W W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc. Home Page Contents Page for Volume What is New
CHAPTER 12
Kings, Kingdoms, Collectives and the Common Man
in terms of the ways of the Lord
You may well say, How can Christian life be lived in our culture, or how could the nations change, instead of facing dissolution and judgment!
The answer is simple, but its implementation for the nations, due to the chronic character of human sin, though achievable in part, is bound to eventual failure (as in II Thessalonians 1-2), because like cancer, ignoring the problem and rejecting the remedy does not heal. It is as simple as that. For the individual, the case if profoundly inviting, exceedingly simple, and deeply challenging. It is as in Luke 14:27-33. It is like love. Love and the embrace seems only natural; be indifferent and it seems perhaps even a mockery or meaningless. It is what is in the heart that matters, and more importantly since God who made matter and man is the only authentic reference source for the life of the spirit of man, WHO is in the heart.
As in Titus 2-3, there is a washing of regeneration, a renewal of the Spirit, and as in Luke 13:1-3, there is a repentance from life without God, or without sincere reliance on Him in His own ways. There is moreover a trust in Him, such as animates all who are found in Him. These things are not our present focus, but questions of what follows, either for a people, when there is handed out a rejection slip for the Lord, or an indifference slip (which as in any offer, is in effect just the same), and as another equally futile option, a too busy notice.
YOU
If then one were to think in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven, which does not pass away, but is inherent in living in Christ, consummated in eternity, what would be steps ?
Steps ? But let it be re-stated: there is no step, to start with, nor is development the key. There has to be a transformation and if you will, the transformation kit is in Christ. Whoever and whatever fails to be redeemed, is simply like a square in a round hole, when it is made of impervious metal, and too large to allow a simple, non-fit slip-in.
Be not conformed to the world but transformed from it, as in Romans 12, is the apostolic advice.
For the individual, thus, you find the salvation offered in Christ, repent, receive absolution from the ONLY ONE capable of granting it, He who alone is faithful and just and so able to dispense it, the only one to be called master, teacher (Matthew 23:8-10), and undiverted to options sinuously suggested, be thankful for His resurrection, knowing in your heart HE is raised from the dead, while rejoicing that you also will be (Romans 10:9, John 5:24). On this, see Sinners Only, for example.
THEN, you find the criteria of this life, both from within by the Spirit of God (Ephesians 3:16, Romans 8:16), and from outside in the Bible, learning to be kind, considerate, fearless, triumphant in Christ but not triumphalistic in your own ideas, or in this world on its keynotes, you continue testifying to His truth, seeking the lost, loving justice, concerned for the weak, meeting the eye of the strong in the grace of truth, unyielding in righteousness, alert to evil, to avoid it, redeeming the time as a servant of God, prayerful in all things, watchful in action, peaceable in internal disposition, but warring as needful against evil powers (as in Ephesians 6).
These are aspects of the way, as also is a certain feature of being ready to be entreated; and you learn to love and seek to implement such things s the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), to love your neighbour as yourself and to love God with all that is in you, no compromise permitted or desired; but if passingly desired, then put down like a bushfire by faith.
That is the direction of flow, if you want to be practical and ask for steps. Thus ONCE you have been forgiven and transformed (not a step, but an entire rebirth), then indeed there are steps, but many are in principle, nothing short of simultaneous. It is like looking at a good batsman, when you are not, and want to be one. It is not just this or that step. It is a matter of the attitude, knowledge, discipline, eye and so forth. Some things may need much practice because for you they appear difficult, to be sure; but you can always seek the Lord's help, which comes by whatever means, direct or indirect He chooses, but must always be FROM Him, at the ultimate.
It must never be VESTED in anyone else, or you may be duped and far worse off. It involves pure trust in Him, as sole employer, and willingness to use means as supplied, but under HIS CONTINUAL jurisdiction. Then the saved soul becomes an active disciple not of man, but of God. You can receive help where the Lord appoints but only in measure, under Him, and according to His word. HE is the living employer, Lord, Saviour and God. I for my part would utterly detest the presumption and gaucheness of anything or anyone less! In God trust is natural, since He made me, and knows more about me than I do, and that by far! HE ONLY however has this facility (as in Jeremiah 9:23-24, and 17:7-9).
Thus you are continuing, having been saved, to be sanctified (I Thessalonians 5:23).
THE NATIONS
What then of the nations, if they were seriously to try to live as in the only way that CAN last, as in the kingdom of heaven ?
First there is the ultimate problem: if in a Church, believers learn to treat one another like this, they come individually by faith, and operate on its basis. Transformations at the social, spiritual, personal, feeling, acting level can come because of two things: the fact that in Christ they are one, and the willingness to implement this.
It is surprising how seldom these requirements seem to be taken at face value. That is the condition of a falling and apostate church, as it is increasingly in large measure, as predicted, becoming more and more normal, among those who are faithful, like a polluted atmosphere. That leaves a relatively few (though perhaps scattered millions) authentic (cf. II Timothy 3-4). Here there is no limit to the wonder of godliness, if only there is not hypocrisy, but the love of God for His word, that great sieve for folly and buttress for truth.
But when you come to the nation, the case is vastly more drastic. Here there is in most, and nearly all, NO express relationship to Christ as only Teacher, Master and His Father as only Father. How then can they grow in what they do not have ? How can you get interest on what is not there ? Or how can you develop, when you are not born!
Yet suppose some of the nations were willing to be peaceable (not mute, but not brawling for dispute, superiority, trickery by treachery, clever grabbing and the like). Let us conceive that some become willing to serve the Lord (as the British Empire in FORM was allegedly doing, though not all accepted its State religion by any means, making it a fatally mixed bag). They could then seek justice, and where difficulties arose, still seek for peace, still reject invasion but yet seek to minimise the explosive situations which could lead to it; while being wary of imposture and deceit where it may yet come from outside the agreeing group of nations, imagined. If cost arose, to keep to the purity of truth, and if only by dishonesty, deviousness, deceit or dishonour could it be seen how troubles could cheaply be avoided, then that cost would have to be paid. It would not simply be rushed into, but considered as wisdom from God was sought, and then implemented by faith with understanding.
Other measures, falling short of the word of God, would be discarded and like Hezekiah, trust would be set in God, as all honest and available steps were taken in safeguard. With him, it led to the work of God miraculously to deliver (Isaiah 36-37). Even in such a mixed bag as Britain with its national church (in form, but not in fact), there arose an Empire more extensive than any other known one has ever been, and a power which perhaps only the USA has equalled (after World War II), though this came with British help (and hindrance). MUCH in Britain was indeed Christian, sacrificial, mission-minded, a buttress of right; and of course much was not, but there were foundations and fixtures which brought some measure of relief from the normal fate and spate of nations; but that went...
What more then would an imaginary group of willing nations, seeking the Lord, proceed to do if they ever occurred in this world ? Let us proceed with the survey in biblical terms.
They would not be easily provoked, moreover, and instead of making a big fuss when some relatively trifling thing arose, in order to make some sort of credit balance for future use, they would minimise what is minimal and maximise what is forbearing and agreeable. If however, an issue of trust and truth in the Lord were to arise, it would take precedence over all compromise based on any displacement of God even in part, as might be considered for convenience. If you mean to fight in the Christian army, to use Paul's spiritual figure of Ephesians 6, then you would have to realise in practice the AUTHORITY not of man, but of the word of God, not to surpass it, ransack it for your own purposes, or misuse it. Hence no cost is too great to preserve integrity, truth, wisdom and faithfulness. A man without faithfulness to God is like a wild cat, tending to be fierce, or sly, or sinuous, or sudden, alert to prowl... Indeed faithfulness is more necessary than breath. It keeps athletic the soul, as exercise the body, and without it, man is like a mariner who has no ship.
What else, then, would our imagined group of nations do, as moving in the way of the Lord AS nations ?
They would seek to help those in trouble, while realising that the needy are not only to be found internationally, but also at home, and like a prudent householder, they would seek to avoid BORROWING, rather tending toward lending.
While it may be urged that borrowing for a nation short of capital may lead to vast, fast development, enabling its ready repayment and much profit for all, there are limits to that. In other words, even entrepreneurial borrowing for highly productive purposes, has exceedingly strong limits.
Such plans involve risk. Go too far too fast, as Australia has just done*A (and without much of it being productive in that sense, at all, like the pink bats, rushed halls and stupendous disbursing), and run the extreme risk either of being unable to repay, leading to servitude and the entire loss of the nation by financial predators, or being so long forced to repay that a kind of incidental servitude can come, as other nations increase their military strength, and you cannot (as seems increasingly likely to be the position in heavy-borrowing USA*1) pay to do the same with yours. This then threatens take-over, sooner or later, and is like gambling. This is eminently unwise: use what God has given you and do not let ambition or intemperance or impatience mislead you into vast works depending on much, and entailing more. There is a time when it is quite simply GAMBLING OR GOD.
Even developmental borrowing then, should be most heavily scrutinised, and subjected to a sternly judicial watchfulness, meanwhile developing patience rather than pollution. The nations in such a group, then, would need to be TEMPERATE, PATIENT, CONSIDERATE, WATCHFUL, HUMBLE, not subject to dreams*2, but with vision, to have character and to be governed by people of character, not seeking election by enticement, but by policies of worth, with intentions of peace and provisions to cover danger likewise.
VISION would be strong, and purpose, as so often in some of the days of the British Empire, conscious and deliberate. However, in no part would the GLORY of any nation be sought, since the only glory worth having is either in God or a gift of God, like life, and this only with attribution to Him. By such watchfulness and a spirit, His being the glory, the perils of the parade of pride seeking its own, one of the most tragic steps toward national suicide as history's comments liberally suggest, are elided, eluded or eclipsed. Think of Tyre and Egypt and the divine comment in Ezekiel 26-32; and of Babylon! (Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 50-51). Consider Rome in its early days of purpose, discipline and power; and in its rottenness at its fall, its eminence and consciousness of it, and its speciousness and weakness and the sloppiness in its degradation leading to invasion. Just imagine the folly of having mere men who happen to be installed in the post of Emperor (very glamorous in name, but often befouled in fact), wanting to be regarded as God, and killing those who insisted on fact, not fiction, truth not imagination, on reverencing God not man.
Just as with Tyre (Ezekiel 28:9), the question comes from the Almighty: "Will you still say before Him who slays you, I am a god!"
You would encourage, if one of the imagined group of nations wanting to rely on the Lord according to His word, the Bible, an important set of principles. These would therefore include: modesty in rulers, limit to their powers, prevention of self-exaltation both of the nation and of its leaders, but instead, a spirit to exalt the Lord and exult in Him.
You would seek the good as God defines it, and hate the evil as sin represents it. There would be as in a good class in a Christian school, a certain willingness, eagerness, desire to learn, to watch, to live abundantly with wisdom and delight, trusting in the Lord actively, realistically, in making decisions. This, in its own small way, was seen in prayer at least, when Rev. Peter Marshall was Chaplain to the US Senate. This is of course not to turn the position for prayer of such a Chaplain into anything like what we are here discussing; but it is to note steps that may arise, and may indeed lead to the rebirth of some, and some arrest to the downfall of a nation.
In fact, the nations neither show any such tendency in their ways, nor any such progress, but exhibit in many and for long, narrow conceits, some groups providing devastation of civil things by explosions, without any parallel ability or trend to build, and showing follies of heart and travesties of mind, crass cruelty in corruption. Equally on torrid, horrid display are those of this kind who rush to execution, as in exemplified by many of the Islamic militants; indeed there is a ruthless insistences in parts of the Koran*3, at the spiritual level! But it is not there only, but rather explicitly, mixed with the death of millions in both World Wars, and the all but incredible ruthlessness and impersonality of the personalities ruling Communist regions.
As in Habakkuk, nation fishes for nation, traps are set, cruelty abounds, subtlety continues, and the only way remains faith in the unchanging God of creation who not only humbles many a nation as time moves to its consummation in judgment, but will act in the end of Term examinations both on nations and on persons (Revelation 19-20, Matthew 25). He will indeed thoroughly purge the floor, when the finalities arrive.
Man is invested, tested, tried, told, helped by God but hindered by sin and sinful peoples; he is offered salvation, tries it, increasingly rejects it among the nations; and then he tasks himself with continuing to the end of a stricken examination, defeat pre-written over his paper as his follies rule. If then such is the prognosis of the nations, it is for everyone both to find and to live for the Lord; for without the love of God, the Creator who redeemed, with the Christ who alone showed the power of God in a sinless life and an empowered fulfilment of prophecy concerning Himself, there is no way for man (cf. SMR Ch. 6, Christ the Wisdom ... Ch. 8, Magnificence of the Messiah).
It is a no way, go back! sign. If you want to continue, that is not a step outside the kingdom of heaven, which alone will endure (cf. Daniel 7:14, 2:34-44, I Thessalonians 1-2). The command is the opposite as found in Romans 12. It is very concrete, clear and good: for having come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ the God and Saviour who showed who He was by what He did, there is this to follow.
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service."And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of you mind
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
NOTES
Let it not be thought for one moment that the condition of Australia in such fields as the above, is ignored. Not in the least is this so, as may be seen in such Chapters as those noted, from among many (see Index, Australia).
On the antics in Australian political presumptions proceeding in the last few years, see such files as:
Now the Highway, Then the Heights Ch. 8
(fast-moving paganisation of Australia
under guise of freedom and avoiding offence),
cf. Why Not Believe ? Ch. 11,
(unnatural marriage affair - the marriage muddle),
Not Only is God Great but Glorious Ch. 8
(the paganisation of Australia),Pilgrims and Strangers Ch. 9 as marked,
(where former PM John Howard dwells on the new arena for such treatment,
in the indoctrinative schools, even in the field of history).
Naturally (that is, in accord with what is), and indeed supernaturally (that is, in accord with the One who God is, and His words and ways), a land may repent, and seek mercy.
Indeed, a nation if Christian, or even to some extent - that is in some sizeable proportion of that persuasion, with some impact of this in its ways - could seek mercy. One could though it seems impossible to mere observation, TURN to the Lord. A nation might do that.
Having gone astray, toying with dancing on the brink of a sulphurous volcano of self-will and total inanity (Psalm 53:1), instead of sanctity, a nation so moved COULD seek for the Lord, as Britain did in the day of Dunkirk, in a national day of prayer, officially published by the government. They were answered and the marvels of Dunkirk happened, many pouring out strength for the purpose, and the Lord bringing in a mist which, testimony indicates, prevented a wipe-out from aircraft.
Indeed, the Lord can be so merciful as to stagger all imagination, as for example in the case of a King in Israel. By name, Manasseh, his sins were of a depravity and luxuriance that contributed mightily to the downfall of the nation, and yet, when in prison, captured and held with bronze fetters in the enemy land of Babylon, he "humbled himself greatly before the God of his forefathers, and prayed to Him," as in II Chronicles 33:10ff., what followed ? THEN, a staggeringly deep and enlarging thing happened.
God HEARD his prayer. Destroyer of much, he was pardoned. Misleading many, he was delivered at his cry from a humbled heart, to the God of redemption and creation. God did three things: "He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom." Then, we learn, that King Manasseh KNEW that the Lord was God! He saw the action. He realised the truth: POWER belongs to God, and mercy likewise. Every breath of his proclaimed it, in his new and released state: God delights in mercy, and is accessible according to the word of God, the Bible (Micah 7:18-19).
Thus a nation prepared for the Lord, may indeed SEEK the Lord in humility, realism and truth, and repenting, find pardon. When as in Israel of that day, GOD is acknowledged as their God, and they call ON HIM as such, with all His word there before them, then what may mercy do to undo the works of obstreperous and wilful folly!
Yes, but as Britain and the USA move further and further away, and in the case of the USA their twice empowered President makes a duet of announcements: namely that the USA (whatever some might think) is NOT a Christian nation, and that the Koran is a good book, then you are so deep in the mire that it is like a tennis ball in a mangrove swamp. Its future is not good.
There would need to be a repentance to impoverish all this fundamental folly, not only in the President, but in the nation which he has in this so misled. Whether or not a nation has ceased to honour its institutions derived largely from Christian beginnings, or the word of God, in increasingly diseased large denominations, there are yet millions, it would seem, who love the Lord in that land. There is much good to hand, the Bible distributed like air; and there is opportunity to seek not to precipitate more woe by stark generalisations, such as Obama made, but instead to make it far harder for anyone to make them. This could come by a repentance not to be repented of. It has happened before. In the mid 1800s, and before that, there have been revivals of profundity in the land.
With God nothing is impossible. With man, however, as he sinks in the mire, covering himself with more of it by hand, this is scarcely a good beginning.
If, for that matter, the question comes up of whether to sanction same-gender marriage, which does not engender the next generation, and this as an alternative to any move towards repentance in the nation, then what is the position before the God of creation, seeing His creation thus behave!
One must consider that any such action is both extreme and an extreme development of MUCH that went before in many dimensions in the land. The use of the term 'marriage' for this - past permission for such use of engendering means, past provisions for those who engage in these things, AS engaging in them, even further on to the very violation of even the NAME marriage to these developments, what then ? What if the engendering name, in all of its breadth and association to physiological fact, and social construction, inter-personal relationships, be applied to what in itself CANNOT so produce, or conduce: what then ? Use this name, even go so far as that, used for the engendering association which brings the differentiae of both genders into supple play for the children, for its racially non-productive alternative, and what is before us ? In the presence of the God of the Bible, we then have an earthquake of perilous turbulence.
Being so given to such departures, what is it like ? In this context, where for decades, indeed now about 100 years there has been a most active assault on the Bible in many formerly biblical seminaries, when even in defence objection has been made even to a rather hidden biblical reference in some defence apparatus, when colleges have concocted naturalistic dreams* as if they could be serious, and seriously harassed those not sharing them, and seriously neglected testimony to the contrary, even of first order scientific strength: this comes ... what then ? It is parallel to clouting the face of Christ, after arresting, degrading and condemning Him; for it is an element in a series. It is one more, conspicuous in kind, just as earlier movements in the nineteenth century were often insidious, inconspicuous and subversive of truth.
One can only tremble for the nations that do this; not that this is all, but it is like a face slap, a particularly frank and near way of degrading something, someone. The Bible is the basis for these things, and it is the word of the Bible which is the ground of these considerations: and it does not change, however much and in whatever continuity the nations may do so. The word of God does not dip its lid, but goes on working. One cannot without compassion see these things and fail to lament, as Jeremiah did, for the steps taken (Jeremiah 9), as if a torrent swept away all restraint, and destroyed without thought.
See on this theme and development, Chs. 7 and 11 above, and The gods of naturalism have no go!
See on the Koran and such conduct, Divine Agenda Ch. 6, More Marvels ... Ch. 4, for example. See also Index, Moslem Religion. .