Over the last several years, I’ve watched with astonishment and horror as our nation has disintegrated from a thoughtful, caring, and united people into a chaotic mob of divided people who are ruled by their raw emotions. When did we become a nation of people who don’t think our thoughts and choices through to their logical conclusion, people who don’t care about facts, focusing solely on their own feelings? Anger is the emotion that mostly drives this lack of rationality and compels people to jump on others who disagree with them, making accusations of hatred or name-calling. We’ve seen cities divided and left in rubble; racial tensions are purposely heightened for an agenda not yet fully realized. Even Christians seem to be reacting, rather than acting in love, showing anger, and having more faith in their feelings than in the facts, as laid out by God. As we harden our hearts and minds to God and His facts, He, in turn, hardens us, allowing us to stumble, and appears to be bringing His Hand of Judgment (Justice?) to a nation which once basked in His blessing and mercy.
When we allow anger or fear to turn us from faith and fact to raw, brute, feeling, we react in haste, anger, and hatred. Instead of walking on solid ground, we stumble around in confusion; we traverse the gray influences of evil and lead others astray with us. Yet, many justify their actions because of how they feel.
What happened? What’s led to this confusion, division, and shame? I’m sure there are many places we could lay the blame; perhaps if we reflect on a verse from Daniel chapter nine, we’ll get some insight into this devastating problem America’s society and church now faces. We could rightly pray with Daniel, as he prays to the God of heaven, Creator and Sovereign of all. “O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face…because we have sinned against thee.” (v 8) As we walk away from the laws of God, as we rebel against our Creator, as we sin against His holiness, as we choose to love darkness rather than light, things that are black and white look gray, we move from clarity to confusion, and shame covers us instead of His righteousness.
From early on, Americans have been a people of strong emotion; but it wasn’t just raw emotion running off “half-cocked,” without thought and clarity of mind. These emotions were based on fact and faith. They spoke of Truths, and they held “these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Yes, their feelings were based on fact and on faith. Their faith in the facts of God’s Word gave them an ability to stand virtuously and with stability. They could have tough conversations while maintaining civility because they saw each man as made in the image of God. Today we suffer from generations of school children being taught that we were not created but came about by random chance, having no purpose, no design, or Designer. We have walked away from the Rights of Life as millions of innocent, unborn babies are murdered in their mother’s womb. We leave the Right of Liberty as we willingly allow the shackles of tyranny to bind us in the name of protection, welfare, and the common good.
We’ve continually walked away from the black and white of Truth into the gray confusion of rationalization which stems from hedonism, humanism, secularism, and many other “-isms” which have appealed to our selfish nature and lustful desires. We’d rather be entertained instead of enduring to the end; we love the “bread and circuses,” as our demise takes us completely unaware. Instead of lifting up Jesus, we lift up ourselves and take the praise that rightfully goes to God. Like Nebuchadnezzar of old, we’ve morphed into brute beasts of feeling as we’ve walked away from holiness and living by fact and faith.
Our Founding Fathers frequently spoke of the importance of faith to a society of intelligent, rational beings. Thomas Jefferson gives one such example which also warns of the sovereignty and justice of God: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event.”
As we harden our hearts toward God, we’re more than worthy of His judgment! We desire His national blessing yet we have no desire to repent, to change our ways. His judgment, in part, is found in the confusion that surrounds us. It’s odd that those who claim to be a “people of The Book,”—Christians—would irrationally support a man who feels no compulsion to seek the forgiveness of God and lives a lifestyle in direct opposition to the law of God. Why don’t we care about the character of those who lead us anymore? Frankly, I’m less concerned with what a candidate can do for me than what God will do to us as a nation if we continue to turn a blind eye to His precepts.
After all, God, in His sovereignty, puts leaders in place; but He matches the leaders with their people. As Rev. Henry van Dyke stated in his message, The People Responsible for the Character of their Rulers (1895), “The ruler is but the exponent of the inmost thoughts, desires, and ambitions of the ruled; sometimes their punishment and sometimes their reward.” Hmm…our leaders: a punishment or a reward—ouch!
Some may ask, “What’s this have to do with the Church, with my Christianity?”
The church is to be salt and light to the world around us; when we’ve lost our saltiness and our light looks more like dusk than noonday, what will happen to those around us whom we are to be preserving and showing the way? Many will say that the Church has no part to play in politics; our history shows otherwise. Some will say that a candidate’s religion doesn’t matter; perhaps not, but his character does. When we claim the name of Christ yet hide behind feelings that are detached from faith in the facts of God, we are cowards and unfaithful to our beliefs. Consider this a call to a clear mind, a call to reject irrationality, to shake off the delusions which are blinding us, and to focus on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
Read Rev. van Dyke’s appeal to the Church in his day: (To read the whole of this stirring message, click here)
“But what has all this to do with religion and the Church? Just this: a free church in a free state must exercise a direct and dominant moral influence upon the tone of domestic and political life. If not, then may God have mercy upon such dumb, impotent, and useless parody on Christianity…
When the church evades or neglects this office of public prophecy, When she gives her strength to theological subtlety…and stands silent in the presence of corruption and indifferent to the progress of reform, her own bells will toll the death knell of her influence, her sermons will be the funeral discourses of her power, and her music will be a processional to the grave of her own honor. But when she proclaims to all people, without fear or favor, the necessity of a thorough-going conscience and regenerating Gospel in every sphere of human life, the reverence of men and the favor of God will crown the walls of Zion with perpetual and living light.”
We can claim faith but our actions will betray the true belief of our heart. Choose to discuss in love and patience; resolve to vote through faith in God’s facts rather than by fleeting feelings. Our faith must be in Christ, not a political party or administration. As Rev. Motte exhorted in Christian Patriot (1840), “Whatever your party predilections, sacrifice them all for the party of righteous men. Support no administration, and oppose none, but on the ground of moral principle. Go with them as far as Jesus Christ would go, and no further. Read the constitution by the light of the Gospel. The Savior be your paramount leader.”
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