Here is an article that David Brown, missionary to South Africa wrote.  Thank you David for the permission to share this.

 

EVIL LEADERS IN BIBLE TIMES

Firstly, I believe that the New Testament passages about how God’s people should treat government were written under the evil administrations of several Caesars, all but one of whom were bisexual, threw lavish orgies, had a military that allowed open homosexuality, taxed their citizens heavily, used tax monies for horrible immoralities and idolatries, were heavily and increasingly in debt, were increasingly anti-Christian, and had an over-expanded military, fighting rebels in foreign lands who were attacking the Roman army because they were in their territories.  Sound familiar?

 

Virtually all governments and their leaders have been evil over time; fallen and broken people create fallen and broken systems and use them for their own advancement. Romans 13:3 says that the government’s role is to punish evil – that has to mean the punishment of universally recognized criminal evil through the enforcement of the crimes code (the sword).  The passage doesn’t address philosophically-based evil on which societies differ, such as homosexuality, slavery, and abortion, which were all practiced by the Roman government.  Francis Schaeffer failed to address this sufficiently in his A Christian Manifesto.  Paul knew those evils existed, and were supported by tax monies, but didn’t exhort Christians to rise up against it because the Roman government was endorsing evil.  So, according to Romans 13, our God has worked through the American people to give them a President they deserve.  Obama is the servant of the Lord; perhaps unwitting as were Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar, by nonetheless His servant.

 

AMERICA IS NOT ISRAEL

Secondly, America is not Israel.  America is not God’s country.  America is not “my people called by my name.”  American pastors are not Old Testament prophets who receive messages and ultimatums from God (other than the written Word) and have a divine right to command kings.  Further, the US government is not leaving Christians without options or forcing us to do evil; we don’t have to worship idols, we are not forbidden to pray, or to meet, or to share our faith, or to have a float in the parade, or to have concerts.  Pastors don’t have to officiate gay marriages.  Our churches still enjoy all kinds of tax benefits from local, state, and national governments.  That may all change in decades to come, but we are not there yet.

 

WHO WILL HELP THE POOR?

Side point: Sodom’s sin wasn’t just sexual.  Although it isn’t popular to say so, one could argue that even the American Church has committed one of the sins of Sodom (Ezekiel 16:49).  Our affluent white suburban churches have often neglected the poor and yet don’t want a government that does either.  When compassion dies in the Church (or the Church itself dies), socialism will rise in culture.  We are in an era where caring for your fellow man is a core value in Western culture.  America is being increasingly influenced by the collectivist values of its third-world immigrants, and by the “Progressive” ideas of intellectuals and youth who believe, pursuant to evolution, that social collectivism is the highest evolved form of economic-political philosophy (and no, Obama is very far from being anything like a communist).

 

WE HAVE THE VOTE AND REPRESENTATION

Thirdly, today’s Americans are not in a similar situation to our colonial forefathers.  In the mid-1700s, they had a demented king and a timid Parliament in which they had no representation.  Americans have chosen their current President; Americans have chosen their current Senators, Representatives, and Governors.  We have full representation and the American political process is still a stunning model for the world to see – it works so well (take it from one who lives in Africa!).  I was privileged to be in America as the process took place November 6.

 

The colonials were in a position where King George had abdicated government by declaring the colonies out from his protection in 1775.  They were moving swiftly to create governments and militias to avoid being overthrown by a foreign British power.  The term “revolution” was given to us by the French when they pursued their mindless debacle decades later.  American Christians don’t rise up and throw off a leader they disagree with – they vote (how many of you know what percentage of true believers voted this time?).  And if your man is never elected because his views and yours are in the minority, what can you do?  That leads to the last point …

 

THE ROOT TROUBLE & SOLUTION

We mustn’t be angry with Barak Obama.  He is a reflection of what the American people want … times two.  We might be angry with the way American society is heading, but ultimately that falls right back into the laps of Christians, doesn’t it?  The salt has lost its savor; our light is barely shining.  Ask Barna.  America used to have a strong Judeo-Christian consensus, even though you could argue that they were simply God-fearing people rather than actually Christian.  With the rise of Liberalism in the 1800s, America moved to a moralist model based on notions of love and the Golden Rule.  In the 1950s we began to lose even the moralist model.  Now the great moralist-capitalist middle has all but disappeared, and America is sharply polarized. 

 

I think perhaps we have failed to do the hard thing, the right thing, and one of the first things.  We have failed to live in a contagiously refreshing way in our communities (but have isolated ourselves from it in our churches and schools, and are known for political anger more than being socially helpful), and we have failed to share our faith one by one.  The gospel alone changes people and society; as many individuals change from the inside out, the whole is made right. 

 

I am glad for this wakeup call for the church … although we heard it four years ago and I am not sure much has changed.  I think a Republican President would make the Church even more comfortable and more apathetic.  This wakeup call is not a call to political action – to oppose the President and those aligned with him.  It is a call to mobilize God’s people to relational evangelism – from the common man up to elected officials.  You simply can’t elect good Christians to office when the public despises Christians and their ideas; or if they make it into office, they won’t stay there long if they have good principles.  I think that this is why some politicians resist conversion; it would cost them everything.  Until the Church repents and begins to function, American politics will reflect our impotence.

Behind the Curtain

The Veil of Twilight

One night, while taking a walk at nightfall, I saw an object in the field that I identified as a coyote.  Having to walk past that ghostly creature to get back to my house, I cautiously and fearfully, continued my walk.  I kept my eye on the critter the whole time. The more I watched I realized the animal was not only a coyote but also a coyote that was intently tracking me.   Needless to say, this was unsettling.  When I got right up on the animal, I was shocked; what I had moments before been certain was a coyote was not even an animal.  Though I was certain of what I saw, the quickly spreading veil of darkness had obscured reality to the point that I believed a lie. The lie led to fear and the fear almost led to irrational behavior – calling my wife to pick me up.   I Corinthians 4:3 speaks of a similar curtain of darkness. It is a covering that leaves spiritual reality hidden and a lie substituted for truth.  

2 Corinthians 4:3–4 (NASB95)   ³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, ⁴ in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The Veil of Hurricane Sandy

As ‘Sandy’s’ aftermath is contemplated, discussion has again permeated the world as to the cause and meaning of such storms.  Once more surfacing among the powerful politicians, agnostic scientists and persuasive media is the hypothesis that all this is caused by ‘global warming.’  This premise that has gained traction over the last 20 years proposes that we as human beings have destroyed our planet by using or misusing our natural resources in such a way that catastrophic changes have taken place in our atmosphere.  These changes have caused warming to our atmosphere that consequently have triggered dangerous changes in our weather patterns.   After experiencing Sandy, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of the world’s most powerful city, endorsed a presidential candidate based on this hypothesis. An election that never really spoke of climate change is being altered in the last week by this single concept. But it is not global warming or the effects it has on the election, that are the veil.  It is something much more sinister.   

The Veil of An Interactive God

It is a veil that removes the supernatural from consideration and seeks a natural answer to everything.   It is a veil that sees man as the cause and the solution to problems formerly understood to be acts of God.   The veil covers the thoughts that there could be a God who notices and cares about human actions. It hides the fact that this God could be angered by our actions and could act in judgment.   It veils that He says He created and sustains our earth.   The veil is so thick that even the possible consideration that these storms could be related to God, are laughed to scorn.  When religious leaders such as Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson, and Hal Lindsey (no endorsements intended) suggested that God’s judgment might be involved in Hurricane Katrina, they were attacked as Christians who were not merely lacking in credibility but also were verging on dangerous insanity.   The veil is falling fast and the veil is being dropped by, ‘the god of this world.’

Here are the facts! The climate is changing. It was predicted to change long before the global warming theory came to be.   Natural storms are growing in frequency and strength.  But they are very much connected to God.  The Bible makes clear that nature is both controlled and directed by the Lord (Col 1).  Matthew 24 speaks of the divine plan to increase earthquakes ahead of Jesus Second coming.   Revelation describes the judgment of God that will be unfurled during the tribulation. Natural disasters are among those judgments.  Listen to these words from Revelation 6:12–14 (NASB95)    ¹² I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; ¹³ and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. ¹⁴ The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

Not only will our world be shaken by earthquakes but huge atmospheric changes will occur that will dramatically alter our exosphere and the weather we are used to.  All of these things will come from the hand of God as judgment to the world.  

The Veil of God's Purposes

 

What is the point of this judgment?   God will send this pre-judgment to mankind with mercy in his heart.   His merciful goal: to show a preview of His eternal judgment so that we would repent and trust Him as our salvation from this certain judgment ahead.  He desires us to detour from our human answers to His divine truth. 

While we cannot know certainly what God had in mind with Sandy, there is one thing we can know with certain.   God is involved in ‘natural’ disasters.  One of his goals in every one of these events is to awaken us to the reality of our spiritual condition.  Veiling the source of major storms is Satan’s plan to hide the truth of an interactive God, the truth of our sin, the truth of God’s wrath and the truth of the gospel.  

Rather than turn to Jesus when this veil falls, people will again follow after the god of this world’s deception that eliminates God from their memory.   In this day, when the veil labeled ‘natural’ disaster obscures our world’s view of God, be courageous in telling the truth of God’s connection to nature.   Don’t be muzzled.   If you allow yourself to be muzzled, you are allowing God’s mercy to be muzzled.  God intends these events to mercifully unsettle and warn our world so that they turn from their sin, their humanistic tendencies and to Jesus who wishes to be their Savior and Lord.   May God lift the veil on those around us so that they can know the Savior that we have been privileged to see.