the last thing South Carolina needs.

Here’s an article from the Washington Times that underscores how moral and spiritual corruption has made a joke out of “social conservatism.” If you can’t keep your pants on, than you have no business braying about family values and “taking America back” from the liberals.

The moral bankruptcy of America’s supposedly “conservative” party was made plain once again in the last few days as the lurid story of South Carolina’’s, governor, Mark Sanford, played out in the media. Mark Sanford has long portrayed himself as a born-again Christian and family values conservative. He has a beautiful wife and four young sons. That didn’t stop him, however, from having a steamy affair with a woman in Argentina, the emails from which are now being published in the media. Once viewed as potential Presidential candidate material, the GOP now says his adultery is a “gamechanger.”

This news comes on the heels of last week’s adulterous revelations about Republican Senator John Ensign’s affair with a campaign worker. As Fox News put it, for the Republicans, the hits just keep coming at a time when Republicans are trying to mount opposition to Barack Obama and his agenda.

These latest stories of infidelity and immorality serve only to underscore why Obama could win the White House in the first place. The morally undisciplined Republicans couldn’t beat something with nothing, as the old political slogan goes. The GOP is a burned out shell of what it once was, with large swathes of the party clamoring for more mainstream appeal and an end to conservative positions on issues like abortion and gay marriage. Republican males additionally appear to be taking moral cues in their personal lives from the likes of John Edwards and a host of other Democrats, notorious for their unfaithfulness to their spouses.

Meanwhile, genuinely concerned Americans are looking around for someone to lead the fight against Barack Obama’s destructive agenda for our nation. But the leaders are too busy holding press conferences, sobbing into their hankies and apologizing for cheating on their wives. There is a huge vacuum of leadership at a time when heroic leadership is called for. Some evangelicals are calling for conservatives to “take America back.” The truth is, we can’t take our own churches back from false teaching and moral squalor that at times rivals that of the world. The resignation of a well-known pastor after an affair with his personal assistant made headlines just a few weeks ago. If Christians can’t keep their own homes and lives in godly order, how in the world are we supposed to “return America to its godly roots?” It’s something of a joke, really.

We only see the tip of the iceberg. In other words, we only see what’s going on when it finally hits the fan. The truth is, many professing Christians, including Christian leaders, are porn addicts. Many are living lives of impurity and unfaithfulness. Many are so awash in carnality, they are equally burned out shells with nothing but slogans and theological positions to back up their professed Christianity.

I believe this is why God has allowed a moral monster like Obama to now lead the country. It really is more about the church than anything else. America is going the same pathetic route that every other once-great country has when it rejects God. The so-called church, however, is without excuse for its own adultery. We had the truth. We had our glorious Savior. We had the whole counsel of God in our hands. We had the help of the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen and direct us. The evangelical church has been whoring around for a long time now, parading its surgically enhanced wares before the world, looking for approval. We had the crown jewels of Christ, and we traded them for the tawdry rhinestones of this corrupt world and its system.

We aren’t going to take America back. By God’s grace, a remnant will be purified as Christ’s true church and prepared as a chaste bride for her Lord. America’s gone. The Republicans are a moral train wreck and are sitting in the disgrace the deserve. What counts most is God’s Kingdom. As the great hymn puts it, “the body they may kill, God’s Truth abideth still, His Kingdom is forever.”

Additionally, it is wise for all of us to remember the instructions in Ephesians 6 about wearing the full armor of God. Satan is out to destroy, and immorality seems to be his number one vehicle these days. We are all vulnerable to his attacks without the armor God has provided. None of us are too good, too pure to fall into sin, whatever form it may take. Crosstalk recently re-aired a program on Pure Life Ministries, headed up by someone who Satan also tried to destroy. His testimony is that God is faithful and can change the hearts of those enmeshed in that kind of sin. God can heal and change hearts, but Satan can leave a path of destruction in our lives if we allow him to have a foothold.

This is why we need to be sober, and watch and pray. We don’t need to give the enemy more credit than he is due, but we also need to remember the warnings of Scripture, that he walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Outside of Christ, none of us can face this lion down. In Christ, however, we can have the victory.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
–Romans 15:57

The separation of church and state crowd are seething due to the judge’s ruling this week that a public school graduation can go on as planned in Waukesha, Wisconsin. For years, the school district has rented the large Elmbrook Church auditorium for their graduations due to a lack of a facility large enough to hold the event. True to form, “Rev.” Barry Lynn, an apostate minister dedicated to fighting any vestige of religion in public life, sued to try to stop the graduation. The church originally agreed to veil the sanctuary cross years ago, but refused to after that initial year of rental. Now the cross looms over the assembly as the public graduation takes place. The atheists may need weeks to recover from the trauma. In a world where Christians are subjected to public mockery of Christ, morality and the Bible in every conceivable public forum and where public schools with taxpayer money openly teach evolution and humanism, asking the secularists at the graduation to tolerate the sight of a cross for a couple hours doesn’t seem too much to ask.

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin . . . (Romans 3:9).

In England on July 4, 1653, during the era of British Puritanism, Oliver Cromwell convened the Barebone Parliament, described by one historian as,

The little band of stern, impassioned men hand-picked by Cromwell . . . with the set purpose of so remaking England’s constitution as to put into actual practice Mosaic law and the pristine principles of Jesus. On the Exchange, in the courts, in the markets, the Englishman was willy-nilly going to love his neighbor as himself. It was, says Lord Morely in his life of Cromwell, an attempt “to found a civil society on the literal words of Scripture . . . the high-water mark of the biblical politics of the time.”

But clashing with English property rights, the attempt of the Barebone Parliament was defeated, the eloquent and biblical oratory of Cromwell notwithstanding. The issue of private land ownership, perhaps even that of the Puritans themselves, forced recantation of the attempt to order English society after a biblical model. Does not the Puritans’ failed attempt at governmental and moral reform have a familiar ring about it? Sometimes those who espouse good laws are hesitant to practice the same, especially when they go against their vested self-interest, and in the cause of Christ hypocrisy is always self-indicting and self-defeating. As one critical historian notes, “The only trouble with Christian morality is that Christians on the whole, do not practice it.” From the get-go, it’s doubtful that efforts at a Christian reconstruction of and dominion over America would succeed. From the evident lifestyles of pan-evangelicals as revealed by surveys–bornagains are no different from non-bornagains–and the moral failures of a few high-profile but now disgraced leaders, there is every appearance that would-be reformers desperately need reforming.

Good laws cannot change bad people. Only grace can do that. The only end for wickedness is divine judgment. It was for Israel, and it will be for America. But beloved, don’t be discouraged by political ill fortunes of the present. Press on. Keep the faith. Live the right. Speak the truth. Be good neighbors and loyal citizens. Vote truth, right, and your conscience before God, all the while knowing that there will be no earthly utopia this side of the Lord establishing His rule on earth, a kingdom “wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). In the meantime, continue to pray, “Father . . . Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

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This is Ingrid here from my recliner with a few interesting stories I saw this weekend, including this doozy of a piece. We are expected to believe that Americans, since the election of Barack Keep-abortion-Legal Obama, have had something of a pro-life revival. Survey results last week claimed that 51% of Americans are now pro-life. Let’s think about this for a moment. Americans ignored the fact that Barack Obama was not only pro-abortion, but so radically pro-child killing that he tried to stop the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in his home state,  and his wife sent out a Senate campaign letter warning of those who would try to stop late-term abortions. Now, after electing a man who has already expanded the child-killing at taxpayer expense overseas and named late-term abortion radical, Kathleen Sebelius as HHS Secretary, Americans are turning pro-life. What? It took only 50 million dead babies and Barack Obama’s abortion expansion to do it? I’m underwhelmed.

The truth? Americans don’t know what they are anymore because the moral compass in this country is so off. I’m sorry, but 51% of Americans claiming to be pro-life doesn’t wash. “Yes, I’m pro-life because I’d like to see abortion reduced in number. Maybe we could only kill 500,000 this year instead of 1.7 million, eh?” Americans will be legitimately pro-life when they outlaw the barbarism of child-killing and restore legal protection to the smallest and most vulnerable population of Americans, the preborn.

Story #2
The New  York Times is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy financially and has been for some time. This is little surprise as the entire newspaper business is teetering along with them. (By the time I got the Sunday paper  yesterday, I had read 3/4ths of the stories 24-48 hours earlier online.)  In any event, the bankruptcy of the NYT is not only financial but moral and spiritual in nature. This news story discusses the “war on religion” being waged by what’s left of the NYT staff. I have some advice for the left-over hippies and assorted anarchists at the Gray Lady. Rather than continuing to chip your teeth on those embracing religion, you’d better be out hunting some jobs.

Story #3

Coral Ridge Ministries aired a special last night on Hate Crimes legislation and how it will be used to generate further hostility for those who support biblical values. The Christian Post reports.

Because of my quoting of Paul Proctor’s recent column, I want to link to his latest statement on the Miss California/Family Values issue. When I have backtracked, apologized for or corrected something I’ve written, I appreciate it when others acknowledge it. I want to do the same for Paul. I will also say that it is a rare thing to see this from columnists. Thank you, Paul.

Focus on the Family is the latest to jump on the bandwagon in the Miss California issue and is featuring Miss Prejean as the “Modern Queen Esther on two upcoming shows in May.” Tune in live at 2pm Central time for the Crosstalk program today at our website where we will be discussing how God is revealing the true biblical bankruptcy of the “family values” cause. *Update: After complaints, Focus has changed the title of their show.*

*Update Article* The topless underwear photos released last night of Carrie Prejean were followed by the release of other nude photographs. This morning’s headline at MSNBC: Miss California: I’ll Fight On Despite Nude Photos.  Pro-family groups are now on the horns of a dilemma. How do you backpeddle on this when you have Prejean’s face on your Values Voter event as a speaker? It is certainly awkward. Miss Prejean defends it because she is a model. Yes, but a model for our daughters to follow? Us Magazine additionally is featuring a photograph of Carrie at a New York nightclub, partying with a transsexual.

Embedded here is the response of thousands of Liberty University chapel students to her triumphal appearance there last week. Note the wolf whistles and cheers when she references her swimsuit competition. This, at the place where the “Moral Majority” was founded by Dr. Jerry Falwell. Even the faculty member on stage references the fact that mostly males in the audience watched the live Miss USA feed. What an unspeakable shame this is on the name of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Lust is now considered funny and cute by conservative Christians. Are you getting a picture of how bad things are in the evangelical church? The hidden lust and sin are now shamelessly, unblushingly open, and God sees it.

FoxNews reports that there has been “hardly a whimper” from Americans as the leftist socialist push has come down from the Obama White House. That’s because Americans are too busy watching their huge flat screen TV’s and high end SUV’s heading down the driveway with the repo man to notice the gay weddings in Iowa this week or the calls for embryo repair kits where spare parts from babies will be stocked to cure your every health woe. As for evangelicals, many have now signed on with Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne and Campolo as they fight tirelessly for polar ice caps and the establishment of wind farms. The rest are handing out porno flyers to the neighborhood for their churches or replaying the Miss USA video on YouTube. Hardly a whimper in this growing darkness.

 I received this letter today from Pastor Larry DeBruyn of Franklin Road Baptist Church in Indianapolis. He has given me permission to publish it. Christians today are so obsessed with the moral squalor of the heathen in Sodom that they are missing the squalor within the Church. It appears that nakedness, in the cause of conservatism, is A-OK. (Concerned Women for America today joined many other conservative groups in holding up Carrie Prejean as the newest conservative hero.)

Ingrid,
I feel compelled to share my thoughts regarding the hullabaloo presently going on about Miss California and the Miss USA beauty pageant. Desperate to have their concerns about traditional marriage espoused in a public forum, evangelical Christianity, rapidly becoming marginalized in our society’s mainstream, is groping for almost anyone to give a voice for the traditional institution of marriage, one I fully endorse (marriage should be a covenant commitment between a man and a women for life).

      The irony of this whole business is that here was a scantily clad woman—this of course can provoke lust in men (Matthew 5:27-29)—who was asked about marriage by a judge who supposedly isn’t even attracted to women. She gives the politically incorrect answer and in doing so, alienated the politically correct judges, and forfeited possible victory in the beauty pageant. By giving a correct answer to a loaded question about marriage, and by doing so without hardly any clothes on, Miss Prejean has now become the cause célèbre amongst conservatives and evangelicals for her affirmation of biblically correct marriage.

      Admittedly, I at first joined the admiration society of the Miss USA contestant for boldly standing up for her beliefs in a hostile and prejudiced environment, until I realized my disconnect, until I began to think biblically about the whole matter, and recall the scriptural passages condemning nakedness. Instinctively, Adam and Eve covered themselves after sinning (Genesis 3:7). Correspondingly, they became conscious of their sin and their nakedness (By the way God covered Adam and Eve too, Genesis 3:21.). I think of Noah’s two sons who saw his nakedness (Genesis 9:18 ff.). I think of the High Priest who was commanded not to ascend the altar lest “his nakedness” be exposed (Exodus 20:26). In other words, in reverence to God the High Priest’s leg was not even to be exposed. I think of the Leviticus passages that command, “thou shalt not expose the nakedness thereof . . .” (Leviticus 18).” And women are to dress modestly that their prayers be not hindered (1 Timothy 2:8-9).

      The parade of naked or semi-clothed bodies in our culture indicates our society’s desensitization to, if not outright denial, of sin (Remember, when Adam and Eve first discovered they were sinners, they instinctively covered themselves.). Years ago in the middle of the previous century, I had a friend who was a missionary amongst the Stone Age people of the territory then known as New Guinea. On one of his furloughs in the states, he remarked to me one day that all the while—for reason of the Gospel’s penetration into their hearts—the natives were putting clothes on, we in so-called “Christian America” seemed to be taking them off!

      I recognize that I am not the last word on the subject. I grew up on the sandy summer beaches of Lake Michigan, and was on the high school swim team. During my teen age and young adult years in the 60s, I witnessed the girls’ swimsuits become skimpier and skimpier. I recognize God uses sinners. But I am aware that we sinners can also attempt to use God. I have no pretension of being a self-righteous prude. I have had, as with most all other men, a problem with lust, something Jesus pointedly warned about. So what really disturbs me as a pastor is observing how easily we Christians accommodate our values to the culture’s, to the system called the world, and seemingly without any tinge of conscience. As Christians, we are to use but not abuse the world, and God will be the judge of whether we were users or abusers, won’t He?

      I can only go by the Word, the Holy Scriptures. It seems to me that one aspect of worldliness involves “the lusts of the flesh” (1 John 2:16). Furthermore, the Bible says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts” (Romans 13:14). After their conversion, Paul reminds the Ephesians that, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Ephesians 2:3). And the Apostle Peter pleaded, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).

      The prevalence of nudity and semi-nudity in our culture may help explain—there is no excuse for terrorism—why fundamentalist Muslims, whose women dress in burkhas (i.e., loose garments with veiled holes for the eyes), detest the west (See http://www.frbaptist.org/bin/view/Ptp/PtpTopic2002-01-14).

      This whole beauty pageant controversy provides a sad commentary on both the state of the culture and to some extent, the values prevalent amongst Christians today. We have been, and are being, desensitized to nudity. Miss California may be the newest heroine amongst a desperate conservative sub-culture that sees our society sinking into a moral abyss, but this whole business ought to remind Christians of how the prevalence of human nakedness indicates our having been removed from God’s righteousness. 

Respectfully,

Pastor Larry DeBruyn

After resigning from the NAE following his outrageous statements on an NPR radio program, Richard Cizik disappeared. He’s baaaack. He emerged from the shadows to speak at a save-the-earth gathering with Sikhs, Muslims, Jews and other assorted green religionists. He is now in his element. No longer constrained by even the weak evangelical positions of the NAE, he can be as radical as his heart desires, and by retaining the label “evangelical,” he can continue to pollute the already badly poisoned stream of evangelicalism with his leftist environmental propaganda. The Christian Post reports.

Brad O’Leary will be the guest today on the Crosstalk Show. He’ll be discussing his new book, Shut Up, America: The End of Free Speech. He will detail a number of ways that the Left in America is attempting, often through back-door means, to shut down the free speech of pro-family conservatives and Christians, including free speech on the Internet. With a vote on hate crimes pending this week in Congress, this issue is very important. His book is getting great reviews and contains a lot of information. You can listen live at 2pm Central at the Crosstalk website. He will also be on the Glenn Beck show on Fox later this afternoon.

Lifesite News reports on Dr. Al Mohler’s response to Rick Warren’s distancing himself from his support for Proposition 8 on Larry King Live.

This Israeli news story reports that paganism is making a comeback in Israel. Like the problem with evangelicals, many Israeli young people have grown up in a secularist, materialistic society where their parents have not passed on the Jewish faith to their young people. A recent news story reported that many Israeli young people are unable to recite the Ten Commandments or even give the basics of the Jewish faith. The biggest seduction hasn’t been from the ancient gods of the pagans, but the Western god of money and stuff. In any event, it explains why Israel has gay pride parades and a breath-takingly high abortion rate. (Female soldiers in the IDF are allowed two free abortions while they serve.) Western hedonism and secularism isn’t just in the West any longer.

Bud Kennedy, a leftist reporter for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, published a possibly actionable hit piece on Brannon Howse and Pastor Bob Pearle of Birchman Baptist Church in Ft. Worth after a recent Code Blue Rally. On Tuesday’s Crosstalk, Pastor Pearle and Brannon Howse will respond to the outrageous misquotes, factual errors and general leftist hysteria on the part of Mr. Kennedy.

Tune in live at 2pm Central or listen to the archive any time.

ABC News features Pastor Ruth Westheimer, also known as Mark Driscoll, in an article today. With the coronation of the messiah over in Washington, the editors at ABC were looking for something sensational, and they certainly have that in Mark Go-Go Driscoll. The article is entitled, “Pastor Dude’s Mega-Church Draws Crowds.” I would remind readers that really bad car accidents also draw crowds.

We predicted this years ago, people. Pro-family groups warned that if homosexuals were allowed to marry that every other deviant, wingnut and moral anarchist in town would demand the right to marry whomever or whatever they choose as well. There is no legitimate legal reason not to afford people the right to marry in any number of creative arrangements if men can marry men, and women and marry women. Well, in Canada, the polygamists are now wanting to be legal, citing gay marriage as their justification. If God’s definition of marriage has been thrown out, why in the world not? People will soon be lining up for marriage licenses at city hall with toasters of which they are particularly fond, stuffed animals, pet boa constrictors, hamsters, or their entire bowling team. One thing is for certain—the burgeoning wedding industry will help the Western economy get back on track. The possibilities are endless. “Yes, sir, we do have a veil just the right size for that Indian elephant of yours. Step over here and I’ll show you something charming in ecru lace…”

I want to say, on the record, that I agree 100% with Joseph Farah’s commentary today. I have been getting breathless press releases from a group that claims to have been “fasting and praying” for days for Barack Obama to succeed in his efforts as President, and the group claims biblical precedent for this.

Joseph Farah, I, and millions of other believers are praying for the failure of Barack Obama in his attempts to widen access to child-killing in abortion clinics, grant full legitimacy to homosexual relationships through civil unions, and establish a socialist economic system in this country. We certainly will be praying for Barack Obama, and we pray failure on every design and scheme the man has planned that will destroy life, promote perversion and establish an economic system based on further abuse of taxpayers.

Join me on Crosstalk today at 2pm Central time as I interview Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. We’ll be talking about his new book, Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance. I’ll also be asking him about the confusion being sown by some evangelical leaders who are moving the church towards an acceptance of homosexuality and gay partnerships. Tune in live or listen to the archive later here at our website.

I believe that legalized child-killing and homosexuality issue are the defining moral issues facing the church today. The impotent response of God’s people to these abominations is resulting in God’s judgment on our land.

Since this topic is now entwined with the Presidency of the United States itself, it seems a good idea to revisit these two sermons, both found here at this link, from Dr. John MacArthur as to how God feels about abortion:

To kill that life is to “play God,” and as serious an affront as it is against the life itself, it is a more serious one against the God who is the Creator. That is why it is the ultimate, the ultimate decline in our culture. It is the ultimate evidence of the wretchedness of our culture. It is the ultimate proof of how deep our atheism runs, that we kill life that God creates.

We have usurped the sovereign throne and we are now God, and we will determine who lives and who dies. This is spilling over, my friends, into euthanasia which is coming, you better know, like a hurricane to wash away our whole old population because we are God now and we’ll decide. This kind of atheism will bring the wrath of God and we will see that tonight [in part Two]…

Here’s a sad article about the teen virginity pledges that have been promoted so much in the last few years. Young people are not honoring them. Outside of the power of Christ in our lives, most of our vows against sin fall by the wayside. Our flesh is powerful and the culture around us is constantly parading around the supposed rewards of sin. Scripture tells us that the way that seems right to us, however, leads to death. Only when we are truly born again can we have the power of God in us to resist temptation.

There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.

–I Corinthians 10:13