“You build monuments to the prophets, and place flowers at the tombs of the righteous, and say: ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have allowed their innocent blood to be shed.’ Be witness to your own inconsistency! You are the descendants of those who killed the prophets, and have surpassed even their wicked acts. Snakes! Generation of vipers! How will you escape the condemnation of eternal judgment?” —Jesus

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.” —CS Lewis

One of the most challenging aspects of parenting is “practicing what you preach”! During our boy’s formative years I often reflected, not so much on what we were trying to teach and train them in, but in what was I or my wife unwilling to change that might have destructive consequences in their lives.

Not having Omniscience can prove troubling in predicting the outcomes of every nuance of every sin of which we are capable. More troubling still, at least from the Omniscient One’s point of view, is mankind’s vain attempts to put lipstick on the pig’s snout of reprehensible deeds.

“We would never have done that” is a good fallback position when confronted with the likelihood of moral failure and perhaps even shock if someone could show us what, in the future, we will do that is as bad or worse from that which we deny. A close friend found out that her husband had been a serial adulterer over the course of their marriage. Was it really such a shock that the son had indeed followed in his own father’s philandering ways?

But shock is exactly what the Son of Man attempted to do for the moral and spiritual leaders of his day — and any day, for that matter. For He knew that Goodness comes from God alone; goodness cannot be separated from God-ness. Unfortunately, mankind’s response to sin exposed is usually the same: kill the message or the messenger!

Any attempt to define goodness without a reference point in God, in other words, not recognizing what in the thought or deed is God-like or God-worthy, leads to oppression and tyranny. As an example, societies across the world are being confronted with pressure to legitimize a special class of mental disorder and sexual deviancy: transgender-ism. The debate over granting special protections and privileges to an extremely small population segment in public schools and commercial institutions is reaching hysterical proportions and is completely devoid of any spiritual or moral foundation save that which proponents press upon the public through threats of retaliation and retribution.

Using words like “inclusive” and “tolerance” and “discrimination,” they smear lipstick on the beast best known for rooting through muck and slop and with savagery consuming anything detestable. The time is long past for negotiating with those leading the attacks on Goodness and Truth for soon the savagery will turn on the messengers of Truth.

And the time is nearly past for national repentance and sorrow for our collective sin. Billy Graham, icon and preacher of Righteousness & Truth, has a son following in his godly footsteps, Franklin Graham. Franklin is currently conducting a “Decision America Tour” visiting every state capitol in the United States leading prayer for thousands who gather and calling out the nation to repent of its wicked course, to turn back to God, honor our godly heritage and stand against sin in all its forms, beginning with the ones in our own hearts.

(Of course the national media is completely ignoring this and instead focuses on aged and irrelevant entertainers like Bruce Springsteen issuing ignorant threats against states who refuse to bend to the will of the criminally insane.)

As it was in the day of Jesus, so today the choice is clear: follow those who will lead us on a political path to self-destruction or follow those who will lead us spiritually to Right action, Truth and Goodness.

For God’s sake, let us choose wisely.

Many of us know the story of Jonah, the man swallowed by a fish and survived to tell about it. What gets lost in the story is that he was commanded by God to preach judgment to a great city, Nineveh, from which commission he tried desperately to avoid…thus the tale of the fish adventure. However, he did end up preaching and the people ended up responding:

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. —Jonah 3:5-8

Notice how the people first repented at the preaching of Jonah then the king was impacted by the spiritual revival of his subjects and began issuing righteous edicts. We are too guilty of waiting for our political leaders to do the “right thing” or “restore America” or come up with some such catchy slogan rather than fall on our knees in sackcloth and ashes. I believe it’s why we don’t have a very good group of presidential candidates this cycle: to get our eyes off men and back on God! Only then can we send the proper message to all elected officials throughout the land: as for We The People and our nation, We The People will serve the Lord!