Another Word for Non-Partisan

For some time now, perhaps since our inception, but particularly over the past couple of decades, there has been a very real battle taking place for the soul of this nation. That battle has been very successful and we are now witnessing the fruit of that warfare as our society plummets headlong into outright godlessness. Up to this point, God has stayed His hand from actually turning us over to our own mistaken desires and I’m inclined to think that it’s because there has always been a sizable remnant of people who still understand and fear Holy God. (Along with this remnant, is the understanding of our ‘blessing or curse’ relationship with Israel, something that is extremely important; but this will not be directly addressed here.)

Although the battle for our nation has not in any way lessened, it has shifted fronts in an alarming way. The conscious of the nation has been almost consumed by a secular world-view and the battle is now focused on the soul of the church. We’ve seen the wholesale slide into liberalism by many previously wonderful Christian denominations over the past 100 years, but there has been one large notable holdout…evangelical Christian denominations. Free Church Christianity (consisting predominantly of evangelicals) is really the last large-group of Free Church peoples to conquer. The battle is now being fought in earnest over us and we are, in many ways, succumbing to and even advocating dangerous secular lies.

We now have a very prolific and influential “evangelical left.” The movements falling under this are the Emergent Church, the Sojourners, Social Justice doctrines and any kind of Liberation Theology in existence. Make no mistake: We are being sold a false bill of goods, and we buy into it to our own peril.

Before we allow ourselves to be distracted by any secondary or ancillary issues, we must focus on two God-ordained fundamentals that are being socially and religiously redefined on our watch: Life and Marriage. There is absolutely no reason to feel good about any type of social justice initiatives if we have to waive our beliefs on these fundamental truths. We can feed all of the poor in the world, but if we tolerate the murder of innocents we are literally cursing ourselves. We can lift everyone out of poverty and into a decent standard of living, but if we sanction the negation of God’s institution of marriage in the name of tolerance, we invite His absolutely-just wrath. We can long for peace on earth and religious tolerance, but if it comes with a price for Israel, we are asking for very serious retribution. We can hope for religious harmony and the salvation of all of mankind, but if we teach that it can come through any avenue beyond Jesus we are deceiving not only ourselves, but everyone else as well. Have we replaced Holy God as the arbiter between right and wrong? Have we come up with a better way to receive His Grace than the ultimate sacrifice He gave? Are we ashamed of Jesus? Do we love the deceptive ‘freedom of choice’ that the world offers more than we love our own children?

I would invite you to recall the words of Jesus concerning children. The Gospels of Matthew (18:6), Mark (9:42) and Luke (17:2) all tell us what Jesus thought about those who would cause harm to the most vulnerable members of humanity. Jesus said that it would be better to have a large millstone tied around the neck of the transgressor and he be thrown into the sea. People, this is incarnate God speaking here; these are God’s very words.

The “religious” left would have us believe that although abortion is indeed a bad thing, we need not make our stand there, because there are many other pressing issues to consider, (after all the planet is in peril and we have to save the environment, people groups are being discriminated against, our President is conducting an unjust war, and whole nations are being decimated by poverty and the plague of Aids). Now, I could blow each one of these arguments apart as if I had a shotgun, but I would have to tackle each one on its own, and it would take several essays. However, these topics, while they might have varying degrees of relevance do not it any way trump the foundational principles of the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.

In case any of us has forgotten, or maybe never really considered, please allow me to remind you that we are blessed to live in a Representative Republic. This is not something we should take for granted for many reasons, but the two most important are that it is a miracle in the story of humanity that such a government should exist in the first place and that we as citizens in such a society are connected to those we knowingly select to be our representatives and are subsequently complicit in their actions as our representatives. To clarify it even further: If we knowingly select a person as our representative who we know will violate the mandates of God, based upon what they stand for and what they have done in the past, we are as guilty as the one who carries it out. Make no mistake about that. If you are reading this, you have been told.

The tempter has always used ideas that seem to make sense to draw man into rebellion, and they are usually based upon a great deal of rationalization on our part. Scripture makes it perfectly clear that there is a way that makes sense to us based upon our intelligence and reasoning, but that it is folly for us to follow this path. We are continually drawn towards our own reasoning and away from the Word of and reliance on God. Mankind historically, will always forget and turn away from the truth, as not only people in general, but people of God specifically. We may be more advanced as a society, but we are still as spiritually primitive as were the people in the days of Noah. We may look around us and see the many advancements and comforts of our time and age; we may take comfort in this advancement and delude ourselves into a false sense of security. But the Word of God tells us that He is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Our rebellion and mental negation of His law is simply confirming what He has told us would come about. The trouble that is coming about is not God’s fault: It rests completely on our shoulders.

There is so much talk today about partisanship in a political sense and it’s seen as a negative thing. I would ask everyone who considers themselves covered under the Blood of Christ to really look at this term. A partisan position simply means that one has black and white issues that constitute the core of one’s belief. That’s it, period. Partisanship in a political sense means that there are certain non-negotiable things in your stance. A non-partisan outlook is what is conveyed by popular culture as the way to look at things and determine how we govern. Jesus gives us another word for this in the Revelation to John at Patmos: He calls non-partisanship lukewarm. If you haven’t made this connection, I would ask you to prayerfully consider it now. We have to stand firm on what we know to be true as revealed in scripture. We have to understand that no matter how we bend and shape ourselves to obtain favor in the light of society; the world will never accept what we believe to be truth. We cannot blend into society and accept worldly premises and hope to have any impact on it. In doing so we are committing spiritual adultery.

Only when we are firm in our foundation do we stand and survive the storm. We are a people who are called out to be holy as He is holy. Jesus is all that stands between us and a deserving judgment of death and eternal separation. We have to understand this, internalize it and act upon it. Our time here is short and we act as if it will be indefinite. We have a very real job to do while we have the time to do it, and the job is all about other people. Failure to hold fast to what we know to be true is a tragedy. Giving away our responsibility as part of the body of Christ is neglect of what was suffered on our behalf. We can allow God to use us as we were made to be, we can hide ourselves, or we can allow the world to prostitute us for its own designs…those are our choices.

Finally, I would ask that we consider certain portions of Revelation that speak of the whore of Babylon. I’m not a biblical scholar by any means, but I can put two and two together and come up with four. This is, as I understand it, a depiction of the church as the world will see it during this awful time of duress. It will look like it has much to offer on the outside, but inside she will be filled with abominations and will capture and corrupt much of the world. Human government will use the church to facilitate what is to be accomplished and the church will go along with it (it will seem like a reasonable thing to do.) As soon as this system has accomplished its goal of complete power and dominance, it will turn on and destroy those (church people) that helped facilitate its rise. Throughout my life I never considered that this would be an analogy for the modern Christian church. I’ve changed my mind on this. Spiritual adultery is rampant in the modern church, on not only an individual, but group level, and it is indeed becoming drunk on the wine of the abominations that are offered.

I don’t think that it’s too late to drastically change things, but I do think we are perilously close to a tipping point. We cannot expect the nation to come to its knees, because that isn’t how God works with nations. But we can expect and hope for the people who call on His Name to humble themselves: To turn from their wicked ways, and repent. Entire nations have been rescued by this simple action of God’s people. However, we will not survive as a nation if we continue on the path we seem to be following. Scripture talks of a strong delusion that would deceive even the elect if it were possible, prior to the return of Christ. I would submit that there is even now a strong delusion taking hold of not only the world and our country, but even our churches (the elect).

This has been an admittedly long way to get to my overall point here. All of us, no matter how advanced we are in our own understanding of our walk with the Lord, need to get on our knees, repent and turn back to the hope and joy that infused us when we first experienced the saving grace of Christ. We should never approach anything as important as electing those who would cast a vote with our name ostensibly attached to it from a simple world view that is based upon a secular outlook. If we cannot look at this responsibility from an in-tune biblical world-view, we should abstain from voting, just as we would abstain from taking the Lord’s Supper while living in sin. We are not qualified to make this decision while we’re in a state of rebellion and to do so will only invite divine consequences. If we cannot take the time to look into the direction that those who would receive our vote would take us, we should do nothing at all, rather than to make a potentially great an error. On the other hand, if you are passionate about societal governance in our republic, vote what you believe and enlist others into your cause. Just be prepared to answer for this deliberate decision to your children, your conscious and your Savior. We can often rationalize our decisions to ourselves and we’ll buy it; we can rationalize bad decisions with our children and sometimes they buy it; we can rationalize until we die and God will never buy our argument.