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Life or Death
First the Bible was taken out of the schools; then the Ten Commandments were banished; then prayer was forbidden and recently any mention of God or Christ became punishable offenses. Abortion is legal. The entertainment that comes into our living rooms is increasingly godless and pornographic. Can’t we see from this trend that the Christian religion is being systematically eliminated from America? How long will we permit this to continue? How long will it be before Christianity is made illegal and driven underground? Why are we doing next to nothing while our heritage is steadily being stripped away from us? There are several reasons, all defective; let’s look at a couple of the most popular excuses:
1. We live in a pluralistic society and cannot assert our religion above other people’s faith.
There is no such thing as an absence of faith. Humanists or atheists believe that man is his own god and deny the existence of any other gods. They have every right to believe in such foolishness but no right at all to deny that it is a religious belief. When all other god’s are eliminated from the schools, it is their god whose existence is being taught day after day, year in and year out to the children, many of which come from Christian families. In violation of the first amendment, atheistic humanism is the established religion in America’s schools today.
2. The Bible teaches Christians to be pacifists, to pray but leave everything in God’s hands. The world belongs to Satan and no matter what we do, it will continue to get worse and worse until Jesus returns. J. Vernon McGee, a popular 20th century preacher put it in very clear terms, “don’t polish brass on a sinking ship.” The ship he was referring to was the earth, which was beyond hope and not worth expending any effort to improve. Christianity, as a religion, is doomed to failure. Our only hope lies in Jesus’ return.
This is based on a false view of Scripture, one that was developed in the 19th century. It was not the faith of the early church or of Christians for the prior eighteen centuries. Jesus told us that we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. To be salt is to be the preservative, to preserve what is good, to prevent corruption. To be light is to declare the truth as we find it in God’s word and to do that in the face of serious opposition as the early Christians did. Many other Scriptures show us our responsibility as Christians in this world. Take a close look at the Great Commission (Matt. 28: 18-20) where Jesus declared His authority over the nations of the world and told His disciples (all Christians) to teach all these nations to obey Him, to obey all His commandments. This cannot be construed as anything less than a directive to make this world a Christian world! This is most certainly not pacifism and it cannot be limited to telling people about Jesus. If we are to be faithful to this commandment from our Lord, we must do all we can to make the part of this world that we can influence a Christian world. This cannot be reduced to supporting mission work and it must begin at home.
When I attended grade school in the 1940’s, school began with all students in the assembly hall where the Bible was read by the principal, there was a brief explanation of what was read and a hymn was sung before the students went to their classrooms. We have come a very long way since then and it’s time for us to return to our senses. Like it or not, we have a battle on our hands. These godless people that we have permitted to rule over us are not just friendly, live and let live, people that happen to believe differently from us. The Christian faith exposes the falsity of their profession and what they well know is really their rebellion against the only true God. It is repugnant to them and they wish to remove it entirely from view. They are out for blood and will not cease pushing us down until we are totally defeated and the Christian faith is eliminated.
The Christian faith is truth. It is the only hope for the world. As Christians, charged by our Lord to defend and promote this faith, we cannot just stand idly by while it is systematically suppressed. We need to work to reverse the legal and cultural decline that has taken place and then to work, as our Lord commanded, to make America more Christian than it was before. Our children and grandchildren should live in a better, not a less godly, world than our own. Each generation should work toward the fulfillment of our Lord’s Commission until, finally, it is realized. We should begin as the early church did. In the face of seemingly overwhelming opposition, they maintained that Jesus Christ, not Caesar, is Lord and that Caesar is subject to Him. We must hold that Jesus, not anyone or any elected body, is Lord of all things and that America’s laws must conform to God’s laws. This cry, “Jesus is Lord” needs to be repeated until it rings from the rafters of every town hall in America. Only when America’s Christians begin to return to this kind of faith and begin to obey their Lord’s Commission will we see a real reversal of the current trend.
Lord Christ or Lord Satan?
Jesus Is Lord
He is Lord indeed! But just what does it mean to be a lord? Here in America, we don’t recognize titles of nobility and tend to apply different meanings to such titles than they held originally. Historically, there has always been a strong connection between the lord and the lawgiver. In fact, they were often considered to be one and the same. A lord without a law is no lord at all. He may be a wealthy and powerful individual but he’s not “lord” if his word isn’t law.
Most Christians that see Jesus as their Lord seem to see it in religious terms. Jesus is, for them, more the Lord of the spiritual realm and not the physical here and now. But what did Jesus say about His Lordship? Just before His ascension while speaking to His disciples, He said “all power is given unto me.” Immediately after, He gave them an assignment: He said: “teach the nations to obey all my commandments” (Matt. 18:18-20). He asserted His authority over all the nations of the world and directed His servants, the disciples, to teach them obedience. Now clearly more than just some nebulous spiritual power is involved here.
Psalm 2 and many other Scriptures tell us that Jesus is today Lord over all nations in the old sense of total property owner and lawgiver. He is the rightful regent over all the nations of the earth. All the nations of the earth should be obeying Jesus’ laws today.
Many Christians in the early church died to uphold the Lordship of Christ over that of Caesar. It would have been much easier for them to just say the words “Caesar is lord” and go through a simple ritual. But they knew that to do so was to deny Jesus the authority that was His and His alone.
The God of this World
Is Satan the god of this world? This expression “the god of this world” appears just once in Scripture and is applied to Satan in 2 Cor. 4:4 but in an entirely different sense than that which we hear today. He is not god in the sense that he has authority and is in control of world events, rather he is god in that the world makes him their god. At least at that time in history, he had “blinded the minds” of many people in the world. Actually, he is in chains and totally under God’s control (2 Pet. 2:4).
Many church theologians today teach a doctrine that says God’s kingdom (or Christ’s rule) is restricted to the church or the circle of influence of the church. This is the equivalent of saying that Satan is the god of this world. It limits Christ’s authority and gives over most of the world to Satan. This is implicit polytheism at best and outright Manicheanism (a two god’s theology) at worst. But there is only one God and it is He that is in absolute control of all things; His law is in force throughout the universe.
This doctrine that makes Satan a god, is of long standing and has resulted in a narrowing of the Great Commission of Christ. Christian activity shifted from the conversion and discipling of the nations to simply the preaching of the Gospel message. The clear intent of Christ’s words was distorted in what appears very much like a cover up for failure. It was in effect a redefinition of goals so as to bring them into conformance with the results.
Responsibility and Authority
Christ’s Great Commission (Matt. 28: 18-20) is not a task limited to pastors and missionaries. True, these persons bear most of the responsibility for preaching the Gospel and baptizing but all Christians are responsible for bringing the nations to the point of full obedience. It is all Christians, ordinary believers, to whom Jesus gave these directions. They are responsible to shape the cultures and the laws of their nations to bring them into conformance with God’s Law (Christ’s commandments).
Christians must break out of the godless servile attitude that pervades the churches today. We need to see that we are the chosen emissaries of the King of kings. We Christians should recognize that we are what Scripture calls nursing fathers (Isa. 49:23). We are prophets, priests and kings (Rev. 1:5,6) and as such are responsible to God for those He has placed in our charge. We have great authority, not of ourselves but of the Lord that chose us and gave us this assignment.
We must not use this authority in a self-serving way; we are to see ourselves as servants of God, here to help, not to lord it over others. But this does not mean that we should act as if we were the servants of unbelievers; we are God’s servants, not their servants. We need to be kind and considerate; our words and actions should be directed to their well being, but their eternal well being and not just those things that would please them. They may be quite mature and knowledgeable in most things but we need to recognize that they are merely children, and often very rebellious children, with respect to what is true and right and real.
America Today
Here in America today, almost all Christians give the authority that rightfully belongs to Jesus to the federal government. They see the government, not Jesus, as the source of law. Jesus is emphatically not Lord in America today. He was Lord in early America where God’s law was recognized as the law above the law. From colonial times until well into the 19th century, judges in courtrooms would read a passage of Scripture, one related to the case, before sentencing convicted criminals. This underscored the fact that God’s word was the foundation of civil law and the fact of Jesus’ Lordship, that He is Lord of all and the only legitimate lawgiver.
The expression “higher law” was quite common through the mid-20th century. It was used to identify God’s law as being the law above man’s laws and as the true standard of right and wrong. Sadly, it is not heard much today, another measure of the extent to which Christians have failed to fulfill their God-given responsibilities.
America’s Christians need to repent and ask God’s forgiveness for our disobedience and lack of respect for our Lord. We need to emulate those early Christians that held to the slogan, “Jesus is Lord.” We would not be put to death, as so many of them were, for doing so. We might be belittled and ridiculed for it but those that do the ridiculing are the fools. It is they that have denied the only true God and Creator, not us. We need to abide the attempt at ridicule and persevere in declaring God’s truth to a wicked and perverse generation. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in theology to know that this is what God expects and requires of all His chosen ones.
To witness for Jesus is more than just telling people about personal salvation. Our concern for the unregenerate cannot be limited to personal matters but must include the larger society as well. It is utterly foolish to focus on the personal and neglect the effect that the external culture has on individuals and families. To save our families, we must vocalize and demonstrate our faith to the world at large by declaring Christ’s lordship over all things and all nations. God’s law is directed to the civil authorities as well as individuals and families. It is the nations, their laws, morays and entire cultures that need to be taught to obey all Christ’s commandments.
We must exert all the effort we legally can to make God’s Law the basis of our civil laws. We should call the world to recognize God’s Law as the law above all laws, a law that should govern all people in all they do. This expression “Jesus is Lord” should be heard from every true believer’s lips; it should be ringing from the rafters of every town hall in America. Until we begin to hear that sound, Christianity will continue to lose ground to atheistic humanism.
The Seed of the Serpent
Genesis 3:
14 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
God spoke these words just after Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden. The entire human race had just denied God. They rejected their Creator and became Satan’s servants. From this point on, every child born in the world was born into bondage to Satan. This was Satan’s great victory. He undermined God’s plan for a Christian world and brought the entire human race under his exclusive control. The seed of the woman, his great opponent, had not yet been created; the world was his oyster to do with as he wished. All mankind were now his seed, the seed of the Serpent; he dominated them spiritually and controlled their thinking (1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4).
Life for Satan was relatively easy for the next few thousand years; there was some opposition from Abraham’s children but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with relatively easily. Then came the Incarnation and suddenly, just when he thought he had won the battle against the Son, he saw that Christ’s atoning death on the cross actually spelled his final doom. It did so by bringing into being the seed of the woman, the body that God had said would bruise (or crush) his head. This new body, the body of Christ, constituted a segment of humanity that was not under Satan’s control. They were released from his dominion; they were empowered by the Holy Spirit and Satan knew they would eventually defeat him.
Satan knew this but continued in his rebellion against God. His attempts, though, to discredit the newborn faith through the Pharisees and through various false teachings were insufficient to stop the growth of this opposing seed that the Son had planted. It grew and grew in nation after nation until it dominated the entire western world. Europe became Christendom and things began to take on a dire appearance.
But Satan didn’t give up; he had his people mixed in with the opposition and was able to get enough of them into positions of authority to be able to dictate church policy. He and his minions managed to put in place doctrines that limited Christ’s authority to the church and it’s circle of influence. This was another great victory; it left the rest of the world under his control. The power of the woman’s seed (Christians) was now limited to evangelism. Their attempts to obey Christ’s commandment to establish godly order and godly rule outside the boundaries of the church were frustrated by the church itself. Man’s law (under Satan’s control) displaced God’s law and the results of evangelistic activity were easily undermined by the immoral, godless society in which the new converts were immersed.
Corruption within the church increased to the point that the Reformation was an inevitable consequence. Another setback for the evil one but no matter, the Reformers, almost as a body, did nothing to alter the established order outside the church. It was still man’s law and not God’s law that ruled the nations. This is still the case today; Christians are limited by false theologies to a purely evangelistic program, one that cannot crush Satan’s head and he is still ahead in the struggle for men’s souls.
God’s word, though, cannot be broken; a day will come when the seed of the woman (Christians) will be faithful to Christ’s Great Commission. They will crush the head of the Serpent and a defeated Satan will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).
For more on this subject, please see the article, “The Seed of the Woman.”
The Seed of the Woman
Genesis 3:
14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
God spoke these words just after Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden. The entire human race had just denied God. They rejected their Creator and became Satan’s servants. From this point on, every child born in the world was born into bondage to Satan. It was a sad occasion; instead of freedom under God, they chose slavery under the evil one. God though, held out hope for us. He told of a future event in which the world would be divided. At this point in time there was no division; there was only one class of people, Adam, Eve and all their descendents constituted the seed of the Serpent (Satan). They were his seed in the sense that they believed him, took his advice, and decided to be their own gods. This is exactly what everyone that doesn’t believe and obey God today does. They think that they are in control of their lives but they are blinded to the reality that there are only two choices; they can obey God or disobey Him, which is to follow the path that Satan took in his rebellion against the Creator. This is the meaning of the expression “seed of the Serpent.”
At this time in history then, there was no hope for the human race; all were destined to an eternity in hell, a place where there was no beauty, no goodness, only misery without end. Why is there such a place? Why did a loving God create it? We are not told why but we need to consider that man, as a creature, was created to live in dependence on his Creator. When he rejects that Creator, he rejects everything good in life and this is all that is left. He is given freedom to choose and he makes his choice.
But our merciful God held out hope for man. There would be a future time when a new class of humanity would come into existence. There would be the “seed of the woman” as well as the “seed of the Serpent.” This new class is referred to in Scripture as the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). This new creation was brought into being by Christ when He humbled Himself, became a man, and died on the cross to pay the sin-debt of all that would believe in Him. It consists of Christ Himself, the God-man, and all those that are in Christ, all true Christians. Their sins are forgiven and they are no longer in bondage to Satan (Col. 1:13). They are no longer the seed of the Serpent but are now the seed of the woman.
God also said here that He would put enmity between the two seeds. He placed them in opposition to one another. Why enmity and opposition? Why not friendship and brotherhood? Isn’t God a God of love? Yes, He is a God of love and that is precisely why He put these two forces in opposition. One represents what is good and righteous; the other what is evil and wicked. Good and evil cannot be friends; they cannot have fellowship together but must remain separate and distinct from each other. To allow any commerce between them is to permit compromise and to compromise with evil is evil. Christians must not compromise with unbelievers. They are to guard their purity and, by contrast, the wickedness of unbelief is to be seen for what it is.
We also see in this verse that there is to be conflict between the two seeds. Today, because there has been much compromise, we don’t see much conflict. Christians, in disobedience to God’s commandments, have been bending over backward to compromise with evil for several generations. The consequence has been the degradation and degeneracy that is becoming more and more obvious in our society. Legalized killing of the unborn, pornography in our entertainment, the open anti-Christianity in our schools, cohabitation without marriage, the common use of God’s name as a swearword, all witness to the degree to which the two seeds, in disobedience to God, have mixed together.
Christians have been disobedient, not so much willfully as, because, instead of studying God’s word for themselves, we have relied on teachers, pastors and theologians to do it for us. We were not like the Bereans that searched the Scriptures to see if what the Apostle Paul told them was true (Acts 17:10,11). Instead of relying solely on God’s word, we relied on fallible men that led us astray. Christians desire compromise but the seed of the Serpent doesn’t compromise. They are more consistent with the nature that God gave them; they will not rest until the Christian religion is wiped off the face of the earth. This is where this ages-long struggle between the two seeds must end up; one will survive and the other will be totally eliminated.
So you see Christian, like it or not, you are involved in a life and death struggle. The only question is whether you will engage in the contest or lie down and surrender. The latter choice may seem to be the easy way out but it’s the coward’s way and Jesus didn’t save us to be cowards. Consider what the early Christians went through to win for us the freedom and prosperity we enjoy today. It may (or may not) be the easy way out for us but what about our children, their children and all the other Christians that will come after us? Our negligence would lead to real persecution for them; and what will Jesus say to us when we see Him? How will you answer Him when He asks, what did you do with the talents I gave you?
All of Scripture assures us that the seed of the woman will be the victor in the struggle of the seeds (Num. 14:21; Psalm 37:11, 72:8-11, 110:1-6; Dan. 7:27; Matt. 5:5; Acts 2:29-35; Heb. 10:12,13; Rev. 19:11-16). An obedient generation will arise and the battle will be won. The question for us is where will we be as individuals? Will we see ourselves in eternity as having been soldiers for Christ or as cowards?
The beautiful thing about this struggle is that among the enemy there are many that don’t belong there. They are God’s elect that haven’t yet figured out which side they belong on. So, while we engage in the struggle, we can see the enemy as a fertile ground to be harvested. This task falls primarily to pastors, teachers, evangelists, those that have the necessary skills. But the greater task falls to ordinary believers; we must shape the cultures and laws of the nations to bring them into conformity with God’s law (Matt. 28:18-20). We must work with all the effort we can muster to make this world a Christian world. This is how we will win the war, the struggle, against the Serpent’s seed. A day will come when the Serpent’s seed will no longer exist, when they will all have either been converted or have died out.
Faith on Earth? – What’s it all about? – Part 1
Dominion – by Good or by Evil? – Christian or Humanistic?
Too many Christians today have a very abbreviated view as to what Christianity is all about. They see it as being saved, living for Jesus and going to heaven when they die. They fail to grasp the true significance of what it means to “live for Jesus” and to be a Christian in this world. “Faith on Earth?” fills in the missing elements but I’ll try to capture the essence of it here.
The Dominion Mandate
It all began right at the beginning of the world. Just after God created man on the sixth day, He said “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Adam and Eve were told to have children, to fill the earth with—as we learn later—God-fearing and God-obedient men and women. In other words, they were told to make this world, what we would call today, a Christian world. This is known today as the Dominion Mandate.
Sadly, they failed to even begin to carry out the “Dominion Mandate.” Instead of obeying God they listened to and believed the Serpent (Satan). They decided to be their own gods, or what today we would call humanists. Sin in the form of humanism entered the world and the entire human race was subjected to Satan but God held out hope for us. He said that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). This, we learn later in Scripture, is a reference to Christ. He is the seed of the woman and He crushes the head of the Serpent through His sacrifice on the cross.
But God at this same point also said that He would put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent. This reference is not just to Christ but includes all that are in Christ, that is, all Christians (Galatians 3:16,19,29). So what we see here is a division of the world into two classes of people, those that believe God and are in Christ (the seed of the woman) and those that do not believe but instead follow in the way of the Serpent. There are no other categories, no middle of the road types, no halfway Christians.
God places enmity between these branches of humanity; He sets them in opposition to each other. He knows that we have a tendency to seek compromise, to work out a middle way where each side gives a little and we find a (supposedly) happy middle ground. But this is not God’s way. There must be no working out of compromises between good and evil. The good must remain pure and the wicked must, by contrast, clearly see their wickedness.
The Great Commission
Four thousand years later the second person of the Trinity humbles Himself and takes on the human nature. He becomes the sinless God-man, goes to the cross and bears the sin penalty of all those that believe in Him.
This brings into being the branch of humanity referred to earlier as the seed of the woman. They are the redeemed, the forgiven, the justified persons, all true Christians, the body of Christ. Christ’s act is the central event in history; it reflects both forward and backward in time. There are both Old and New Testament saints. The division of the world population into the two seeds, something previously only anticipated, is now brought into being.
Soon after, Christ, speaking to the eleven disciples and by implication to His entire body, gave them His marching orders. He told them that He now had power over all things and they were to go out and teach His nations, the nations under His authority, to obey all His commandments (Matthew 28: 18-20). In other words, they were to do what Adam and Eve failed to do, make this a Christian world. There is no escaping the clear intent of this passage; nothing less than a Christian world is in view. God’s plans are never frustrated, where the first Adam failed, the second Adam, Christ will succeed (1 Corinthians 15:45). Christ’s personal work is fulfilled but much remains to be done. The world population needs to be converted and the nations subdued to Christ’s’ rule. This He has delegated to His body, to the seed of the woman, to all Christians.
Are you a true Christian? If so, your sins have been forgiven, you have been adopted by God and are now a member of God’s royal family. You have the gift of eternal life. You have been blessed beyond any degree you could ever possibly have imagined. You are now a member of the privileged segment of the human race that God referred to as the seed of the woman. You have been born again and are spiritually alive (John 3:1-6). The rest of the world’s population are dead spiritually and remain under Satan’s dominion (Colossians 1:13). It is you that Christ has called to take dominion over the earth, to do what Adam failed to do. This is your responsibility, the work your Lord and Savior has called you to, the great purpose He has given you and blessed you with.
See part 2 to see why this is not an impossible task, why it has been virtually abandoned, and why it will be fulfilled one day.
Faith on Earth? – What’s it all about? – Part 2
Who is the God of this World? – Christ or Satan?
Humanistic Dominion
We saw in part 1 that Jesus gave Christians responsibility for the nations of this world. They were told in the Great Commission to teach the nations to obey all His commandments; this is nothing less than a requirement to make this world a Christian world. But this command, this commission of Christ has not been obeyed, as it should have been. Here we are two thousand years later and the world is by no stretch of the imagination a Christian world.
The Lord told us that there must be no compromise with evil, sadly, we have done nothing but compromise, compromise, and compromise. We submitted to the idea of religious pluralism and thereby have allowed evil to come to dominate in our schools and universities, in the entertainment industry, in the legal profession, in government and in just about every area of public life. We have believed and followed false teachers that have told us that Christ is not Lord of all (as He said He was) but that Satan is the god of this world and that, no matter what we do, the world will get worse and worse until Jesus returns. This is a damnable heresy from the pit of Hell and it needs to be seen as such. It has stripped God’s people of the power that they should have had and used to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission. It needs to be recognized for what it is and relegated to the dustbin of history.
Godly Dominion
God said that the Seed of the woman would crush the Serpent’s head. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross liberated all believers from Satan’s grip, forming the new humanity, His body and thereby sealed Satan’s fate. The outcome is certain but this work has not yet been completed; many are still under Satan’s dominion and are serving him rather than the Lord. It is the task of Christians, as we pursue the work of the Great Commission, to crush the Serpent’s head. This work has begun but much more is yet to be done.
Christians must rally behind the truth of Holy Scripture and work to correct false teachings that have blocked progress in the past and continue to do so today. We need to go out and claim the world for Christ; we need to declare that He—not just will be, but is today—King of kings and Lord of lords. It is He that this nation and all nations must obey. Our rallying cry should be, as it was in the early church, “Christ is Lord!” He is Lord of all and His law, God’s law, should be the foundation of all the laws of all the nations of the earth.
This simple concept: CHRIST IS LORD! is where we must start and, of necessity, it will be a small start. But, as we are faithful, it will grow, perhaps more rapidly than we might imagine. There are many Christians in America today. As these truths begin to penetrate into the Christian community and begin to take hold, we might be amazed at the effect it produces. It might be slow at first but it can grow very rapidly when the sleeping giant that is America’s Christian population begins to wake up. The important thing is for each of us to remain faithful to our Lord, to avoid like the plague the temptation to compromise the message. We must continue “stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
In doing this, we must realize and remember that: “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4,5). To be sure, we are involved in a war but it is a war of ideas not a physical war or a political game in which we seek to gain control of the use of force (government). Our objective is not to defeat so much as to win our opponents to our side. The means we employ is not revolution but regeneration but this does not mean that we become doormats and just lie down and permit the enemy to walk over us. We must do all we can, within the limits of existing civil laws, to speak out and exert whatever influence we have to assert the eternal and universal kingship of Christ. He, not all the officials of Washington DC is Lord. They are, or should be, His administrators, His servants, as we all are.
The Great Commission involved baptism, which implied the need for the dissemination of the Gospel message. But the requirement of obedience to Christ’s commandments also brings God’s law into the picture; it is the law that defines obedience. The first task would naturally fall to missionaries, pastors and teachers, those that have the knowledge and skills needed. The greater task, though, falls to individual believers; it is they that must shape the cultures and laws of their nations to bring them into conformity to the law of God. The entire body of Christ is addressed here and each and every believer is called to be an integral part of the Great Commission. This must begin at home!
Fulfillment
For it to be successful, the churches must teach–and Christians must understand that they, not the pastors and missionaries, are the major force behind the implementation of the Commission. Each individual must see himself as God’s servant with responsibility and a role to play in this ages-long conflict with evil. Rather than dwelling on the seeming impossibility of the challenge, they should think in terms of what they will say to Christ when He asks them what they did with the talents He gave them.
Christ did not give us an impossible mission. He promised to be with us (in the power of the Spirit) to the end of the age. Would He ask us to pray, as in the Lord’s prayer, for the impossible? It is not impossible and, if this generation is too worldly or too impotent, then a later generation will arise and it will be fulfilled. God’s word assures us in many places that there will be a future age of worldwide faith and that: “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9, Habakkuk 2:14). And just how well do the waters of the sea cover the seabed? Totally! Not an inch is exposed and so it will be in the fulfillment. The nations will become Christian and “Jesus shall reign where ere the sun doth his successive journeys run.”
Faith on Earth?
Why read Faith on Earth? It provides an insight into an aspect of Christianity that most churches do not portray. It opens up a view into what God’s word says about the totality of the Christian life and what Jesus really expects of Christians. It provides an insight into why America is losing its Christian roots and what steps need to be taken to restore its faith. It shows how and why God’s law relates to civil government. It outlines how atheistic humanism conducts its war against Christians and Christianity. (more…)
Will The Faith Survive?
When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? — (Luke 18:8)
Why is Christianity increasingly excluded from public life? Why is Christian expression no longer permitted in public schools? Why…
the ever increasing immorality on TV? Why the rampant spread of pornography? Why are the unborn being killed at the whim of the mother? These things were unheard of and unthinkable just a few decades ago. Is this the irreversible working out of Scriptural prophecy? Or could it be that Christians have not followed God’s directions? Is it, as so many would have us believe today, God’s design, or is it rather that Christians have failed to obey God?
“Faith on Earth?” begins with Jesus’ question and shows from Scripture that God’s plan has always been for victory and not defeat. It shows in clear, easily understood, non-theological language, that the reason behind the current trend lies in our failure to obey God. Instead of applying the faith to all of life as God commands us, and thereby impacting the world, Christians have retreated into their churches, sat back and watched the world go by. Contrary to God’s directions, they have focussed their attention on preparing for heaven and permitted the world to go to the Devil. As long as this condition persists, the culture will continue to deteriorate.
“Shall He find faith on earth?” is a question Christians must answer for they will decide the matter. This question if taken seriously—as we must—implies that man has responsibility for the maintenance of the faith and the ability to succeed. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Believers today have yet to appreciate both the magnitude of the responsibility God has placed on their shoulders and the power He has given them to succeed in it. This is our Lord’s Great Commission and the great challenge for Christians in this and every age.