The World's Politics

During the first years of the Christian church certain cities began to emerge as centers for Christianity. Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, and Rome were some to be noticed with Rome becoming the first among equals. It was during this time that the bishop of the church of Rome gained power within the church which eventually led to that office becoming the pope of the Roman Catholic Church. This power was at first wielded within the confines of church authority, but in progressive generations the pope would gain political power which translated into the actual Roman government. Some popes would hand pick the Roman governmental leader and some popes became the civil leader themselves. They would even wage war with other countries while thinking they were fighting with God on their side. This was the first evolution of the combination of politics and church in the New Testament.

Regardless of the Scriptural teaching to keep ourselves separate from the world the church would through the ages try sometimes to find power and influence inside the confines of human government. But never forget the road map to that thinking was drawn by the Roman Church and today’s continued venture into politics by the “religious right” simply mirrors the path taken by the early papal fathers. When Paul exhorted Timothy to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” he also observed that “no man that warreth entangles himself with the affairs of this life”. But the evangelical church which is part of the invisible body of Jesus Christ still attempts to affect change through the political process while still preaching how things continue to get worse without coming to the obvious conclusion. And the elephant in the room continues to be that the only true change comes through the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Politics is a dirty business that necessitates obscene amounts of money spent to convince people to elect you, and if you are appealing to the evangelical vote you must convince us that you embrace the same closed set of well defined moral issues such as abortion and same sex marriage. And after you are elected and serve, those same issues remain intact and unchanged and in some cases get worse. And on and on goes the political merry-go-round with the coming election in 2008 being no different. We even believe that it is our God given duty to participate because we believe that democracy is God’s government of choice. The church even has business meetings that include a voting process sculpted after the government and ignoring the teachings of Scripture. And when a man is elected president that professes to be a Christian he gets a free pass in all he does because he says he prays and loves Jesus.

And I want to digress into the earthly realm in order to show the utter foolishness of mixing the flesh and the Spirit:

Anyone who is a serious and well read student of history and human behavior can easily see that the tribal and religious barriers that have existed for thousands of years in Iraq will never be unified under one democratic government. And the demonic strongholds that have infested themselves in that region are not even mentioned much less believed. And in the end this present war will cost one trillion dollars with thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries with the end result being that we removed Sadaam Hussein from power and many thousands of Iraqis losing their lives. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees have fled to Iran, Syria, and Jordan. And with Sadaam’s ouster the balance of Middle East power has shifted to Iran and the entire region is destabilized. And with the situation in total collapse the American government presses on ignoring the shadow of Vietnam. (remember I am dealing in the natural)

Now I remember going to a Southern Baptist church three years ago just before we invaded Iraq and the preacher’s message was entitled “It’s right to fight when the fight is right”. His premise of course was that God was on our side in this war because we were in the right. Do I need to identify for you the dangers of that kind of thinking that equates America with God's will without any Scriptural evidence? How can we ever be sure that God is for us going to war, and since when does God speak to governments? And if America is a Christian nation then by all means let’s elect a pope who will speak for God and inerrantly lead us. But brothers and sisters, America is a country in which it was God’s will we were born into to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, not to become infused into this system. It may be right to go to war sometimes on an earthly level, but we must never attach God's will to it for in that we blaspheme His name. We are not of this world and we are called to a heavenly mission which requires us to separate from this world’s system in order to sanctify ourselves for the battle. How the heart of our Father must grieve when he sees the sacrifice of His Son become Americanized and His people become mixed with the multitude marching under the banner of nationalism.

Can we not see that God’s kingdom is invisible and He endorses no country except Israel in His final plan? What would happen if millions of believers that live in America would suddenly be scurrying about in prayer meetings, memorizing and praying God’s Word, doing humanitarian deeds aimed at bringing glory to Christ, having elongated seasons of worship with little restraints of time, and boldly preaching the Word of God with Jesus being held high? And with the empty lives of the lost multitudes going further and further into darkness, would the Holy Spirit be able to use the fulfilled light of our lives to point them to Christ instead of us joining them in their earthly pursuits? Have we not tired of the pointless cycles of political swings that are full of sound and fury while signifying nothing? And while we have played at the world’s games the enemy has come in and sown doctrinal poison within the church itself, and these great swelling waves of falling away within the evangelical community can never be cast out with votes. God is calling us to Him and His work so let us cast off the bondwoman of this world and diligently seek the Lord while He may be found, redeeming the time because the days are short.

So what should our position be concerning these matters as Christians? We should have no position except that we are to be salt and light in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. And our power should never come from the ballot box but from the love of God as shown through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We should not speak against or for the government and its leaders which is respecter of persons, but we should pray for them. That is correct, in the coming election in 2008 let us pray for Mrs. Clinton, and Barak Obama, and all the politicians that the Spirit of God would miraculously open their hearts and change their lives. And ultimately we should fast and pray that the Holy Spirit would again gain entrance to the church of the living God and change us all. Let us remove the giant mote in our own eyes and show forth the cross of Jesus Christ which is the only hope for us all. It is an offense to Almighty God to see His children whose lives are hid with Him to get into all these verbal bashing political forays and claim that God is on our side. God is on no one’s side, He beckons us all to come to His side. Let’s prayerfully run to His side and as 2008 comes to a close we can hear the echo that we should so desire to hear,

“Well done, thou good and faithful servants“.