It is neither my calling nor my intention to offer political commentary or personal opinion concerning current events; but, as Christian people, we must understand that the Presidential crisis is a theological crisis --- a theological crisis having to do not only with the President’s personal immorality, but also with this nation’s collective accountability to God. In the current events regarding the President of the United States of America, God is revealing His wrath against the ungodliness of this nation, is threatening His judgment upon our national life, while even still, in long-suffering mercy, God is extending an opportunity for repentance to the nation of the United States of America.

This scandal brings to the fore the fact that God deals with nations as nations, as collective entities, and God holds nations collectively accountable for their collective character. This is neither a very popular nor widely-held doctrine these days, because these days not many people take the sovereignty of God seriously --- the sovereignty of the eternal Creator over all His creation in every sphere, including the public and political realm. But it is a Biblical doctrine. We read Isaiah’s woes pronounced on the nation of Judah, the threatenings of judgment upon a nation which had become collectively characterized by calculated deceit, immoral indulgence, and public injustice: a nation which had collectively "rejected the law of the LORD Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One" (Isa.5:20-24).

Now, let me state clearly that the United States of America is not analogous to --- is not like --- Old Testament Israel in her relationship to God. America, as a nation, is not God’s chosen, covenant people, as the nation of Old Testament Israel was during the time of the Old Covenant. But that does not mean that America as a nation is not accountable to God for her collective character and behavior. God is sovereign over all nations, and every nation is accountable to God. The LORD destroyed the pagan cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their collective iniquity. In the book of Amos, we read of God’s judgments against Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab. In Jeremiah (ch.25), we read about the "cup filled with the wine of (God’s) wrath" and the nations which were made to drink it: not only Judah, but also Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and Babylonia--- indeed, all the nations of the earth are accountable to God for their collective character and are subject to His wrath for their collective iniquity, their collective rebellion against His sovereign Kingship. But we the American people are either ignorant of this Biblical truth or we are willfully disregarding it, and that is the basic theological crisis of the day.

Secondly, we must understand that, from the Biblical perspective (that is, the divine perspective), a nation’s leaders represent the collective identity of the people. The Office of the Presidency is established by God (Romans 13), and the one who serves in that office is accountable to God as the embodiment of the collective nation. Therefore, these current events are not simply about the person or the personality of Bill Clinton as an individual, though surely his individual behavior has brought the crises to the surface. But these current events are not simply about him as an individual, but about America as a nation accountable to God. Biblically speaking, you cannot separate the individual man from the public office, and you cannot separate the public office from the nation; and as American citizens, no matter how we voted, and no matter how we might personally oppose his policies, we cannot separate ourselves from the fact we are American citizens and that he is our national leader, our Constitutional Head. We are not mere bystanders and spectators, for him or against him, in this spectacle. In dealing with President Clinton, God is dealing with the nation as a collective, constitutional entity.

Therefore, any glee or gladness or sense of sweet revenge about what is happening is not only unchristian but also foolish, short-sighted, and naive about the deep theological principles that are at work here. Yes, there are those who seem apathetic about the scandal, who say, "He’s doing a good job as President, and his private life has nothing to do with his public office." They do not understand the Biblical doctrine of government. But, conservative Christians are in danger of making exactly the same mistake, by focusing only on the person and personality of Bill Clinton the individual, and saying, "At last, he has done himself in. We’ve got him now. We will humiliate him and then we will get rid of him" --- not realizing that God’s judgment upon the President of the United States is God’s judgment upon the United States as a national body. There ought to be no rejoicing or smacking of lips by conservative Christians in this sordid spectacle --- not if we understand how God deals with nations, and not if we love the perishing souls of this land. 

Congress, likewise, is a civil authority established by God and accountable to God for the stewardship of the collective life of the nation; but it seems that Congress itself is suffering a theological crisis because it either does not understand Biblical principles of government or is ignoring them. Let us pray that our Congressional leaders proceed in humble, dutiful service according to Biblical principles of truth and justice, to do whatever must be done rightly to cleanse the Office of the Presidency of the iniquity with which it has been stained and to restore the Office of the Presidency with integrity before God --- rather than trying to manipulate public opinion one way or the other and only then decide what to do. Let us pray that our Congressional leaders fear God much more than they fear the American populace --- no matter what the polls may say at any given moment. 
Thirdly, there is a theological crisis in our nation’s collective character. This scandal reveals as much about our nation’s collective character as it does about Bill Clinton’s private life. And, in this scandal, God is simply showing America what we collectively have become as a nation. We are a nation that loves and craves sordid
scandal, and utter perversity. We are a nation that loves pornography. We are a nation that loves the rush that comes from mocking God and transgressing His moral law. We are a nation that loves daytime television talk shows. And now, because God in His judgment has given us over (collectively, as a nation) to the lusts of our hearts and our degrading passions (Romans 1), we now really do have a daytime television talk show, filled with pornography and perversity and the mockery of God: and it is all about us as a nation, embodied in the President. It is as though God, through this scandal is saying to the nation of America, "This is what you have become, and the cup of wrath is nigh full to overflowing."

This scandal is not the first warning we have had in recent years. After twenty-six years of legal abortion, we now have parents leaving infants in trash cans, and children killing children on school playgrounds. Could it be that the horror of school playground mass murders has come upon this nation by the hand of God, in judgment upon a nation which for the last twenty-six years has openly, brazenly, and so-called legally killed thirty percent of her children? But on this past Friday, in the midst of the President’s scandal, the Senate failed to override the President’s veto of the ban on partial-birth abortion. And isn’t that failure by our Senate a scandal of horrific immorality?

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 5:20).

We are a nation that for thirty-years or so (a generation) has publicly, openly, brazenly laughed at God’s law concerning sexual purity. We are a nation that for thirty-years or so (a generation) has glamorized and celebrated and advocated sexual immorality, so much so that even we Christians have grown so accustomed to it that we have normalized it and accepted it. How many of our own twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year-old girls and boys had parental permission (Christian parental permission!) to get their hearts, minds, and souls soaked by the waves of the sinking TITANIC (a movie, I’m told, which celebrated and glamorized sexual immorality and made it look exciting, and romantic, and even heroic)? Yes, our souls, and the souls of our children, are in danger of being shipwrecked on the shoals of sin in this culture which loves to practice immorality in private and glamorize it in public display.

We are a nation that for thirty years or so (a generation) has trashed and trampled upon the institution of marriage. This is a generation (my generation, the "Me Generation") that has claimed sexual promiscuity as a right, declared marriage to be a matter of personal convenience and selfish fulfillment, and has either smirked or bristled at the suggestion that an eternal, sovereign, holy, living God might mete out judgment upon such willful violations of His moral law.

And here we are today, looking into the mirror of our national character, reflected in the face of our President, by virtue of that Office. Now, in God’s providence and under God’s judgment, the video and the thousands of pages of the Grand Jury testimony will be released tomorrow, and (whether we think that’s a good thing or not), what that means, theologically, is that God is making a public display of our perversity and shame. God is force-feeding America her own vomit. And the question before this nation is whether it will make us sick to our stomachs and sick at heart, or whether we will eat it up and ask for more.

The scandal of current events is a national judgment upon "a wicked and adulterous generation" --- but, it’s not a matter of us "in here" and "them out there." No. As the Scripture says, "...it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God" (I Ptr. 4:17). To a large degree, we Christians have been a party to the deterioration of our national character. We have become conformed to this world and to its ways very well. We have winked at sin. Our moral and ethical behavior has been practically indistinguishable from that of unbelievers. We’ve been much more committed to our own self-esteem and comfort than to the glory of God and the Kingdom of Christ. What the evangelical church has wanted for the last twenty years is a private god for our private lives: a god who "works" for us, a god of so-called "practical relevance," a god who will bless me with financial security, marital happiness, physical health, beautiful children, and, as an added benefit, a mansion in heaven when I die. Nothing wrong with any of that --- except that, that god is an idol, an idol to be used for our own purposes, little more than a genie in a bottle, for the benefit of my own private life. 

Real reformation will come first in the church, and then in the culture, when the holiness of God seizes upon God’s people and we fall on our faces undone, and rend our hearts under conviction of sin; and then rise, by His grace, under His mercy, with a resolve to live in holiness and righteousness before Him in faithful obedience to His Word as His servants to the glory of His name. God has, in history past, brought about reformation and renewal out of a decadent and decaying culture; God has, in the past, brought light out of darkness, order out of chaos, civic righteousness out of public immorality, and civilization out of barbarianism. Let us fall on our faces and pray the Almighty to have mercy upon this land, that by the power of His Word and Spirit He might bring spiritual and cultural reformation and renewal to this nation, lest we descend into the pit of another Dark Age.

There are a few Biblical principles of which we must take note as this scandal continues to unfold. First, there is no separation between private and public life. Our private lives, sooner or later, will become public testimonies to God’s glory or to our shame. The right to privacy is a good thing as long as we live according to the law of the land and the law of God. But today, the right to privacy has come to mean the right to practice immorality in private. How many times have we heard the protest, "It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as it doesn’t affect anyone else?" That was the rallying-cry of the drug culture and the sexual revolutionaries of the 1960’s. But everything we do affects someone else in some way, for good or ill. That is the reason that God commands us in all times and in all places to love our neighbor as ourselves. Sooner or later, our private lives will become a public testimony to God’s glory or to our shame.

A second principle: One lie destroys trust. Trust is the strength of a relationship --- between husband and wife, parent and child, employer and employee, between friends, and between a President and a nation. Trust is the strength of every relationship. And trust is a very fragile thing. One lie destroys trust and breaks a relationship. Husbands and wives, parents and youth, businessmen and women, listen: one lie destroys trust and breaks a relationship. And one lie has the potential to shipwreck your soul and destroy your character. Why? Because one lie too often leads to another, and another, and another. And when lying becomes a part of your character, then your character is being shaped by Satan. Lying is antithetical to, it is the direct contradiction of, God’s nature. God cannot lie. God is truth. And that is the reason that God hates "a lying tongue" (Prov.6:17). 

"Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit" (Isa.5: 18). Lying, in any way, shape or form of deception and dissimulation, is of the devil. Jesus called Satan, "the father of lies" (John 8:44). It is Satan’s very nature and character to lie, and when you tell a lie you are acting like Satan. And, boys and girls, youth, and adults, learn from this scandal: once you’ve told one lie, and broken a relationship of trust, it is very, very difficult for that other person to believe you, even when you say that you are sorry for what you did and for lying about it. Because the other person, no matter how much that person would really like to believe you, cannot help thinking, "Can I really trust him? Can I really trust her?" One lie destroys trust and breaks a relationship. 

A third principle: Forgiveness does not mean that there are no consequences to sin. There’s been a lot of cheap grace preached to try to salvage Mr. Clinton. Cheap grace means that all you have to do is say, "I’m sorry," and then everybody is supposed to forgive you and move on. In other words, cheap grace means that forgiveness is simply a matter of being let off the hook, with no consequences for your personal behavior. Cheap grace is false grace for a wicked and adulterous generation which does not want to bear personal responsibility for personal behavior. 

But Biblical forgiveness is not about being let-off easy; it’s about the real reconciliation and restoration of broken relationships. And even when we have been completely forgiven --- fully, eternally forgiven by God, through the blood of Christ --- sometimes, oftentimes, we must still bear the temporal, direct consequences of our behavior. King David was forgiven by God for his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah --- yes, he was forgiven, when he confessed his sin --- but for the rest of his earthly life, David suffered the direct, natural, logical, and social consequences of his sinful behavior. The LORD disciplines those whom He loves. Forgiveness does not automatically mean "no consequences." Forgiveness does not automatically mean "no discipline." 

Parents, when your child is disobedient, does forgiveness mean "no consequences"? I hope not! When your child acts in a sinful manner, does forgiveness mean "no discipline"? I hope not! And, in the life of the church, the elders have a God-given duty and responsibility, in the context of forgiveness freely offered, to discipline church members who are persisting in specific, unrepentant sin. And, ashamedly, church discipline has been neglected in the church for many years, and today the church in America is suffering the consequences of that neglect.

Related to this principle concerning sin and forgiveness: there is also self-justifying false grace in the notion that someone else’s sins diminish the severity of my own. It’s the "we’re all sinners, nobody’s perfect, everybody’s done it" argument --- as though the more sin there is out there, the more tolerant God becomes of sin and the less reason there is for repentance. Now that’s the perverse logic of a wicked and adulterous generation. It is in this context that we often hear the protest, "...let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Those words of Jesus are twisted by this wicked and adulterous generation to mean that no moral judgments of any kind can be made by anyone at any time under any circumstances. That is not what Jesus meant when He spoke those words to the cynical conspirators who were trying to trap Him. 

Another person’s sin does not diminish or excuse or minimize mine, or exempt me from judgment or protect me from the consequences of my sin. My sins are my sins, and all of my sins --- every single one of them --- are odious and hateful to God and worthy of His wrath and judgment. It doesn’t matter how many sins or what kind of sins someone else has committed. And we’d better not take any comfort in the thought that we’re not guilty until we’ve been caught. What a foolish, deadly deception! If it’s a matter of being caught and proven guilty, let’s get this straight: 

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13). 

If you are presently engaged in some on-going secret sin and you’re wondering whether you’ll be caught, face the truth right now: You are caught. You cannot hide from the eye of God. And you will not escape His judgment until you confess your sins, repent of your sin, plead the forgiveness which He offers in Jesus Christ, and turn away from your sin to walk in the paths of grace and truth and righteousness under His redeeming mercy.

And that is the gospel --- the real gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of real forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation with God --- which God is continuing to hold out to each one of us individually and to this nation collectively. Jesus Christ bore all of our sins in His own body on the cross, that we might be saved from the curse and guilt of our sins and be set free from our sins to live a new and eternal life in a real and deep fellowship with the true and living God. The words of the prophet Isaiah are the Word of God to us today, individually, corporately as a church, and collectively as a nation: 

Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." Truly the mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 1:18ff). 

The Apostle Peter, in his Pentecost sermon, proclaimed to the people of Jerusalem, "Repent ... so that your sins may be forgiven, ...(and) save yourselves from this perverse generation" (Acts 2:40). "Repent ... so that your sins may be forgiven, ...(and) save yourselves from this perverse generation." This is the promise of the gospel, the call of salvation, which the Judge of all the earth and Ruler of all nations, in long-suffering mercy even still, is freely offering to the people of the United States of America.

Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, a kingdom of grace and peace and truth and liberty and justice and righteousness and love and joy. Let us rend our hearts in repentance and return to Him and serve Him alone as our King, and may His kingdom come in our private lives, may His kingdom be displayed in our public lives, may His kingdom come in His Church throughout this nation, and may His kingdom come, His will be done, in the collective national life of the United States of America; for that is our only hope! To God be the glory! Amen!