We stand on the eve of one of the most profound moments in our nation's history. I mean this, and I affirm this, with all of my heart, soul, strength, and mind.

That is what Election Day 2016 is. For good or for ill, E-Day Nov. 8, 2016, presents us with a choice that will decisively impact every single one of us on the very deepest of levels of who we are.

The results of this day will affect us immediately in the concrete realities of our daily lives -- reaching even into matters of life and death. Even more, the results of E-Day will immediately and decisively affect the very structure and direction of who we are as a people and as a national community, whether we shall stand for great good and beauty or for great ill and ugliness.  

To help clarify the gravity of this election, consider "The Parable of the Three Firefighters":

As dusk approached, a mother and father were working together in their garden. They heard shouts and saw smoke and firelight coming from a direction that could only mean their home was on fire and their three children at risk.

They dropped their gardening tools and rushed home to hear voices say, "Mom! Dad! Help us!" The father rushed toward the home to save the children, but collapsed before entering, so hot was the blaze. He was pulled to safety.

Two firefighters appeared on scene, one slightly earlier than the other, both ready to work. Because of logistics, only one firefighter with truck and crew could be positioned to quell the flames.

The first firefighter arrived and said truck and crew were ready and that fire hoses could be deployed to put out the fire, save the children, and keep the house from burning down. This firefighter was long-approved by pillars of the community. The only problem was that this firefighter's fire hoses would be filled with gasoline.

The second firefighter was gruff and disliked by some of the neighbors. But his truck and crew were ready and his fire hoses could be deployed immediately to save the children and keep the house from burning down. And there was water in the hoses of his fire truck.

A third firefighter and his fire truck were on the way. Some said he was the best firefighter the community had ever known. "It would be best to wait for him," they said. But he and his crew were many miles away and there was little chance he could arrive in time to put out the fire, save the children, and keep the house from burning down.

The mom and dad almost allowed the first firefighter and crew put out the fire. But the parents smelled the gas in the nick of time and discovered the fire hoses were filled with gasoline, not water. So they said no to the long-approved firefighter because they loved their children and knew the result would be a disaster.

The mom and dad liked the third firefighter and listened when neighbors said, "It would be best to wait for him." But the parents understood that the third firefighter and his crew were many miles away and there was little chance they would arrive in time to put out the fire, save the children, and keep the house from burning down.

So the mom and dad decided in favor of the second firefighter, even though he was gruff and disliked by some of the neighbors. For his truck was ready and his fire hoses could be immediately deployed to save the children and keep the house from burning down. And there was water in the hoses of his fire truck.

And there was singing and great rejoicing as the children were saved and much of the house preserved, to be rebuilt better and stronger than before, because mom and dad acted wisely on the day when fire threatened the future of them all.    

In "The Parable of the Three Firefighters," the first firefighter represents Hillary Clinton. As the initial responder, Mrs. Clinton with her crew is ready to "put out the fire." Unfortunately, her fire hoses are filled with gas -- that is, applying her solutions to America will only make matters worse in our country, in fact, dramatically and potentially catastrophically worse.

It is important to grasp that what Hillary Clinton will unleash is a form of spiritual terror. Consider the spiritual terror of immigration chaos in a nation without effective borders. Common sense tells us that just as the human body needs skin to regulate what is allowed in physically, even so a nation needs a border to regulate what is allowed in nationally. As human skin is to the health and growth of a human body, even so national borders are to the health and growth of a humane nation. No skin, no body; no border, no nation.

A healthy body politic therefore respects strong borders to protect our domestic life against criminals, drugs, cartels, Islamic terrorists, and so on. A healthy nation rejects illegal immigration and carefully regulates legal immigration to ensure that only those who love what it means to be American are allowed the privileges of citizenship. To do otherwise is violence against the spirit of America and places the lives of our sons and daughters -- in fact, all of us -- in harm's way.

We have already seen how eight years of the Obama regime have brought home murder, sexual assault, drug abuse, Islamic jihad into America, and more. It's hard to see how any humane person could knowingly vote in ways that enable a Hillary Clinton to assume the office of the U.S. presidency.

Much the same could be noted in relation to the spiritual terror that a President Hillary Clinton would unleash regarding Islamic terror, which she refuses even to name. Imagine going to a doctor unwilling to name a life-threatening cancer, lest he be accused of being "cancer-phobic." Such a doctor would be a quack -- and a deadly one at that. Enabling the elevation of such a person to high office would be unconscionable. To the office of the U.S. president? Insane.  

But let us not fail to mention a deeper aspect of Clinton's spiritual terror, and that is the anti-Constitutional terror and anti-Declaration of Independence terror that will be unleashed across America in a Clinton regime should we allow her to occupy the office of president.

The core of America, that genius of America, that enduring mainstream of America, is located in the Declaration of Independence for all to see. It is that to which the next president will swear to "preserve, protect, and defend" when taking the presidential oath of office.

The core, the enduring mainstream genius, is the political vision that accepts the real-world, publicly actionable principle that an actual and real Creator, and not any merely human state, is the ultimate source and ground of human freedom and human dignity.

Hear these words, O America:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . ."

These principles express the ultimate core of what the next president is pledging allegiance to when taking the oath of office and swearing before America and the entire world political fidelity to the U.S. Constitution. A Constitution whose purpose is what? To enflesh the amazing liberating principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence. And thus is released a spiritual liberty into the world, to be expressed humanely and holistically across all of life, both publicly and privately, including political life.

But it is this spirit of liberty, O America, that Hillary Clinton does not want you to hear or understand or accept. She the secularist rejects the actual and real Creator of the Declaration and instead would impose her politically correct Trinity of Almighty Diversity, Totalitarian Tolerance, and Authoritarian Equality.

That she will unleash her spiritual terror is not a matter of speculation, for she is on record calling for the enforcement of her agenda. "Laws don't count for much if they're not enforced," she proclaimed at the sixth annual Women in the World Summit. What she calls "rights" "have to exist in practice -- not just on paper."

This proclamation is a warning. Hillary Clinton will use "law," law that stands in violation against the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Should Mrs. Clinton assume the White House, you can expect her to begin unleashing spiritual terror upon America and upon the world. Millions upon millions will be impacted grossly and inhumanely. And she will begin immediately.

Donald Trump is the second firefighter in "The Parable of the Three Firefighters." By his own recorded words, he can employ sexually gross language that is very offensive, and he can be gruff on the campaign trail. His flaws are not to be dismissed, and they are not to be minimized in any way.

To be balanced, let us also not dismiss nor minimize that he shows no track record of being someone who wakes up each morning thinking about advancing an extremist vision that is alien to the norms of human freedom and dignity. And for all his gruffness, note that Trump has taken positions that can help quench the flames that are currently threatening to engulf our nation.

On immigration, he wants good people in and bad people out, and he understands that nations without borders are not nations much longer. On destroying pre-born American citizens, he stands against partial-birth abortion. On the economy, he wants to lower taxes, which assists families by helping create jobs.

On the military, he wants to rebuild all branches of the armed forces, which decreases the likelihood of war because bad guys may be crazy but they're not stupid -- few want to take on a strongly armed opponent. "Peace Through Strength" is a valid principle of life, whether we're talking foreign or domestic policy.

Getting rid of Obamacare. Excellent. Getting rid of Common Core and returning education to state and local control. Excellent again -- and a primary strategic move toward breaking that bastion of propaganda currently known as the public schools. This is a generationally positive move that we need to see immediately, if not sooner.

The point is that the gruff firefighter disliked by some of the neighbors happens to be on hand with water in his fire hose. This marks him as qualitatively superior to Hillary Clinton, who has gasoline in her fire hose. With him, the children are saved and so is much of the family's home. With Hillary, the more she helps, the worse things get.

The third firefighter in our parable is Evan McMullin -- or someone like him. McMullin is a former CIA operative whom some people regard as a true conservative, a candidate who most matches their principles, and so on. An alternative to Donald Trump.

For the sake of discussion, let's grant that McMullin (or some other third-party candidate who has recently entered the race) is 100% of what we are looking for in a president.  On all levels, he's everything anyone could want.

There remains a huge problem. As the third firefighter, McMullin is too far away to reach the house in time, and relying on him to get there will result in the destruction of your home and in the irreplaceable loss of your children.

"The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it" (Prov. 27:12). Prudence sees the danger of waiting for McMullin, and prudence says avoid that danger, which can be done because the second firefighter is on hand to do the job.  

Applying this to elections, wise ethical voting means we are responsible not just for inputs (our vote) but also outcomes (the impact of our vote). Ethics is not privatized: It applies not merey to personal choices but also to public results.

With near mathematical certainty we know Hillary Clinton, if elected president, will seek to enact an extreme, inhumane, and harmful agenda. Our own family members may suffer, and perhaps die, as the direct result of her having been elected into office. Just think of inhumane disasters such as Obamacare, illegal alien crime, and Islamic terrorists parachuted into our neighborhoods as "refugees."  

In election 2016, it is clear that a McMullin has zero chance of winning. He's the firefighter "too far away." But by touting him, and encouraging others to do so, some people may thereby enable the election of Hillary Clinton, the firefighter with gasoline in her fire hose.  

It is a certainty that innocent human beings will be killed as the direct result of Hillary Clinton in particular being elected to office, because her inhumane, extremist set of political principles out of their inner essence allow and even encourage the use of human beings as so much meaningless political fodder to be consumed on the road to attaining, maintaining, and expanding political power. And that's just her vision. In addition, her biography includes a well-documented history of pursuing that power selfishly, criminally, and morally corruptly.

What a terrific shame, and what a sad irony, if evangelical Christians by their voting enable such a person to occupy the White House and be positioned to work her will, to have her way, with the American body politic.

Christians would thereby be agents enabling her to unleash spiritual terror not just upon Christians themselves but also upon the whole of America, with grave implications for the world beyond our shores. "Love thy neighbor" means caring how our vote impacts our neighbor's neighborhood, both at home and abroad.

As we stand on the eve of Election Day 2016, the unnatural disaster of a Hillary Clinton presidency is avoidable. I don't mind -- that is, it's understandable -- when people upset with Donald Trump take a swing at him. He's a big guy and seems able to take care of himself. I do mind it when that swing ends up hitting my family and hurting my loved ones.  

Let's vote morally wisely, protect our kids, and elect to live and fight another day. If that third-party guy is good, he'll be back in four years. And so will we.