Thursday, February 08, 2007

A Call to God's Will

Orthodox Christians are rightly exorcized over the culturizing of the teachings of the Scriptures. The purpose/seeker/emergent movements have more and more brought the culture into the context of Biblical preaching and are using the culture as a guide to Biblical interpretations, which dilutes the message and captures it within the parameters of man’s evolving thought processes. If we can understand it within our cultural parameters then it is good, if it rises above the culture then it is irrelevant and useless. We are witnessing the poisonous fruit of such teachings and while it is true that cultural influences have always had an effect on preaching and teaching of the Scriptures that process is now encouraged and taught as God’s original purpose. The result? A cultural church that exhibits very little of the peculiar people behavior that Peter had commanded us to be.

This little exhortation is to bring a call for separation from the worthless and in many ways counter productive political system that has already taken front and center stage in the secular society but should have no effect on the body of Jesus Christ. I’m not sure I ever heard the Lord give his opinion about who should be the next Caesar and Paul specifically commands us not to get entangled with the affairs of this world. We have a calling that is far more serious than who becomes president and, as we can see, the well meaning evangelicals that have cast their lots with the Republicans can already see the trend that reveals that their party of choice(!) is rapidly showing their real spots. And who cares what politicians say they believe about abortion and gay marriage, we’ve had years of Republican majorities in all three branches of government and both of those issues continue to run rampant. American politics is not even a part of the answer to the ultimate question, "Who do you say that I am?"..

Politics is a dirty business and although there may be believers in elected office we as the body of Christ have a mission around the world with no preference to any nation or governmental system. The time is rapidly running out and we must give all the attention that we used to give to politics to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Release it, all the talking heads that give no allegiance to the Lordship of Christ. Which news outlet calls for prayer and repentance? Which news outlet openly reports that Jesus is the only way to eternal life? It is all anti-christ and the current president who is a professing believer has said openly that Jesus is not the only way.

We don’t need another president, we need another church, one that is broken and given wholly to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and is unusually different from this world. America is no different than any other country in God’s eyes and we must severe the heart strings that has us bound to a system and through repentance we must again turn to Jesus as the only object of our allegiance. The world will elect who it chooses, we already have an eternal Lord, who can add to Him. And if your church allows voting to actually take place on those sanctified grounds you may do well to observe that many people will walk right into your building and vote for abortion and gay marriage completely against the teachings of your church(I hope). Can you imagine Moses allowing the heathen into the Tabernacle to mix the profane with the sacred?

It is time for the church to come out from among them and be separate. Would you participate in a compromising church? Then why would you participate in a compromising secular system? Well, you ask, should we then not vote? I may well be the only blog to step forward and say that if the system is anti-christ we should gladly and boldly separate ourselves from it completely, it has no eternal value for the church or for that matter the world. Pray and fast for the revival of your church on election day and withdraw yourselves from the mixed multitude that will cast their lots for one of the two compromisers in a compromising system called democracy. It might be better than many other systems around the world but it is no friend of Christ.

Finally, before you decide for or against my call do two things. First, do a New Testament study and find the Scriptures that openly encourage us to be involved with democratic politics and those that openly command us to withdraw from the world’s system. Secondly, pray until you get a strong witness about what the Spirit is directing you to do no matter how long it takes and what price is connected with it.

I realize that this treading upon a sacred cow that has become accepted within the church, but while maintaining a humble spirit we should in these last days sanctify ourselves wholly separated to the Lordship of Christ. Be advised, you may very well receive persecution within the church but receive it with grace as an offering unto the Lord.

4 comments:

Mike Ratliff said...

Good article Rick. The closer God draws me to Himself the more I see how empty and foolish it is to be wrapped up in anything secular. That includes politics. As a former Government employee (US Navy & FDIC) I know how utterly devoid the US Government is of any sense of Who God is and its place under His Sovereignty. The Media is nothing more than a business venture with a political agenda of its own to sway people to accept its values.

Yes, we must be seperate and yes, we do need a new church that is outside of any influence by the secular.

In Christ

Mike Ratliff

Anonymous said...

Good post, Rick. It is the Bible that should dictate our culture not viceversa. I do believe during the Puritan time this was very much true. Thus, they were able to hand down good culture values. As time went by, each generation little by little moved away from the Bible, thus, changing their culture toward humanism until what we have now. It will begin in the home of teaching accurate Biblical teachings to our children to hand down quality culture values.

Anonymous said...

I meant to add that once we have done our job in handing down Biblical culture to our children, then we don't have to worry about politics because the country will run under God's laws because people will have His laws written on their hearts. Sorry for the two post...brain freeze here!

Baptist Girl said...

Great post Rick!

You know what bothers me most about politians, they use God and religion to get a vote. I think it would be pretty hard for a christian to run for office and be true to himself as a christian. I would think to satisfy the people,there is no way he could not compromise. We need to keep praying for our leaders and God's will. Here in Canada even the Conservatives are liberals in disguise....and most are Roman Catholics. I also agree, we need to seperate.
Cristina