When the Church recognizes the state and enters the domain of politics, it has, in effect, given aid and comfort to the enemy, a hideous distortion after the likeness of a man, a monster. In this activity, man has committed a treasonable act of rebellion against the One it professes to serve and annuls the costly work of Christ on earth. For those who think that their time on earth is to live luxuriously while awaiting the Bridegroom, listening to appeasing, bland, and powerless sermons, preached by deluded pastors proclaiming dull and tiresome words on Sunday mornings, you may want to hit the “refresh” key with these following “calls to action” delivered by Jesus.
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more, will be demanded. I have come to ignite a fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!…” Lk. 12:48-50.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household.” Matt. 10:34-36
It is amazing how these words are suppressed, either the unbeliever is embraced and invited into the body of Christ without conversion, or they are totally shut out from the Kingdom by those who have misunderstood the idea of separation. The result is the same for both, they are either fed pablum (worthless and oversimplified words) or ignored (left to founder in the world).
The Christian is a warrior, with no earthly weapons, placed behind enemy lines, to stay separated from the “leaven” of worldliness and to penetrate enemy territory with a message demanding surrender. It is a “seek and destroy mission” to rescue prisoners and to deliver a message to “surrender or die”. This act of war on the part of the Christians will be signified by the world’s hatred. But surprisingly, the world today does not hate the Christians, this is odd, why not? Because the adversary is not offended or threatened by anything Christians preach. The modern Christian message is bland and powerless to equip Christians to engage their enemy, the world. Conversion must mean a BREAK and complete disruption in the individual’s life, just as the intervention of the Gospel means a break from the society of which he was a part. But this has all changed with the adulteration of the Gospel by the introduction of “the leaven” of worldliness and political involvement and by excluding essential parts of the Gospel as an invading heavenly force. As a result, Christianity is transformed into just another social body of this world. Accordingly, Christianity took its flight from the reality of the battle and has landed safely in “spirituality,” the cultivation of a personal inner life, and mysticism, all of which skirt the present battle on its doorstep. By so doing they have negated the incarnation, their spiritual enlistment, and the example of their Commander in Chief.
At one historical point, the Protestants raised the flag of hope to regain lost ground, then fell to the world; then the Anabaptists heeded the call to “storm the Bastille” of Hell to release spiritual prisoners held captive to worldly Christianity. In our time, we await a latter-day assemblage of called-out ones, to once again risk life-and-limb to fulfill the spiritual desire of a Heavenly commission. Will Christians today heed the call to equip themselves with true words that pierce sheltered hearts and breach impenetrable walls risking real persecution and rejection? All I hear is silence from our camp; we are truly facing Goliath, where are the brave Davids and their slingshots? Where is the acknowledgment by today’s Christians that they are real warriors, and that a real and deadly war is raging?