Lately,
I've been interested in our discussions
concerning Pat Robertson. Since this subject
is so much at the forefront of many things,
and since the perspective I have on it is so
different from most of my friends here, I feel
like taking the time to write you a letter and
spell out the entire perspective I have on it.
Let me tell you up front that the perspective
I have on it is not popular. Nevertheless, it
is the basis of the message the Lord has given
me for our times, and I am not ashamed of it.
So let me share it with you.
As
the Holy Spirit is pouring Himself out on us
more and more, there is a certain excitement
in the air. And as we see the changes He is
making in us, we want to show the earth what
God can do. We're excited in God, and we want
the world to have this excitement too. We want
to see the world changed for good.
Since
we are especially seeing how powerful
the Spirit is today, we've developed a new
boldness and confidence we never had before—a
boldness to take the Spirit's power and thrust
where no man dared to thrust it before -
namely, right out there in the political
arena. Having tasted of God's power as never
before, the Church feels that now
we finally have the weapon to step in there,
take over the political world, and make the
whole thing Christian.
Yes.
That all seems very good on the surface of it.
But there's just one thing wrong. You see,
amidst all this excitement, there is another
equal reality that the Church is forgetting
about. And while there is excitement now, in
the long run, the Church is going to meet with
a disaster of absolutely monumental
proportions unless She picks up on this blind
side. This other reality has to do with identity.
Follow along as I explain this.
Progressive
Re-alignment of Life According to New
Identity
When
we step back and look over the whole plan of
salvation, we find one issue that
salvation touches more deeply than anything.
This is the issue of who we
are in Christ (or—our
"identity").
What
is salvation? Salvation is basically a change
in identity. In other words, when
we are converted, we become
someone we never were before (—a "new
creation"). We have a brand new identity. Our
old identity was in man (ie, the "world")
under the control (kingdom) of darkness. But
our new identity is in
Christ. We are now born and exist
of the very nature of God by Jesus Christ.
But
that's not all. Our salvation is not just a
first intrinsic change in our identity. Our
salvation also has a progressive side. It is
the ongoing
change-over of everything we still are
in this life (ie, in the "flesh") to come in
line and conform to our new inward identity.
This
means, once we are converted, we go on to
bring every other "left-over" sense of
identity we still have in natural life over to
our awareness of who we are in Christ. We keep
losing
and yielding up
our sense of identities relative to this life,
displacing
them with our awareness of identity in Christ
alone. Do you follow me?
Jesus
had a word for this. He called it "losing
your life
for my sake." By "life," He meant our
sense of identity—that by which we identify
ourselves in the world, that in terms of which
we measure our self-esteem and evaluate our
self-worth.
Jesus
was saying that true Christianity is a matter
of our losing these awarenesses into our
ever-expanding awareness of identity and worth
in Him alone. Someday, when we attain
perfection, that is the only
sense of identity we will have—identity
in Christ. (Do you see now how
"identity" is the bottom-line issue in our
salvation?)
OK.
Let's elaborate a little further on this. The
apostle Paul gave some examples of what it
means when our identity in Christ takes over
our identities in the world. Listen to this:
There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
bond nor free, there is neither male nor
female: for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus... There is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision. Barbarian,
Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all,
and in all.
(Gal 5:28; Col 5:11)
These
are just some of the identities we have
inherited from the world that our salvation
displaces. In the world — if you think about
it — we carry many different identities.
Consider all the organizations and clubs to
which we belong. In every one of these we
carry some kind of identification.
In
employment, we are identified by our job
description (you, for example, are a
"realtor"). In clubs and civic groups, we may
be identified by an office (like "treasurer")
or by a rank (like "eagle scout"). This
doesn't include all the natural identities we
assume through natural relationship (husband,
father, uncle, etc.) Really, the kinds of
identities we carry in this world are too
numerous to list. All of us carry a multiple
set of identities from this world throughout
life.
But
here is the
point: As we grow in our salvation (our
awareness of who we are in Christ) we go on to
lose our sense of identities inherited and
acquired in this world. All of these become
displaced by our sense of identity in Christ.
We think of ourselves less and less in terms
of who we
are or what function we fill in this life, and
more and more as simply "lovers of Jesus
Christ."
-
Defining
True Holiness
Now
that I have defined salvation at its root as a
matter of intrinsic and progressive "identity
change," the true meaning of "holiness"
becomes apparent.
”Holiness"
means "separation." But in context of what we
have described, this separation refers to our
becoming estranged in our hearts from who we
are in this world. It is a separation from our
old awareness of identities in this world so
we can become more fully possessed by our
awareness of who we are in Christ.
This
is true holiness. (Unfortunately, for most
people "holiness" means to find one's
identity in terms of some
idea of what holiness means, not in
simple single-hearted awareness of Jesus!)
-
The
Church's Salvation: Corporate Realignment of
Identity
Are
you with me so far? I hope so... To this point
we have just been describing personal
salvation. But what is true in personal
salvation is also
true concerning the perfecting of the
complete Body of Christ. For in the
process of saving us as individuals, God is
saving to Himself a corporate body of People.
As
individual salvation is a matter of changing
identity, so is the corporate perfection of
the Church a matter of the change of identity
of an entire People from out of the corporate
identities in the world. God is
saving to Himself a People whose intrinsic
identity is centred in Christ, and who are also
progressing to become more and more openly
recognized solely for belonging to Christ.
OK.
Let's elaborate and apply this just as we did
for individual salvation. This time I will
quote from John's Revelation the words of the
24 elders around God's throne. Listen to this:
For
thou hast redeemed us... out
of every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation; And hast made us unto
our God kings and priests: and we
shall reign on the earth."(Rev
5:9-10 see also 7:9)
Did
you catch the "identity switch?" The elders
were saying that at one time they were
identified according to the natural people
groups of the world, but now they have a
unique corporate identity before God, and that
this is what their redemption is all about.
(Also
note, and don't miss this: their rulership
on the earth is the result
of the completion of their identity change
(not before) and that their title as "kings"
is with respect to (their upward
gaze toward) God, not
with respect to (their downward gaze over) the
peoples of the world. This point is vital to
our discussion later).
Peter
elaborates on this unique corporate identity:
But
ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, an holy
nation, a peculiar people... the people of
God.
(I Pt 2:9-10)
Did
you catch the word "holy" again? What does it
mean? It means that the Church is separate
in identity from all natural people
groups. As with individual world identities,
so there are numerous corporate world
identities. The elders named some of them,
such as "kindreds" (ie, races), "tongues"
(language groups), and—get this—"nations."
But
then there are also lesser corporate world
identities through political parties, business
corporations, labour unions, clans and
families, cultural and humanitarian
organizations, private clubs, secret
societies, universities and fraternities — and
the list goes on.
(Incidentally,
it's quite appropriate here to mention that
the very word "Church" in Greek means
"called-out ones". This all speaks to our
separate, distinct identity as the People of
God from all other corporate groupings of
people in the world.)
But
what is the point? The point is that as in
individual salvation, the Church's corporate
salvation must carry on through a practical
re-alignment of Her identity. God's People do
not only have an intrinsically new separate
identity, but they must go on to actually lose
their sense of world identities and come into
their own awareness of their exclusive
identity in terms of Jesus Christ.
For
the Church, progressive salvation means
thinking of ourselves less and less in terms
of what human nation we live in, or to what
political party we are aligned, and rather
more and more as just "the People of God." We
must leave behind our sense of identity as
members of this race, or that family, or this
country, or that business corporation, or this
college, or that civic club, etc.
The
Meaning of Unholiness and a Look at Church
History
Now
I have laid the foundation for my case. In
order to lead up to the punch line, I need to
discuss the meaning of "unholiness" and also
take a brief glance at Church history.
Earlier
we said that holiness is the measure to which
we lose our sense of identities relative to
the world, displacing them with fuller
awareness of our union with Christ.
Then
what is unholiness?
Jesus
used metaphors to describe unholiness. He
spoke of casting pearls before swine and bread
before dogs. For us in plain language,
unholiness refers to taking our spiritual
energy and the things God gives us for
purifying our identity and redirecting
them to reinforce our remaining identities
in the world.
Unholiness
is when we take the Bible, and our ministry,
and our spiritual gifts, and we divert them to
strengthen and justify our remaining
affiliations with world-based identities. On
the individual level, we do this when we use
spiritual arguments to justify our personal
commitments to the world.
Corporately,
the Church does this when she twists Her
ministries to make alliances and strengthen
old identities in terms of the peoples and
organizations of the world. (Our discussion is
particularly interested in alliances between
God's People and political parties).
All
of this is unholiness. It comes down to us
through Scripture as called "spiritual
adultery." And in God's sight, it is an
abomination.
Now
let's sum up Church history. If there is one
consistent hallmark of Church history
(pertaining to the visible Church), it is that
the Church has been repeatedly, successfully
seduced by the world in every generation to
use Her ministries to re-align and reinforce
Her identity in terms of the nations out of
which She has been called.
The
first great occurrence of this was when the
Church succumbed to becoming identified in
terms of the Roman Empire. This produced what
is still today called the Roman Catholic
Church. After the Reformation, the same thing
happened with the Protestant Churches. They
became re-identified in terms of the cities
and nations of northern Europe. Again, it
happened at the founding of Massachusetts and
then of the entire United States. The
Church succumbed to re-identifying Herself
in terms of the American people. This
has been passed down through the persistent
lie that the United States is a "Christian
nation".
(According
to Peter, there is only one Christian nation:
the Church worldwide.) Based on this lie, the
Church believes it is Her duty to keep trying
to build up, preserve, and improve American
society by
committing Herself to further
identification with all America's institutions
— most of all, Her Republican Party.
Coming
Back to the Church's Blind Side
At
the beginning of this letter I mentioned a
"blind side" of the Church. Well—now I have
named it for you. We, the Church in America,
have been deceived into strengthening our
worldly identities by God's Word instead of
coming out of those identities and building
our own exclusive identity in Christ,
And
now that the Holy Spirit is being poured out
on us, we are using the Spirit's gifts to do
this all the more. We are trying to "prophesy"
the United States back into something it
never was when we should be prophesying our
way out of it and into our completed union
with Jesus Christ.
You
see, it is only as the Church comes out of Her
sense of identity with the world that She has
a testimony to the world—something different
that the world can see about Her. But as long
as the Church is using the name of Jesus
Christ to reinforce Her identity with nations
like the United States, the nations cannot see
Jesus in Her eyes—only a reflection of
themselves.
The
key to conversion, whether of our personal
friends, or of nations like the United States,
is for us to lose our sense of identity with
our friends and with the United States—not
reinforce it.
If we want to see them saved, our
eyes must be heavenward on Jesus, not
earthward on those we want to see saved. Their
salvation can only come when they leave
themselves to join us, not when we leave who
we are to join them. There is no in-between on
this.
Lately,
there has been much talk of the Church "taking
over the world." Well—for this to happen, it
must be from the inside out. It is only as and
after that we, God's People, become separated
out from our sense of identity with the
nations through steadfast gaze unto
God that we will take over the world
(See Rev 5:9-10 again, That's what the elders
said.)
But
if we think we can take the world over by
committing our spiritual energies to
reinforcing our identification with the
nations, their political systems and
institutions, we are in for a terrible
surprise. It is We who will be taken over.
The
Inevitable Culmination of Church-Age
Unholiness
This
leads me to comment on what is next for the
Church and the end of this age. We read in
Daniel and Revelation of a final world system
that comes to power with the help of the
Church. In turn, the Church is burned by that
system (called "the Beast"). The truth simply
is, and the story of Church history has simply
been, that Satan has been using a deceived and
ignorant Church to gradually build a total
world empire, after which his intention is to
destroy the Church.
The
machinery for that final system is completely
in place now. It just remains for the Church
to become sufficiently bogged down in the
works of the world where that system can be
unveiled without Her noticing it—in fact,
where She will be happy to unveil it Herself,
thinking She is at last "bringing in the
Kingdom of God." (Jesus said this very last
day would be so extremely deceptive. Now you
see why.)
This
is not to say that all the Church will be
deceived. But it is to say that for many it
will be too late before they realize they have
been tricked. Once the system turns on us, it
will be too late to take the measures we could
have taken to find protection before
everything collapsed. For this purpose, God
has raised up advance watchmen to warn the
Church for the sake of those who will listen
(This is the message I have from the Lord).
You
see, not everyone who is deceived is willfully
deceived. Many are just ignorantly deceived,
With purest intentions they are seeking to
rebuild something God has already decreed to
destroy. He wants them to turn from their
misguided involvement to begin finding their
identity in Him alone—not in being Americans,
or Republicans, or government office holders.
This
is the only way America can truly be saved.
When America finally sees a people in Her
midst who are no longer American—who are
neither Republican nor Democrat; neither
Baptist nor Charismatic; neither pro-Swaggart,
nor pro-Robertson, nor pro-anybody—then
America will be saved.
The
Fall of the United States
Will
America be saved? Will revival come? Are the
prophecies true? Yes, they are true. Revival
will come. America will be saved. But
not until she is first destroyed.
Why? Well—it's the same with nations as with
individuals. No one is saved whose former
identity is not first destroyed. And no nation
is saved until its identity is first destroyed
and absorbed into the one true Nation, the
Church. For in the kingdom of God, there are
no Americans or Russians, even as there are no
Jones or Smiths.
So
what will happen? Well, since neither America
nor any other nation has willingly yielded up
its identity to become part of the People of
God, God will just wait til the nations all
yield up their identities to the coming world
system. Then He will just destroy that system
and glean to Himself out of what once were the
individual nations. Then the Lord will be able
to set up His kingdom with a people marked by
nothing but His
Name.
How
God has longed over the centuries to bring to
Himself a People who are completely
saved, whose identity is totally separated
apart from the world unto Him. But He never
has been able to get that through willing
co-operation from the Church. (And how much
less then from the world?)
Still
the nations affirm their nationality—and still
the Church Herself affirms Her identity in
terms of the nations (In America, it's
virtually impossible to separate the thought
of being Christian from being American).
Therefore,
God must wait until the nations stumble into
the destruction of their own choosing before
He can save them. And He must wait til the
Church stumbles into Her own destruction
through Her following of the nations before He
can perfect Her as well as bring them into her
number. (Now you see why the tribulation is to
be such a terrible time.)
But
that destruction does not have to come
inevitably to any of us who are now willing
to heed the gentle warning of God, become
set free from our deception, and turn again
to pressing into our complete
identity as children of the Most High.
How about it, then? Are we willing to
give up our identity as Americans, as
Republicans, as labourers for the American
economy—and refill it with our identity in
Christ? This is the message I have from the
Lord.
Commentary
on the Events at Hand
In
the beginning I commented on the excitement in
the air over the political activity going on.
Pat Robertson is running for president. To the
natural understanding, this is the way to
affect things for the better. But in light of
what I have said, you can see why I cannot
support Pat Robertson for president. I do not
believe Pat Robertson should be president or
even run for president. I do not believe it is
good either for him, or the Church, or the
nation. His candidacy only preserves the error
under which the Church has laboured since the
United States was founded. It just draws the
Church's attention all the more away from
pressing into Her true identity—separate
from the nation of America.
Personally,
I believe Pat Robertson is operating in
deception (The more I hear him speak and make
adjustments in his speech to accommodate
different peoples, the more I am convinced of
this). How much of his deception is willing
and how much is ignorant I cannot say. But it
is deception nonetheless. Pat claims to have
heard from God that he is supposed to run.
Perhaps he did. But I also know God is not
above telling people what they want to hear if
that's what they want to hear badly enough.
As
for the remainder of the campaign, here is my
prognosis, I do not believe Pat will be
nominated, or that he could win if he were
nominated, I believe he will probably play the
part of a power broker, possibly securing to
himself the pledge of an influential position
in the White House or Cabinet in return for
his support of the nominee.
Actually,
I do not at this point think the Republicans
will win in November—only because 1988 has
hardly begun. I feel that there will be some
type of major economic turmoil by late summer,
early fall—enough to blame the Republicans and
change administrations. I also feel that Mario
Cuomo will be the draft choice at the
Democratic convention and will consequently
win the election. In fact, I believe that
alternative would be far preferable to a
Robertson White House. For the possible
scenario I see for a Robertson White House is
This:
Whoever
is next president will probably have to deal
with some major economic catastrophes. The
U.S. economy exists on a paper soap-bubble,
One pin in the right place at the right
time—and it will all be over. The machinery
for world government will intervene and take
over. (A possible nuclear conflict in the
Mid-east involving Israel is also foreseeable
during the next administration). If Robertson
is president if-and-when these things occur,
you can count on a real backlash against the
Church. The Church could well bear the brunt
of blame by the world for these
catastrophes—triggering a major worldwide
persecution (perhaps dovetailing with the
onset of the Great Tribulation).
One
thing is certain—there is no way Robertson
could secure a national revival to avert these
things. This is simply because revival is not
something that can happen from the top down.
And in any case, even if Pat could effect some
kind of "revival," it would only be a revival
of Americanism—not genuine Christian revival.
Whether
we like it or not, we must accept
the fact that America is NOT a Christian
nation. Indeed, outside the Church, there is
no such thing. If there is to be revival, it
will only come when the People of God become
established in their identity
as citizens of heaven—apart from any sense of
being American. And I can tell you that that
awareness will not come to the Church in
America until the Church has been badly burned
by the American society She has vainly tried
to reinforce for 350 years.
Now
you have both my basic message from the Lord
as well as my further commentary on immediate
events. I hope I haven't startled you by what
I've said. Yet I know God is raising me up to
teach these things. I am not ashamed of them
though they are unpopular. Since our awareness
of Pat Robertson has been at the forefront of
our recent conversations, I feel it is good
and appropriate that I share this word with
you. Now that you know my thinking, we can
take it from there."
-(end
of letter)-
Then
What About "Our Nation's" Blessings?
Usually
after the kind of teaching I have just given
above, I am met with a barrage of questions
about what our rightful place of involvement
with national life should be. The second part
of this article is going to address some of
these questions. (At the end of this article
is an appendix answering questions pertaining
to scriptures people most often cite to
justify the Church's attempts to hold American
society together.)
The
great confusion over our involvement as
Christians in American society is due to a
root misconception concerning why America has
been so evidently blessed over three and a
half centuries.
Let's
face it. America has been a blessed place in
comparison to the rest of the world. There's
not a nation past or present that can come
close to it. And of course, everybody wants to
keep a good thing going! That's only natural.
The problem is that this matter of blessings
has blinded us to the plain fact of
Christianity that says we are to become
separate in identity from human society.
If
it weren't for the blessings, nobody would
question what I have taught in this article so
far. If America was a place like Russia or
Uganda, nobody would question that our role is
to be on the up-and-out of human
society.(People are trying to get out of those
places anyway!)
But
it's this thing about blessings that changes
our Christian mind from what Jesus plainly
called us to in 30 A.D. (Let's face it, folks.
There's not a drop of resemblance between the
relationship to society Jesus preached to his
disciples and what patriotic American
Christianity teaches today.)
Why?
It's because we have these national blessings
that the world of Jesus' time didn't have, and
we have a warped conception of how these
blessings came to be and what keeps them. If
we can dispel this misconception about the
blessings, we'll be able to show that what
we have taught about losing our
identity is right.
In
the second part of this article therefore we
will do two things: First we will get to the
truth about what is and what is not
responsible for America's national blessings.
Second, we are going to take a new look at
America's purpose in the plan of God based on
that truth. I think we'll see some things
about America we never saw before. OK. Let's
get on with it.
Misconception
Regarding National Blessings
The
misconception about national blessings is as
follows: Godly people (ie, Christians) can set
their hand to build a nation like any other
nation is built. But because Godly people
build it using what they consider to be Godly
laws and principles, God will bless that
nation. And as long as the humans of that
nation keep those principles, that nation will
continue to be blessed.
Applied
to the United States, it is asserted that
Godly people (ie, Pilgrims, Puritans, and
other such "more-or-less" Godly people) built
the United States on Godly laws, and that
therefore the U.S. is blessed. And as long as
American people (Godly or otherwise) keep
those laws through committed devotion, the
blessings will continue.
Now right away, anyone who has a handle on the
fact that we live in the "age of grace" and
knows what that means can see right through
the fault line in the above assertion. The
entire idea that any kind of righteousness and
blessing can be had by keeping any kind of law
through human works is absolutely laughable.
And if this is true concerning entering into
and perfecting of salvation for those who have
it, how
much more true must it be concerning
temporal national blessings with respect
to a mixture of people, the vast majority
of whom don't even know God! Can
the blessings of righteousness which come only
by grace through faith be ascribed to the
credit of any who labours to find them
according to some law
of God or nature? Hardly so.
"Well,"
you say, "If
the national blessings we have today are not
a result of the good works of our
forefathers according to Godly laws, and if
you say they are not now being preserved by
the good works we contribute according to
such laws, then where do you say blessings
came from and how are they preserved?"
The
Reverse Polarity of Blessing Preservation
This is a fair question. To answer it in a way
that is consistent with the premise that we
live in the age of grace, I appeal to a maxim
of Jesus which describes one of those
paradoxical mysteries of God's kingdom. Here
is what He said:
Whosoever
will save his life shall lose it: and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake
shall find it.
(Mt 16:25)
In
this maxim, "life" refers to the soul and to
everything that the soul can enjoy. And that's
what natural blessings are. According to
Jesus, blessings come not
to those who seek them to establish them or
preserve them, but to those, who deny them
to themselves in order to pursue the heart
of God. By contrast, those
who seek to establish and preserve
temporal blessing are those who lose them
and on whose account they are lost to
others.
Natural
blessings emanate from the quest to know Jesus
Christ, something which calls for
single-minded attention to spiritual reality
at the expense of attention to acquiring
blessings. We can’t give attention to seeking
spiritual reality and to seeking blessings at
the same time. And since the blessings only
come as a result of our pursuing spiritual
things, therefore, to seek to acquire and
preserve blessings in this life is to lose
them! This is because to seek them, we must
turn our attention away from the spiritual
reality by which they are produced.
-
The Truth in Ancient Fables
This
is like the proverb about killing the goose
that lays the golden egg. If you kill the
goose to get the eggs, you lose both. If you
want the eggs, you have to give your attention
to preserving the goose, not to getting the
eggs. This pictures the relationship between
the seeking of spiritual things and the
obtaining of natural blessings.
There
is another fable about a dog with a bone who
saw his reflection in a pool beneath a bridge
from which he was looking down. He couldn’t
see the real bone in his mouth, but he could
see its reflection in the pool below. When he
saw the reflection, he lusted after the bone
he could see below and barked for it. But the
moment he did, the bone he really had fell
from his mouth into the pool. Consequently, he
lost both his real bone and the reflection!
This
too illustrates the truth behind our
relationship to earthly blessings and
spiritual reality. Our blessings mirror the
invisible reality we have in Jesus Christ “in
our mouths.” To preserve their reflection, we
must keep our direct focus of desire in life
on the Unseen One living within us. Therefore
we must be content to have only an indirect
relationship with our blessings.
But
the moment we try to establish direct
relationship with our blessings, we sacrifice
the invisible Reality by which they come and
—like the dog who dropped the bone—we lose
both our God and our blessings. (Actually,
this is the definition of “idolatry.”)
Those
Who Seek Not the Blessings of
Nation-Building Will Find Them…..
If
these things are true, then the answers to our
questions about national blessings become
apparent. The blessings we have in America
today are not the result of the direct works
of the forefathers, nor are they being
preserved by those who are spending their
direct energies trying to restore them.
Anyone,
for example, who has read the accounts of how
the U.S. Constitution came into being in 1787
can’t help but realize that the emerging
document had to have come quite in
spite of
the efforts of the delegates who composed it.
No. It is not because
of the men who put the nation together that
its blessings were enshrined in its
foundation.
If
not, then who takes the credit? The credit
goes to the
silent spiritual influence of those who
simply loved the Lord and were not swayed to
seek blessings for themselves by trying to
start a new nation!
The
same is true today concerning what blessings
remain to us in America. They are not being
preserved by those whose energies are focused
on "saving America." They are being preserved
by those who have no ambition but to love and
obey the Lord, who have no time to get
entangled in the fleshly affairs of trying to
preserve national blessings.
It
is as godly people dwell in a land and pass
through it that God transforms it from tears
to a place of life (See Ps. 84:6). It is God's
free-flowing presence
through those with hearts of devotion to Him,
not by their "works," that national blessings
are gained and kept.
And
Those Who Seek the Blessings of
Nation-Building Will Lose Them
By
contrast, we see who is responsible for the
curses that are upon national life today. It
is those who have turned their attention from
the Lord to creating and preserving for
themselves national blessings. The seeds for
today's curses were planted by those whose
direct attention was given to founding a new
nation — beginning with the Puritans.
And
that is why, as a result of direct Christian
efforts to prop up the American moral climate,
moral decline accelerates. Again,
when we turn our attention to preserving our
life, we lose it. That is what idolatry is all
about and that is what is happening today in
the American Christian Conservative movement.
In
the final picture, we see that the credit for
what good is left in America is due to the
hidden faithful whose only ambition is to love
God, who give no thought to preserving
America. Meanwhile, the blame for the
accelerating evils in America belongs to those
who have abandoned simple love for God in
order to preserve America's life. These are
responsible for America's loss. This all runs
contrary to human perception, but that's the
way it is with the Kingdom of God.
When
God finally judges the wickedness of American
society, He will actually be executing His
sentence against the idolatrous unbelief of
the "activist" Church on whose account that
wickedness abounds. Yet when He does, be sure
that it will not touch those who have
remained silently steadfast in their love for
God, to whom America's preservation or loss
ultimately means nothing.
And
while they will be sorry in one way to see
such a once-magnificent nation destroyed, the
silently steadfast will realize that God's
Presence in them will simply pass through the
next valley of tears and make of it one more
well of life—even as they have done in all
other centuries. As their quiet presence
allowed for the creation of America in spite
of America's founders, so will their presence
allow for the establishing of the next
Kingdom. Only this time, whereas America was
for practice, this next Kingdom shall be
forever!
Understanding
God's True Purpose for the United States in
the Church Age
In
the age to come, the millennial saints will
study the United States of America. They will
see in it a marvelous microcosm of how Church
Age saints negotiated and failed to negotiate
their spiritual development over the "reverse
polarities" of spiritual reality during their
sojourn amidst the nations. But you and I
don't have to wait for the Millennium to study
this. We can get a head start on learning from
the "American Experiment" even before that
experiment has finished.
Let's
learn right now together
what God's true purpose was for America in the
overall context of Church history. Let's learn
why it was inevitable that such a nation would
come into being during the Church Age, and
equally inevitable that such a nation would
destroy itself.
In
the manuscript Flight from Babylon,
we established that, in light of God's true
purpose for His People from the beginning, the
United States should never have been founded.
Had they remained true to their original call,
God’s People would have instead been
going out in mobility to carry the Gospel to
all the earth. They wouldn't have stooped to
engage in "nation building."
This
is so. But while it is so, it is only
idealistically so. It is so in the same way
that there should never have been a Roman
Catholic Church, or that the Jews should not
have killed Jesus, or that Israel should not
have stumbled over the Law, or that Adam
should not have sinned. All these things are
so also! Yet we know they happened. And they
can't be changed.
But
if we are astute, we can realize that, without
justifying any of these things, God used these
things in spite of themselves to His advantage
to accomplish His own special plan in every
case. Really now. Isn't this the truth about
all of world history?
From
one viewpoint, all world history is a mistake
that should never have happened (And one day,
when the new heavens and earth are
established, it never will happen again!) But
at the same time, we realize God had an
underlying plan to accomplish through His Son.
Countervailing
Currents and Strategies
Yes—
all world history is like a great river. The
river has a visible surface current full of
debris that should not be nor ever have been.
But below the surface current is a deep hidden
undercurrent of God's living and unthwartable
purposes. Though part of the same river, it
moves in a different direction, achieves
different ends, and eventually wins out.
If
we can accept this about world history, we can
also accept it about the United States. The
United States is a nation which should never
have been. Yet under its faulty basis for
existence, it has fulfilled a hidden purpose
according to God's undercurrent.
In
Flight from Babylon,
we destroyed the myths concerning America's
founding based on the fantastic interpretation
of the surface current of her history —-the
ideas that America was "God's New Israel," His
"Chosen People," and even that America is a
"Christian nation."
But
in this article, the way is open to take a
more positive view of God's ulterior purpose
for America based on His undercurrent
strategy. I think we can safely risk this
genuine appreciation without rekindling any
sense of false patriotism. So let's find out
what that ulterior purpose for America was all
about.
When
trying to determine God's purpose behind the
founding and existence of the United States,
the usual question people ask is:
"Why
was America founded?"
But
this is the wrong question to ask. The reason
it is the wrong question is because it looks
to the visible, surface current of America's
history to find the answer to God's purpose.
But you can't find God's purpose for anything
in history by looking to the surface current
of what happened. You have to look to the undercurrent.
If
you look to the surface current of events like
the Pilgrim's landing and the Revolutionary
War to find out God's purpose for America, all
you will find is what
men say God's purpose was, based on
their interpretation of the events. And when
you do that, you always end up giving credit
to God for things that should never have
happened, and credit to men for good things
they can't take credit for.
Yet
that's just what men do now, and that's how
they justify their involvement in trying to
"save America." (Imagine!—giving God credit
for the bloody Revolutionary War over taxes;
and giving the deist founders credit for their
marvelous "spiritual insight and wisdom" in
establishing "freedom of religion"!)
No,
friends. To find God's true purpose for
America, we have to look to the undercurrent
of history. And to look to the undercurrent,
we must ask the question this way:
"Why
was America able
to be founded?"
(and
also:)
"Why
was America allowed
to
be founded?"
Do
you see what happens when we ask the question
these ways? When we ask
why
America was able to be founded, we are
recognizing that there are spiritual
influences responsible for some things that
happened, good things for which no man can
take credit.
And
when we ask why America was allowed to be
founded, we are recognizing that as a pure
work of the flesh in the surface current of
history, America's founding was nothing that
God could be proud of or that He would put His
name to.
After
we have put the answers to these two questions
together, we will know what God's purpose was
for America.
Why
Was America Able to Be Founded?
What
we are really asking here is, How did the spiritual
climate come about that could allow for
the creation of such a nation as America? For
surely, apart from proper spiritual climate
that would influence the founders to see and
understand such concepts as "separation of
church and state," no such nation could be
formed.
What
was it that created the spiritual sunny skies
that enabled the fleshly minds of those who
penned the Constitution to be able to
comprehend the unique concepts of government
embodied in it? (Certainly today no similar
climate exists where such a nation could again
be created!)
If
you remember back to how we said national
blessings are won and lost, then you can come
up with the answer. When we recall that
blessings are not obtained by those who seek
for them but by those who seek God alone, we
learn that the men who met in Philadelphia had
nothing to do with the spiritual climate under
which they sought to bless themselves with a
new nation and were able to form it.
No.
The spiritual climate was due to the silent
cumulative influence of all those in and out
of America to that time who had persistently
been seeking the Lord and nothing more for
themselves in this life. It was the presence
of these people in the earth on whose account
such a spiritual climate prevailed.
Church
Restoration since the Reformation had
proceeded far enough that those who had
benefited from everything restored that
far and who were seeking the Lord were able to
bring a spiritually mature, ripe enough
atmosphere to the earth through their presence
by which such a nation could be conceivably
founded were some fleshly-minded people so
minded to try it!
Does this mean the U.S. should have been
founded? Did the fact that a favourable
spiritual climate prevailed justify the acts
of men to establish to themselves a nation of
blessing?
The
answer is "No". But people being what they
are, and setting their eyes on earthly things,
would naturally take advantage of a
spiritually ripe enough climate to bless
themselves with a new nation.
Therefore,
when you put these two factors together: (1)
the inevitability that Church Restoration
would reach a place in history where those
fully benefiting from it and keeping close to
God would emanate a spiritual climate
conducive to the successful founding of a
nation like the U.S., and (2) the
inevitability that people would seize upon
such a climate to build themselves such a
nation of blessing, we see why it was
inevitable that such a nation such as the
United States would be founded at sometime
during the church age.
Now
we clearly see the two currents in the
development of the United States. We see the
hidden current of those who sought God and
never batted an eye at the nation's founding,
but on whose account the climate prevailed for
one to be founded. But we also see
the surface current of those who eyed and
seized the blessings to build to themselves a
nation to preserve their own life in this
world—blessings resultant from a spiritual
climate for which they were not responsible.
The
actual founding of the U.S. was by
unregenerate idolaters. Although it is these
men (most of them "deists" and/or freemasons)
who today are given credit for giving America
to the world, we must see that America was not
able
to be founded because
of them, but was allowed
to be founded by
(what for many of them was) their rebellious
hand.
No.
Those who sowed to themselves the violent
founding of the United States are those who
actually planted the seeds for America's
inevitable demise. For those who seek their
lives always lose them—and their blessings.
According
to the maxim of Jesus, those who set their
hand of flesh, (whether Christians or
non-Christians) to establish the United States
certified its eventual destruction. This
answers the question of why the demise of
America was as inevitable as its founding.
Why
Was America Allowed to Be Founded?
But
why then? Why would God allow men to build to
themselves such a nation based on a spiritual
atmosphere not of their making—a nation begun
in rebellion and because it was flesh must
ultimately return to the ground from whence it
came? Why? To answer this, let’s trace the
effects of the two currents through U.S.
history. Then we'll have the answer.
First,
you have those Christians in the surface
current of American society who have
perpetually sought to preserve the blessings
of that society to themselves and "for their
children." By seeking to preserve it, they
have been and are now responsible for sowing
and watering the seeds of moral corruption and
societal decay that have blossomed these last
decades: black riots, drug abuse, abortion,
free sex and homosexuality, family decay, etc.
In
the name of their forefathers, the spiritual
descendants of America's planters are
fighting the weeds their fathers planted by
pouring on them more fleshly fertilizer
(political activism, rallies, marches, etc!)
Before their chickens came home to roost,
these Christians were enjoying their selfish
"good-life" to the full.
But
after their materialistic seeds started
sprouting, then they cried "We
need revival." They are concerned for
revival only once their good-life is
threatened. But once they get temporary
superficial help from a president or supreme
court justice of their choosing, then they
relax and go back to their good-life. They are
never stirred to a vision of eternity. They
never seriously consider going to personally
fulfill the Great Commission in some other
part of the earth. This has been and is the
course of the surface current of American
Christian history.
But
then you have had the undercurrent of God's
faithful People, These are the spiritual
descendants of those on whose account the
spiritual atmosphere was possible to found
America. These descendants have continued to
hold what remains of that atmosphere together
by their faithful pursuit of Jesus. Though
they have found themselves amidst America's
blessings, they have not been moved by them.
These
have discovered the true present value of
eternal life. Based on the atmosphere provided
by their forefathers, they have taken
advantage of America's blessings to build on
their faith, pressing into their God in
silence. They have come yet more deeply into
Him over the continuing moves of Church
Restoration brought forth in America since
their forefathers, moves which have been
possible because of their faithful presence.
Despite
the abundance of blessings surrounding them,
these have not succumbed to seek them except
that they might reinvest them in their further
pursuit of God Himself. And though what
remains of the Godly atmosphere preserved by
their presence is ever-diminishing, their
emanation of God's glory is now preparing the
setting for the arrival of the Lord's
soon-coming permanent kingdom.
Once
America falls under the weight of the sin of
her "blessing-preservers," these who used
America’s context to prepare themselves
through purified identity and perfected
salvation shall greet the Lord in glory at His
coming. They shall be raised up to visibly
rule with Him.
The
Answer to God’s Purpose behind the Founding
of America
Now
then! When you look at these currents side by
side, you have the answer to “What
was God’s purpose in allowing the founding
of the United States?” Here is the
two-fold answer:
1.
With respect to the surface current of
idolaters, blessing-seekers, and
“life-preservers,” it was to prove to all
history and to the ages to come that “flesh
and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God!”
Even if you give the church in the flesh its
own nation from scratch with all the possible
blessings of natural resources, “good” human
government, and technological achievements, it
still would not accomplish its true
commission, would still fail her calling
to reach the world, and would still fail
to “bring in the kingdom.”
In
short, God would prove by the Church in
America that the Church Age, being a mixture
of flesh and spirit, would be another age
short of Reality. Together with Old Testament
Israel, the visible New Testament
Church—culminating with the Church in
America—will be an object lesson to the
spiritual students of the next age of what
not to do.
2.
But with respect to the undercurrent of
faithful ones who would deny America’s
blessings to seek His face, God took advantage
of the works of selfish men to provide through
America a safe haven in the world where they
could proceed unmolested for three and a half
centuries in the school of discipleship,
pressing on into heights of holiness and
spiritual awareness unknown before.
Relatively
free from the ravages of war and civil
turmoil, these faithful would be afforded
access to ministry of such proliferation that
their progress in faith could be accelerated
and their complete redemption hastened. God
designed America to be a spiritual greenhouse
for a body of People who could press into Him
in ways that they would not have been able to
elsewhere.
It
is not that the land of America was more
righteous than any other land. It is simply
that this “land across the seas” was the site
of His sovereign choice, reserved until the
end of the Church Age for the final “touches”
to the Restoration of His hidden faithful in
preparation for His permanent Kingdom. (Once
the maturing plants are ready, the greenhouse
of America shall be dissolved, and the True
Garden shall appear.)
The
blessings of America, though “hi-jacked” by
flesh and blood to their own ends, will be
studied by millennial students as an example
of the potential for total earth restoration
available to those who turn their backs on
earth to press into God there.
As
one famous American commentator has said, “And now
you know the rest of the story!” Now we
understand God’s true purpose for America, and
who gets credit for America’s rise and fall.
America’s direct founders and present
preservers are Her losers. But those who have
lost her for His sake have not only found Him,
but Her blessings aright as well.
Preparing
for the Dissolution of the United States of
America
America’s
end as a Church-Age “Experiment” is nigh at
hand. As a greenhouse for sheltering His
People’s restoration til their perfection, she
is about to be removed. As an example to those
who have worshipped her, she is about to be
destroyed. The purpose for her existence has
been virtually completed.
With
an eye to this, God’s gracious warnings are
appearing for those who will still heed them.
The last call for purified identity and
perfected salvation is now being issued.
To
illustrate, I draw from the testimony of a
friend who is a manager in a large local
market. She commented on an incident that
erupted in her store last week resulting in
violence in which she was caught in the
middle. On later reflection, she realized how
she has lately noticed an increase in the
number of shoppers carrying guns in their
handbags and how many potential
incidents there could be that have not
happened. This caused her to thank God for her
protection all along, and to marvel at why
there have not been more violent incidents.
What
my friend received from the Lord was an
instantaneous revelational warning that there
is a brimming potential for violence today of
which she was never aware before. She
responded rightly
to this warning by realizing that her safety
has not rested in the apparent superficial
calm in society right now, but only in the
Lord.
Why
is this story important? It is important
because it tells in miniature the truth about
all North American society at this very
moment. The truth is that there is a deep,
building, pent-up violence in the hearts of
most North Americans waiting to be triggered
into continent-wide civil turmoil.
This
growing inward lawlessness in the hearts of
people is the reaping of the self-seeking
visible American Church. The reason that
violence has not yet erupted nationwide is
only because the angels of God are holding
back the hands of men— and that is only on
account of the influence of a relatively small
number of people whose presence in the land is
being honoured by the Lord.
The
present apparent peace is not
because— as America's would-be preservers
claim —Americans are basically "good,
Christian people," or because America has
"good" law enforcement and just needs more
Christian people to get in there and hold it
together.
Rather,
thanks to fleshly Christian involvement, the
latent sin in the sinful body of American
society is being exacerbated to an explosion
point. It is only the angels of God
intervening every moment between men and their
acts that holds the violence back—if only to
give men one more chance to repent.
But
men are not repenting, nor is the Church.
Therefore, as gracious warnings, God is
loosing the hands of His angels more and more,
withdrawing their intervention to allow
certain violent acts to surface. This is so
God's People may see their only identity and
trust is in God, not America. It is so they
may start preparing to enter into His
protection now before His hand is completely
withdrawn from the society and "all hell
breaks loose."
Make
no mistake. That time is swift approaching.
Every time you hear of a shopping mall
massacre or a highway sniping, it is your
warning to start taking your eyes off America,
start finding your identity and protection in
Him, and start seeking Him so that His
Presence can flow through you as a mitigating
factor in the coming judgment.
Don't
say, "It
can't happen here." It is about to
happen everywhere. The only reason it happens
in certain places now is not because those
places are more wicked, but because those are
the only places angels have withdrawn their
hand of intervention. Any
city or town could be next —and it could be yours.
To
all my readers I therefore say, heed God's
warnings. He wants to protect you and flow
through you as He did through Jesus when He
walked untouched through angry mobs. But He
can't live like that through you if your eyes
are on America. And when America turns to harm
you, He will be unable to protect you.
Get
your identity purified and your salvation
perfected now, so when the violence planted by
America’s founders and watered by our brethren
explodes, you may walk safely and untouched
outside her bounds. Mark well: God is
gathering to Himself a People known by no
other Name than His. And the umbilical cord to
America is about to be cut for us all.
When
it is, will you be ready? Will you have
developed the unflinching trust in the Lord it
will require to be spared? For there will be
no other salvation in any other name —least of
all America's.
This is the message I have from the
Lord.
It
has been a privilege to write all of you
again. If you have any sincere question about
these things, I am here to help strengthen you
in the purifying of your identity in Christ.
Please write! I am glad to share your concerns
and provide my support in any way I can.
The
God of peace be with you all!
(Read Psalm 91)
APPENDIX
Questions
from Scripture Concerning
Christian
Action to Preserve Human Society
1.
Question:
"In
Genesis 1:26,28, God told Adam to take
dominion over the earth. Isn't this our
mandate as Christians to take over all the
institutions of the world and Christianize
them (including government)?"
Answer:
Adam was indeed told to subdue the earth. In
turn, however, Adam sinned and thereby
forfeited his deed to earth over to Satan. In
turn again, that title deed was won back from
the devil by Jesus Christ, the "second Adam."
When we become Christians, we lose our
identity relative to the first Adam and
receive a new identity in the "second Adam,"
Jesus Christ. With that identity, we also
become shareholders in that title deed
retrieved by Jesus Christ. But what that means
is that we
must take over the earth according to the
terms and example of Jesus Christ, not the
first Adam.
What did Jesus therefore say concerning His
Kingdom? What is His method for enforcing His
deed to earth's control? And what example did
He leave us?
The answers are clear. Jesus said that the
root essence of the power behind His kingdom
was spiritual and invisible. He went on to say
that, because the root essence of His Power
functions oppositely than the power by which
Satan rules the world, His methods for
conquest are therefore opposite to those
exercised by Satan through fallen man.
Consider
these contrasting examples. Fallen man (under
Satan) executes dominion from the outside-in
according to what he can visibly see and
therefore grasp by external force. But Jesus
executes dominion from the inside-out of man.
This means Jesus starts with conquering men's
hearts, and works His way outward through
their souls and bodies. He conquers their
residual alien forces of body (sin) left over
from their first identity in old Adam. Then, finally,
the earth itself falls under the dominion of
the People who have successfully seen their
insides taken over first by Jesus through the
Spirit.
For
the power of Jesus to take over the external
world, it must first displace the remaining
alien power of their internal world. Based on
this reality, Jesus called His disciples to a
different
kind of action. He called them to
conquer their own lives from within, losing
the power of their natural life to obtain the
advancing forceful power of His Spirit-Life.
Accordingly, He told them to lose all their
natural ideas for taking over the world,
replacing them with opposites from the Spirit.
Instead of seeking for position, they should
lose reputation. Instead of trying to
overpower by natural ingenuity, they should
become as "fools." Instead of making war, they
should strive to become gentle. "The meek,"
said He, "shall inherit the earth."
By abandoning all original natural ways and
means for taking over the world according to
the way fallen man presently seeks to control
earth, and by instead concentrating on the hearts
of men and gaining the mastery of their own
internal lives by the Spirit, Jesus assured
His followers that they would indeed take
dominion over the earth.
When
we look at the life of Jesus and the first
apostles, we see them enforcing their title
deed to power according to the foregoing
realities. They did not
try to take over social and political
institutions of their day through direct
outward involvement. They in no wise committed
themselves to any such kind of involvement,
but rather withdrew
such involvement so that they could get to the
hearts of men and deal with their own hearts.
This was the way to true power in their
estimation. What involvement they did retain
was purely tactical to the furthering of their
internal
objectives. Their remaining involvement with
world institutions was always with an eye to
getting
out of it, not to changing that institution
for the naturally better.
Conclusion: if we are to use Gen
1:26,28 as our mandate for conquering earth,
we must do so according to the ways and means
of the "second Adam", not the first one. This
means abandoning
ties to world institution to concentrate on
internal conquest, not strengthening
ties.
The problem with most people who use this
verse to justify direct Christian social and
political action is that they know precious
little about conquering their internal world
first. Their outward involvement based on Gen
1:26, 28 is little more than a cover for their
failure to internally conquer themselves and
an excuse for preserving their life in this
world according to the first Adam.
Again I say, where could this doctrine gain
ground except in a land where natural life
seems worth preserving —like America? It
doesn't play too well among Soviet Christians.
And mark well, if a teaching isn't applicable
to all Christians everywhere at every time,
then it is a false teaching, because it has
been reshaped
to fit and accommodate the world with respect
to certain conditions, locality, and time.
2.
Question:
"Jesus
said, 'You are the salt of the earth.' Salt
is a preservative. Doesn't this mean we
should try to preserve the institutions of
society?"
Answer: If
the nature of salt were to preserve something
by what it tries
to do, then you would be correct. However salt
preserves because of what it is, not what it tries to
do. Likewise, what preserving influence we
have in society as Christians is because of who we
are in Christ, not what we
try to do in His Name.
As we have already shown in this article, what
remains that is wholesome in society is due to
the influence
of spirit
of those who merely pass through the land and
stay close to God. This is the true
fulfillment of "being salt." But when we
abandon the simplicity of being in Christ to try to
preserve society through activism, we lose
our savor. We lose what it is that makes us
salty. We cut-off and short-circuit the
influence of God's Presence through us.
Consequently, we become fit only for the “dung
heap,” as Jesus said. And society itself loses
that which preserves it and so accelerates its
decline.
Today's rapid decline of morality in America
is directly due to the large-scale abandonment
of American Christianity from being
salt to trying
to preserve society themselves by the
same energy of which natural society is
already composed. American Christianity is now
largely on the dung heap.
3.
Question:
"Paul
said that he made himself all things to all
men if by any means he might save
some. How can we become all things to all
men without committing ourselves to
involvement with them where they are?"
Answer:
Paul was speaking of committing himself to
people for who they were (as Jews, Gentiles,
etc.), not for what they were doing. Jesus was
the same way. He became all things to all men
in the sense that He identified Himself with them
wherever they were. But not
with what they were doing. He identified with
prostitutes. But He didn't commit to advancing
their prostitution.
So it is on the broad scope for us all with
respect to the world systems. To make
ourselves all things to all men is to commit
ourselves to identifying with them in their
need wherever they are. But not
to preserving their institutions built on
their fleshly deeds.
Second,
you can't make yourself like
all men until you have first become unlike
them. If a man would save a drowning swimmer,
he must first become unlike him, either by
learning how to swim, or else by standing on
land and throwing him a rope. But if he tries
to identify with him before he becomes unlike
him in either of these ways, he will drown
too.
In the same way, we can't talk about becoming
like all men with an eye for saving them until
we have first become separate from them and
gotten a foothold on our own identity in
Christ through that separation. If we do this,
we only reinforce our remaining ties to our
old identity, we end up joining the sinner in
his sin, and we both go down together.
Unfortunately, many people use Paul's words
just this way — to justify associating with
men in their sin because they themselves are
unwilling to pay the price of inward
separation from mankind that comes with
becoming a Christian.
4,
Question:"Paul
tells us to pray for our national leaders.
Doesn't this mean we are to become involved
with them over the direction of their
governmental decisions? And if so, what's
the difference between that and getting
actively involved with the issues over which
those decisions are being made?"
Answer:
Part of the problem here is concerning the
objective of our praying for leaders based on
Paul's context. In instructing us to pray for
leaders (I Tim 2:2-4), Paul stated two
objectives of such praying: (1) "that
we may lead a quiet and peaceable
life in all godliness and honesty", and
(2) "Who
will have all men to be saved".
What do we see? The objective of prayer for
leaders is first of all to obtain for
ourselves a peaceable
life by which we may conduct the affairs of
the Gospel. There is no hint of using prayer
here as a force just short of political
involvement itself to try to get
the world system itself to become Christian.
This is not "activist prayer."
Second, the objective of prayer for leaders is
their own salvation. Salvation from what now?
Salvation from the very
systems of government they administer and to
which they are in bondage! These are the
works of the world and they are part of the
whole deal out of which Christ has paid to
save us. How marvelous to see the conversion
to Christ of a national leader who then
follows the call to true discipleship by
stepping down from his prestigious position to
learn true greatness. That
is salvation.
We
see by all this that Paul's words have nothing
to do with forcing God's hand to push through
a pet political agenda through national
leaders. The other part of our problem is our
faulty concept of prayer. True prayer is to
open our heart to God so He can breathe His
will through us. But we see prayer as an
extension of our natural energy by which we
can use access to the spiritual realm to make
things happen according to our
"God-sponsored" liking.
So since it is to our selfish liking to
preserve society's blessings for ourselves, we
"pray for our leaders," using prayer as a
spiritual political weapon. Moreover, because
this kind of praying is of the same energy as
fleshly activity, it inevitably breeds
Christian political activism. Christians are
no longer content to merely "pray" for their
leaders, but feel they have to get in there
themselves to fulfill the answers to their
prayers. (The maxim "Pray and Work" is based
on this faulty concept of prayer as our
work,)
True
prayer doesn't make
things happen. It allows
God to work according to what He has
revealed to us His will to be. This kind
of prayer for leaders will not bring us to the
kind of question we are now answering,
5.
Question:
“Do not
the examples of Daniel and Joseph from the
Old Testament show us that God wants us to
seek political offices so we can use our
access to God to change the course of the
nation?”
Answer:
It is absolutely true that God will have some
of His People in political offices from time
to time to accomplish certain purposes for Him
in the life of a nation. But what is at issue
is how they get there, what they are to
accomplish there, and what they realize about
their identity in relationship to their being
there.
If
we look at both Joseph and Daniel, we find
that they were raised to political power
resulting from situations of slavery into
which they had been forced.
Neither of these men was raised to power as a
result of ambition on their part to rise to
power.
Second,
neither man had as his ambition to try to use
his position in office to “convert” that
system into something Godly. They realized God
had put them in these places, but not to “take
them over” for the Lord as a sort of “fifth
column” spiritual influence. They merely
fulfilled their duties within that system as
any other common labourer until the time of
their release from it.
Third,
neither man ever fundamentally identified
himself in terms of the nation or government
within which he found himself. Each saw
himself primarily in terms of the People of
God to which he belonged. Accordingly each
looked forward to a time when his people would
have a government unto themselves and that the
government under which they served would come
to its own inevitable demise.
Joseph saw to his people leaving Egypt and
ordered his bones to go with them. Daniel saw
the destruction of Babylon and the independent
victory of his people at the end of time,
separated from any Babylonian-styled empire.
Neither man lost his sense of identification
with his people according to these anticipated
realities.
So
what do we learn from all this? We see that,
yes, there is indeed sometimes a place for
Christians to function in earthly government
even as they function right now in other
institutions of society. But if we are going
to acknowledge that as possible, we must do so
in full spiritual context as described above.
If anything, we must see that it is the
exception to which God ordains a few, not the
rule to which He has ordained many to aspire.
Here
then are the conditions we may use to judge
whether it is spiritually safe and right for
us as Christians to be found in political
office:
(1)
We must find ourselves “drafted” into it,
either by the strong convicting hand of the
Lord or else by situations completely beyond
our control. But not by
ambition, whether natural or based on some
theology.
(2)
We must not have the imagined purpose of
“Christianizing” the government by our
Presence there. Our presence should rather
give testimony against the system for what it
is—an antichristian force.
(3)
We must see our fundamental identity as apart
from the nation we govern, not as part of it.
We should ever have a view to the ultimate
demise of the government in which we are
serving, the ultimate coming kingdom of Jesus
Christ consisting only of the saints, and our
own soon departure from government service. It
should be our ambition to leave it from the
time we get there that we might give ourselves
to the true kingdom and minister the Gospel.
Unless
we find these three conditions to be factors
governing our entrance into civil service at
any level, it is spiritually dangerous for us
to be there.
6.
Question:
"Romans
tells us that the government authorities are
ordained of God. Doesn't this mean that God
fundamentally approves of the world's
systems of government and that therefore,
since they are His creation, we ought to try
to purify them?"
Answer:
That God ordains something in the universe
does not mean He intends us to fashion our
lives in terms of it or that He fundamentally
approves of the thing that He has ordained.
For instance, God ordained that Satan should
function as a tempter in the universe for the
testing of His People. That doesn't mean He
approves of temptation or sin resulting from
it. Yet in ordaining it to be so, He requires
us to willingly accept that these are the
conditions until perfection comes and not
therefore hope to buck the possibility that we
will be tested again.
The
same is true pertaining to world systems of
government. God has ordained such government
as a check against absolute anarchy. And we
are to accept this and cooperate with this
reality until perfection comes. We are not to
buck its existence through direct
confrontation. But that doesn't mean that God
fundamentally approves of world-based
government which is anti-christian, nor
therefore that we should try to "purify" it.
If you accept that the flesh exists but you
don't try to purify it, and if you accept that
Satan exists to test you but you don't try to
reform him (!), then it is plain that you do
not try to purify human-system government,
though you accept it to be ordained of God.