Mixed Messages

For the Levites left their common lands and their possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons rejected them from serving as priests of the Lord.  Then he appointed for himself priests for the high places, for the demons and the calf idols that he had made – 2 Chronicles 11:14-15 (NKJV)

It might be considered ironic that Jeroboam had been chosen by God to lead the ten northern tribes of Israel as a result of the apostasy of Solomon and his son, Rehoboam.  Jeroboam quickly became enamored of his own power and position.  Rather than trusting God who had put him on the throne, holding to the truth and traditions of Moses and the Patriarchs, Jeroboam wanted a nation that was loyal to him alone. He decided that he was not content with being an obedient servant of the One True God nor was he willing to allow another power to possibly rule over his people and divert their devotion from him.  He would exalt himself above God.

We can read in Isaiah 14:12-21 about the fall of one called Lucifer – the light-bearer, “son of the morning”.  This depicts, as it were, a rebellion in heaven, but it has a general application in every place and in every age, indeed, perhaps in every human heart.  Pride is the original sin.  If I say that I can go my own way and do what I want, though it hardly sounds sinister and certainly not diabolical, it is exactly that when it is the attitude I take with regard to God. 

I don’t doubt that many in the northern kingdom were happy to see those stick-in-the-mud traditionalists leave for Judah.  Those priests and Levites probably thought they were special just because of their tribe and what was in the old scrolls.  Why, they probably wrote that themselves and said it was from Moses.  And anyway, who was Moses?  Times have changed.  Those Levites needed to check their privilege. 

The people of the breakaway tribes also knew that Rehoboam who ruled Judah and Benjamin was far from perfect himself.  Had not God rejected him as their king? 

This is something I think we all have to watch, too, with regard to the church, the cultural, politics, and government.  If God puts someone in charge, are we obligated to obey the rules?  Are the rules now God’s will?  Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (Romans 13:1).  There are those who will demand that Christians adhere to this.  Yet, obviously, if an authority is acting contrary to God’s will, demanding, as the government may do these days, that we violate our conscience and disobey Christian principles, we are obligated to not obey.  

The rabbi Gamaliel gave this advice to the religious leadership of his time regarding the followers of Jesus the Nazarene, “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (Acts 5:38-39).  A little while before this, Peter and John had summarized the position of Christians across all epochs: Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard (Acts 4:19-20).

Like the priests and Levites giving up their homes and their possessions among the northern tribes, we have decided to become citizens of another kingdom.  While we remain in this world, we are not of it. Some of us in various places on the planet are asked to surrender our lives because we will not turn from the truth.  Christians have been persecuted, tortured, abused, imprisoned and killed because they would not renounce the Lord.  Even in this country, in our modern, enlightened and oh-so-tolerant age, Christians are penalized for refusing to bake a cake or take pictures or otherwise participate in and endorse something that the Bible says is wrong.  It is pretty mild compared to having one’s head removed, but it is annoying nonetheless, and it is likely a sign of worse things to come. 

Not everything that God allows is God’s will.  Some things that start out as God’s will may easily end up being perverted and twisted by man’s will and man’s arrogance.  Truth wins in the end, but many fall in the battle.  Fear not.  It is not Valhalla nor virgins that wait for the entrance of the faithful witness, but a robe of righteousness, a martyr’s crown, and a word from the lips of the Lord Himself, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant … enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

God and Government

So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.  For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. -- Habakkuk 1:4

Verse 4. The law is slacked: They pay no attention to it; it has lost all its vigour, its restraining and correcting power, it is not executed; right judgment is never pronounced; and the poor righteous man complains in vain that he is grievously oppressed by the wicked, and by those in power and authority. That the utmost depravity prevailed in the land of Judah is evident from these verses; and can we wonder, then, that God poured out such signal judgments upon them? When judgment doth not proceed from the seat of judgment upon earth, it will infallibly go forth from the throne of judgment in heaven. – Adam Clarke, Commentary, on Habakkuk 1:4

Please direct your attention to that last sentence in the quote from Clarke.  Most of us as Christians are familiar with Paul admonition in Romans 13:1 to be obedient to civil government:   Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  I can believe, readily enough, that God, in His wisdom, has a hand in establishing governments.  We can see that some government is appropriate and useful and necessary. 

As a Christian, I favor justice, respect for the lives and property of others, and good moral behavior.  I seem to recall a time when people behaved themselves because it was the right thing to do, when what we could call “community standards” were recognized and generally accepted.  I am concerned about the militarization of local police forces and the increasingly militarized bureaucracies of the federal government.  But when community standards and common decency are pushed aside, when the basic morality reflected in the Ten Commandments is dismissed, it’s not too surprising that stronger and more tyrannical governments arise as a consequence.

In other words, if we want Andy Taylor for our sheriff, we need to live like the citizens of Mayberry.  I believe that God will give us the kind of government we deserve.  America is far less a Christian nation than it was a hundred years ago.  We can blame that on Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, but the fault lies in us -- perhaps not you and I personally, but the citizenry as a whole.  As Peter told us long ago, [I]t is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17). 

The purpose of the Church is not to rubberstamp the decisions of secular authority.  We are not to accommodate and tolerate whatever the government decides to approve and endorse.  We can have license without righteousness, but we cannot have liberty.  If we want to live in a free country, we have to be moral people – not by government mandate but by the mandate of heaven. 

Perhaps there is a corollary to Clarke’s observation.  If, when judgment fails to come from the civil magistrates, judgment falls from the throne of God, is it possible that we could restore righteousness to secular authority by living according to the divine standard?  Then he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there. He answered, For the sake of ten I will not destroy it (Genesis 18:32).  The Cities of the Plain would not have been overthrown if there had been within their walls but ten decent, troubled souls, ten who wept and mourned for the sins of Sodom.    

The Kingdoms Of This World

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.  In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” – Isaiah 19:23-25

We usually say that Egypt is a type of the world out of which the faithful are redeemed and delivered, understandably, because of Exodus.  Assyria was, in Isaiah’s time, a new enemy and a new empire that had arisen to the north of Israel.  Centered in Nineveh, the Assyrian realm encompassed the city of Babylon and the Fertile Crescent.  This is where the Tower of Babel was built, typifying false religions, or, more charitably, man’s attempts to raise himself up to acceptability before God. 

Humans are almost hopeless utopian.  In every age, somebody has a better idea that results in lots and lots of people having to be killed – all those bitter clingers.  (We really ought to thank Obama for giving us that insightful phrase which exposes the true nature of our cultural conflict.)  The irony, I suppose, is that we were built for paradise, and there is a new kingdom coming which is peace, prosperity, wholeness, righteousness and joy.  That kingdom is not a synthetic or a substitute; it is Daniel’s stone hewn out of the mountain without hands that struck and destroyed the image of history’s man-made empires.

My old friend and pastor, Jordan, said – it would have had to have been more than fifty years ago but I still remember – that you could put the Book of Isaiah into the New Testament between the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts, and it would make perfect sense.  After all, Isaiah 53 gives a more detailed and graphic account of the suffering and crucifixion of the Lord than any of the gospel accounts.  Isaiah also tells us about the nature of the kingdom:  The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food.  They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD (Isaiah 65:25).  He tells us of the healing of the sick and the deliverance of those in bondage and speaks of an end of calamity.  Those last few chapters of Isaiah contain numerous familiar quotes related to the New Covenant and the eternal spiritual kingdom.

God’s kingdom is – and we, as Christians, are part of it.  Through our faith, prayer, and practice, by our love for one another, we manifest that kingdom in this world.  Whatever the nature of earthly powers – whether military, economic, scientific, technological, religious, intellectual, or political – they can all be brought together in Christ.  He is the Highway to Heaven – the Highway Isaiah saw going up from Egypt traversing Israel connecting Assyria.  They all become part of God’s kingdom. 

To put it another way, there is not a political realm and a spiritual realm – not for us.  Our financial decisions, our investments, and how we plan for the future have to be based on kingdom principles primarily.  We are not merely consumers or workers or voters.  

Christians are not a special interest group.  The kingdom of God is within us. 

We obey the magistrates when possible, for, as Paul says in Romans 13, there is no authority except God, and all earthly authority is established by Him for the purposes of peaceful and lawful relationships and interactions.  That’s a whole other post.  I had better quit, except to say that authority can be abused.  There are such things as demagogues and tyrants, and when we encounter the IRS and the DMV, we ought to make our appeal exclusively to the Lord who can set up one and take down another, trusting Him to set things right. 

But, again, we are the kingdom, and God puts us in the earthly realm where we are needed and can be the most fruitful and productive.  We are all in the Israel of God who is Christ – but He may place us in Egypt or Assyria or some other earthly jurisdiction to do His will -- body, soul, and spirit.    

P.S., I wrote this then read Rogelio Beuno's post for today on "How the World Lost It's Story".  I didn't say it nearly as well, but the convergence is evident, to me at least.