If you asked 100 Evangelical Christians to name the three institutions created by God, they could probably easily name the first two – the family and the church. But they would be hard pressed to name the third: civil government.

That’s right. God cares about our government because it is His creation.

Are you a three-thirds Christian?

David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, talks about the need for three-thirds Christians, believers who will be faithful in all three of God’s institutions – family, church, and the civil government.

When it comes to the government, what does that mean practically?

Two things.  First, everyone who names Jesus as Savior is called to cast a Biblically-informed ballot for the political candidates who closest reflect God’s values of sanctity of life and God’s design for gender and sexuality.  Second, Christians should consider running for office themselves.

Proverbs 29:2 paints the stark contrast between God-honoring civil magistrates and God-hating civil magistrates. It says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.”

Only 2.8% of America’s 384,000 pastors address
the glaring sins of abortion and sexual perversion

Kevin Swanson, the host of Generations Radio and the author of Apostate: The Men Who Destroyed the Christian West and Epoch: The Rise and Fall of the West, expressed his disappointment in the pastors who failed to speak to the critical sins of our day and the need to elect Godly civil magistrates.  Sadly, out of the 384,000 American pastors, only 2.8% dare to preach on the glaring sins of our day.

Frankly, that’s why the highly anticipated Red Wave became the Red Ripple!

Swanson said, “We should have been urging our members to vote for liberty, to vote for religious liberty, to vote for the pro-life cause. Roe v. Wade was reversed. This was the greatest opportunity in the history of this country for the Evangelicals to step up, for the Christians to step up, and be salt and light at the ballot box. And it just didn’t happen. Bottom line: Abortion was not a significant issue for the Evangelicals.

“According to George Barna, [Director of Research and co-founder of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University], in his recent survey, it was all the tertiary issues that were important apparently for Evangelicals. But the pro-life issue just wasn’t even on the radar. Neither was reversing Obergefell and all of the pro-homosexual agenda that’s been pressed into the public schools. I don’t think they understood that this was the most critical election in all of American history.”

Listen to the “Time for Courage” radio show entitled, “The Silence of the Church.”

Tragically, this is not a new problem.

14% of Evangelicals voted for Biden in 2020

Back in 2020, according to a Pew Research study, 14% of church-attending, white, Evangelical Christians voted for Joe Biden despite the fact that he championed baby-killing, homosexual marriage, and mutilating transgender surgeries for kids.

That was more than enough votes to swing the election to Biden in the crucial swing states of Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona where a mere 42,000 votes combined gave the election to this anti-Christian candidate.  (Parenthetically, I believe that many of these 42,000 votes were fraudulent as documented in Dinesh D’ Souza’s excellent film 2000 MULES.)

Can you imagine how different the outcome would have been in 2020 and in the recent mid-term elections had the pew-sitting Christians actually heard a Biblical message from the pulpit about their obligation to elect God-honoring civil magistrates?

Mist in the pulpit leads to fog in the pew

Dr. Tony Evans, Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas and the host of The Urban Alternative radio show, declared, “A mist in the pulpit is going to be a fog in the pew. When the pulpits fail and the pew becomes confused because of the pulpits failing, then the culture is not going to be led in the right direction. The problem is the failure of the church. Our churches have failed with ‘thus saith the Lord.’

“We’ve placated ourselves to the culture and dumbed down the Deity by ignoring His Word. We’re not teaching what God says. We’re teaching what we think. We’re teaching people what feels good for them and to them. We’re teaching what is preferred and what is popular. What we’re not teaching is how God thinks, and what God says, and how God feels on every subject.”

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil

German Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who courageously spoke out against Adolf Hitler’s extermination of the Jews, said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”  His boldness cost him his life.  The author of The Cost of Discipleship was arrested by the Gestapo in April of 1943 for his resistance to the Nazi dictator, imprisoned, and ultimately hung on April 9, 1945.

America’s pastors should take Bonhoeffer’s words to heart.  Their silence is indeed evil in the face of today’s twin evils of abortion and sexual perversions.

Max Lucado:
I’ve stayed away from political and controversial issues

I have been especially disappointed with Pastor Max Lucado of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.

We cited two articles on the “Time for Courage” radio show. First, National Public Radio wrote a piece on March 6, 2016 entitled “Pastor Max Lucado Baffled Over Evangelical Trump Supporters.” He was asked, “What is it that made you want to weigh in here? Why now?” Max said, “Kind of the bottom line for me, I don’t think people come to the church where I preach to hear my view on politics. I’d like to think I’m going upriver and talking about worldview topics, rather than particular political or controversial topics. So, I’ve just stayed away from it through the years.”

Max, I beg to differ with you!  Truth be told, your congregants do indeed come to hear you preach the whole counsel of God, including how they should shape the civil government, created by God Himself.  Don’t forget that the term “pastor” comes from the word “shepherd.” You are supposed to be shepherding your flock.

Plus, we referenced a February 26, 2016 Christianity Today article entitled, “Why Max Lucado broke his political silence for Trump.” He said, “I’ve never done anything like this. It’s an unprecedented act on my part. I do not want to continue this. I have no desire to police presidential candidates. But when Bill Clinton was in office in the late 90s, I spoke out against it. I talked about what Jesus would say to Bill Clinton. This time, I felt the same nudging to do so. So, it’s just three times have spoken out in about 30 years. To be honest, there have been people who’ve been frustrated that I have not gotten more involved.”

Max, to be clear, no one wants you to “police presidential candidates.”  But we do want you to hold up the plumbline of Scripture!  Why? To help your congregants understand which candidates best reflect God’s values in the policies which they champion. Who is most likely to protect the pre-born babies?  Proverbs 24:11 says we are called to “rescue those being led away to death.”

Who is most likely to affirm God’s design of male and female and push back on the Left’s obsession with grooming our children for life-altering, genital-mutilating transgender surgeries? Genesis 1:27 says, “God created mankind in His image; in the image of God, He created them; male and female He created them.” And Matthew 18:6 warns, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in Me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

We were electing a Commander-in-Chief, not a Pastor-in-Chief

Listen. Christians aren’t blind. We recognize that Donald Trump was a man who had major character flaws, major warts. But we were not electing a Pastor-in-Chief. We were electing a Commander-in-Chief. Despite his ego, despite his mean tweets, despite his two failed marriages, he advocated God-honoring policies like placing pro-life justices on the Supreme Court.

And thanks to his three Supreme Court appointments, Roe v. Wade was finally overturned on June 24, 2022 after 62 million baby boys and girls had been surgically killed by abortion in 49 years. Praise God!

Pastors are tasked with equipping the man of God
for every good work

Kevin Swanson, our guest, didn’t pull any punches. 

He said, “Here’s the problem. Max Lucado doesn’t believe that the pastor should speak towards politics or the matter of ethics. It turns out the Bible does have much to say about ethics. As it turns out, the Bible doesn’t want us redistributing the wealth and creating a socialist republic. The Bible wants us going after the bad guys, as defined by God’s law. Pastors are responsible to equip the man of God for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17) They’re responsible to teach their congregants to observe everything Jesus commanded in His Word (Matthew 28:19-20) — Old and New Testaments — and to observe those things, whether it be at the ballot box or anywhere else.

“This idea that the church has no obligation to speak on ethics, the church has no obligation to encourage its congregants to be standing upon God’s principles of righteousness in the civil magistrate, in the marketplace – wow — that means that these pastors are not fulfilling the Great Commission. They’re not fulfilling their responsibility of equipping the man of God for every good work. And that, indeed, is what the Word of God is there for. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

“So, bottom line with these pastors is they’re preaching some kind of a watered-down Gospel message that has nothing to do with sin, with repentance, with teaching the people of God to observe what Jesus has commanded in His word – the Old and New Testament. They’re just not doing their job!”

Max Lucado is cowardly

Max Lucado harshly condemned Trump while never issuing a peep about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s push for more baby killing and more sexual perversion.  You have been cowardly when we needed courage in your pulpit. As far as I’m concerned, you are a sell-out.

In Revelation 21:8, our Lord warned, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”  Note that our Lord puts the sin of cowardice first among the sins he enumerates. If they define one’s life and are not repented of, any one of those sins will lead to eternal separation from God.

In a February 11, 2021 letter to the Washington’s National Cathedral, an Episcopal Church, Lucado apologized for how he addressed the homosexual agenda in a 2004 sermon, reports The Christian Post.  He had been invited to, and eventually delivered, a virtual sermon on the Holy Spirit which prompted push back from homosexual activists who wanted the Cathedral to rescind their invitation to Lucado.

While I commend Max for having addressed homosexuality 18 years ago from his pulpit, which the Bible describes as a sin and an abomination in Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:24-27, he needs to continue to address it, explaining that, by and large, Democrats champion such perversion. If we want to be salt and light, like Jesus commands us to be in Matthew 5:13-15, then we must not hesitate to speak the truth in love.

Letter to the American Church

Max would be well advised to read Eric Metaxas’ excellent book entitled Letter to the American Church in which he calls pastors to repentance for not speaking out against grave evil.

It’s an earnest and searing wake-up call in which he warns of the haunting similarities between today’s American church and the German church of the 1930s. Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Metaxas summons the Church to battle. The author of the bestselling biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy,  Metaxas, like Bonhoeffer, exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil.

An unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity. As Bonhoeffer and other heroes of the faith insisted, the Church has an irreplaceable role in the culture of a nation. It is our duty to fight the powers of darkness, especially on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

Silence is not an option! God calls us to defend the unborn, to confront the lies of cultural Marxism, and to battle the globalist tyranny that crushes human freedom. Confident that this is His fight, the Church must overcome fear and enter the fray, armed with the spiritual weapons of prayer, self-sacrifice, and love.

We’re witnessing apostacy in the pulpit

Adam McManus, my co-host on “Time for Courage,” asked Kevin Swanson a fascinating series of questions.  He said, “Of the 380,000 pastors in America, only about 2.8% are addressing the critical issues of the day ranging from the sanctity of life to God-given sexuality to our gender. Why are so few pastors willing to speak up? Are they worried about attendance? Are they worried about the offering? Are they worried about stepping on toes? What is it? Are they not being trained properly in seminary?”

Swanson said, “It’s a lapse of faith.  It’s apostasy!  People are walking away from the Christian faith. Church attendance in America dropped off from 48% to 21% in the last 13 years. This thing is falling apart at the seams. For the most part, pastors are leading the charge. Abortion is the sin of the day. Perverted sexual sins is the sin of the day.

“What’s the responsibility of pastors? To call men and women to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ, to believe that He has saved us from these sins. If they refuse to do that, they’re not pastors. They’re bad shepherds. They’re not willing to speak to the issues of the day and present the Gospel message to their congregants.

“Christians have been pro-life from the very beginning. In Matthew 18:6,  Jesus said, ‘If you stumble these little ones, including killing them, it will be better for you that a millstone be hung around your neck, and you’d be drowned at the bottom the sea.’ Bottom line is the Christian pastor needs to be equipping the saints to these specific issues. If they’re not, they’re not worthy of being called pastors. They’re not worthy of being called Christian leaders!”

Two other cowardly local pastors

In addition to warning listeners about Max Lucado’s cowardice in the pulpit in our radio show entitled “The Silence of the Church,” I also called out two other local pastors who need to re-examine the call of God to preach the whole counsel of God.  They need to stop looking to the culture for their cues. They need to look to the Bible.

I’ve been disappointed by the cowardice of:

Charlie Kirk, the Christian founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative student group with 3,000 chapters on high school and college campuses, appeared on Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson and gave a powerful talk entitled “Calling Out the Church, Part 1” in which he described three types of pastors: courageous, cowardly, and complicit.

Kirk said the good news is that if we confront the cowardly pastors, they can be turned. They can become courageous!

Judgment begins in the church

Swanson shared a final word of wisdom on the “Time for Courage” radio show.

He said, “Judgment begins in the household of God. Judgment begins in Max Lucado’s Squishy Evangelical Church and all the other squishy Evangelical churches that are unwilling to take a stand at this point. If judgment begins in the household of God, then certainly repentance must begin in the household of God. [2 Chronicles 7:14 says,] ‘If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, repent, turn from their wicked ways.’  That starts with My people.  It starts with the church. And that just hasn’t happened yet. We don’t have the Shadrachs, Meshachs and Abednegos that are willing to take the stand and submit themselves to the fiery furnace and oppose the ungodliness in our society today.”

Swanson concluded that we need “to see the message of repentance taught in the churches, and the Word of God brought to bear in the churches and applied to every area of life. [We need to see] faith in the acceptance of the Gospel which is the message that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, in order that we would be saved from our sins — that is the violation of God’s law in all these areas we’ve been talking about.

“I put the fault of the breakdown of this country at the feet of the seminaries, at the feet of the churches, at the feet of the pastors. I think the reason America is falling, and the reason our civilization is coming down is because of the seminaries, because of Max Lucado. It’s because of the Squishy Evangelical Churches that refuse to stand for the truth.”

Amen!

Two courageous local pastors

Thankfully, there are some excellent churches which do stand for the truth.  If you’re looking for a church where the pastor preaches the whole counsel of God – including the urgent need to cast Biblically informed ballots to elect civil magistrates who champion God’s values, I have two recommendations.

I’ve been encouraged, refreshed, and convicted by the courage of:

We must understand the times and know what to do

Christians across America are asking, “What should we do?”  Frankly, we would be well-advised to abide by the admonition found in 1 Chronicles 12:32. It says among the people from Issachar there were “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Call it a two-point plan.  (1) Understand the times. (2) Know what to do.

We are indeed witnessing the fall of a civilization with the breakdown of the Christian faith and the breakdown of our social, economic, educational, and political systems.  Don’t turn a blind eye. God has placed you in America at this time to stand up and to speak up.

Don’t disappoint Him!

Paul Milazzo

Paul Milazzo is the host of "Time for Courage" heard Saturday nights at 6:00 pm on 930AM, The Answer in San Antonio, Texas. Email: Paul@TimeForCourage.net