Drunken Mystic

So this brings me to my last and fifth point, which is really central: to think that God needs Christians in positions of power is to expose a lack of revelation about the truth and power of the New Covenant.  It is major UNbelief … which Hebrews calls an “evil heart of unbelief.”  Unbelief is evil.  I don’t want to go there.

At one point, the Jews tried to make Jesus king.  If modern Christians were to rewrite the story and have their way, Jesus would have allowed it.

But he didn’t.

Jesus didn’t allow it for many reasons, but I’ll go over a few here.  Initially, we must cover what the scripture says, “because he knew their hearts.”  Their attempt to make him an earthly king was not, in any sense, a recognition of anything good or who Jesus truly was.  By believing they could “make him king”, they placed the power in their own being to exalt or debase, not in God the Father.  Also, they were only exposing their desire for the Messiah to come and set up an earthly kingdom, to restore political independence to a theocracy of the Law and Davidic reign.

“Before Abraham was, I am.”  They couldn’t make him what he was already, before the foundation of the world.

I’m going to give Tozer credit here directly by quoting from his book, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, to express what I mean:

“Were all the nations of earth to unite in one great federation and call a man to head that federation, that man would be honored above any other man that ever lived.  Yet the humblest man who heeds the call of Christ has an honour above such a man; for the nations of the earth can bestow only such honour as they possess, while the honour of Christ is supreme over all.  God has given him a name that is abov all names.”

I don’t know that I could say it any better.

Either this is true in REALITY or it is not.  The early Church and apostles “turned the world upside down” because they were discipled into this truth from the lips of Christ in the flesh.  We think we’ve progressed beyond it.

We will judge angels and nations.  Paul uses this truth in 1 Corinthians to question why the Church needs to go to a worldly authority … they do so to their shame.

We are brothers and sisters to the King of Kings.  God is our Father, not by creation (as is the world) but by begetting.  “Begotten, not created” explains us, as well.  The Holy Spirit inside of us is un-created and eternal.  We have a position greater than the world could ever bestow.  To claim a “need” for a lesser position is beyond foolish.  It reveals deception in the inward parts.

What Christians need is not worldly positions of power, but a firm convincing by the Holy Spirit about the position we already have, a position that, by its eternal and supreme nature, surpasses and transcends all worldly positions and limitations.  This eternal position will have the testimony of Christ, not to lord it over the world, but to express the Kingdom without the help of the flesh in compassion and independence.  We will, if we have the heart of Christ, refuse to be made an earthly king because of the eternal treasure we already possess.  “Not by power or by might but by my Spirit.”  How God desires such a people.

And he has them.  You just won’t see them on TV.

Peace.

One of the main mantras that liberals love is that conservative policies are hateful.  We’ve seen this more recently with the the Miss America competition and Miss California’s answer to a straightforward question on gay marriage.

If you haven’t seen the video, she basically asserts to one of the judges, himself a gay activist, that she believes marriage to be between a man and a woman, and while she supports the freedom to live in a homosexual lifestyle, does not support gay marriage.

Well, she got 2nd place, and people cry conspiracy.  Don’t know if that really matters, but I’d rather be honest and lose than lie and win.  And I appreciate the character of someone with that kind of guts, even if I did disagree with her … which I do not.

What is clear, however, is the judges reaction.  He posted videos where he called her a “dumb bitch” and has called her other names through other avenues.  She’s had hateful emails and phone calls.  How did someone get her email, by the way?  His face as he spoke about her was pure hatred and spite.

Interesting that she’s from California, where this has been such a touchy issue.  In that state, churches supporting the ban on gay marriage back in November were vandalized and hassled.  If someone could show me evidence of it going the other way, I’d be way interested in seeing it.

We could also remember Sarah Palin, who had her email hacked into, and one liberal group made T-shirts calling her a graphic term of female genitalia.  Somebody also burned her church to the ground.

The cases of vandalism against Republican supporters during the last campaign by Obama supporters was outrageous and so overwhelming as to be ridiculous.  Nowhere close to equal.

I’m not here to defend conservatism or even say that conservatives don’t do this at all, but is is very evident that way more “hate”, deep emotional anger, name calling and crudeness, comes from the other side of the aisle.

Miss California’s response to the gay judge?  “Perez, I love you and pray for you.”  Wow.  Can you believe that conservative hate?

Many Christians have allowed the world to define for them what hatred is.  The world has deceived us into believing that standing up and speaking against certain sins is hatred, in this day especially sexual sin like homosexuality.

But God says lying is hatred.  Love is rejoicing in the truth.  Sometimes you can’t get around saying, “Homosexuality is sin.  And sin leads to death.”  If true, then it is the most loving thing to say if you desire life for them.

I know that there are Christians out there that speak this truth with name calling and their own anger and hatred.  I don’t ever want to excuse such things that are designed to be hurtful.

But for us to let those few negate the proper work of the Holy Spirit through His Church is worse.

The Holy Spirit’s message to the world: “sin, rightousness, and the judgment to come.”  Some say this is the job of the Holy Spirit, not ours, so we should keep our mouths shut.  So … we expect the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come while we act like they can “accept” Christ and never change?  Hasn’t happened and it won’t.  It must come from our lips, as well.

Paul’s message, the one who wrote 1 Corinthians, was “repentance and works that accompany repentance.”  His gospel was the message of the Holy Spirit.  They were one.  Paul also says in Romans, “Faith comes by hearing” and that if, no one preaches, “how will they know?”  How, indeed.

The uncomfortable truth for our modern Christian ears and hearts is that we’ve allowed, to a large degree, the world to define what hatred is for us and by result, castrate the true gospel from being preached.  When you read my statement about homosexuality being sin earlier, you cringed.  I cringed when I wrote it.  We’ve been conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs about how we get to express our “religion.”

It is our job to be the voice of the message of the Holy Spirit, which is one of love … of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come to a lost and dying world.  That is love.  It brings them to understand their need for repentance, which is their only hope for life.

Several times Paul lists out actions that exclude people from the Kingdom of God.  It is love to not only be sure of that truth, but to “rejoice in it” and express it as clearly and lovingly as we can.  But to not express it at all is, according to God, hate.

And this isn’t a treatise on homosexuality alone.  Of course, the practice of homosexuality is a sin.  If you don’t believe that, you’re deceived.  I won’t (and to some degree, can’t) prove that here.

But I include here a stand against all sin as being inconsistent with the testimony of Christ, and by direct association, His Body: fornication, adultery, murder, greed, materialism, idolatry, covetousness, lying, gossiping, back-biting, oppression of the poor, self-seeking, self-righteousness and, yes, homosexuality.

Let the world define what they will.  I’ll side with God.

Peace.

This goes along with, philosophically, one of my TICFITB, Changing the World.

This has come up recently a couple times, hence on my brain.  There is a belief among many Christians that God “needs” (their word, not mine) Christians in places of power to be an influence for good in this world.

I have several problems with this.  I’ll begin with the obvious, the word “need”.  First of all, God needs nothing from us.  He doesn’t need my successful career to further the gospel or change hearts … even the hearts of our rulers.  He’s designed something quite different.  More on this later.

Second, this goes against all the major examples in the New Testament.  John the Baptist, Jesus Christ Himself, the twelve major apostles that “turned the world upside down”, each did so without any worldly education or position.

The one who had any of that spent his life killing Christians.  Then, upon conversion, had to count that life lost to even know Christ.  All of it.  Jewish-ness, his circumcision, his seminary training (“Pharisee of Pharisees”) or even being blameless “concerning the righteousness which is in the law.”  He even changed his name.

Paul did attempt to minister to the Jews, using his background as an in … to his ultimate rejection, even to the point where they tried to kill him.  He also used his Roman citizenship … to further imprison himself.  Hmnn.  Not really the same.

In fact, Paul preached the gospel of repentance before kings and governors and some postulate even Caesar himself … as a prisoner.  Paul didn’t become a ruler himself so he could preach to them or “influence” them.

Even across the Old and New Testament, God loved using people without position or worldly opportunity.  But often, in the Old Testement, once God’s servants attained positions of power, it became a great temptation and even their ultimate downfall.

Third, nowhere in the New Testament is the church concerned with these positions, or even influencing the Roman government to become more moral or “Christian” or to line up with their values.  Perhaps my good friend Shammah could correct me on this, but I don’t know that the Church of the first two centuries had any aspirations to political or religious power over others “for their good” or for the good of all society.

Fourth, we are denying the testimony of history.  Maybe we should look at Constantine as an example.  While accepting Christianity officially, he had to then persecute other beliefs.  Christians went from being the persecutED to the persecutOR.  Read the Bible and tell me which one God prefers.

How about a more modern example?  G.W. might not be the best one … how about Abraham Lincoln?  Fairly godly man who stood against slavery and fought for the unification of the US.  And he succeeded in both, at least on paper.

But did he truly change hearts or just force change through his political and military advantage?  Did the South see the error of their ways and give former slaves equal rights because Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation?  Nope.  They just adjusted their existing laws to create a new second class citizen, and the Supreme Court upheld it as being “separate but equal.”  Hearts were not changed, only the methods of oppression.

The mentality that God needs His people in power is, by nature, an Old Covenant idea and will ultimately necessitate legalism.  Positions don’t change hearts.  And only changed hearts genuinely change behavior.  So the only other way is to falsify change through rules and laws.

This is not inherently a liberal or conservative thing, although we will see it more from the liberal side in the next three or four years.  Like, a LOT.

My last point to be continued tomorrow …

Peace.