Regular listeners to my radio program know that it airs live from 4p – 6p ET in Detroit, followed by another live one hour program sponsored by a local Word-Faith church. Last Thursday night about 7 minutes into that program the guest host directly challenged on-air what I told a listener to my program who called during my program with a question about John MacArthur’s position on election and whether or not it was biblical. Here is a direct quote of what the host said in response to my answer to the caller:

I was listening to the previous program, and they were talking about the doctrine of election, does God pick and choose who He saves? Well, you know, I’ll just tell you: read Acts 10:34. Read it! Right from the very beginning, with Adam, God was not (well, I almost give (sic) the answer away), but He didn’t pick and choose.  Hello! He gave him a free will. He gives you a free will. Ah, I gave you the answer anyway. He’s not a respecter of persons, if He picks and chooses. He’d be the biggest respecter of persons if He picks and choose who’s saved and who’s not saved.

This is a total misrepresentation of what I told the listener. Beyond that, it is not a careful handling of Scripture. The host cited Acts 10:34 as proof that God does not show partiality or is not a “respecter of persons,” and concludes from this that God does not choose who will be saved and who will not be saved, but that the choice is the individuals. However, the entire context of Acts 10:34 – 35 reads this way:

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

Typical of the Word-Faith movement is to lift verses out of their context to make them fit their predetermined conclusion. The host quoted only verse 34, which does indeed say God shows no partiality. 

However, Peter’s thought didn’t end with verse 34. He’s still talking in verse 35 when he says, “but…”. In normal conversation when a person has made a statement followed by “but,” that means that what he says after the “but” qualifies what he has said before the “but.”

Peter follows his assertion that God shows no partiality by clearly saying that God “accepts those who fear him and do what its right.” Clearly Peter says that God makes a distinction – a choice – without showing partiality. In this context, those who fear God and do what is right, do so BECAUSE God chose them, not IN ORDER THAT God might choose them.

When Peter says that God does not show partiality, he means that God does not take who we are or anything we have done into account when He chooses to save us. It does NOT mean that God does not choose. Clearly God chooses, and He clearly chose the people Israel to be his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, as Deuteronomy 7:6-8 clearly says:

“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

Paul makes the same point in Romans 9:11-13, speaking of Jacob and Esau, when he says, “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call – she (Rebecca) was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

It wasn’t because of anything good in Jacob that God called Jacob, and it wasn’t because of anything bad in Esau that God did not call Esau. It wasn’t because of their works but because of God’s call. Three verses later Paul says, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

To assert that God does not choose because He does not show partiality is to mishandle the Scriptures. In choosing us for salvation, He did not show partiality, therefore He is not a respecter of persons.

So if God doesn’t choose based on us, or in response to anything we do, what is the basis of His choosing or election? His own will and purpose, for His own glory. Romans 9:18 says, “So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills.” 

Now that’s a tough answer to a Bible question.

Politico.com with Obama’s hypocrisy on earmarks.

Compare these relevant graphs…

“…when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” (First Obama-McCain debate)

The FY’09 omnibus appropriations bill contains 8,570 known earmarks totaling $7.7 billion. That amount represents less than 2% of the $410 billion legislation.  (Taxpayers for Common Sense)

Obama is set to sign the earmark laden Omnibus bill today. This president reminds me of the title of a popular Jim Carrey movie. His pants are also on fire.

We should certainly pray for the president. We should pray for wisdom for him, for strength for him, for protection for him and his family. But where his plans clearly oppose righteousness, we should pray they fail. Where his plans clearly are intended to do harm to the people he leads, contrary to the oath he swore BEFORE GOD, God’s people should pray that those plans do not succeed.

Reasonable men are now beginning to question whether or not Barack Obama is intentionally acting to harm the interests of the American people. (See the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Hassett, and mainstream media pundit Howard Fineman). Can God’s people stand idle and allow their elected leader to undermine righteousness? To do so is to be complicit in the unrighteous deeds of our elected leader. We have an obligation to hold him to account, and Barack Obama is ultimately accountable to the Judge of all the earth.

During his first 50 days in office, President Obama has clearly acted in opposition to righteousness by lifting the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, reversing the Mexico City Policy which forces the use of your tax dollars to fund abortions at overseas abortion facilities, and by acting to rescind the “conscience clause” which protects doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other medical personnel from participating in abortions against their personal, private convictions.

He has elevated science above God by appealing to science rather than to morality in deciding to sacrifice the lives of future generations of unborn children for the false promise of “cures” for the present generation.

His economic policy, which has been touted as a ‘stimulus,’ puts an unfair burden on future generations as they assume the responsibility for repaying the debt he is amassing, and unfairly takes the income from those who have worked hard to earn it and gives it, in some cases, to the slothful, a vice the word of God clearly says should not be rewarded, but punished.

His planned closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay places the security of every American in jeopardy, as does his announced plans to negotiate with terrorist states like Hamas and Iran.

His call for mandated day care for children as young as two years old removes children from the care and nurture of their parents and turns them over to the state, undermining parental authority which is given by God.

We could go on (we haven’t even touched on Obama’s plans to destroy the institution of marriage and the family through his legitimizing homosexual practice, the lobbyists he has appointed to his administration after promising NOT to do so, the corruption of some of his cabinet members who knowingly evaded paying their taxes, and on and on).

There is solid evidence that Barack Obama is the enemy of God and the enemy of God’s people. God enjoins us to pray for our enemies, therefore we should pray for Barack Obama, but not that his plans succeed, but rather that they fail.

There is scriptural precedent for praying that the ungodly plans of God’s appointed leader fail. David repeatedly prayed that King Saul’s plans against him would fail. 

But there is also scriptural precedent for praying not only that the plans of an unrighteous leader would fail, but that the Sovereign God who placed the leader in authority over God’s people would remove him.

And that’s what I am praying for.  I want God to remove Barack Obama from office.  After the resurrection of Jesus, Peter cited two Psalms as scriptural justification for God removing Judas from his appointed position as an apostle: “May his place be deserted; let there be none to dwell in it,” and “May another take his place of leadership” (Acts 1:20; Psalm 69:25; Psalm 109:8). 

Because Barack Obama has given clear evidence that he does not fear God, I am encouraging all God-fearing followers of Jesus Christ to begin praying these Psalms with me in the hope that God in his grace would remove from office through constitutional means the man He has appointed to be our President. Will you join me?

I’m not sure how helpful it is for conservative commentators to join the chorus of mainstream media voices piling on Rush Limbaugh. The most recent columns by Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News and David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute give one cause to wonder if conservative commentators have a psychological need to be affirmed by Leftists who control the mainstream media.

Take David Frum’s recent essay in Newsweek, Why Rush is Wrong, for example. Frum is not merely attacking Rush Limbaugh’s style. Frum is calling for a fundamental capitulation of conservatism to liberalism in response to polls rather than principles. Consider carefully what Frum is calling conservatives to give up in order to secure electoral popularity:

Look at America’s public-policy problems, look at voting trends, and it’s inescapably obvious that the Republican Party needs to evolve. We need to put free-market health-care reform, not tax cuts, at the core of our economic message…

We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison—modulate). The GOP will remain a predominantly conservative party and a predominantly pro-life party. But especially on gay-rights issues, the under-30 generation has arrived at a new consensus. Our party seems to be running to govern a country that no longer exists. The rule that both our presidential and vice presidential candidates must always be pro-life has become counterproductive…

In other words, it’s time for conservatives to abandon their principles on fiscal and physical restraint because Frum perceives we can’t win without the votes of the under 30 demographic. Never mind that the under 30 crowd happens to be wrong on both social and economic issues. In Frum’s refashioning of Conservatism, polling and not principle would decide policy.

What Frum fails to realize is that the election of Barack Obama was in many ways an aberration. He never articulated his agenda during the campaign. He spoke only in esoteric terms about “hope” and “change.” The under 30 crowd could not possibly have known what they were voting for because their candidate never told them. They voted for an image which is turning out to be a mirage. The under 30 crowd needs to be persuaded, not capitulated to.

President Obama, through his cabinet nominees and his economic policies, is fundamentally altering the social and economic structure of our country. We need all conservative hands on deck using their pens to point this out while offering constructive, workable, conservative alternatives to those of the left-wing of the Democrat party which now has total control of the government.

But instead of articulate responses to the nostrums of liberalism coming to life in the expansion of the federal government during the first six weeks of Obama’s presidency, some of our best conservative voices have been duped by the bait hatched by Paul Begala and James Carville in the bowels of the White House: make Rush Limbaugh the face of the Republican Party.

Rush Limbaugh has never claimed to be the leader of the Republican Party. Rush does, however, have unparalleled influence in the conservative movement, and influence is essential to leadership.

But because he does not hold elective office, Rush Limbaugh has influence, but he does not have power, or at least a political position from which to exercise his influence. If he ran for nationwide office he may not have the electoral popularity to win. But this does not mean that the principles he advocates would lose if put to a vote.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has unparalleled power. He is the president of the United States. With the stroke of a pen he can reverse policies which a majority of the citizens of this country favor (the Mexico City Policy, for example). And given the fact that both houses of congress are controlled by his party, the power Obama wields is somewhat unchecked.

Conservatives with pens have abandoned their posts in pursuit of one of their own while the fox in the White House wreaks havoc with his pen on the social and economic foundations of our country. We are diverting our energies from exposing the agenda of the man who has the power to destroy our way of life in order to attack a private citizen whose power is limited to his influence within his own constituency – OURS!

While I agree that Rush Limbaugh may indeed be the wrong spokesperson (from a political perspective) for conservative principles, the call for a wholesale abandonment of those principles is not the right play. David Frum, Rod Dreher, and all conservatives who take pen in hand  had best keep our eye on the man with the power, being mindful of the very real damage he can do and indeed is doing. We cannot allow the man who possesses the power to distract us from his agenda with the man behind the microphone who is merely a voice crying in the wilderness.