It wasn’t only our founding fathers who were godly men. Many American presidents relied on their faith to guide them while serving in the most powerful position in the world. When children recite the Pledge of Allegiance before starting a school day—at least those who are still allowed to recite it—don’t they say, “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”? Do you know why? On June 14, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill into law that added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Eisenhower stated: “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. . . . In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.” President Eisenhower said our spiritual weapons would be America’s most powerful resources, whether at peace or in war, and he was absolutely right. We need those resources more than ever in today’s world.
During a speech before the Attorney General’s Conference on Law Enforcement Problems on February 15, 1950, President Harry S. Truman said: “The fundamental basis of this nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days.” What would President Truman think about our country today?
Religion, the Bible, and the church are woven within the fabric of American heritage. There are religious symbols throughout Washington, DC. At the Supreme Court building, there’s a marble frieze on the south wall of the courtroom that features Moses holding the Ten Commandments, along with images of Confucius, Muhammad, kings and various Greek philosophers. There is a statue of Moses in the rotunda of the Library of Congress, and the Ten Commandments are symbolized in the floor of the National Archives building. Even the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, which is a symbol of American independence, was cast with part of the Scripture from Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Of course, many of those government buildings were constructed when faith and religion were still the foundation of our country. Are we going to one day remove these religious symbols from our history, too?
Nowadays, they’re trying to remove the Ten Commandments from courtrooms across the country. In 2001, Roy Moore, then chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, installed a 5,280-pound granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state’s judicial building. Of course, it didn’t take long for three attorneys to sue him, alleging that the monument was an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion. A U.S. district judge ordered Moore to remove the monument after he lost his appeal, and when Moore refused, he was removed from the bench by a state ethics panel.
In 2005, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ordered that framed copies of the Ten Commandments on the walls of two rural Kentucky courthouses be taken down because they were violations of the separation of church and state. At the time, Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the dissenting voices, said the decision was inconsistent with our founding fathers’ own views. In fact, Scalia recalled the dark day of September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked New York and Washington, DC. When President George W. Bush spoke to the American people shortly after the attacks, he concluded his remarks with “God bless America.” Scalia, who was in Rome that day, said a European judge confided that he wished more European leaders still included religious references in their speeches.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone would want to remove the Ten Commandments from a courtroom. Let me get this right: you’re an atheist and you’re saying it’s a violation of your rights to have to look upon the Ten Commandments when you walk into a courthouse. But much of the foundation of civil and criminal laws around the world was founded on the principles of the Ten Commandments. Okay, let’s start with number five in the laws God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. It says, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Well, let me ask you something: Where does law enforcement take your children when they find them drunk and tearing up other people’s property? They take them to stand before a judge. If they honored their mothers and fathers, they wouldn’t be disobedient and violate the laws of the land. Where do they take children when they really step out of line and are rebellious? They’re going to take them to a juvenile court to determine their punishment. It would seem to me that if the judge is going to try to teach a child a lesson for breaking the fifth commandment, the Ten Commandments might need to be hanging there for the child to see them.
If a man kills his neighbor, he has violated the sixth commandment, which says, “You shall not murder.” If a judge is going to sentence him to life in prison, don’t you think the Ten Commandments should be there so he can see what law he broke? If a man commits adultery and gets caught in the act by his wife, he has broken the seventh commandment, which says, “You shall not commit adultery.” His spouse is probably going to take him to divorce court and take half of his money and possessions. And if a man gets caught robbing a bank, he has violated the eighth commandment, which says, “You shall not steal.” The judge is probably going to sentence him to prison for knocking off the bank. Wouldn’t that be a good time to read him the Ten Commandments?
What happened to our country, folks? Nowadays, our children no longer pray before the school day begins and greeters at certain department stores are no longer allowed to welcome customers with “Merry Christmas” during the holidays. In some schools, our children aren’t even allowed to sing Christmas carols because the lyrics include “Christ.” Don’t even think about putting a nativity scene near a courthouse or public building! They might throw you in jail. When did Jesus Christ, the most perfect human to ever walk on the face of the earth, become a bad guy?
Political correctness trumps everything else in America nowadays, and I’m convinced it’s another example of the Evil One’s ploys to deceive us. Today’s truth is based on what is socially acceptable, and biblical correctness has somehow become hate speech. Satan is a master deceiver, and he works to provide nonbelievers with a platform of acceptance. As it says in 2 Peter 2:2: “Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.”
When you move Jesus out of the equation, all that’s left is political wrangling. There’s no Gospel, and there’s no Good News. So everyone tries to fix America’s problems with politics alone—the spiritual realm has been pushed aside. America desperately needs a political correction that only God can give. Politicians can’t fix the things that matter most, beginning with sin, physical death, righteousness, and holiness—we’ll talk about these in the last section of the book. Attributes such as morality and integrity can’t be legislated. Politics can’t bring people peace, love, joy, honesty, and gentleness. Only following Jesus can do that.
Even though we’re being scorned and mocked by the “PC police,” we have to stand up for what we believe, regardless of the consequences. It’s not about being politically correct; it’s about being biblically correct. And with the direction America is headed, I’d much rather put my faith in the Bible than in politics. I’d rather our politicians be men and women who believe that the Bible is the Word of God. You want political correctness? Elect spiritual politicians who are biblically correct, and you will have it!
2
SPIRITUAL DIETING
Fix No. 2: Count Your Sins, Not Your Calories
Oftentimes when I speak to a church congregation, sportsmen’s club, or some other group around the country, I like to ask them one simple question. I look out at the audience and ask, “How many of you folks are over the age of ninety?” An older lady or man in the back of the room might raise her or his hand every onc
e in a while, but it doesn’t happen often, no matter where I am.
“What about all the calories you’re counting?” I ask them. “What about all of the time you’ve spent on treadmills and bicycles? What about all that money you’re spending on diets, gym memberships, and health food? What about all the weights you’ve lifted and the herbs and vitamins you’ve ingested? Even if you’re doing all that, I doubt that many of us will make it to ninety.”
According to recent studies, Americans spend north of $60 billion annually to try to lose weight and get themselves in better physical condition. Every week, 1.2 million people attend Weight Watchers meetings around the world, and more than 40 million Americans have a gym membership or own some sort of home exercise equipment. Each year, Americans spend about $18 billion on diet pills and appetite suppressants alone.
Americans are obsessed with losing weight and trying to live longer. I hate to break the news, folks: it’s an exercise in futility. No matter what the diet gurus, nutrition experts, and health nuts tell you, American men are going to live to be about seventy-six years old. American women are going to live about five years longer, on average, but very few of us are going to reach age ninety, no matter how often we work out or how closely we watch our diets. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you should sit on the couch all day watching TV and eating potato chips and ice cream. That’s the fastest and surest way to contract diabetes or suffer a heart attack or stroke. Go outside and get some exercise. Take a walk or ride a bicycle. Don’t sit at the kitchen table and eat until you can’t move. Use common sense. Enjoy your meals, eat until you’re full, and then push your chair away from the table. Enough is enough. But that doesn’t mean you should never enjoy fried chicken, fried catfish, banana pudding, peach cobbler, or the other foods that taste really good. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life consuming nothing but Brussels sprouts and tofu? Are we goats or humans? There has to be a middle ground, in which we can still eat the foods we enjoy while not struggling to fit through the door.
Somehow, counting calories became America’s national pastime. Seemingly like clockwork, millions of Americans start every year on some sort of fad diet or health kick. You’ve probably done it a few times yourself. There was the cabbage soup diet, Israeli Army diet, South Beach Diet, Dr. Atkins’s diet, Sugar Busters, and the Hollywood Diet. The people who came up with these diets became millionaires selling books and tasteless prepackaged foods, while the people who bought the products didn’t lose anything on a long-term basis—except their minds! I can’t believe someone hasn’t already signed up Uncle Si to endorse a diet because the man can eat three helpings of fried squirrel and dumplings and not gain a single pound! He’s so skinny he has to wear a belt with spandex! The man literally has to stand in the same place twice to cast a shadow. Talk about metabolism! For a man who does everything at a snail’s pace and naps three times a day, Si’s body must burn one hundred calories per minute. He’s still as skinny as he was in high school.
I’m not against diets or counting calories, but Americans are more concerned with physical fitness and what they eat than they are with their spiritual health. Look at the most popular New Year’s resolutions for 2014, according to a survey by the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania: lose weight, get organized, spend less money and save more, stay fit and healthy, and quit smoking, among others. Wouldn’t it be great if more people made New Year’s resolutions to read the Bible more often or become closer to God? Believe me, the last thing you want to do is go on an extended spiritual diet—where you consume nothing of a spiritual nature. My spiritual diet lasted twenty-eight years, and the last four decades of my life have been a lot more enjoyable and fulfilling than the first three were.
Health care has become perhaps the biggest debate in America because it costs us so much money to stay alive. Obesity is a nationwide epidemic—about one-third of American adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—and we’re constantly being told to eat less and exercise more. Fair enough. But while we’re focusing on counting calories and watching our carbohydrate and saturated fat intake, we’d better make sure our spiritual lives are being fed properly, too. Be careful what you take in, be careful what you partake of, and do everything in moderation. If you follow God’s advice on living, don’t you think you’ll be more disciplined in your eating and exercise? Focusing on your spiritual well-being is what will give you eternal health care. In the end, physical dieting is still going to put you six feet underground—most of us long before we’re ninety years old—no matter how hard you exercise or what you eat.
There’s no question physical training is of some value while we’re on this earth, but spiritual training is worth far more. In 1 Timothy 4:1–10, Paul the Apostle tells his younger protégé Timothy:
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.
After you’ve read the Scripture, what do you think you should be majoring in while you’re down here on earth—physical training or spiritual training? You might want to focus on your spiritual training because you’ll be much better off. Spiritual training not only holds promise, but it also gives you peace of mind while you’re living on earth. Riding a stationary bike or running on a treadmill is only going to get you so far. You might shed a few pounds, and it might be easier to fit into your favorite blue jeans, but that’s about as far as exercise is going to get you. Sure, it might add five or ten years to your life, but I want to live forever—eternally!
It’s a good thing to keep your body in decent physical shape, but don’t be telling others they can’t eat this or that. America has gone overboard with dieting and exercise. Don’t be fooled—the people who are running marathons and triathlons are dying like everybody else. As far as I’m concerned, the passage gives us permission from headquarters to eat what we desire, despite what the vegans, vegetarians, and animal rights activists would lead us to believe. God said everything He “created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4). The Bible doesn’t say anything about not shooting and eating ducks, deer, rabbits, or squirrels. Hey, I almost feel bad for the animals, but they either need to run faster or quit tasting so good!
Believe me, being spiritually flabby is far worse than being a little plump physically. When you think of a balanced diet, I’m sure what you’re eating pops into your head. Nutritionists make recommendations for how much calcium, fat, fiber, and protein we’re supposed to eat each day and how many carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. They tell us what we’re supposed to eat and what we’re not supposed to eat. But a true balanced diet involves much more than only what we’re putting in our stomachs. Our bodies consist of the spirit and flesh. We can’t function properly if we’re feeding only one part and neglecting the other. Satan wants us to focus on the flesh because he knows our spirit is what is connected to God. Therefore we need to develop our spirits as much as we nurt
ure our bodies.
In the few verses below, Paul the Apostle laid out an entire set of ground rules for spiritual well-being:
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:22–32)
unPHILtered: The Way I See It Page 2