Sounding the alarm over the admixture that misrepresents Jesus

It is a common thing in America to hear certain pastors telling their churches and followers who to vote for. I have also read reports on major Christian events that have been as much about galvanising Christians to vote for Trump as to bring people into the kingdom, where Christ is genuinely proclaimed and worshipped, but with an abrasive edge that comes across as far removed from His own gentleness of. This is admixture.

It has often been thus throughout history. I am reminded of the many ways in which the gospel and colonial impositions such as ties and suits went hand in hand in Africa. The British East India Company’s motto was Deus Indicat. Deo ducente nil nocet (God is our leader. When God leads, nothing can harm); in reality it ended up doing a great deal of harm in the sub-continent.

What did Paul tell Titus? That the Lord Jesus is ‘purifying for Himself a people for His own possession, who are eager to do what is good.’ (See Titus 2:11-14) The word ‘purify’ means to ‘cleanse from admixture.’ When the church allows herself to become tainted by apparently plausible and even compelling worldly thinking, we are in very great trouble. The language that shouts ‘fight’ and ‘war!’ and which believes (quite unnecessarily) that America is on the brink of another civil war is not the language of the kingdom of God. It is disconcerting to see all too many believers echoing it so enthusiastically.

When Jesus looked at the lost there was no hostility, accusation, or hatred. ‘When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.’ What He was hostile to was the smug hypocrisy of the self-righteous religious classes: the ones who thought they knew what godliness should look like, and who appointed themselves as arbiters of who and what God wanted, and who despised those who didn’t fit.

When the Church of today proclaims a leader to be the means by which God intends to reintroduce godliness to a nation, and that leader is one whose character flaws are glaringly obvious, there is something truly amiss. This is not the gospel of Christ, nor the true challenge of the Cross to love and serve others, but rather a corrupted message in which human ambition, domination, and hostility to the non-Christian world are all mixed up. Where, O where is discernment?

When godliness is side-lined, lies are preferred over truth, and hate of one’s opponents is considered acceptable, then God’s name is dishonoured, Jesus is misrepresented, and the lost are being turned away from the One who longs that they should see Him.

It isn’t by unfurling flags, putting stickers on our car bumpers, and wearing T-shirts with Bible verses on them that the lost will be reached. Although the power of God can break through anywhere, anytime, the engrained attitudes that promote hatred of other people, other classes, other races are not leading to a Jesus Revolution, but rather to a heart-breaking ‘Jesus revulsion.’ More and more people all over the world are being deeply turned off Christianity by these things. Why are we permitting the gospel message to be overlaid with that which taints and defiles it? This is the enemy’s doing not God’s!

If something doesn’t reflect Jesus’s teachings, and ‘smell’ like Him then, rather than doubling down on our entrenched prejudices, we would be much wiser to ask whether we have strayed off course. Jesus said that outsiders would know we are Christians by our love and the light that shines from within.

Oh Lord, purify our hearts!

Sounding the alarm over appointing an unwise king

Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take a warning. (Ecc. 4:13)

Many films and novels have taken as their theme the idea of a rogue person reaching the White House. I would suggest that this is no longer a matter of fiction but a sober reality. Locked away in a safe place are details of the extreme measures that a President can access and implement in case of genuine emergencies. But if that President has already shown himself willing to manufacture tall stories galore, who is to say that he will not create a narrative to enable him to access those powers, and to use them as a weapon against his people? (And even, quite possibly, against much of the whole world?) This is not such a remote scenario when we recall the rise of Trump’s willingness to push the limits of his power. Pray for restraint at this time when the organs of democracy have worn thin as a result of his blistering first presidency. Things are very much more dangerous this time round. Would it not be kinder in the long run if a tide were to rise to make it impossible for this to happen, whether at the ballot box or in some other way?

Even Trump’s family are warning in the strongest possible terms concerning his narcissism, cruelty, lawlessness, and incompetence, right alongside the counsel of 100 top Republicans who have stated that he is unfit for office. See these articles for instance. Article one and article two.

But who will those with the power to choose, choose? Who will they believe? Who will they appoint to be their king?

‘When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’ But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.’ (2 Sam. 8: 18-19)

Pray, pray, pray

Thank You, Lord, that the darkness that is being broadcast over the land is coming out into the open now before the election event. We know that it won’t simply go away with the election itself, and that something has been implanted deep in the psyche of the nation that is building on a deep sense of American exceptionality.

Father, we pray that the salient facts, the crucial facts be made known, because truth has never been in such peril in the United States before. Let lies be exposed for what they are. And this in a land where so many untruths were told and so many treaties with the original inhabitants of the land cynically broken. We ask Your forgiveness for these untruths that go a very long way back. We are so sorry that You have had to listen to them all, and trace their patterns through the centuries.

Father, all too often the very thing that should ensure truth, the sanctity of loving and serving the Lord Jesus, has not proved sufficient bulwark. Raise up afresh a movement of truth love and justice.

What then of the election result and its consequences?

And the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?”(Lk. 3:10)

First of all, the most important thing is to remember that God is sovereign.

‘O LORD, God of our ancestors, You alone are the God who is in heaven. You are ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty; no one can stand against You!” (2 Chron. 20:6)

Everywhere implicit in the Scriptures and sometimes explicitly, God affirms His sovereignty – and what was true when the Bible was written is still just as true today. It is His prerogative to ‘depose kings and raise up others.’ (Dan. 2:21) If He should raise up those we would not choose, who are we to question Him? He is not a tame lion, as CS Lewis memorably reminds us. But neither should we forget that those who deliberately do evil will, sooner or later, pay the price for what they are doing. The fact that God does not send in his bills at the end of every month does not mean that anyone ultimately gets away with anything. (Gal. 6:7-8)

With regard to the outcome of the forthcoming election in America, therefore, I believe there are several possibilities we might consider:

God is giving people a choice. Who and what Trump is has long been obvious to all who care to see. It is as though the Lord is saying, “Is this the kind of man you want to have to reign over you? The choice is yours!”

In which case, there is every possibility that He allows a second Trump term, but that itself will have more than an element of judgement on a nation that has made idols out of Mammon and strength, rather seeking to fulfil a servant role amongst the nations.

It is of course possible, indeed likely, that if he is re-elected, that the Lord will have specific things that He intends Trump to undertake. Many believed that in 2016, and many supporters of Israel continue to believe he has a key role to play concerning the fate of that nation. As we know, many prophets regularly announce that God is leading and protecting Trump, despite the character of the man himself. They have also declared with great confidence that he will win the election.

Alternatively, the Lord may hand the role of President over to Kamala Harris, so as to remove some of the great dangers posed by the maverick and increasingly violent prospect of another Trump term.

This too, we may confidently aver, will also involve a certain judgement over a nation that has chosen to substitute its own standards for the ways of God.

Everything depends on the fulcrum of your perspective how you react to these various possibilities. As I said at the outset, in sounding so many warnings against Trump, I am by no means seeking to write a party political ad for Harris. My desire is to call people to godly wisdom and fervent intercession, rather than to persuade anyone to climb on board either one of these two wildly careering party-political stagecoaches. But whatever our stance on these matters, there is one thing we absolutely must understand:

The Lord God is not on one side or the other.

Joshua went up to the man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” (Josh. 5:13-14)

The commander of Yahweh’s host was very clear indeed that He was not on one side or the other, but that Joshua must be on His side. The political neither-sidedness of Heaven is crucial.

We have watched both the Republicans and the Democrats offer fervent prayer, and claim that God is on their side, but is He? The Republicans have formulated a highly adulterated notion of Christianity that bears little resemblance to the teachings of Jesus, and many believers find the progressive policies of the Democrats an anathema. Neither party seems truly committed to following Christ. Christian voters are left between a rock and a hard place. No wonder so many speak of seeking out the lesser of two evils.

Asked to arbitrate over a civil inheritance case – which is just the sort of thing that many of us might be bothered about – Jesus refused to be drawn, demanding instead to know, “Man (a far from intimate term. We could almost translate it as, ‘Mate!’), who made Me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:14)

He had just told the people that it was His word that would either validate people before the Father, or deny them. (Luke 12:8). What mattered to Him was where people’s priorities lay – and they were not to be with earthly things.

God is not on one side of the vote or the other. He is looking for those who will seek His Kingdom first, and who will lay down their lives to see it come on Earth, and His will being done here as in Heaven, and He is not bound to accomplish it by means of human politics. Although it is clearly on Earth that Jesus commissioned His disciples to extend the Kingdom of God, it is vital to remember that He also said ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ (John 18:36-37) Political issues have their place, but the fullness of the Kingdom of God will come when Christ is given the central place and no one else. ‘Return to Me’ says the Lord: ‘I will not share My glory.’

Oh Jesus, You have sounded Your alarm loud and clear. You have walked with men and women and known what was to be exasperated with those who cannot and will neither see nor hear. You grieved over the people’s lack of spiritual discernment. You know where our unbelief and wrong priorities will lead. We cry out and ask You to reveal the prejudices that blind us so that we cannot see and do not love. Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord.

Where we are ignorant, please fill in the gaps. Where we lack discernment, please give us wisdom. Where we are prejudiced, please take out the planks that stop us seeing the truth. Where we are partisan, make us those who welcome all whom You send our way. You told us so clearly that if we love You, we are to keep Your commands, and You commanded us to love our neighbour.

We pray Lord that you will mastermind and oversee all that must happen in the days remaining before the election, and then in all that happens afterward. Show Your power, O Lord. Demonstrate the justice of Your Kingdom. Vindicate Your name before a watching world. Renew Your deeds in this hour, O Lord and supplant the aggressive untruths and spiritual forces of wickedness with the resonance and triumph of Your Way, Your Life, Your Truth.

Come Lord Jesus, come by Your Spirit, let light prevail, and darkness flee at the sound of Your mighty Name.

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