The Bible and Voting – Part 8

Andy Woods

SUGAR LAND BIBLE CHURCH

August 28, 2016      The Bible and Voting, Part 8

I knew it was just a matter of time before the Obama Administration got wind of my sermons and tried to shut our power down but they didn’t succeed, we’re still functioning.   That was a joke… okay?  If we could take our Bibles and open them to the book of Genesis, chapter 10 and verse 32.  The title of our message this morning is The Bible and Voting, Part 8.  And as you’re turning there, as I mentioned last week I did write a little book called The Middle East Meltdown, and we gave them away to the church last week; there’s still a few out there on the name tag table so if you didn’t get one or your spouse didn’t get one, because we’re trying to limit them one to a family if possible, please go and pick up a signed copy of the book .  Does everybody have that book?  Did anybody read that book?  Oh good, wow, that’s impressive, and  you came back for church.

One other thing you’ll find on the name tag table is a conference that’s coming up at West Houston Bible Church, a free conference. West Houston Bible Church may be about 20 minutes from here, and the title of it is Israel Today, Understanding Critical Issues All about the nation of Israel.  It goes Thursday night, Friday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, that’s September 8-11.  And it’s all about a very important issue, the nation of Israel and what is to be our response to the nation of Israel.  You’ll see there’s some really good experts that Pastor Robert Dean has asked to participate in or speak; he even gave me a session believe it or not.  I’m going to be speaking on why the Christians should support Israel and if my timing is right I might preach that same sermon next week here Sunday morning.  But they have all kinds of live streaming and so if you’re interested in that I encourage you to pick up this flyer at the name tag table.

We are moving into politically incorrect territory; politically incorrect but biblically correct as we like to say, and it has to do with this whole issue of The Bible and Voting.  And what we’re trying to accomplish here in a sermon series that really we started on Independence Day weekend, we’re not trying to get into major names of candidates, political parties, poll numbers, but we’re trying to really look at a series of issues where God has actually expressed an opinion.  We’ve seen the clear mind of God on a number of political issues that people debate.  And people sometimes act, as they’re debating these, that God hasn’t said anything about them at all.  And so what we’re doing is a topical Bible study trying to unearth what the Scripture says concerning Bible positions on political issues.

And we’ve taken a look at several economic issues and then beyond that we moved on to social issues, we took a look at several social issues, the right to life, same sex marriage and a litany of them.  Last week we moved into the whole subject of foreign affairs and we really spent our time talking about the nation-state that God is the author of the nation-state and He is not in favor of global governments and we tried to unpack that.   And this morning we’re getting into an issue that’s highly related and this has to do with the whole issue of borders, but borders around the country.    And when you get into this subject of borders around the country we have to begin to understand that God has actually said something about this.  And as we look at the mind of God it ought to inform us concerning how we vote or who we vote for, not just in this election cycle but really in any election cycle.

I’ve tried to couch all of these in terms of a question that you could ask of various candidates and here’s the question that we’re looking at this morning; it’s a little wordy so bear with me. Will the candidate enforce our national borders or does he or she favor an open border policy, or a pathway to citizenship to those who have entered the country illegally?

Let me rephrase that or restate it: will the candidate enforce our national borders or does he or she favor an open border policy, or a pathway to citizenship to those who have entered the country illegally?  Now would you not all agree with me that this issue is a hot issue in our culture?  It’s an issue that is really taken center stage.  People today are really not debating abortion like they once did, and other issues, but this issue of borders, particularly national security, has really moved to the forefront of our thinking.

And really the question is does the Bible actually address the issue?  Does God have anything to say about this, and I believe that He does.  There are many voices today and I’ll give you some examples that will argue that insisting on some kind of form of border enforcement, border protection is unchristian, it’s unbiblical they say.  In fact, they would argue that it’s immortal to do so.  I’m going to show you today that I think the Bible teaches the opposite, and the Bible actually has a great deal to say about this issue, like it does so many issues that we’ve had a chance to look at.  So we’re going to divide this into two parts; number 1, I want to lay out, if I could, a biblical… see this is not my personal opinion, what I’m trying to get into is the Bible, I want my opinion to come from the Bible, a biblical case for border enforcement and then I’ll take you through some objections to what I’ve said and show us how to navigate our way through these things.

But what you’ll start to discover as you get into this issue is now everybody is quoting the Bible.  They’re not quoting the Bible related to homosexuality or abortion but suddenly when it gets into this idea of an open border mentality, suddenly everybody gets biblical.  Candidates, or politicians, get biblical and they start sounding like pastors.  And the question is, are they using the Bible accurately?  Are they using the Bible correctly?

Now last week we got into the whole subject of the nation-state.  We saw that God is in favor of the nation-state, the individual nations, and not world government and we developed that, really, from the tower of Babel.  So notice, if you will, and this lesson kind of builds on last week, notice, if you will, Genesis 10 and verse 32, the dawn of human history just after the flood.  It says this: “These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations;” plural, “and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.”  Notice it talks about “nations” being separated.  Now how in the world did that happen?  I’m glad you asked because the next chapter, Genesis 11, tells us how.

Notice what that chapter says, let me re-read these to you, the famous story of the tower of Babel that we read about as kids in Sunday School.  It says this: “Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.  [2] It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.  [3] They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.  [4] They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’  [5] The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. [6]The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. [7] Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”  [8] So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. [9] Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

This is a record of what I like to call the first United Nations Conference or Summit.  Of course they weren’t meeting in New York City, they were meeting in a place called Shinar; Shinar is the Hebrew word for that area between the rivers.  In fact, in Greek it’s called Mesopotamia; “Meso” means middle, “potamia” you recognize the word Potomac as a river, “potamia” in Greek means rivers.  This project was coming together in the midst of the rivers and the rivers, of course, would be the great Euphrates River and the great Tigris River, Shinar.  It’s the same area that the children of Israel were taken into captivity later on in biblical history, Daniel 1:2.  [Daniel 1:2, “The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.”]

And they were coming together as one group in disobedience to the direct will and command of God and they were trying to construct a one-world system, a new world order, if you will, which is a system of politics, economics and religion which excludes God.  We know that they had excluded God because they were seeking to make a name for themselves.  Perhaps it was a form of works righteousness whereby the sinner thinks he can climb his way into heaven and into the presence of God.

Josephus, the first century historian, in his writings tells us that the reason these builders built this tower is they were saying to God we’re going to get so high on this tower that the flood, should it ever come again, is not going to affect us.  You can judge the world, God, as You did through the global flood but we’re going to make ourselves impervious to Your future judgment.  And so it was an exercise in humanism and self-absorption, without the mind of God, that these people were involved in. We know from this story that God intentionally disrupted the workers; He confused their languages so that they could not cooperate with one another and the whole project is stopped dead in its tracks.  And from this stalled project comes the great nations of the earth.  People that spoke one language went one direction; people that spoke a different language went a different direction.  We’re not told how many languages were created as a result of God’s confusion but this is the origin of the different nations, the different ethnicities and actually the origin of separate nations, not world government, but the nation-state.

Why did God stop them?  He says it in verse 6, “Now nothing  which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.”  As we have mentioned, if only one government exists on planet earth and it falls into the wrong hands, like an Adolf Hitler, a Saddam Hussein, a Fidel Castro, a Mussolini,  then there is no restraint against evil that can be ushered in.  But with the concept of multiple governments, if one government gets out of control the other nations can arise and check and balance the evil taking place within that one nation, sort of like the Allies did against Hitler in World War II.  Thank God for multiple nations!  Thank God a conglomeration of nations oppose the diabolical plans of Adolf Hitler.  Think if there weren’t any countervailing  influences; Hitler could have his way and do whatever he wanted.

And the reason God set this up this way is because of His view and understanding of human nature; He says in Genesis 8:21, not far from our context, “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”  [Genesis 8:21, “The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, ‘I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.’”]

So we need to take power and we need to de-centralize it because after all, “All power tends to corrupt” as Lord Acton said, “and absolute power corrupts” what? “absolutely.”  God is into divided power, not power centralized in a man, in this case they were trying to centralize power in the name of this man, Nimrod.

So what you discover in the Bible is after this incident the normal ordering of God in post-fall, post-flood humanity are different nations.  In fact, as you go through the Bible what you discover is many, many different references to different nations.  There are many, many verses I have on the screen there, Old Testament and New.   [Since Babel, Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26; Millennium, Isaiah  2:4; 66:18; Zechariah 14:16-18; Revelation 12:5; 20:3.  Eternal State, Revelation 21:24, 26.]

But one of the most profound is Acts 17:26, this is Paul’s address at Mars Hill and he makes reference to the doctrine of the nation-state that God established.  Paul says in that sermon, in Greece, “and He made from one man” that would be Adam, “every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.”

Deuteronomy 32:8 says, “When the Most High gave the nations” plural “their inheritance, When He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples…”  So apparently God is into, or wants this concept of individual nations as a way of restraining evil so that people can be protected from evil, that’s one of the great institutions of God, the nation-state, and they might live in some form of peace, not perfect peace, and they might, in their own individual nation seek God, and God would, of course, send information to these various nations about His Son and His plan of redemption.

But the concept of the nation-state is part of the design of God, it’s part of the order of God and it is one of the ways that the Creator has established, given our innate sin nature, of keeping evil in check.  Without the nation-state you have global government that could easily fall into the wrong hands or perhaps it falls into the right hands but the person running it become corrupted, which is easy to happen given the imperfectability of man’s sin nature.

And by the way, you see the concept of the nation-state many times mentioned even in the Millennial Kingdom.  Psalm 2:8 says this of Jesus, “Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations” plural “as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.”  It’s interesting, even into the eternal state, probably for different reasons, God allows the doctrine of the nation-state to continue.  He says, Revelation 21:24 “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.”  It’s almost as if that what happened at the tower of Babel is so severe that it formed a precedent for all ages to follow.  God restructured and reordered humanity.

Thus, to disrespect the doctrine of the nation-state is to disrespect God.  To rebel against the doctrine of the nation-state, to try to reduce it to something that God never intended it to be is actually to rebel against God Himself.

So that raises a pretty interesting question; what is the sine qua non of a nation.  You say what is he talking about, is he speaking in tongues up there, what is this sine qua non business?  It’s a Latin word; it simply means without which there is nothing.  In other words, what are the basic essentials that you have to have to call yourself a nation, and if you were to remove one of those essentials the whole thing would collapse and you wouldn’t be a nation any more.  What is the basement essential of a nation?  And most would agree a nation has to have three things or it can’t be a nation: number 1, a common language; number 2, a common culture, or set of values, and the third thing you need is borders, national borders.  You deny any one of those three things, whether it’s a common nation, a common culture or common borders and you really are no longer a nation.

So this begins to help us understand the mind of God on the whole subject of borders and on the whole subject of immigration to rebel against the concept of borders is to rebel against a decree that God Himself gave at the tower of Babel.

Now let’s ask another question here: why borders?  Why are borders so significant?  Why are borders so essential to a nation?  If you have what are called porous borders, if you have what are called open borders, and people enter the country at will without really understanding the values of a particular country, you begin to develop what are called parallel societies.  Another name for this is multiculturalism.  You’re watching the whole experiment in multiculturalism in Europe as I speak.  Don’t take my word for it, listen to the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  She says, “Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies and therefore remains a ‘life lie’ or a sham,” she said, “before adding that Germany may be reaching its limit in terms of accepting more refugees.”  She says, quote, “The challenge is immense, we want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably.”  On another occasion she said this:  “Of course the tendency had been to say, ‘Let’s adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living together with each other.’ But this concept has failed, and failed utterly.’”

And what she is referring to is this mass of migration into Europe, particularly from Islamic countries, people come into the culture not really respecting the culture, wanting to build their own society, a parallel society, a lot like what’s happening to a large extent in the United States of America where there are actually documented cases where the Muslims don’t want to function under American law; they want their own Sharia Law system.  Merkel is saying we’ve gone down that road, we’ve tried it and quite frankly, it hasn’t worked and beyond that it’s a miserable failure.

You see borders are necessary to prevent these parallel societies from developing, otherwise things become what we would call volcanized, where different languages start to emerge and one group is speaking one language within a culture, and another group is speaking another language within a culture and there is utter confusion; there is no common cultural cohesion which holds together the nation-state.

It’s a lot like the description that is given in the book of Daniel, chapter 2, verse 40 and following of the empire of the antichrist, which is described as iron and clay mixed together.  [Daniel 2:43, “And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.”]  The iron and the clay are of such a different substance; they are of such a different component that they don’t hold together properly.  A true nation can have no such thing or else it really is not a nation.

Bryan Fisher, a writer, says this: “No one has a constitutional or moral right to immigrate to the United States.  The Constitution gives Congress unilateral authority to decide what conditions those from foreign lands are admitted in our country.”  What he’s saying is it is within the right of a nation to control how to and under what circumstances people can pass through the border and become legalized citizens.

Now when you begin to talk like this I know what you’re thinking: boy, Andy, you’re going to have a tough week with e-mail this week because you’re going to be called basically every name in the book.  Here are the common ones: Number 1, you’re a racist; number 2, you are a bigot, and then my personal favorite, you’re xenophobic, phobia is, as you know, is an irrational fear, when they call you xenophobic or even homophobic they’re basically saying you’re insane, you’re not dealing with a full deck, you’re one taco shy of a platter.  Xenophobia is the idea that you have this irrational hatred of other people groups entering the country and you’re just completely in love with your own country and your own culture.

I would like to counter that by mentioning something extremely important.  The fact of the matter is America is the most generous country in the world when it comes to legal immigration.  America accepts more immigrants than any other nation on planet earth; in fact, if you want the numbers on this America accepts over eight hundred thousand legal immigrants a year.  All of us are descendants of immigrants; nobody is down on immigrants.  We’re drawing a distinction here between legal and illegal, because you see, when somebody goes through the proper steps and stands in line and goes through the proper education they’re entering a society promising not to fundamentally transform that society but to function within the boundaries and the borders and the common culture and common values with that society.  That’s why legal immigrants are given tests and exams about the United States Presidents, our Constitution, The Declaration of Independence and other founding documents of the United States of America.

But you see, illegal immigration is a different world.  Under the rubric of the illegal immigration you can pass through a country’s borders and you could have no respect for that host country.  Or in fact, you can have an agenda in mind to shift or change that fundamental structure of that country.  And that’s why there is a reaction today, not against legal immigration but against illegal immigration.

Borders, in a certain sense, function like a doctrinal statement of a church.  Sugar Land Bible Church has a doctrinal statement.  We have a statement of faith, and we have position statements, and that way if you want to join this church or you want to become a participating member of this church  you know the type of teaching and the type of doctrine that you will receive here because it’s all very well spelled out, laid out I think in very meticulous detail.  And so we do not grant membership to people in Sugar Land Bible Church (with perhaps some very limited exceptions) if they have some fundamental disagreement with the doctrinal statement.  And perhaps they  may have a fundamental disagreement with a doctrinal statement but are you going to come into this church and create what I would call a parallel society?  This church believes in the Trinity, suddenly you’ve got a group forming over here that doesn’t believe in the Trinity and now you have a lack of cohesion amongst the body of Christ.  What prevents that at Sugar Land Bible Church is a doctrinal statement.  Those that enter America must adhere to the rules of our culture which we have a right to set up, our doctrinal statement.  That is our common set of values, common language, and common borders.

Now let’s just throw out the concept of borders for a minute; then what happens?  Danger, danger happens!   Let me ask you a question: do you, in your house, where you live, do you just keep the door wide open and let anybody come in and out at will?  Of course you don’t; that would be crazy to do something like this.  We all instinctively understand that we let certain people into our home, others we may not let into our home because I, as a homeowner,  have a right to protect myself, my property and my family.  That’s what the nation-state under God is allowed to do.  Otherwise you can have people passing through a border that have nefarious motives.

For example, like we saw recently in Paris; the recent attack in Paris is largely believed to have been instigated by at least some un-vetted Syrian refugees, I don’t mind Syrian refugees that are vetted, but this is talking about un-vetted Syrian refugees that had crossed the national border.  If ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the Paris attack can infiltrate the un-vetted Syrian refugees coming into Europe the great fear among Americans is that ISIS has similarly infiltrated the Syrian refugees now pouring across the American border and into the United States.

If you don’t have an enforceable border you deny safety.  Who here has heard of the Beltway Sniper, Lee Malvo, let’s not forget the Beltway Sniper who killed ten Americans and injured three during his 2002 shooting spree.  Let’s not forget that he was an illegal, not legal, illegal immigrant from Jamaica after being arrested in 2001 he was not deported but was released without bond.  Ten Americans would be alive today had this individual been properly deported.  We’re not talking about racism; we’re not talking about xenophobia, we’re not talking about an irrational fear of people that may have a different accent or skin color than we may have here in the United States.  We’re talking about common sense.

And one of the great tragedies of our day and of our society is we have so bought into the concept of political correctness that common sense thinking has disappeared.  And we need to begin to go back to the Bible, we need to go back to God’s Word and see that God actually has something to say about this concept of the nation-state.

I would say this, and I, of course, have compassion for anybody that would enter the country with the hope of bettering their lives.   This country has been so good to me individually, and my family, and many of you that I would wish it, if I could, on every person on planet earth.  But the fact of the matter is this: if someone has entered the country illegally, has not shown proper respect for the unique culture and language and heritage and borders of the United States of America, I would say this, that they are directly violating the will of God in their actions, because my Bible says that we, as Christians, should submit to the laws of the land.  Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-17, Titus 3:1.

And the last time I checked one of those legitimate laws of the land was a borders law and policy. Titus 3:1 says, “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed.”  And I know there’s all sorts of words of compassion and bettering one’s self tossed in the direction of illegal immigrants but there’s a reason we call them illegal immigrants; they have not submitted to the laws of the land.  They find themselves in violation of multiple New Testament passages.

And beyond that, if somebody will not respect the laws of the land when entering the country how in the world can they be trusted to keep the rest of the laws of the land once they are in the country.  And it sets up a precedent, if you will, for a disrespect for the law and a discarding of the legal system of a culture.  That’s where we find ourselves today.  We find ourselves outside of (in the way we think about this) the will of God and the mind of God.

And you say wow, this is pretty heavy stuff.  Certainly there are some objections, aren’t there?  The fact of the matter is there are plenty of objections to what I just said.  Some of them are articulated by visible key public figures using the Bible.  If you’ll indulge me I’m going to try to address some of those.   The fact of the matter is 1200 people, 1200 individuals daily, every day, come across the Rio Grande River and enter our country illegally.  Most, some, are of Hispanic descent, others are what are called OTM’s, Other Than Mexican, Middle Eastern, who knows what country these people have come from, who knows if they are some sort of adherent to some sort of violent Jihadist concept, like Islam.  And this is the reality that we face.  And it’s a very frustrating issue to look at because nobody seems to want to do anything about it.  One group of people, and perhaps one particular party likes the idea because it’s cheap labor for our businesses.  Perhaps another group or another political party likes the whole idea because we can get these people registered to vote and we think they’re going to vote for us the next time around.   So one party won’t do much about, with very few exceptions; the other party won’t do much about it.

Now the globalist that I mentioned last week, the one-worlders, the people that think that the problems of the world can only be solved through the implementation of a one-world government are all about the erasing of borders.  They are about conglomerating nations into what are called regions.  I quoted this well-known globalist, Henry Steele Commager, who wrote this: “The inescapable fact, traumatized by the energy crisis, the population crisis, armaments race, and so forth, is that nationalism” in other words what God established at the tower of Babel, “nationalism as we have noted in the 19^th and much of the 20^th century is as much of an anachronism today as with States Rights when Calhoun preached it and Jefferson Davis fought against it.  Just as we know, or should know, that none of our domestic problems can be solved within the artificial boundaries of the states, so none of our global problems can be solved within the largely artificial boundaries of the nations.”  [cited in The New World Order, page 147]

This is what you call globalist thought, globalist think, and what they say is it’s true that at one time in America the 50 states had the power but they had to kind of grow up, they had to evolve, they had to over time cede more and more of their authority to a giant federal government (that I like to call Fedzilla) and the states needed to submit to the authority of the federal government or the national government and that’s how we were able to solve a lot of our problems in America.  That’s how these people think.  So they are not in favor of what we call state’s rights, the way our Founding Fathers set up our Constitution and form of government.  The 10^th Amendment makes it very clear, the power is really to reside with the individual state government.

In fact, The Federalist Papers say the power of federal government is few and defined; the power of the state governments are numerous and indefinite.  Any honest study of American history will show that our Founding Fathers wanted power decentralized, kind of like what God did at the tower of Babel.  But you see, all of that has been reversed.  State governments have less and less power and the federal government has more and more power, and globalists are saying we need to see that same process work its way out at the international level.

All of these individual countries, like for example, the United States of America, need to bow and acquiesce to some sort overarching global framework.  American officials need to take their primary ques, not from the people that elected them, but rather from a global coalition, global thought.  And if you believe that that means you believe that the people you voted into office are really not responsible to  you; they’re responsible to the international community.  This is the wave of globalism so prominent in our time.  And if that’s the way I think, I don’t really care about borders of America, I don’t really care about the borders of Mexico, I don’t care about the borders of Canada, I really don’t care about the borders between the individual European states.  What I want to do is I want to regionalize those areas.

So Jean Monet, who is largely thought of as the father of the European Union, and I hope you understand this, that the tiny European nation-states really have very little power today.  They are largely what I would call debating societies.  The real source of power is in Brussels, which reigns over the region of Europe; this is the reaction that you just saw called Brexit, where the British got tired of this and voted themselves out.  I’m tired of somebody that I don’t even know, somebody I don’t vote for, somebody in some tiny removed part of Europe telling me how loud my lawnmower can be, how much gas I can put in my car.  And this is the concept of regionalism.  If you are into regionalism you really don’t care about the doctrine of the nation-state or the doctrine of the borders.  In fact, many of the things that I’m saying here today from the Scripture would be viewed as a thwarting of progress.

Jean Monet, the architect of the European Union said just that: “The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present; they cannot insure their own progress or control their own future.  And the European community itself” watch this, “is only a stage on the way to the organized world of tomorrow.”  [Jean Monet, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday, 1978), 524.]

Let’s form several regions around the world, let’s pick a random number, let’s form ten regions.  Oh my gosh, that sounds a lot like Daniel 2, doesn’t it?  And Daniel 7, a ten-king confederacy reigning over the earth that the antichrist himself will actually subdue and reign over.  First we move into regions, then we move into globalism and one of the great impediments along the way is not just nationalism, not just patriotism but it is the concept of borders which have to be erased.  You see, if you are arguing for borders from the Scripture, as I am arguing today, you are arguing against both political parties (I realize there are some exceptions) that really don’t want to hear what you have to say.  You’re also arguing against the regional global direction that the elites are pushing us in.

And the question is, do these elites have arguments?  In fact, they have a lot of arguments.  In fact, they are so sophisticated with their argument that they actually begin to quote the Bible.  Isn’t that interesting, in a political controversy people will start quoting the Bible?  Why are they quoting the Bible?  They’re quoting the Bible because they are seeking a source of authority for their argument.

David French describes or summarizes these elites, quoting the Bible to argue against borders in the nation-state; writing in the Guardian, French says, Giles Frazier declared that there was no (quote) ‘“no respectable Christian argument for fortress Europe, surrounded by a new iron curtain of razor wire to keep poor dark-skinned people out.”  So that obviously conjures up imagery of Auschwitz barbed-wire fences, and the fact that he mentions here “dark-skinned people” means that if  you believe in this concept of the borders you actually are inherently racist.

French goes on and he says his theological argument is, notice how spiritual these quotes get, “that the Passover and the Eucharist are a call to relive basic human solidarity with the refugee in the face of existential fear and uncertainty.”  Then they go on, they quote Jesus, “Indeed, Jesus’ flight to Egypt” I assume they’re referring there to Matthew 1, Matthew 2, “Jesus’ flight to Egypt was” (quote) “deliberately sampling the basic foundational myth of the Exodus.”  Close quote.

Mark Woods, a Baptist pastor, by the way, no connection to me whatsoever, Mark Woods, a Baptist pastor referred to (quote) “the stark and terrifying parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus decrees ‘depart from Me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” this guy sounds like a fundamentalist, “because I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me.”  [close quote]

Think Progress, the name of a group, used the same Scripture to condemn Christian governors who oppose allowing Syrian refugees into their states.

And then the President of the  United States, I think it was Gabe, said did you see the President’s speech and I said no, I try not to watch his speeches, but it was an important speech because he was doing what we call executive amnesty where with the stroke of a pen he made legal five million illegals in the country… executive amnesty, no oversight from Congress, no official law was passed, the President just decided to do that and he gave a speech defending it.  And Gabe said he’s quoting the Bible when he does this.  I said  you’re kidding, he’s quoting the Bible to defend executive amnesty?  Then all of a sudden, as a Bible student I got interested.  How is he using the Bible to do this unilateral act?

President Obama himself used biblical imagery to taunt opponents of his refugee resettlement program as (quote) “scared of orphans and widows,” (close quote).  “As a general matter advocates of open borders often refer to the Mosaic law requiring the Israelites to treat the ‘foreigner residing with you’ as if foreigners were ‘native-born’ and to ‘Love them as you love yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.’  The laws of Israel, they point out, applied equally to the ‘foreigner’ and the ‘native born.’”  [http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427278//syrian-refugees-bible-argument-against]

So suddenly we’re being subjected to these various verses from the Old Testament that indicate that the nation of Israel was to be kind and compassionate to the foreigner living in their midst, because after all, you yourselves were once a foreigner.  I want you to understand how deep this thinking is in the minds of people.  They’re not quoting Genesis 10, they’re not quoting Genesis 11, they’re spuriously and rapidly going through the Bible and they’re throwing verses together to justify a globalist open-borders policy.

This even came up in one of the Presidential debates, very early on, I think it was in Las Vegas, all of the Presidential candidates for the Republican side were in a debate and a question came up.  This question was asked by a college student.  And I want you to hear this question because this is the type of indoctrination that the youth are under constantly.  This actually comes from CNN, Wolf Blitzer, he says: “We have another question from Facebook, let’s listen.”  Here comes the question.  “My name is” so and so, I don’t know if I need to read the person’s name, I’ll give you the university, “I’m from the University of Texas at Austin and my question is directed to the candidates.”  Here’s the question: “If the Bible clearly states that we need to embrace those in need and not fear, how can we justify not accepting refugees?  How can you Republicans argue that we should be enforcing our borders because the Bible,” notice how spiritual this is, “the Bible clearly indicates that we need not fear, or should not fear the foreigner or the stranger amongst us.”

You see, what we need to understand is we are watching the rise of the religious left.  When I was a kid growing up in the 80’s the big deal was the religious right.  It was Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell and others that were quoting the Bible to promote a conservative right wing sort of political agenda.  That was the issue.  But that’s changed; you’re not seeing any more the religious right, if the religious right exists any more, they have diminished an influence.  What you’re seeing is the religious left.  What you’re seeing is people who selectively quote the Bible to promote a highly progressive or liberal agenda.  This is the exact sort of thing that’s happening on this issue of the border.  So the President of the  United States gives a speech.  Here’s part of the speech; in Obama’s speech defending executive amnesty, his decision, Obama referenced the quote from Exodus 23:9, “Scripture tells us that, ‘We shall not oppress a stranger for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too.’”

In fact, let me give you the main verses that the religious left uses over and over again to promote an open borders policy.   Number 1, they use Exodus 23:9, you might want to jot these down because if you’ve got youth in your house the subject will come up.  Exodus 23:9 which I just read.

Number 2, they quote Exodus 22:21,  which says, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Number 3, they quote the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 19:34,  I can think of some really juicy things in Leviticus 19 that they don’t quote, but they quote verse 34, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.”  And then they quote Deuteronomy 10:19, which says, “So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”  After decades of saying separation of church and state, keep the Bible out of public policy, keep the Bible out of the public schools, all of a sudden everybody’s gotten biblical.

Exodus 23:9, Exodus 22:21; Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10:19, your average Christian hears that from their teenager and they just sit their flatfooted and they have no response.   I want to give you the response: here’s the response—those verses need to be understood in the framework of the nation-state that God Himself ordained in Genesis 10 and Genesis 11.  Let’s not start the discussion and the conversation with passages in the Mosaic Law that relate to a nation, the nation of Israel; let’s start the discussion in God’s blueprint for the nation-state going all the way back to Genesis 10 and 11.  Now you start to see why there’s such a concerted attempt to get rid of Genesis 1-11.   Genesis 1-11 has been disproven scientifically because of evolution; we’ve been told that for decades.  Once you get Genesis 10 and Genesis 11 out of your thinking the doctrine of the nation-state and God’s blueprint for the nation-state disappears.  So people want to start reading the Bible late in the game.

Furthermore, how about this Hebrew word translated “stranger.”  What about this Hebrew word translated “alien” found in Exodus 22:21; Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10:19.  Can we look at that word for a minute?  James Hoffmeier, scholar, in his book, The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible translates the dictionary definition of the word, you might want to know the word, it’s the word ger.  That’s the Hebrew word translated “stranger and alien” in all of these passages.  What does that word mean?  Quoting Hoffmeier, “One who entered Israel and followed legal procedures to obtained recognized standing as a resident alien.”

It isn’t talking about a terrorist; it isn’t talking about someone who circumvented the right that any country has to establish its own borders. It’s not talking about an illegal.  It’s talking about somebody who enters the land of Israel acknowledging the common language, common culture, and the borders concept.  Let me read that definition to you again, because this is something you need to share with your teenager, who’s getting a totally different picture of this from their college professor.  “One who entered Israel and followed legal procedures to obtained recognized standing as a resident alien.”

If you want to understand what these passages are talking about in terms of aliens entering the country, you need look no further than the Moabitess, Ruth.  Remember the story of Ruth?  Ruth, the Moabitess, who had Naomi as her mother-in-law and Ruth converted from being a Moabitess to being an Israeli.  Notice Ruth 1:16, notice what it says: “But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be” what? “my people, and your God will be” what, “my God.’”

One of the greatest stories of immigration in the entire Bible is the conversion of the Moabitess, Ruth, as she makes that statement, “Your people will be my people, your God will be my God,” she is fulfilling what that word “alien” and “stranger” actually means in the Scripture, one who entered Israel and followed what we would call today legal procedures to attain recognized standing as a resident alien.  Ruth, I can guarantee this much, was not a terrorist, she was not someone who entered the land of Israel with the agenda of changing, fundamentally transforming the culture, she was fulfilling largely what we today would call legal immigration.

Did you know God Himself enforced borders in the land of Israel?  You say does the Bible say that?  Yes it does, look, if you will, at the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 23 and verse 3, I guarantee your teenager doesn’t know this verse either,  Deuteronomy 23:3, “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants,” look at this, “even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD.”  Now where was Moab?  Where was Ammon?  Those were border states of the nation of Israel.  Because of the sinful practices of the Ammonites and the Moabites God enforced the border.  You’re not going to enter, and He names a particular group, He names a particular nation and He says this policy holds up to the tenth generation, which is a long time.

Bryan Fischer explains this concept and these verses as follows:  “It emerged over the weekend that there are staggering 1000 active, ongoing investigations into ISIS-affiliated Muslims right here, right now in the United States.”  Do we understand that there are people in the borders of this country that never passed through the immigration process or deceived their way through the immigration process.  And in fact, are in the country, not all, but many to cause damage and harm.  Look at what happened recently, was it in Orlando; look at what recently happened in San Bernardino.  Look at what happened in Paris not too long ago.  I mean, we need to wake up and see what’s happening in this country and we need to, as the body of Christ, not just sit there flat-footed and acquiesce any time someone quotes the Bible to support their position.  God has spoken on this.

There are active ISIS investigations in all 50 states; simple prudence dictates that until those cases can be wrapped up all of them, we should not add to the case load by bringing more possible Jihadies into the country; it’s a form of political insanity and suicide to do anything else.  While some may argue that this is cold-hearted, I like to say racist, bigoted and demophobic, let’s not forget that God did exactly the same thing with the ancient Moabites, quote, “No Ammonite nor Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation.  None of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever “because they did not meet you with bread and water on the way [when you came out of Egypt] and because they hired against you, Balaam, the son of Beor.”  [Deuteronomy 23:4] Because of their sins God says they’re not entering, an entire nation, two of them.

Fischer goes on and he says, “because of their ancient and abiding hostility towards Israel God banned the Moabites along with the Ammonites from the assembly of Israel for 10 generations.  Such a biblical generation was about 40 years.  This was essentially a permanent ban on Moabite immigration, even though they shared a common border with Israel.  Bottom line: even if banning immigration from hostile nations was acceptable to God it certainly ought to be acceptable to us.  Now rare exceptions certainly can be made. The Moabitess Ruth was welcomed in Israel, in part because she committed herself to full cultural and religious assimilation. “Your people shall by my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16).

What am I trying to do here?  I’m trying to change the way we think about issues of the culture.  I’m trying to, instead of tolerating selective treatments from the Bible about something, which is what we get propagandized with routine, I’m trying to get back at what God says.  A question for any candidate for office is do they favor the reality and the enforceability of our national borders?  Because if they don’t, number 1, and they have more of a globalist, porous, open-borders mindset, number 1 they are denying a basic fundamental that we have to be a nation.  If you can’t enforce  your borders you’re even a country anymore.

Number 2, they are denying the paradigm of God that He ordained at the tower of Babel.  God Himself is the author of the nation-state; an open borders mentality is a rebellion against the decree of God.

And number 3, they are selectively using the Bible; they’re not even understanding what those Old Testament passage that they so commonly quote, what those passages even mean.  They haven’t done any lexical work on this word ger, or sojourner, and they’re not paying attention at all to the context of those passages, ignoring the story of Ruth and so forth.

Let’s not think Republican or Democrat, let’s not think right or left, let’s think Bible.  Let’s begin to apply the Bible to every area of life, which has been my goal in this series.  I tried to lay out the case, the biblical case for border enforcement, I tried to show you what the objections are, a quick view for the days in which we live and the battles which lie ahead.Scroll to top

Shall we pray.  Father, I pray that You will continue to illuminate and direct us as we go through this very difficult and delicate study, trying to be not politically correct but biblically correct, trying to apply the Bible to every area of life.  I pray, Father, You will be with us next week as we talk about America’s relationship with the nation of Israel and why that nation is so significant. We’ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name.  And God’s people said Amen.