Measuring the Man: God’s Way

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Dr. James Spencer

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 3/12/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand in the Gap Today. Along with special and returning guests, Dr. James Spencer, he’s the founder and the president of the Useful to God ministry and also president of the DL Moody Center. It’s our hope and prayer today that we can help to encourage and to equip all of you who are listening to me right now with a more complete understanding and application. I’m going to say a foundational biblical principles and truth in an area impacting, I believe, every God fearing and patriotic person in America today. And you say, “Well, what is that? ” Well, it’s a challenge that I think is impacting all people today, but it’s not unique to Americans alone here in 2026. It is increasingly though an undeniable reality as our nation is experiencing, I’m going to say, the consequences in literally every institution of society and throughout our culture.

And the reality is that our nation has rejected absolute truth in all areas of culture from the political, the determination of law and justice to education, finance, economics, family, and religion. And we’ve talked about this extensively in other programs. What I just said there is not new. Our nation, by a 94% majority, and I’ve shared this before as well, our nation by 94% majority, that’s an astounding number, have embraced the godless religion of syncretism. Now, how do we know that? Well, that’s a result of research of Dr. George Barna. And it’s been very, very well confirmed and he’s studied that for some time. And again, we’ve talked about that on this program. One significant impact of that reality, 94% embracing syncretism as the religion of the day, is that only 6% of Americans hold a biblical worldview. Now, that 6% biblical worldview is the necessary part for the real maintenance of our nation, our representative republic, because you can’t do it without that.

The question is, how can we recalibrate our thinking today? To what do we recalibrate our thinking? What questions must we ask and what issues must we consider if we don’t want to further enable the collapse of our once great nation and want to do that, which only God can grant, and that is blessing and respect and greatness, because God brings those things, blessing, respect, and greatness. So how do we go about recalibrating our thinking about how we should personally live? How should we go about measuring the performance of people ourselves, starting with ourselves, but people in leadership positions, ranging from those who may be in economics to religious leaders, and particularly the very visible political leaders since government in our day dominates the news and the policies and the decisions most greatly impacting our nation, our economy, and our family life. Well, these are critical questions and they’re our answers.

We’re not going to be able to deal with all of these today, but we want to give it at some of them in the core. So the title I’ve chosen to frame our conversation today is simply this, Measuring the Man God’s Way. Now, I took that concept measuring the man in the concept of others, but also ourself. And with that, I welcome back to the program, Dr. James Spencer. James, thanks for being back with me today.

James Spencer:

Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam. It’s good to be here.

Sam Rohrer:

James, in my introduction, I presented a few sobering statistics. We’ve talked about it before by Dr. George Barney where we talk 6% of Americans embrace a biblical worldview. 94% embrace a form of idolatry and false religion referred to as syncretism. Strangely, about 70% of Americans self-identify as Christians. That sounds good, but only 3% think, choose, and live according to God’s plans. That’s not good. Now, to me, this presents the foundation for great confusion and the challenge that we see facing America today. And I think, I mean, it’s undeniable. The challenge to me is that it can be reduced to this. Who is really the authority in America? And who is the authority in individuals Americans lives? Is the word of God or the word of man or some politician or some religious leader? Okay. We get the idea. So here’s a question I want to start with you is in simplest terms, how would you describe the greatest challenge facing America today and individual Americans today?

Is it kind of like what I’m painting or shape it or rephrase it however you’d like?

James Spencer:

No, I think it is. I go back to, I would make the analogy with the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. This is a Pharaoh who’s trying to run a country and he’s looking out and he’s seeing the multiplication of the Israelites and he misrecognizes the growth and multiplication of the Israelites as a problem when really it is an outworking of God’s blessing. And so because his interpretive framework leads him to see Israel as a threat, he then gets himself in a situation where he’s working against God. I think initially he does that out of ignorance and then later does that out of just willful rebellion. But ultimately the problem was that he’s sitting under an authority that he doesn’t recognize. And so for us in America today, I think that’s perennially the problem of the human race. We’re setting under authority and authority, the triune God, that we don’t recognize.

And so in America today, when we think about how that works itself out, it works itself out in at least two ways. Number one, we are considered to be sovereign individuals. That’s what liberalism is all about, this political philosophy where authority is vested in the individual to make their own choices. And yes, there are a certain degree where the government and the founding of the United States, as we’ve talked before, Sam, defines you’re to use this freedom to do certain things. There are opts out there that should curtail what you choose to do. But ultimately, without God, without a true fear of the triune God, a recognition of his authority, a commitment to live under that authority, which we call discipleship in the Christian church,

Without those things, anything else that you attune yourself to, that you try to live according to is going to be relatively brittle. It’s not going to be as durable as you need it to. It’s not going to provide the sure hope that you want it to. It’s going to crumble because it’s just not right. And so I think that’s the big challenge that we’re facing in America today is that we’ve replaced the authority of the triang God with sub authorities, perhaps some of those that he’s even put into place and we’re placing too much trust in those things. It’s almost as if you have a cane with a crack in it and you’re trying to put all your weight on it and that cane just won’t support it. I think that’s the picture that we have right now. We’re trying to lean and depend on things that simply cannot support our weight.

And that’s creating a lot of existential anxiety. It’s creating a lot of problems. And what we need to do is get back to basics, particularly as the Christian community and start trusting God and really depending on him regardless of outcomes. Our job is not to manipulate the world. Our job is to live faithfully in a world that needs God to fix it. And so I would sort of frame the problem and challenge that America is facing just like that. We’ve lost the sense that God is actually still in charge.

Sam Rohrer:

And with that comes the requirement to trust him, doesn’t it? I mean, the tendency, ladies and gentlemen, think about the tendency, and we’ll go more into it here. The tendency of Israel of old was to, well, we want somebody who’s tall and handsome. Doing what this God we cannot see, that’s a little difficult. We’d rather follow somebody that we can see. All right, that’s a little bit that’s involved it, but we’re going to start walking through here now. The foundation will talk about blueprint and the starting point for all of this now. Well, if you’re just joining us, welcome aboard today. My special guest today is a returning guest to Dr. James Spencer. He is the president of the Useful to God Ministry, and they have a website at usefultogod.com. Now he’s also the president of the DL, Moody Center, two different missions, but they overlap a lot in what they do.

And the theme, the title I’ve chosen to frame today’s discussion is Measuring the Man, God’s Way. Now, what’s the meaning of that? Well, it’s the idea that, as we talked about in the last segment, that across America today, particularly, and we’re focusing on Americans. I know there are people listening to this program that are in other countries beyond America, but it’s a good microcosm for us to consider here today because we have a unique position here in America. We have the ability to vote for people. A lot of places don’t and never have had an opportunity to vote other countries, but we also have a consideration of for those who know who God is, and in this country, 70% say they are Christians, self-identify, but only about 3% of them, 3%, actually think and make choices consistent with biblical truth. That’s a remarkable difference. 94% of Americans, according George Barnes surveys, embrace not the religion of Christianity.

Even though 70% of them say they do, they embrace a piece of Christianity, but also a piece of new ageism and atheism or Hinduism. They mix it together. That is called syncretism. So we’ve come up with a new religion. And again, we’ve talked about that much on other programs, but it has impacts and consequences. And one of those is, how do we think about what’s going on? How do we measure what we think? Do we even consider the fact that we will have to give an account for what we do? And then that carries over as can we then, if we can measure ourself, how do we do that? Man’s way? God’s way. And then can we extend that over to say, well then can we measure those who are in positions of authority throughout society, including those who are in political office? Can we measure them?

Well, okay, that’s really the idea we’re trying to answer. And there is a starting point. So here’s where I’d like to go on this. Just looking back, throughout human civilization from the temptation of Eve, they’re in the Garden of Eden by the serpent, we all know that story, he asked a persuasive question and he said, “Half God said…” So he questioned the authority of God to Eve, she fell. And Adam went along with her. And in that context, then God went and he chose Israel and the Jews as a people to be a light to the nations. They sometimes were successful, but overall they were a failure. They failed to be a light to the Gentile nation with the Bible says was God’s purpose. And so the question has always existed and remained, I think, the same for every individual and every nation right up to the day.

And this is the question that God posed to Israel, his people. And he poses it to us today. Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 19 and 20. Let me read these two verses. It says this, God says, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing, and curse. Therefore, choose life that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.” All right, that’s a really poignant question. And it’s in this very verse that an internal truth is raised that applies to our nation today, and it was actually this verse that was identified and adopted by our early founder, John Winthrop. He quoted that verse. So the application of it was to Israel, but it is us today.

And it’s this question that confronts every individual today, and that’s where we want to start. James, let’s build the foundation further in regard to how we should evaluate ourselves and others by looking at what God says. He put out that choice, understanding that in the end, any nation really is the sum total of its individual citizens. So it starts with the individual, but there was a singular conclusion and expression, I would say, of that choice that must be made by every person and every age. And I like to go to the one that’s contained in Ecclesiastes 12:13 where King Solomon kind of summed up his whole kingship and matters of life. And he laid out a conclusion. You want to share that a little bit and the application that it would still have for us today here?

James Spencer:

Sure. Yeah. Ecclesiastes 12:13 is, it reads, “Now all have been heard. Here’s the conclusion of the matter. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the duty of all mankind.” Now, we might be thinking, well, there were a lot of folks even in Israel’s day who weren’t privy to all of God’s commandments, and we’d be right about that. So much of this that happens within the covenant is revelatory. Israel is being given information that the other nations just simply don’t have. Israel is supposed to be living these things out. The other nations are supposed to see that. They’re supposed to get curious and they’re supposed to come to Israel and find out what’s happening. And so what I think Solomon is expressing here is this underlying reality, what I like to call the governing dynamics of reality, is that no matter what we think will work for the world, the governing dynamics of reality are always fear the Lord and keep his commandments.

We see this beautifully in one Samuel 14, Israel has asked for a king. Solomon comes back after God tells him to go ahead because they’re not rejecting Solomon, they’re rejecting God. And Solomon says, “Okay, we’re going to give you your king, but here’s the deal. You have to fear the Lord and keep his commandments, and so does your king.” And to the extent that you do that, things will go well for you. To the extent that you don’t do that, thinks you’re going to go poorly. And so the change in structure, governance structure didn’t matter. The leader didn’t matter. The underlying dynamic was, are you going to fear the Lord or are you not going to feel the Lord? That never changes. So as we think about that in application to our nation where we’re going to have a lot of folks who are elected to offices who are representatives, who are presidents, what have you, who don’t really know the Lord.

They aren’t followers of Jesus Christ, they don’t have the Holy Spirit. How do we think about this in that context? And the way I would describe it, I think is the way that Augustine really goes at this. The first he says, there’s a difference between the city of man and the city of God. The city of man, it can’t become the city of God. It’s always going to be the city of man, but you can have a healthier city of man or you can have a sicker city of man.

And so what we’re looking for is a healthier city of man. And that city of man is going to be based on the idea that the leaders are going to conform to the good, the true and the beautiful, these basic general revelation things where they’re recognized the appropriate ordering of the world and in that they fear God. The city of God is really what the church is involved with. This is building out the kingdom of God and because we know who Jesus is, we’re connected to him, we have the Holy Spirit within us, we’re now building the kingdom of God. And we do that through discipleship, by encouraging people to sit under the authority of Christ through conversion. And so our job as the church is to continually point those who are put in charge of us back to God’s standard. We’re constantly pushing them to see that they sit underneath the authority of the triumph God.

We’re constantly encouraging them to recognize Jesus’ lordship. That’s the church’s job. The politician’s job is to look out and say, “There’s an order here. There’s an appropriate order here.” And their job, and our job by extension, is to help them see the order that they can recognize and to align the nation with it. Now again, that is not an ultimate solution. One of my favorite verses to cite in this kind of conversation is Genesis 15:16. We’re all familiar with Genesis 15: six. Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness. But Genesis 15:16 comes at the end of God telling Abraham that his descendants will sojourn in a land that is not their own for 400 years. And he said, “Then he will bring them into the land of Canaan because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” And so what we see here in that context is that the Amorites are living in the land and God is going to give them 400 years before they’ve reached the limit of his tolerance and he’s going to bring the Israelites in to displace them.

These structures can be healthy, they can be healthy for a time, but they won’t be healthy forever.

And so our job, again, is build the kingdom of God, encourage the kingdom of the city of man to be as healthy as it possibly can be. And we do that by pointing them to God’s order and helping them understand what these biblical standards are and voting for them, encouraging them, doing everything we can to get them to live those out from a political perspective.

Sam Rohrer:

I think that’s excellent, James. And in that verse that you quoted from Eclesias 12:13, is the aspect that our founders are believing founders, because all of our founders were not believers, but believing founders understood the part that all would give an account to God individually and those in office. And that’s what King Solomon says, “For God will bring every work into judgment with every secret thing.” That aspect of judgment and accountability is critical in this whole process, is it not?

James Spencer:

It is. You have a lot of things in the … I can remember, I believe it was actually the Pennsylvania State Constitution, although I may have to check my sources on this, but there was a point where there used to be a religious test for government service, and it involved professing that the Old and New Testaments were the inspired word of God. That was ultimately changed, but the language that was left was that there is a higher power of God who is going to judge you in the afterlife.

Sam Rohrer:

And

James Spencer:

So this idea of divine judgment and accountability was crucial even after some of the more specifically Christian elements were stripped away.

Sam Rohrer:

All right, ladies and gentlemen, so there is a foundation starts individually. We make a choice, we know we’re going to give an account to God, and then it extends from that level to a national level. Consider that next. If you’re just joining us, our theme today is we’re calling it measuring the man God’s way. And my special guest is Dr. James Spencer. He’s the president of the Useful to God ministry, and he has a website at usefultogod.com. A lot of things you can find there, so I encourage you to, if you have a chance to take and visit that site. But we’re looking at this matter of, well, culture, that which is around us, chosen to go this direction because in our days there is such confusion, so much deception, so much of what we hear people say, or media say, or whatever comes into our ear or eye gate being made and said by people that influence our lives.

And so as people, and I’m speaking not to God fearing people, particularly God fearing people now in this, we can be confused as well. And we should not be because the word of God speaks to everything. And so we’re looking today at this aspect of how do we measure ourselves? And we just covered a point about the fact that starting at the very foundational aspect is that every person will give an account to God. That’s what Solomon said at the end of Ecclesiastes 12:13. After he concluded the whole matter of life, looked at it and said two things, fear of God, the duty, whole duty of man. Fear of God and keep his commandment for this is the whole duty of man. Why? Because God is going to bring every work into judgment with every secret thing. All right. The judgment of God, the fact that we’re going to stand before God one day is an eternal divine fact.

Now, we either choose to understand that or we don’t. If we do, then we talked about this. God told Israel as the pattern I’ve put before you today, two paths. One leads to life, one leads to cursing. And he says, “Please choose the one that leads to life because with that, meaning fearing God and keeping its commandments, from that will come blessing. But if you deny, reject me, embrace idolatry and all kinds of things and rebel and go your own way, then you’re going to end up with cursing.” Now that works out in reality in an individual’s life, but you put individuals together into a large enough group and it may be a nation. All right. Now, going from there, looking at a national perspective, because here it is, if you’re listening to me right now, mostly unless you’re listening to this program in Africa or some other places that carry this program, you’re an American citizen.

So with that, I’m speaking to that group. But in the end, we know from God’s perspective, it’s God who raises up nations also and he raises up nation’s leaders and he puts them down. God said that. All right, so we have to believe that. He makes no distinction between a nation who fears God or a wicked nation born of corruption and greed. He raises up nations and he puts them down, but it’s their choice of whether or not they’re going to be blessed or cursed. So according to God’s plans, he has established and ranked in order all authority. The individual, that’s why we started with the individual, then the family, civil authority, church authority, where do we get that from? Romans 13 makes it very clear. There is no authority other than what God has established. God is ultimate authority and no legitimate authority that operates outside his order.

That’s what that whole section means. There in Romans 13, particularly one through six or so. Anything that acts like Satan is in rebellion and will be judged by God because all persons in their individual capacity to all people in positions of authority, parents, employers, kings, others, they will give an account to God also for what they do and how they do their duty in that position. So since God, we know also has bequeathed all authority to Jesus Christ, when time of judgment comes, and we’ve talked about that in other programs, the judge will be Jesus Christ, the king of kings. That is before whom all will give an account and all will bow and confess that Jesus is Christ to the glory of God. So God makes it clear that if we want to be blessed of him individually or nationally, we need to fear God and keep his commandments as he made it clear to Israel in the Old Testament and made it very, very precise in the book of Deuteronomy and elsewhere.

All right. Now, James, I had to go over that just to keep this in context, but when God’s word is so clear as to how we as individuals must choose and as nations choose, the peoples choose, the leaders must choose. All of them must choose to fear God and keep his commandments if things are to be working out appropriately. But is it not logical to conclude that those who operate according to God’s plan are, scripture says identifiably righteous. If we do what God says, we are righteous. If we don’t, then we are identified as the wicked or the evil that scripture makes clear. And if so, what are the practical implications of this truth? As we take this and say, right, as people, can we measure those who are in office around us? Can we measure those who are in authority around us according to God’s word and have some basis upon which we can objectively measure?

James Spencer:

Difficulty with it is that we are trying to look at outward behaviors to determine what’s actually on the inside of someone’s heart. Do I think that that’s possible? Yeah, I do. To some degree, I do. I think that we can look at people and say, “This person’s life tends toward the trajectory of recognizing, even if they’re not a Christian, the good, the true, and the beautiful, that they live a life of reverence and respect for others, that they are exhibiting a sensitivity to the order that God has established, that they are caring for others.” All those sorts of ideas that we would think of in terms of generic virtue, as opposed to fruits of the spirit, let’s say. These are the new life sort of behaviors that are cultivated by the Holy Spirit in those who believe in Jesus Christ. So we’re not saying that a non-Christian can’t be good.

What we’re saying is that that goodness derives from a different power source

Than it does in Christians. And so yes, I do think that these things are identifiable. Where does this go awry and what are the practical implications of this? Number one, I think that as we’re looking to choose leaders, oftentimes what we think of is what’s going to be good for me. In other words, we start to think in terms of what’s going to make our country work? What do we need to turn the country around? How is this going to happen from a strategic or a tactical perspective? And there’s a certain type of leader that you would choose to do that kind of work, right? But that kind of work isn’t exactly what we’re seeing in these admonitions that you’re bringing out in scripture, Sam. What we’re seeing in scripture is something quite different. I’ll go back and give you a biblical illustration of what I mean.

Ping Josiah is one of the youngest kings in Israel’s history, if not the youngest kings of Israel’s history. And he finds the book of the law, he reads it, he recognizes that Judah needs to do all these different reforms, and as he’s going through these reforms, God comes to him and says, “Josiah, these reforms are fantastic, but they’re not going to keep me from sending Judah into exile.” Josiah continues to do the reforms and Judah goes into exile. That to me gives the picture of what we’re really looking for with leaders. We’re looking for leaders who are going to do the right thing, even when doing the right thing doesn’t accomplish what they’re really wanting to accomplish, the salvation of the nation. Josiah is doing this as a way to honor God, but he knows even as he’s completing these reforms that this is not going to save the nation, and he does it anyway.

And I think that’s sort of where we’re missing it. We are continually sort of pulled back into the pragmatic problems that we’re dealing with as a nation and we’re saying, “Well, we can’t obey because obedience isn’t going to be particularly effective in this instance.” And I think in that sense, as Christians, we’re sort of making the same mistake that we see in Malachi 3:10, right? The Israelites have decided that they’re not going to bring their sacrifices to the temple because they’ve got a food shortage. And so what do they do? They decide, “Well, we’re not going to honor God. We’ll keep the food for ourselves and that’ll fix the problem.” No, it won’t. The solution is always to obey God, to honor God, to fear God. Those are the kind of leaders we want. And so making the right decision, even when the right decision doesn’t seem like it’s going to be particularly effective, that’s what we’re really trying to get at here.

It’s not just, can you make the nation more effective? Can you move it forward strategically? Hopefully that makes sense.

Sam Rohrer:

No, I think that does. And I wish we could go much further. We just don’t have the time for it, but you’re introducing the element of obedience to God. We trust him that by doing the right thing, though we may end up in the fire refurnace, the Shadreg Mishak and the Bednico, that God will be with us, not to make the pragmatic decision, “Well, I’m only going to go down on one knee, not two, so I can escape going into the fire.” No, I am going to obey and then trust God that he will take me through the fire Or Daniel in the Lion’s Den or any of those other things. There’s an element of faith that must accompany obedience. James, that’s one thing I walk away with what you’re saying, yet we, ladies and gentlemen, don’t we have a tendency to want to walk by faith?

Trust the guy that we can see, Saul, Tall, bragiosis, Saul of old, because we can see him, but we can’t see God. All right, I think we get the idea. When I come back, we’ll try to wrap this up by bringing some concluding thoughts to this matter. Stay with us. We’ll be right back and we’ll wrap this up. As we conclude the program today, if you’ve been with us from the beginning, I hope that what we’ve tempted to do here makes sense. At the end of the day, the point is God’s word speaks to every issue of life. If we say that we fear God and keep his commandments and we do not believe the word of God is authoritative, then we can’t do it. And that was the George Barner research I mentioned at the beginning. 70% of Americans say they’re Christians, but they don’t do it, which means they’re not true believers.

And that’s a problem. That’s a problem, an eternal problem, but it’s a problem here in life as well. When only 6% of Americans hold a biblical worldview and only 3% according, again, George’s surveys would actually represent that they actually believe and do what scripture would say correlates to a true believer, a true disciple of Jesus Christ. That’s a small number, which forces all of us to consider, at least we should. Well, who am I? What am I doing? I like the Apostle James, where he talks about looking in the mirror of God’s word. The wise person looks in the mirror of God’s word that holds the standards, which we’ve talked about today, and then says, “Uh-oh, I’m not quite the way it ought to be. ” And then you make changes. But the fool looks in the mirror of truth and then walks away and says, “Oh, I’m totally fine.” Now, we could go a lot further, but you get the point with that.

But as it relates to us as citizens of our nation, our country, leaders that we see every day on TV or radio or we hear, all of these quote unquote authorities making statements, we’re forced to evaluate and say, “Well, can we make a measurement? Can we evaluate? Am I listening to somebody who’s righteous or evil? Am I somebody who’s going to lead me towards God’s blessing or towards God’s cursing as talked about in Deuteronomy chapter 30?” All right, you get the point. So that being the case, since we’re going to stand before God, each one of us and give an account for what we’ve done in this life, doesn’t it make sense that we consider from day to day how we are measuring up and conforming to what God says ought to be? And that’s the point of what we’re talking about. And if that’s the case, it starts with ourselves looking in the mirror of God’s word.

But then can it be extended over to measure those who are in office? And I’m going to suggest yes. If not, there’s some problem, but that’s not … God’s word says that. I mean, we can measure. Does God’s word give any indication of what he’s pleased with in somebody who is in a position of authority? Does he give us markers? Yeah, the scripture does. Now, just because of time, I’m not going to go any further. I’ll just say briefly though, when I went into office in 1992, before God, I went in as a believer. I went in and I thought, Lord, how are you going to measure me? Well, measure me what? Well, I noticed the thoughts of my heart, but ultimately it’s going to be my votes because they’re on the permanent record. How are the voters going to measure me? Well, I had two things.

I’m obligated to God’s word. I am a believer. I took a note to support the constitution. All right. So I have two things that now must be the filters through which I cast my votes. My yes vote was the thing that was the greatest value. The system didn’t care about me. What they wanted was my vote. So ultimately, came up with a voting checklist that started with nine things and we ultimately adopted it. A dozen of us have adopted it became very popular across the state. It worked. First question, is it moral? Second, is it constitutional? Third, does it preserve individual freedom and responsibility or strengthen government control? Four, does it strengthen and/or preserve the traditional family biblical? Is it in the best interest of the general public or only special interest? Six, is it necessary? Seven, should it be done on the state level?

Eight, is it an efficient and effective way to do it? Nine, do we have the money to pay for it? Those were all basic things. And if a vote for which we were going to vote did not meet all of that criteria, not just one of them, all of them, it got a no vote. That’s what we did because we felt it was the safest, but it was a measurement system coming right off the pages of scripture, biblical principles, and/or the constitution. I’m going to go to you now, James, in the last segment, but in this regard, would you make the case a little bit for right now? We’ve talked about this today. God has a plan for society, for government, for nations. We’ve talked about some of that. He has requirements for national blessing and measuring the man. And we’ve referred to a lot of these things to make the case for why we should be thinking in terms of not necessarily a checklist like this as I put together, but on the other hand, maybe a checklist, but is there a way that we can measure biblically and how we should think in that direction?

James Spencer:

Yeah. I’d go to something like a Luke 6:45, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” When we cast our votes, we may not be saying anything verbally, but we are communicating something to the world. And so what we need to be thinking through and where I think the checklist that you kind of laid out there really does help is it reminds us of our tendency toward evil. It reminds us of our tendency towards selfishness, toward a desire for comfort, toward a tendency to compromise. And so the checklist can really be helpful because they remind us that we don’t actually have to compromise. We’ve been freed by Christ in order to obey him. We’ve been freed to be loyal to him.

We’re continually committing to be loyal to him sitting under his authority through that process of discipleship. And so when our mouth speaks, either a yes or a no or a ballot cast for one candidate or another, that needs to reflect what’s in our heart. And so the checklists are really helpful because they not only evaluate a candidate, but they remind us what matters to us. Where’s our heart at as we’re casting this ballot? What is our mouth saying? And how does that reflect what’s coming out of our heart? And I think that as we look out at America today, as we look at the political arena, we just have to begin asking ourselves, are we really putting too much weight on the political arena, so much weight that is never going to be able to bear it? Are we really trying to fix something that isn’t going to … It’s always going to be some sort of broken and our hope, our stability, our desire should not sit there.

Now, I say all that with the caveat that Jeremiah 29: seven, I believe it is, Jeremiah is addressing the Jews who are going to go into exile and Babylon and he tells them, “Build houses, participate in the economy and pray for the good of the society that you’re in because its prosperity is your prosperity.” I’m not talking about abandoning our nation, but we do need to have a realistic understanding that these nations are temporary, that we are unaware of God’s purposes for these nations, and that ultimately, no matter how moral a given nation is, it is going to trigger that point where the iniquity of the Amorites is going to be at the right level where God is going to move from that nation and pull away its nationhood. But as we as believers are looking at all of these different things, I think the best thing that we can do is to speak from our hearts, hearts that have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, hearts that have the concerns of God in mind, and hearts that express that desire to bear faithful witness to the triumph God, because when we surrender to the political logics of the day and we allow our votes to speak in that direction, we are contributing to a system that simply cannot make the world a better place.

It cannot be the city of God. And so that’s just my closing comment. Let’s speak from our hearts that have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit and allow our votes to reflect our deep, deep faith in Jesus Christ.

Sam Rohrer:

Dr. James Spencer, thanks so much for being with me to get his website, usefultogod.com. And ladies and gentlemen, I hope this discussion today has helped to stimulate some thought and thinking, but ultimately drive us to the word of God because it never fails.