Scripture tells us (believers & unbelievers alike) that believers are the “body of Christ”! Can the hand say to the foot I have no need of you? The body is also referred to as the “Bride of Christ”! That being the case, the body must be rather important. It should be noted that believers and unbelievers make up the physical church body (wheat and tares).

The body is also a soldier for Christ to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world. The Gospel loses its potency in the proclamation if the law of God is not proclaimed as well. Why? The Gospel says we are saved from our sins which are any want of conformity to or transgression thereof of the law of God.

We have examples of leaders inside and outside of government calling for obedience to God’s laws in the Scripture. Scripture instructs us as individuals, and by implication as a body, to “keep my commandments if you love Me” John 14:15 -24. So why is it that the church does not take an overt stance against the evils that government legislates and/or tolerates in today’s society?

In this writer’s opinion, the church has little to no influence in today’s society because the church has become insular. The church wants to be “liked”. Therefore, the church i.e. the leadership, including the pastor, has relegated its preaching to the elect, in such a way as to make the elect feel comfortable with themselves. Is it the wheat (elect) that is made to feel comfortable, or is it the tares that are made to feel comfortable? Are the tares subverting the church? Is it the tares that threaten to leave when “too much sin and law is being preached”, or the elect?

Yes, sin is discussed, but only in very general and non threatening ways. For example, we are told that we are sinners in thought word and deed daily. With rare exception, we are not told what those sins are, or how they manifest themselves in our lives and in our society As said above, the Gospel is insufficient without the law. As St. Paul says, “I would not have known sin were it not for the law!” By obvious implication, the law must be preached in order for us to know our sin.

John the Baptist rebuked King Herod for exposing his sin of marrying his brother’s wife. It cost John the Baptist his head. Jesus Christ was killed because he was perceived as usurping the authority of Church leadership of the day – the Pharisees and Sadducees. The accusation was that He had made Himself equal to God and as such He was adamant about pointing out people’s sins (including church leader’s), and calling for their repentance.

Those are two very good examples of people who went into the public arena and challenged the authorities (church and government) of the day, and suffered the ultimate penalty. Are Christians ready to do that today? It seems not – at least not in America. American Christians are very comfortable today.

Why are they comfortable? They are resting on their laurels so to speak. Christians who went before them and paved the way for this comfort they enjoy today, and they made the necessary efforts and sacrifices needed to establish a Biblically based morality and civil government in America. Is that to say that America was ever a Christian nation? No! It’s to say that Christians made the effort to push us (individually and nationally) in that direction sufficiently so as to make life more abundant, as Christ promised, in all facets; including, but not limited to economic, moral, political, judicial etc.

As Benjamin Franklin said before the early Congress and before America was officially a Constitutional government, “If a sparrow cannot fall from the sky apart from God’s will, then how can a nation rise apart from God’s help?” Yes, Christians were at work glorifying God, although God was the ultimate author of America’s founding and its Constitution! Indeed, the Constitution acknowledges God’s providence and authority. At the end of the Constitution where it is signed it says as follows:

“Attest William Jackson Secretary

done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,”

Could this be a reference to any other than JESUS CHRIST?

Where is today’s Christian witness? Christians as individuals are witnessing all of the time in the arena’s of home, neighborhoods, workplaces and even places of entertainment and commerce. What is the witness in the political arena? Is God not over the political arena? God is the creator of everything including physics. “Nature”, as they say, “abhors a vacuum!” How about a spiritual and/or moral vacuum? Do you suppose God (Nature) abhors that as well? Are we not “soldiers for Christ”? As soldiers, do we not need a leader on the worldly battlefield to shepherd us through the maze of evil – to help us overcome the wiles of Satan who is described as masquerading as an “angel of light”?

If we are “soldiers”, then soldiers must be organized in force in order to do battle on a large scale which is what the political arena is. One soldier fighting against an organized force of Satan will possibly have some effect, but as Scripture tells us, a King will count the cost before going to battle. If the opponent outnumbers your troops 2 to 1, then you may choose to seek peace. Has the church as a body chosen to seek peace with Satan? Can not the church speak as a body to expose and oppose evil?

Jesus said that; “A bad tree cannot bear good fruit, and a good tree cannot bear bad fruit – you shall know them by their fruit!” Today in America, we have a lot of bad fruit – persecution of the church and Christians, drug addiction, alcoholism, abortion, adultery, homosexuality, homosexual marriage, homosexual adoptions, unjust weights and measures and a plethora of other unsavory sins. Shall we blame it all on Satan and his minions, or should some of the blame lay at the foot of the church?

Pensiamento Peligroso